AFGHAN HISTORY: FOREIGN INVADERS ALWAYS DEFEATED

Today in The New York Times Carlotta Gall and Eric Schmitt describe the recent attack by Taliban insurgents on a U.S. outpost in Afghanistan.

"The Taliban insurgents who attacked a remote American-run outpost near the Pakistan border on Sunday numbered nearly 200 fighters, almost three times the size of the allied force, and some breached the NATO compound in a coordinated assault that took the defenders by surprise, Western officials said Monday.
"The attackers were driven back in a pitched four-hour battle, and they appeared to suffer scores of dead and wounded of their own, but the toll they inflicted was sobering. The base and a nearby observation post were held by just 45 American troops and 25 Afghan soldiers, two senior allied officials said, asking for anonymity while an investigation was under way.
"With nine Americans dead and at least 15 injured, that means that one in five of the American defenders was killed and nearly half the remainder were wounded. Four Afghan soldiers were also wounded."

In the multi-thousand year history of Afghanistan and its tribes, has there been any successful invasion and occupation? The answer is a resounding NO! The Afghanis have defeated one occupier after another. No one survives as a foreign invading force in Afghanistan.

Look what happened to the Russians when they invaded Afghanistan initially in 1978. Ten years later the Russians were pulling out as fast as they could. The Mujahadeen killed Russians by the hundreds, shot down Russian choppers, inflicted cruel punishment for any Soviet soldier unfortunate enough to be captured alive.

So how does the United States think that Americans will win in Afghanistan? And what is wrong with Barack Obama for saying that the U.S. should send two more brigades? Surely Obama cannot believe that the military force of an invading nation, even the powerful U.S. military machine, can possibly succeed where so many other invaders have failed.

Leave Afghanistan to its people and tribes. Withdraw all U.S. and other NATO forces. Stop the indiscriminate bombing of Afghan civilians.

Afghanistan is a black hole where foreigners are destined to lose.