spindoc. Getting in was just as complex, yet it happened very fast.
Just how do all these international complexities make "stop invading another nation" so hard? These wars *cost* the US big time credibility and in diplomatic circles...all I'm suggesting is that the mistakes be acknowledged and corrected.
I think you are using sophistry to avoid the issue: When one nation uses brute force to subdue another there needs to be A very good reason: "Regime change" was what they had to resort to after the WMD story was proven a lie. Afghanistan was supposed to stop Bin Laden...even though a *lot* of folks said he was probably in Pakistan.
Do you have any idea how expensive and damaging an occupation is?
I may be passionate, but I'd appreciate some real argument instead of "you are speaking platitudes" then dribbling verbal diarrhea!
I think your handle is appropriate!

Ozandy, yep! I get it.

What you want should be possible. No, you haven’t the foggiest what it will take. Yes, you have suggested it and therefore someone else can think it through for you, and here for good measure is more emotion to confirm that you can’t or won’t put any effort into it, you just wanted to say it, and have it agreed, right?

Now that you’ve had your little distraction, perhaps you could stop proving me right and put some thought behind your original proposal, that of “Get out”. Who, where, when, how and why?

By way of example you say somewhat superficially, “Getting in was just as complex, yet it happened very fast” How true.

All you have to do now is explain the motivation, what the “goals” were, which of these goals have been accomplished, what timeframe those goals impose, and who has to agree the achievement of whatever those goals represent? Then your statement will be validated.

You could always respond with, “why should you bother as it is beneath you, or that we wouldn’t understand anyway” or even “yeh but no but ah but yeh but”

Oh dear Spin doc, did you get out of bed on the wrong side this morning. Such a vitriolic attack Methinks you do respond too much.
However Ozandy has put it in a nutshell.
It is odd that out of all the “oppressed and disenfranchised peoples” George W (who started this ball rolling) chose Afghanistan and then followed up with Iraq. Now even those of us without a PhD can work out that the pipeline across Afghanistan was the real reason for the invasion and of course Iraq has a heap of oil. Other countries with oppressed peoples & dictatorships, but not having the lure of oil would perhaps have been North Korea, Zimbabwe, Burma, and so on for many more. But they were obviously not suffering enough for W to include them in his invasion list.
Do please pay attention to what is going on in the real world and not believe all the spin that your masters spin out to you.

Spindoc, I would suggest that one has to first of be be very clear of the nature of the situation that is now confronting all of humankind.

For instance you might try reading one or all of the books that I referred to. Or at the least check out the many references and reviews of these books that are available on the internet. And why not try Tomdispatch which is Tom Engelhardt's excellent newsletter.

Some nonsense!

Meanwhile the world is a psycho-physical unity in which everything is in one way or another inter-connected - even instantaneously.

The world altogether is thus subject to the immutable laws of psycho-physics - for every action there is ALWAYS, in one way or another, in one or many places, and sooner or later, an equal and opposite response or manifestation.

At the human level this is an expression of the IMMUTABLE law of karma. The universe always bites back.
Individuals and collectives of individuals ALWAYS sooner or later reap what they sow.

Everything that arises also has a shadow or dark side which inevitably produces unintended consequences.

Everything also arises in two's, and thereafter in endlessly multiplied permutations or patterns - with endlessly multiplied unintended consequences.

I would suggest that the the now world-wide pattern of USA military bases and the associated 24/7 world-wide electronic spy in the sky network is a powerful psycho-energetic force-field which inevitably generates equal and opposite responses and manifestations. In all kinds of completely unpredictable ways.

To use another metaphor mushrooms always spontaneously spring up or manifest in the very "fertile" darkness of this toxic psycho-energetic force-field.

Human beings are now like mushrooms and very much asleep. We are deliberately kept in the dark and fed with toxic bull-manure by the powers that be. Or outfits which systematically promote Lies, Lies, and More Lies.

Which is to say that yes there will be a never-ending long war.

Except that if we continue dramatizing and feeding the current collectively generated death-saturated psycho-physical pattern that is now patterning the entire world we will destroy both humankind and even the Earth-world altogether.

spindoc: I'm not sure we are commenting on the same article!
The article's point 1 was the invasion of Afghanistan:
So...
Where: Afghanistan
Who: the US
When: Now
How: Get on ships and air planes...even walk!
Why: Because they are not wanted, needed, nor allowed in another country with guns and bombs! Do you *really* need this spelt out?
OK more important why: they went in for the gas pipeline so this means they are killing people for energy and profits. (Like the Iraq oil this is not really contested any more...by those who read widely anyway)
If I need to spell out why this is evil then you are a lost cause.
I have no idea what the rest of your post is about!

sarnian,

The issue we are trying to address is what the “get out” solution comprises. You keep going back ten years to George W Bush and the invasion. Blithering on about the lure of oil is just a convenient distraction to avoid addressing the “get out” theme by focusing on the how we “got in”.

I’m just asking questions related to one of the original assertions that we should “get out”. What’s so hard about that and why do we need your distractions?

Dialogue with you is like asking “what time is it?” and being told a “green one with a zip down the side”.