Are we losing in Afghanistan?
 

In Afghanistan IEDs have so demoralised the Brits and American troops that there is tremendous fear of putting boots on the ground. Every time the coalition comes up with an high tech solution for the IEDs the taliban finds a low tech way around it.

Now there is a concerted high tech effort to go after the network of people who finance and support the IEDS. I hope this makes an effective difference.

http://journey-world.com/2011/12/attacking-the-network/

Probably.

Dave

Losing? We lost it ages ago. We gave most of the country to drug dealers (Northern Alliance) and their sponsors (former soviet union -yes, we gave them what they couldn't get on their own). We have a fraction of the troops we need in the ground to do the job, and then we blame Pakistan for the problems.

There should have never been a "war" in afghanistan. It should have been a monster special forces attack right around September 12 or 13th. And then brought the boys back home again.

Removing the Taliban from power is nothing like winning the war. Bush's boneheads couldn't figure that out tho.

Were we ever winning?

But wasn't it Obama who escalate? Or surge?

He did, didn't he? So did Bush. Come to think of it, I have escalated and surged a few times myself. It's usually followed by a long nap.

Makes no difference, dousing a raging forestfire with a shot glass is an exercise in futility anyways. Whether you do it alone or have a hundred people helping.

Dave

O ye of little faith.

:)

I'm certain the surge was planned all along. So Obama is once again continuing Bush's failed policies. Yes we can believe in change :p

Hitting the Taliban and walking away would've been as successful as Clinton lobbing a few cruise missiles at training camps.

Pete

We could leave today or ten years from now and I afraid the same thing will happen once we are gone. A civil war between the large cities and the rural areas. Pashtuns, and the Tajiks to name a few of the close to twenty ethnic groups have a long history of not playing nicely.
Then add outside countries influencing events it is a mess that will keep giving up surprises.




Barney

Define winning.

Chas

Not losing???

Making Al Qaeda and its associates ineffective for the forseeable future.

Assuming that's the case, have we won, or are we even capable of winning?

That is a two part question.

And in case you wonder, I replaced an overhead sewer line today, so I find myself being somewhat shitty.

Chas

When we become so fearful about putting our foot on the ground, I have to conclude NO to the first part. The second part is possible.

The problem is in trying to establish a central government in a mainly tribal area. When the colonial powers established the borders in that area no consideration waas given to the tribes. So the borders are mostly irrelevant but as long as Afghanistan was allowed to have its de-centralized political system things pretty much worked. Trying to setup Kharzai as president is never going to work, and besides he is a crook.

We can keep the tally ban from being able to do anything appreciable as long as we have the will, my take.

LMAO!!

Pete

Taking a sawzall to a plugged 2" black iron DWV line while standing directly under it is about as disgusting as it gets.

I would have much rather taken a sawzall to whoever used black iron in the first place.

Chas

Really need some strong will.
A couple months ago the Stryker vehicle was being touted. It is disheartening to see it now being toss some distance in the air like some toy.

I agree, but the world is an ugly place. We can't let them operate openly anymore...

Suddenly, I really, really like my job!

Pete

in hindsight we should have left Afghanistan to the Russians. :D

The Russian and their local allies had the mujas beaten until we gave them (mujas) the stingers.

Age old story, the military always prepares themselves to win the last war. Trouble is that today the enemy does not wear uniforms and shields itself behind the civilian population. Frex, being able to see in the dark (nightglasses) is no advantage when the civilians and the fighters all look the same. Since we don't have straggly beards and normally bathe fairly often even dressing like them is not likely to work.

We went in there to get OBL, well Barack got him so lets just come home and save the $$$ we are wasting on the Pakis.

Whatever we do will be shown as wrong; tearful pictures of starving children caused by us leaving a screwed up system to get worse, or tearful pictures of another UK family mourning the loss of another son.

Fine, let the blleding hearts put up their sons and daughters and pay the bill. What we could do before leaving is equip all the womaen with one of these and lots of ammo.

Isn't the muzzle supposed to be orange?

Chas

^ This..

Yeah but the pellets come out at 500 FPS, will draw blood.:p

Colt 45
 

That's an interesting thought. If I remember correctly, the Colt 45 was nicknamed "The Equalizer". Logical enough, it meant that physically weak people could defend themselves from the town bully but what happens if we give free weapons to a country that's already split up into factions that share nothing more than a common hatred of each other? Would the resulting civil war stay within its boundaries, or spread?

Lets take a more British example. If the UK government had supplied both the UDA and the IRA with weapons in equal number in the 1980's would the resulting carnage have stayed within Northern Ireland, or spilled over into London, Liverpool or anywhere with a mixed Irish population?

Unless Merrylander you're thinking of Fortress America; no imports, no exports (could the USA survive like this) how far would you go to protect your interests? Like it or not the USA has still got the largest highly trained armed forces in the world, and the pressure to use them to protect American interests such as oil would be intense.

Possible scenario. A terrorist group sees that the way to bring the West down is not to go head to head, but to shut off vital supplies. They plan to get hold of or make a crude nuclear weapon and detonate it upwind of a major oilfield. What do you do when your intelligence service gets vague but credible knowledge of this? Cross your fingers and hope or without warning land troops to protect the most productive oilfields?

Without oil imports from the middle east your country would quite literally grind to a halt.

This is the part I never quite understood about the whole energy thing. If we had spent the same amount as we spent on Iraq and Afghanistan on setting up alternative energy we could thumb our nose at the middle east. I guess Big Oil has too strong a lobby.

I was not really thinking "Fortress America" so much as the fact that the taliban and such like treat their women like dogs so maybe if they had a .38 or 9mm caliber version of the Colt 911 they could defend themselves.

For the same reason we should have left a load of armaments for the Kurds. Gotta love the way the Turks call them terrorists, after they stole half of Kurdistan while the Iraquis took another big chunk. They left the few bits for Iran and Syria.

The darker sides of humanity have and will always be in how we view others different then yourself. Little understanding of an others way of life, thinking you are right and they are wrong. Back to the analogy that it would be a more civil society if all countries had nuclear weapons. Seriously does anyone really believe this? Understanding and compassion of others is what is needed. Education seems to me to be the place to start this process.

Then take humans inability to live with in their means throughout history. How many times in the past have humans used up the natural resources in an area laying waste then moving on to greener pastures. Displacing any locals that were not using the resources needed. But now the human race is at a point where the only greener pastures left will be the ones uncovered when the ice melts. What a boom that will be, bet there are those wringing their hand chomping at the bit waiting for this to happen.

I'm afraid unless or until something more drastic happens to force the issue oil will still remain the world fuel. But it will end the countries that prepare ahead of this will be the fortunate ones.


Barney