Afghanistan/wars/reality/etc

[harmonica]

....like other issues of today, wars-the politics-etc are not like making a cheese sandwich ...you just don't go in and get out when dealing with terrorism/etc ......it takes YEARS to:
1. find
2. fix
3. take out the enemy
4. it's takes time to learn/adapt/etc ....continuously adapting-changing strategy-tactics
..WHILE doing the above, you HAVE to deal with the politics/PEOPLE/etc....very complicated .....

..for those that say ''o, should've got out years ago/etc''' - bullshit --get with REALITY

 

[freyasman]

....like other issues of today, wars-the politics-etc are not like making a cheese sandwich ...you just don't go in and get out when dealing with terrorism/etc ......it takes YEARS to:
1. find
2. fix
3. take out the enemy
4. it's takes time to learn/adapt/etc ....continuously adapting-changing strategy-tactics
..WHILE doing the above, you HAVE to deal with the politics/PEOPLE/etc....very complicated .....

..for those that say ''o, should've got out years ago/etc''' - bullshit --get with REALITY

We had a chance to get out of there with a win under our belts, but we pissed it away, and let the contractors make a fortune off US tax money doing bullshit "nation-building".
And then we focused on Iraq, and the jihadis in Afghanistan re-grouped, got their shit together, and came back harder and smarter...... I was there, and I saw it with my own eyes.

The guys I was shooting in 2003 (when I could find them; they were all hiding from us) weren't shit compared to the bad asses I tangled with in 2006 when I went back.

I was shocked at the difference, in fact..... the dudes I was running into in later years were smart, cunning, tougher than shit, and they were never going to quit. Because they had nowhere to go..... we were on their doorstep.
It was win or die for them.


And they did what it took to win.

 

[harmonica]

freyasman
1. what were the objectives?--a win?
2. sure, did we stay too long? maybe --maybe not
3. it is similar to Vietnam---unwinnable--depending on the objectives ....at least in Afghanistan, we could take out bad guys anywhere--
..and they were using body counts/etc

my thread on Vietnam

Vietnam War was unwinnable

..we are talking REALITY--not nuking anyone....not invading the north like the Russians and US did to Germany --that wasn't going to happen--even if they did invade the North, they couldn't stay there forever..... ..first--the French lost--and after we gave them MILLIONS$ and with all their...

www.usmessageboard.com

 

[Anathema]

..for those that say ''o, should've got out years ago/etc''' - bullshit --get with REALITY

Reality? You want Reality?

The REALITY is that we should have wiped Afghanistan off the map long before September 11, 2001 for its support of (or at least ignoring) anti-Western terrorists inside their borders.

What we should NEVER be doing is trying to force American style government and society on other nations. By force or by diplomacy.

 

[freyasman]

freyasman
1. what were the objectives?--a win?
2. sure, did we stay too long? maybe --maybe not
3. it is similar to Vietnam---unwinnable--depending on the objectives ....at least in Afghanistan, we could take out bad guys anywhere--
..and they were using body counts/etc

my thread on Vietnam

Vietnam War was unwinnable

..we are talking REALITY--not nuking anyone....not invading the north like the Russians and US did to Germany --that wasn't going to happen--even if they did invade the North, they couldn't stay there forever..... ..first--the French lost--and after we gave them MILLIONS$ and with all their...

www.usmessageboard.com

I was standing in line to go into a PX in Bagram in 2003, between missions, and I was talking to another NCO about some of the nonsense we were starting to see around us with the contractors and such, and a Civil Affairs CPT overheard me and confronted me about it.
He asked what my issue was, wasn't "nation building" what we were there to do?
I told him, I don't know what you're here to do, but I have a list of names and I take that list into villages and if I find someone on my list, I put a black bag on their heads and flex-cuffs on their wrists and I throw them on a helicopter and send them back here to the PUC facility (prison).

And the ones that fight me, them I shoot in the face.
And then I use a sharpie to write the name of someone who died on 9/11 on that corpse's forehead. (Jeremy Glick was a favorite of mine.)



That's my mission here.

And then I turned my back on him and ignored him.

 

[harmonica]

Reality? You want Reality?

The REALITY is that we should have wiped Afghanistan off the map long before September 11, 2001 for its support of (or at least ignoring) anti-Western terrorists inside their borders.

What we should NEVER be doing is trying to force American style government and society on other nations. By force or by diplomacy.

...we are not/cannot wipe it off the map--just like we could not wipe North Vietnam of the map

 

[harmonica]

freyasman mmmmmm....sounds like some stories I read about Vietnam ...like Operation Phoenix
...

 

[B. Kidd]

Reality? You want Reality?

The REALITY is that we should have wiped Afghanistan off the map long before September 11, 2001 for its support of (or at least ignoring) anti-Western terrorists inside their borders.

What we should NEVER be doing is trying to force American style government and society on other nations. By force or by diplomacy.

Especially in a Country like Afghanistan where the people are unable to grasp the concept of a 'central government'!

 

[Mr Natural]

If we’re not prepared to “wipe them off the map” then we shouldn’t go.

That’s after all what the military is for. Or at least it should be.

 

[harmonica]

Mr Clean ..that's one of the reasons that makes it super complicated.......Beirut is a perfect example of how not to use the military....I remember 1983 [ I was in the USMC ] I was walking to chow--and I heard the news of the USMC being sent there--but, Reagan said they were there just [ paraphrasing ] to keep the peace/not for OFFENSIVE ops/etc----this, of course, was BEFORE they were bombed..I said to my buddies, that isn't good ..you can't use a military force like that--ESPECIALLY in Beirut!!!!!! where there are multiple factions/etc...and BOOOM!!..they got bombed, big time

 

[Anathema]

...we are not/cannot wipe it off the map--just like we could not wipe North Vietnam of the map

We are more than capable of wiping Afghanistan off the map. We just don’t have the will or the balls to do it.

 

[Mr Natural]

A big mistake after WWII was apologizing for nuking Japan. Our position should have been “This is what we do to people who fuck with us. So never fuck with us again and we’ll all get along just fine.”

 

[harmonica]

Anathema hahhahahahhahah-----
1.just like North Vietnam, we are not going to do it--and--AND--it would be even MORE worthless than wiping out NVietnam----it is not an industrious country ....
2. so we ''wipe it out''' [ hahahah '] then what ??? it changes NOTHING

 

[harmonica]

We are more than capable of wiping Afghanistan off the map. We just don’t have the will or the balls to do it.

..like I just said in another thread, you people don't know much about wars/conflicts etc
..we bombed the shit out of Germany ----it did not cause a surrender....we bombed the shit out of Japan--so much so, that we ''ran out of'' targets/incendiaries/etc---and no surrender...even after 2 ATOMIC bombs, the vote to surrender was TIED 3-3 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.....and after the Emperor broke the tie, some still tried to stop the surrender ......no, '''wiping them out''' will no nothing

 

[harmonica]

Anathema AND--AND, a lot of them lived in the rural areas......etc !!!! ..no, you will not wipe them out

 

[freyasman]

freyasman mmmmmm....sounds like some stories I read about Vietnam ...like Operation Phoenix
...

Nothing sexy about it; we weren't special operations we were a bunch of grunts with a HVT list.

That's how we did it.

 

[alang1216]

We had a chance to get out of there with a win under our belts, but we pissed it away, and let the contractors make a fortune off US tax money doing bullshit "nation-building".
And then we focused on Iraq, and the jihadis in Afghanistan re-grouped, got their shit together, and came back harder and smarter...... I was there, and I saw it with my own eyes.

The guys I was shooting in 2003 (when I could find them; they were all hiding from us) weren't shit compared to the bad asses I tangled with in 2006 when I went back.

I was shocked at the difference, in fact..... the dudes I was running into in later years were smart, cunning, tougher than shit, and they were never going to quit. Because they had nowhere to go..... we were on their doorstep.
It was win or die for them.


And they did what it took to win.

Agreed, "nation-building" was our mistake. We should have found 3 or more local chieftains/warlords/whatever and supported them. If one got out of hand we'd give more to the others until he toed the line (the being keep the Taliban and Al Qaeda out). Like a three legged stool it would have been a stable 'country' like it was for a millenium.

 

[AZrailwhale]

We are more than capable of wiping Afghanistan off the map. We just don’t have the will or the balls to do it.

It wouldn't accomplish anything anyway. Members of the same tribes located across the Pakistani border would just move into the empty villages and go on as before. You can't force external change on a tribal society without wiping out the tribe. We don't and shouldn't have the will to wipe out entire tribes.

 

[harmonica]

freyasman.......they did the same in Vietnam--went into the villages and took people to prisons/interrogation/etc

 

[AZrailwhale]

..like I just said in another thread, you people don't know much about wars/conflicts etc
..we bombed the shit out of Germany ----it did not cause a surrender....we bombed the shit out of Japan--so much so, that we ''ran out of'' targets/incendiaries/etc---and no surrender...even after 2 ATOMIC bombs, the vote to surrender was TIED 3-3 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.....and after the Emperor broke the tie, some still tried to stop the surrender ......no, '''wiping them out''' will no nothing

Wiping them out is the only thing that works in the end. But you have to be ruthless and kill every man, woman and child. I don't know about you, but I don't want to live in a country that would do that. In the cases of Germany and Japan, we destroyed their societies and rebuilt them in our image as representative republics. We were only able to do that because we were ruthless and had hurt them so badly that deep down they knew that they had been totally defeated. Then like any bully they aped the person that defeated them.