America's longest war...

I've been saying that since 9/11

 

How can a discussion started regarding the military history and involvement in Afghanistan deteriorate into a "just nuke them; they're not like us" when only some of those in these countries are the source of the problem.

Our difficulty is in finding them within a culture in which the average person is afraid to say anything to identify those who have brought so much misery to their country, but then its pretty similar in any inner-city/lower income area and gang-infested parts of most major cities in North America.

I wouldn't be a member of the Forum if I didn't believe that there is a time and place for military intervention, and that there are times when major actions such as Hiroshima vs the slaughter of Okinawa become a choice - but proposing to wipe a people from the face of the earth because of the few who have done wrong sounds a lot like the people the Allied soldiers of WWII fought.

 

Michelle you have a very valid point and taking my post at face value I can see how you could reach the conclusion that you have. It is truly unfortunate that a few people can have such an effect on so many; I guess they should have thought about those consequences before they flew airplanes in to the world trade center.

 

Unfortunately, Lou, it seems that we can always go back to missed diplomatic or humanitarian opportunities as to why we end up at war. A circle that takes us back to Clint's original post as to how to stop where we are now or withdraw with the greatest gains that might lead to rational behaviour by all - I know utopian dreams.

I believe this was one of the losses that lead to the Afghanistan situation we face today:
Afghanistan—Who's Who

Ahmed Shah Massoud


Former Afghan defense minister, warlord, leader of the Islamic Society of Afghanistan
Born: probably 1953
Birthplace: Panshir, Parwan Province, north of Kabul


An ethnic Tajik, Massoud studied engineering in Kabul. After the Soviet invasion of 1979, he joined the mujahideen, becoming a major anti-Soviet figure. Following the collapse of the Soviet-backed regime in 1992, Massoud served as defense minister in the interim government, but resigned in 1993. As leader of the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan, Massoud continued to resist the Taliban, which had captured much of the country by 1996. He died when an Algerian posing as a journalist, but believed to be working for Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, detonated a bomb, killing both of them.

Died: 2001

* * * Biography * * *Lion of Panjshir Ahmad Shah Massoud

 

Thanks to Michelle from bringing this thread back to rational. It was beginning to look a lot like an apology of the way the the German dealt with the Banditen in occupied countries.

Unfortunatly I think that the comparison to inner/city gang problems is underestimating the difficulty of the big cultural difference, at least most of the gangs speak the same anguage as the law enforcement.

I'm wearing my armchair general hat here with all attached limitations, but seems to me it all boils down to the old choice between control and denial, and the apparent inability of the US decision makers to grab this concept and provide the military with a realistic mission definition.

If the objective is denial, and I read this as breaking the Taliban's hold on the country that had been accomplished with the offensive that "liberated" Kabul. Pulling back then would have been the senible thing to do, the Talibans would need years, if even they could, to get back enough control to start thinking about actions outside the borders, when you are locked in a life or death struggle with government forces you can't dedicate a lot of effort to outside actions. The country will probably go back to caos, but they are used to it and it's their problem to solve.

If the objective is control, one option is going the colony way, create a puppet goverment, that can provide most of the needed troops from local levies, and keep a colonial garrison indefinetly, sorry for the c word but tha's what it is. But calling that exporting democracy is a bad joke, democracy cannot be exported, it can only come to be if it has overwhelming local support and cannot usually develop in the presence of things like tribalism, racism or strong religious splits that will make peoply identify themseves as part of a "group" rather than a country.

The other possibility is a strong independent local government, not democratic for the reasons above, but capable of mantaining control of the country, IMO dictators are a bad thing but they are still better than a civil war, NATO has more than enough influence to prevent a crazy like Hitler, Papa Doc, or Amin Dada happening.

Some sort of Nasser should be possible though Nasser came from the army and the army right now looks painfully weak in popular support compared to the religiuos groups.
To say the truth I see little chance of that happening and the firepower intensive tactics used by NATO to keep casualties down are not the way to make a goverment popular. Dragging in side issues like opium is that context is downright stupid, NATO already has enough problems without a bunch of angry farmers out of a job ready to take arms.

The issue politcians have to face is that globalization and WMDs that are within the reach of even small not very well organized groups, have made traditional colonial policies obsolete, we can no longer afford to have safe heavens for crazies unless we are willing to accept the risk of succesfull terrorist attacks. But developing a workable solution is hard.

 

Actually it's a very accurate comparison. That or the Mafia. I have contact with a large number of my former subordinates that have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan with the National Guard, Marine Corps and Marine Corps Reserve. They all use similar terms. I have two sons in the Marine Corps and often have their friends stay with us, they all use similar terms to describe what they experienced on their deployments.

Not so, our own country developed from a collection of individual states where the loyalty was more to the local government than the national. We also suffered from racism and strong religious splits. It wasn't until the mid twentieth century that the protestant/catholic animosity was put behind us. Doesn't anyone remember that there were doubts that JFK could be elected because he was Catholic? Or the mid to late 19th century discrimination against the Irish? Or how we now identify ourselves as African-Americans, Arab-Americans, Latin Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, etc. How many of us would go out and vote if we were threatened with death and torture if we did? The Afghanis and Iraqis did, and voted at a rate that should put us to shame. How many people here would step forward and run for public office if we knew we would pobably be tortured, killed or our families and loved ones killed? On my oldest sons last tour in Iraq, insurgents kidnapped the mayor of Ramadi and his six year old son, tortured him, tied his son to his leg and threw them both off the Euphrates river bridge. Next day another Iraqi had the testicular fortitude to step up and fill the position. This sort of thing was repeated over and over. I think the miraculous thing is they, the Iraqi people, persevered in spite of the difficulties. Another issue is our history of when the going gets tough we leave. The common person in Iraq and Afghanistan know they are there for the duration, are we? If they take our side then we pull out they are done for. We started debating pull outs as soon as we went in to both countries. "What's our exit strategy" is what we hear all the time. How does that inspire the populace of the countries we are in when we are asking them to step forward? It was only after it was obvious that we were not going to leave them hanging that the great awakening took hold in Anbar and the Iraq war turned around. We here take press reports of violence in these countries is a sign of our failing, they are usually a last ditch effort by the opposition to halt what they see as our impending victory, an attempt to turn back the tide.
We basically had Iraq won back in 2008 but you would not have known from the press reports. The oldest son did his last Iraq tour in OIF 5-7, their tour had the highest number of casualties of any USMC rotation, the 2nd highest monthly total and were there for the first portion of the year with the highest total. When in Ramadi, they were not allowed to gather in more than three in a group and had to wear Kevlar and Flak all the time. Three months after he left casualties dropped by half, the next month dropped by almost half again, stayed there for a month and dropped by almost half again. By the last couple months of the tour that took over from his rotation they were running organized PT through the streets of Ramadi in shorts and t-shirts, how rapidly things can change. He had a friend that was in OIF 5-7, with him, that volunteered to go back with the next rotation, the friend said it was a terrible deployment because of the boredom, they never took a round of hostile fire!

Again I have to disagree. Opium is a big issue. One of the reasons for the recent big Marine offensive aimed at Marjah in Helmund province was to deny the Taliban access to the Opium crop they use to finance their operations and attempt to curtail further cultivation of the crop. Many insurgents don't fight for ideological reasons but because they are paid. Opium provides the money needed to sustain their forces. The money goes away and many of the fighters go home.

 

You can always throw some reps his way. Use the little scale symbol on the bar between the post #(permalink) and the ! symbol that is located in the triangle at the top right portion of the post border....

 

Please,please don't make me laugh at your comment about getting rid of unions so products can be made cheaper then companies of the US can hire our own citizens to make them . I've worked for two companies before my present employer , both non-union , and both went out of buisness due to competition based in China. One was owned by a fortune 500 company that didn't have a single Union in any of it's several dozen plants nationwide,though the other was a family owned smaller type,one plant operation.
The motto in the present day buisness world isn't just to make money but make more even obscene amounts of money. Also if companies treated workers better or rather would have in the past Unions (or as I would rather say the labor movement not necessarily the same as unions) wouldn't have been necessary. I've seen way,way too much where certain people can say call in a day a week because of a weekend hangover getting by with it whereas someone else may end up needing a day a month off to take a loved one to get his chemotherapy then getting fired for it. Well maybe I'm exaggerating but it's not really that far from the truth either.

 

The hypocrissy of your post is not wasted on me

 

Thank's for your very interesting post, I hope your more optimistic views are right but remain sceptical.

The Germans used to call the partisans banditen, and the term bandits (though I'm not sure it still does in english) was coined to define groups (bands) of armed men that resist central authority with force. But the other side calls them freedom fighters or martirs or whatever.
The mafia if a very interesting comparison, at least the Italian one, it partly originated out of the banditi, that were the armed resistance groups to the Piedmontese occupation/liberation (depending on your viewpoint) of southern Italy in the late XIX century. But the current Mafia doesn't aim to overthrow the government by force, it doesn't have the capability to provide the services the goverment does, it works by infiltrating the government organizations so they either work to it's ends or at least don't interfere with it. Mafia like "parallel societies" can only come to be when the goverment hold over the loyalties of the population is weak and language and cultural barriers can be a source of great weakness, IMO the US version of the mafia owes a lot to the language barrier that made interaction between immigrants and government difficult.
My point is most of the NATO troops don't have the language skills to interact with the locals, and that's a big limitation to their effectiveness and increases the hostility, foreigners with guns are usually unwelcome, foreigners with guns that can't explain why they are there because they don't speak your language are worse and a government that relies on them is not going to be very popular, especally if they use firepower intensive tactics.

US history is not my forte but all US citizens I've spoken to defined themselves as such, not as belonging to a different group.

Don't believe the talibans can afford to pay potential fighters better than the govenment, there is some additional motivation at work there. Depriving your enemy of funds is a sound tactic but not if it creates more potential enemies as a side effect.

 

Sorry I worded it wrong what I meant was that getting rid of unions isn't neccessarily going to keep buisnesses/jobs here. Alot of non-union places have closed in the US and mover off shore. My statement in my first post should have went more like "Please,please don't make me laugh at your comment about getting rid of unions so companies can make products cheaper thereby keeping jobs in this country." I've seen quite a few manufactoring firms ,the vast majority non-union,close up and move operations overseas . The big corporations are just going to keep on moving facilities to China,India,and Korea where they can get by with paying people say a $1.00 an hour and no benefits.

 

Let me make this very clear and it is in no way meant as an insult to your intellect or your comprehension skills. Unions are the mechanisms that get labor standards enacted. Labor unions are the ones that petition for workplace parity and benefits. The reason that small non union comapanies close up and move over seas is because of the labor laws enacted on behalf of the unions. These laws are feducuarlily impractical for most small to medium sized business to implement and the only recourse is for the business to sell to off shore interests or close.

There was a time when Labor Unions were a necessary progression for an industrial nation; that time has passed. The incentive to perform and produce has been replaced by a quest to see who can do the least in an 8 hour period. The protected status of employees needs to be reassesd. By law I can not fire an employee or take punitive action against them unless they have shown a pattern of non compliance and I can show that I have taken steps to remediate their behavior.

 

TiredOldSoldier,

Actually, I'm not that otimistic. Afghanistan has some unique problems that Iraq didn't have. The extremely mountainous terrain in eastern/northeastern Afghanistan where it borders Pakistan makes military operations there particularly challenging. The Taliban can freely cross the border into Pakistan when military operations go badly for them. We can't cut off their supply routes. We can't pursue into or get too aggressive with Pakistan or risk destabilizing the government which is at least nominally pro-western, and a government that has nukes.
I also don't think we can keep our politicians from meddling in how the war is waged, you have people with no training or experience dictating strategy and tactics to people that have spent their whole lives learning their trade. I also don't know if the people can maintain the political will to see the fight through to the end. How much sense does it make for the current administration to surge troops then say we're pulling them out in a year? If you're an insurgent leader and getting your head handed to you, you go to your followers and say just hang on for a few more months and the U.S. will pull out. It easy to maintain hope and morale. The uncertainty of war is removed. If you're a peasant thinking of throwing your support behind the government you have to consider what will happen to you when the U.S. troops, providing security, pull out. Maybe it'd be better to remain non-committal, see how things pan out and not risk reprisals from the insurgents when the allied troops leave.
In Iraq the situation with Fallujah is a perfect example. SecDef Rumsfeld and his chief turd Wolfowitz refused to commit sufficient ground troops to secure Iraq after the invasion. An insurgency took hold in the power vacume left behind, Fallujah became one of the strongholds. Four U.S. security contractors are then killed, mutilated and hung from a bridge. Politicians demand a response. The U.S. Marine general in charge tells them he has assets in the city, can identify the perpetrators and kill or capture them using SpecOps personnel or UAV's, give him a few days. The politicians say we must have a forceful, visible response and order the Marines to attack the city in early April 2004. Against the commanders better judgement, without sufficient forces or adequate planning time an assault is launched, because we follow orders. In spite of these things the attack is made, heavy urban fighting commences, and the insurgents get thrashed. The Marines have captured 90% of the city and are preparing to finish off the bad guys. The insurgents use the world press to spread propoganda about the fighting and because of negative world opinion, the politicans call for a cease fire, then pull the Marines out. The insurgents proclaim a victory, foreign Jihadists flood into the city, it is fortified and Chechnyan rebels are brought in to train them. The situation continues to deteriorates and the Marines have to go back in and take the city in November.
All this because 4 guys screw up, get themselves killed and the politicians that don't know what's happening on the ground, and don't want to look bad in the news cycle make a stupid decision.
Some scenes from the Nov. fight:
YouTube - Iraq Fallujah Urban Combat 2004
YouTube - Operation Phantom Fury: Fallujah Assault
Every young marine I know has a copy of this Fallujah video, they call it a "Moto" video.
YouTube - Operation Al Fajr AKA Phantom Fury

regards,
Bob

 

Fine I understand your point but what I was implying was that getting rid of unions isn't the end all to be all . As far as your last sentence sorry but I've seen way too many people who did their jobs get fired for doing the same things others (who didn't do their jobs by the way)did but the latter just had more suction with management . I don't know where you live but here in Indiana your employed "at will" and can basically be fired for any or no reason though the employer may have to pay unemployment if the reason isn't considrered good enough.

Now I do see where your coming from for example my uncle used to be a foreman at an aluminum plant and those guys got 13 weeks of paid vacation after working for just 5 years . He also stated that if one guy was standing around doing nothing and he tried to do something about it the union would protect that guy. I agree both these above things are impractical. However both issues I just mentioned weren't the case in the non-union places I worked and yet they both closed ,one of the places was no small operation either but had several dozen plants and it still ended up closing several sending the jobs overseas.

 

A strange coincidence happened today. A former corporal (Marine Corps) of mine that deployed to Iraq in 2004-2005 with the National Guard and extended to work with Special Forces units called me this morning. He is now a Staff Sgt. in the Marine Corps reserves 4th Recon battalion, and has deployed with them twice to Afghanistan, getting back the last time about 6 months ago. His son is also in the Marine Corps an active duty infantryman, he deployed to Afghanistan with 2dBn 8th Marines from May 2009 - November 2009 and will be deploying back to Afghanistan in September.
He had a friend that deployed with him to Iraq that committed suicide a week or so back and has been having a hard time dealing with it. He asked if I'd like to drink some beers and talk today, I said of course anytime. If anyone has any questions about the "Stan" let me know by posting on this thread, I'll check it later this evening and get him to answer them.

 

U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan

Lithium , you know laptop´s batteries, now for electric cars and hybrid trucks...UPS Makes World's Largest Order for Hybrid Trucks


(US army was in the project)

Thiny film (and so cheap) solar cells ( nano solar ) ... and more.

No comments needed.