Afghanistan - What is the objective?

Discussion in 'World Events' started by StrawDog, Mar 11, 2009.

  1. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    So, hypothetically, the US pulls out of Afghanistan. The Taliban take over and go back to supporting Islamic terrorism. Is that a good result? Is it worth it to save the few innocent people that do get killed as a result of our fighting the Taliban?

    We did kill probably more than a million innocent people in our attempt to stop the Nazis, some of that deliberately, but also quite a few by accident, does that mean we should not have tried?
     
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  3. vhawk Registered Member

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    I'm not myself convinced of the rightness of the war in Afghanistan, I have merely rehearsed the reasoning of the various political and military leaders and their strategic analysts, one of whom I happen to know. it's like a chess game really; once you know your opponents' aim you can figure out how he will achieve it, if only in theory. I'm not saying i believe that Bin Liner wants

    a universal caliphate(my agues is he wants revenge for some personal slight perpetrated on him by some CIA chap years ago) but there are influential Muslim thinkers and tacticians who do want one- that is not seriously doubted by anyone with any actual knowledge of these things
     
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  5. vhawk Registered Member

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    you have analysed it clearly and rightly in my respectful opinion and the comparison you make is apt
     
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  7. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    On the other hand, they can afford to stay there forever, can we? The terrain is some of the most inaccessible on Earth, they have the tribal support that we do not, the local knowledge that is so critical in a guerilla war. What if we just adopt a policy of containment?
     
  8. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    Why not just adopt a policy that has worked perfectly in the past? In World War II, we just kept bombing, firing artillery and attacking until the enemy finally surrendered and quit fighting. If we'd have done that in Afghan, the war would have been over years ago.

    Baron Max
     
  9. copernicus66 Banned Banned

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    That policy has *not* worked perfectly in the past. Witness Vietnam.

    The reason why it won't work is because the insurgency in Afghanistan isn't a conventional military force. You'd do more damage to the civilians than the insurgents, which wouldn't help the Allies win the 'hearts and minds' of the populance.
     
  10. vhawk Registered Member

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    good question, can we afford to stay there forever?-see Vietnam, no we do not have tribal support. the death toll will rise and rise. the UK is broke and cannot support a long war. hence the US and UK will negotiate with the Taliban and hope for the best,but I doubt the Taliban will forget the insult of the invasion, nor will the tribes. it looks like we have a tiger by the tail. wars are fantastically expensive both in blood and treasure, how much of our own blood are we prepared to shed will be the final question but the choice maybe between blood today and more blood tomorrow. it's a nice question
     
  11. vhawk Registered Member

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    ADDENDUM the terror of the situation is that our enemies can outbreed us and send virtually endless numbers of fighters who do not care if they are killed, if they really really hate us it will be a war of patience and the sustainability hatred and their(and our) stomach for the fight. take comfort in this: nothing lasts forever but we had the hundred years' war in England and the 30 years' war in Europe- er um yes there was that
     
  12. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    We did NOT use World War II tactics and methods in Vietnam! Where have you been that you'd even suggest that we did???????

    We fought the Germans in North Africa and bombed and shelled cities until the Germans left. We fought the Germans in France, and we bombed and shelled cities until the Germans left. We fought the Germans in Italy and we bombed and shelled the cities until the Germans left. We fought the Germans in Belgium, and we bombed and shelled the cities until the Germans left.

    If we'd done the same thing in Vietnam and in Afghanistan and in Iraq, the wars would all be over, and we'd have come home victorious. If there were any Afghans or Iraqis or Viets left in the country, we could have helped them rebuild, just like we did with Germany.

    Pussy-footing around in war gains no one anything ....as evidenced by the results of Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Baron Max
     
  13. vhawk Registered Member

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    excellent point as in Vietnam the enemy is on his own ground and has an endless supply of fighters, which Germany did not have
     
  14. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    Not if they're all dead! And not if their fuckin' shithole of a country is nothing but a pile of smoking rubble!

    When was the last time that you saw a fight between two men ....and one man used pom-poms, while the other used his fists and feet, guns and knives, clubs and rocks? Who won that fight?

    Baron Max
     
  15. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    He wouldn't have had any ground to stand on if we'd fought the war like we did in World War II. Endless supply of fighters? Not if North Vietnam was a smoking ruin and a pile of rubble.

    Baron Max
     
  16. vhawk Registered Member

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    you forget that america LOST the Vietnam war. who would you like to bomb and shell the rest of the damn planet? NO-ONE will support that none of NATO and certainly not Canada a and the UK. the US would be on its own AGAIN - do have fun with all your slaughtering and destruction but much of your own population would not support it assuming you are American and going by your tone you are
     
  17. nietzschefan Thread Killer Valued Senior Member

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    Comon you really think you can get away with that? China's downwind, Pakistan is downwind. Etc.

    Also the U.S cannot even afford such an effort, militarily or economically.
     
  18. John99 Banned Banned

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    People are too much. You are forgetting that the U.S.S.R was in the picture, remember them?
     
  19. vhawk Registered Member

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    too right m8and it was they who defeated Germany in the long run

    bombing and mass killing only make the perpetrator thereof the bad guy

    we are supposed to be the good guys remember and America LOST the Vietnam war and in so doing committed untold war crimes and suffered sickening casualties so that it could not continue aas its people hated the war and refused to support it any longer because they had become the bad guys
     
  20. vhawk Registered Member

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    I think that that must be right, with respect. my fear is that Obama would do a Kennedy and escalate the war into Pakistan. that would make the Russians the Chinese and NATO distinctly twitchy not to mention the Saudis etc


    the Brits with a big Pakistani population would not support it- we simply could not
     
  21. countezero Registered Senior Member

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    I'm sorry, but you're just not being reasonable. The US could not and cannot back insurgent groups against its allies, regardless what it thinks or thought of colonialism. The best we could and can do is pressure the regimes to change. If you start backing people with guns who don't like your friends, you won't have any friends and you will find yourself frozen out of plenty of other things you want to do. This is real politik and it's very much a part of international relations.

    Plus, I see no benefit to an ascendant Minh in Vietnam. Look what became of that country under him. History seems to confirm that he should have been resisted.
     
  22. countezero Registered Senior Member

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    5,590
    I am willing to concede they are Westerners, but not the bias. Take a look around. Some of the harshest critics of Western policy come from within. Not to mention that the two points I challenged are not subjective. They are factual. The US did not aid the Taliban and the Taliban did not end the drug trade in Afghanistan.

    And per my posts, we see how little the US can keep secret and how often things come to light once people are looking in the right direction. So far as the Taliban and Afghanistan from 1988 to 2001 go, you've had numerous journalists and historians crawl all over the issue of where the Talibs came from and who backed them. You also had a US govt. commission. Nothing I can think of that is worth reading gives credence to your fringe views. That is, the majority of the sound literature all comes down on the same conclusions. There is a consensus.

    The US never supported mosques in Pakistan (where the Taliban came from). Those had nothing to do with CYCLONE or operations in Afghanistan. Don't confuse the two. As I said, Zia built the Mosques, largely with Wahhabi funds. National Geographic, that radical right-wing magazine, did a great piece on the rise of Islamism in Pakistan a few years ago. It said pretty much the same thing.

    As for the US continuing operations there, that's just not true. After the Soviets left, the US (much to its disgrace) walked away from Afghanistan and ceased to care about it. When 9/11 hit, it didn't have one case officer from the CIA in country and hadn't for years. Gary Shroen's book talks about this, as does Bob Woodward's. The only thing the CIA really did there after the Soviets left was scramble to buy back their Stingers (see Ghost Wars).

    It's not a farcical war and countless innocents are not being slaughtered. That's your bullshit opinion. The US is trying to secure a country that was the base of operations for the worst domestic attack in its history. In doing so, it's also cleaning up a mess it helped to make by walking away all those years ago. Leaving now means giving the country back over to the Talibans of the world, and that isn't good for Afghanistan, the region or the US. The fact you reach for other, more sinister and economic motives says more about you and the crap you digest as news than it does the reality on the ground.


    I have no problem with geo-strategies, as all nations have them, but if there is geo-strategy here, it's an afterthought to the original, unfinished mission that got us there in the first place. That we are now thinking strategically, after years of being there and not doing so, should not depress you.

    Then you're reading bunk or your bias makes you incapable of reaching rationale conclusions. Either way it's typical and tiresome.


    LOL. OK. Yeah. That's funny. But the sad thing is you believe it.
     
  23. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    Interesting comments. But it's even more interesting when you think of it in this way: They won't back a massive war effort, but they've stood by and done nothing in the past ten years of war?! So ....what's that mean? That they'll let the US kill Afghans and Iraqis a little at a time, but not too many at once??!!

    You seem to forget that the US was just coming out of a major economic depression when we entered World War II. Can't afford it? Surely you jest! Especially in light of the recent budget that President Osama proposed!

    And again, we can't afford a major war effort, ....but we can afford a long-term, little-at-a-time war effort that goes on for years?

    Iraq and Afghan wars are just like Vietnam ....we're not fighting to win, we're just playing around at fighting until we finally decide to pull out.

    Baron Max
     

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