Afghanistan

[TheMercenary]

Eh. Good points.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

Most of these whackos do not fear death; death in battle in the service of Islam (or their messed up interpretation of it, at least) is automatic entry to paradise. Victory or paradise!

Meanwhile the secular forces all discretely want to survive so they can enjoy the victory. Which force is going to fight most doggedly, and win?

Faulty reasoning. Because they feel righteous and willing to die, the majority throw themselves into battle without thinking about it. We've seen clips of these clowns in Iraq, run out and stand in the middle of the street firing their AK wildly, until a .50 blows them right out of their Nikes.
Afghan Taliban are a little smarter, but it's the leaders. That's why taking the leaders out, is effective against them, it takes them awhile to reorganize.

[W.HI.P]

if somebody invades into your house, any reaction you use against the invader is justifiable...you are the good guy.
the invader would be the bad guy, no matter what excuse he uses to justify his invasion.
the invader's own little pink house in this case is crumblin' down, which is probably the reason why he invaded in the first place.

[ZenGum]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Faulty reasoning. Because they feel righteous and willing to die, the majority throw themselves into battle without thinking about it. We've seen clips of these clowns in Iraq, run out and stand in the middle of the street firing their AK wildly, until a .50 blows them right out of their Nikes.
Afghan Taliban are a little smarter, but it's the leaders. That's why taking the leaders out, is effective against them, it takes them awhile to reorganize.

True. There is a wide range from cowardice, through selfishness, apathy, reluctance, discipline, bravery, recklessness, stupidity, and suicidal tendencies. Skillful discipline and strategic courage are of course trumps, but within Afghanistan (and Pakistan) it is selfish reluctance Vs reckless stupidity. Sounds like about an even-money bet to me.

[TheMercenary]

IMHO no form of central government in Afganistan will ever unite the numerous factions of warlords, nor would it have enough centralized power to prevent various warlords and their ethnic groups from having relationship across the artificial boundries drawn on a map. The best we can hope for is some form of support to allow us to attack the elements which are detrimental to our collective interests where ever they may hide. I suspect even a large scale ramp up of troops would only have a temporizing effect and without long term commitment to bring what is basically a feudal country into the 21st Century we will eventually have to withdraw. As in Iraq the American people can't stomach long term commitments of troops.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

We've seen clips of these clowns in Iraq, run out and stand in the middle of the street firing their AK wildly, until a .50 blows them right out of their Nikes.

So thats where our troops get their shoes!

[Shawnee123]

Good Old Shoe

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

IMHO no form of central government in Afganistan will ever unite the numerous factions of warlords, nor would it have enough centralized power to prevent various warlords and their ethnic groups from having relationship across the artificial boundries drawn on a map. The best we can hope for is some form of support to allow us to attack the elements which are detrimental to our collective interests where ever they may hide. I suspect even a large scale ramp up of troops would only have a temporizing effect and without long term commitment to bring what is basically a feudal country into the 21st Century we will eventually have to withdraw. As in Iraq the American people can't stomach long term commitments of troops.

What I worry about is, we send in what ever we need to take control of the country, and then what? There's nobody to hand it off to. Maybe it's better to loudly announce, "WE WON", and go home now.

[classicman]

No worries Bruce. Obama most likely won't send what the general believes is needed.

[ZenGum]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

IMHO no form of central government in Afganistan will ever unite the numerous factions of warlords, nor would it have enough centralized power to prevent various warlords and their ethnic groups from having relationship across the artificial boundries drawn on a map. The best we can hope for is some form of support to allow us to attack the elements which are detrimental to our collective interests where ever they may hide. I suspect even a large scale ramp up of troops would only have a temporizing effect and without long term commitment to bring what is basically a feudal country into the 21st Century we will eventually have to withdraw. As in Iraq the American people can't stomach long term commitments of troops.

Agreed. A Wilsonian democracy/Marshall aid program is simply not applicable here without a generation-long investment, if at all; and then, probably not worth the price; and even then, the folks back home don't want to go and bleed overseas for 50 years.

The best we can hope for is some form of support to allow us to attack the elements which are detrimental to our collective interests where ever they may hide.

I can't see this working.

So we allow some tribal/political dude to take over, withdraw all "boots-on-the-ground" type troops (who may actually be doing useful nation-building work, building and guarding schools, clinics, utilities, etc) and just have a strike force that roams about striking perceived enemies.

Problems:
(1) we can't even find the enemies now, it would be harder under this plan.
(2) we will still need bases to operate from, and supply lines to support those bases. Where are these going to be? how are they not going to be vulnerable?
(3) doing the bombing without the rebuilding would just make us more resented and hated than already. Watch the enemy's recruitment soar.
(4) whichever central government allows foreigners to use their country as a shooting range will be despised by their own people and fairly quickly overthrown, leading to an end to any co-operation with the west.
(5) if the strikes against the enemy do have an impact, they can just move over the border into the tribal areas of Pakistan. Thus we would be contributing to the destabilisation of nuclear-armed Pakistan.

Don't ask me what we should do though, I can't think of anything that looks like it will work. Perhaps, if we had focused all effort on Afghanistan from 2002 to about 2005 or 06, we might have got it to a stage where we could do a dignified exit, but that opportunity is gone, if it ever existed.

The only contingency plan I would advocate is making sure there is a nice big helipad on the embassy roof.

[tw]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Maybe it's better to loudly announce, "WE WON", and go home now.

George Jr did that twice. First in Afghanistan. Then again in Mission Accomplished. He did exactly what violated every fundamental principle of war. Learn from history. Both that written 2500 years ago and repeated by George Jr. Those using political rhetoric for knowledge are doomed to relearn history the hard way.

What is the controversy concerning Afghanistan? Starts with the strategic objective. Paraphrased in a question that most wacko Americans routinely avoided – because it exposed their political agenda. When do we go after bin Laden?

The controversy involves how wide a war must be fought to accomplish the strategic objective. That is the question current being analyzed and will be answered in Washington. How many more troops? A minor part of the larger question. Those who actually read the news know of the larger question. Those who love to be told how to think (Fox News viewers) only saw a request for more troops.

Also stupid was George Jr’s desire to impose democracy. That has created instability and even created some worldwide distrust of America. Afghans must earn their own democracy. That means a civil war may be necessary. It could have been averted had American leadership not all but invited the Taliban to return.

How to know that Afghanistan was in trouble because George Jr was that dumb and Cheny was that wacko? “Americans don’t do nation building.” Only those who hate the American soldier would have said or believed that. That is why the Afghanistan war must be refought completely from scratch.

A democratic Afghanistan may or may not be in American interests. Why? Never forget the fundamental strategic objective that wacko extremist Americans intentionally forgot. When do we go after bin Laden?

That question defines America's #1 objective in Afghanistan. Only denied by wackos and the uneducated. We must get bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban - listed in order of significance. No honest person can disagree with that. That is the real question being discussed in Washington. How do we accomplish the strategic objective. That was the underlying point in a question asked in the Cellar for what – seven years? “When do we go after bin Laden?”

[tw]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

Don't ask me what we should do though, I can't think of anything that looks like it will work.

Stop paying so much attention to a secondary problem. The strategic objective has been that obvious for almost a decade - still has not changed. We must get bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban - listed in order of significance.

Anything else such as the Afghan government is secondary. How that would be accomplished is found in details that cannot be discussed here because almost nobody knows what those details are. But we always knew one thing. It was repeatedly asked here. When many start grasping it, then maybe this question will get a useful answer. "When do we go after bin Laden?"

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

So we allow some tribal/political dude to take over, withdraw all "boots-on-the-ground" type troops (who may actually be doing useful nation-building work, building and guarding schools, clinics, utilities, etc) and just have a strike force that roams about striking perceived enemies.

They're not doing any of those things. There are some humanitarian projects going on, mostly by non-combatant coalition allies and financed by Japan, but they're few and far between.

Problems:
(1) we can't even find the enemies now, it would be harder under this plan.

Are you kidding me? Virtually every patrol, from every base, gets attacked by the Taliban. Osama and Al Qaeda, are tough to find because they ain't there... most of the time, anyway.

(3) doing the bombing without the rebuilding would just make us more resented and hated than already. Watch the enemy's recruitment soar.

Bombing is very limited, it's nothing like Iraq. Afghanistan is wide open spaces with houses (compounds) in small clusters around water. Those clusters wouldn't even qualify as a town, barely a village. There are no streets, just a few dirt tracks that can only be navigated reliably with horses or mules.

(4) whichever central government allows foreigners to use their country as a shooting range will be despised by their own people and fairly quickly overthrown, leading to an end to any co-operation with the west.

I doubt the people will do anything but ignore the "central" government. Most of the citizens don't even have a road that leads to Kabul, without following several mountain trails to find a road. They'll just cooperate with whoever's in power in their local, at the moment, just as they've done for thousands of years. A "central" government would need half a million loyal, well trained, soldiers/police, to actually project power over the whole country. That ain't happening, when they can't even find that many literate people.

(5) if the strikes against the enemy do have an impact, they can just move over the border into the tribal areas of Pakistan. Thus we would be contributing to the destabilisation of nuclear-armed Pakistan.

The Taliban are home. You can't tell the players without a program... and there is no program. The only way to identify a Taliban is he's the one shooting at you. He stops shooting and ducks into a compound, he's gone like a ghost. Nobody's going to rat him out, as a matter of fact when the shooting stops, they bring their wounded to our medics. They would claim to be Innocent bystanders... if anyone asks, but we don't.[/quote]

Originally Posted by tw

George Jr did that twice.

He said "WE WON", then HE left, but made everyone else stay there.

[ZenGum]

Hiya Bruce ... interesting, some responses.
Being ambushed is not what I had in mind by "finding the enemy". Finding the ones we want at time when we have the advantage is the trick. I also note you describe how hard it is to tell enemy from neutral later on; you seem to refute yourself.

Limited bombing... a long slow admission of pinpricks will piss someone off, especially if they are already disposed to resent you as a foreigner. Do you seriously think the Afghans wouldn't mind having their country (or territory, or area, whatever) bombed or otherwise struck at?

Howdy TW:
The thing that struck me in your post was the goal "to go after" Bin Laden (etc).
Going after them means we are always a few steps behind, playing catch-up as they recruit new suicide fodder.
The only way to defeat the taliban is to cut off their supply of recruits by shutting down their religious schools (Madrassas) and replacing them with reasonably good quality secular schools. But the taliban know this and violently resist modern education, so this approach wont work without extensive (international) security to protect all schools for a generation, and that is about as likely to happen as the run-off election producing an effective and honest government.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

Hiya Bruce ... interesting, some responses.
Being ambushed is not what I had in mind by "finding the enemy". Finding the ones we want at time when we have the advantage is the trick. I also note you describe how hard it is to tell enemy from neutral later on; you seem to refute yourself.

Being ambushed is the only way to find the enemy, when they're everywhere, and you can't tell who in hell they are unless they're shooting at you.
You obviously don't understand, this is unlike normal warfare, where you find out where the enemy is based and attack them with an advantageous plan. Insurgency is a very different animal. In Iraq we made no progress until we became the big dog in the neighborhood, we could protect the population, only then they started helping us to ferret out the bad guys. We can't even begin to do that in Afghanistan, we can hardly protect our own.
I suggest you read Mike Yon's dispatches, here and here, of the day to day operations

Limited bombing... a long slow admission of pinpricks will piss someone off, especially if they are already disposed to resent you as a foreigner. Do you seriously think the Afghans wouldn't mind having their country (or territory, or area, whatever) bombed or otherwise struck at?

The only way the Afghans will know there's bombing, is if it's close enough to hear it. There's virtually no media, except in the cities. Most of the population is in isolated pockets, and they're pragmatic.
They can't tell the difference between the current coalition soldiers and the Russians. Many don't know the Russians ever left, and never saw them, only heard about them, when they were there.
They are more concerned with survival, food on the table now, and through the coming brutal winter. They're concerned about their animals and their crops, and the ones that grow opium are concerned about anyone fucking with their income, which equates with winter survival.

Howdy TW:
The thing that struck me in your post was the goal "to go after" Bin Laden (etc).
Going after them means we are always a few steps behind, playing catch-up as they recruit new suicide fodder.
The only way to defeat the taliban is to cut off their supply of recruits by shutting down their religious schools (Madrassas) and replacing them with reasonably good quality secular schools. But the taliban know this and violently resist modern education, so this approach wont work without extensive (international) security to protect all schools for a generation, and that is about as likely to happen as the run-off election producing an effective and honest government.

Schools? We ain't got no schools. We don't need no stinking schools. You're confusing Afghanistan with Pakistan.