Obama's policy in Afghanistan...

Hellfire missiles rule...


When President Obama announced his new war plan for Afghanistan last year, the centerpiece of the strategy — and a big part of the rationale for sending 30,000 additional troops — was to safeguard the Afghan people, provide them with a competent government and win their allegiance.

Eight months later, that counterinsurgency strategy has shown little success, as demonstrated by the flagging military and civilian operations in Marja and Kandahar and the spread of Taliban influence in other areas of the country.

Instead, what has turned out to work well is an approach American officials have talked much less about: counterterrorism, military-speak for the targeted killings of insurgents from Al Qaeda and the Taliban.


[www.nytimes.com]

I assume that you support the "Kill Them All" strategy, because the article discusses targeted killings of insurgents.

Or are you not familiar with the term you used, Arnaud?

Obama has no stomach for this fight. He is just going though the motions. There is no passion there. He uses "withdrawal" and "deadline" in every other sentence but not once have I heard winning or victory. When the Taliban look at him they see July 2011. They don't see defeat.

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After you discover you're riding a dead horse, your best strategy is to dismount.

The idiot board is lighting up like a Christmas tree in this thread.

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Unpaid Social Liaison

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mick e
The idiot board is lighting up like a Christmas tree in this thread.

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The very American invention of precision attacks is of course working well. We could, of course, use the Al Qaeda approach of truck bombing entire marketplaces in order to kill one or two terrorists and end up with a mixed bag of men, women, and children to boot.

But we don't. Be happy about that. A single targeted Hellfire missile is a heck of a lot less dangerous for 'collateral damage' than Nixonian B-52 carpet bombing or Pattonesque armored attacks. Or even Bill Clinton's favorite -- cruise missile attacks.

In case you didn't notice. this is a WAR. Innocents die in wars. That sucks. US forces work VERY hard to reduce innocent casualties. Unlike our enemies, for whom everyone is a 'valid target'

Who are the "enemies"?

Why are they regarded as such?

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Unpaid Social Liaison

Mick-

Good question. In Afghanistan. your friends may very well be taking pot shots at you the next morning.

Which begs the question - "WTF are we doing there?"

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Unpaid Social Liaison

I'd like Dakota to answer that question.

The same people who say what are we doing there are the very same who won't let the military finish the job. The biggest thing the Taliban got going for them is that they blend in with the people. There are only 20 million people in the country. Much fewer in cities. I would start issuing ID cards complete with eye/finger/face/print identification to everybody. I would know where they live, who their families are and what they do for a living. Heck, I would implant them with RFID if I have to. I would restrict people movements for a while. If you think this is too much work, remember that we have been there for 10 years. In fact, many countries have exactly the same kind of database for hundreds of millions of people.

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After you discover you're riding a dead horse, your best strategy is to dismount.

in for a penny, in for a pound, now ain't we?

Dakota...

Words cannot express how much I disagree with your posting. You're actually recommending imposing Stalinesque controls over the population of another country ?

Have you lost your freaking MIND ? Sorry, but your proposals and recommendations do NOT represent freedom-minded conservative thinking the way I understand it. Take a step back and read your copy of 1984. Heck... read your copy of the US Constitution. Please ?


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The real answer is... It ain't easy. the key is to let the Afghan tribes reach a peace between themselves, and then let them drive the 'foreign fighters' (Al Quaeda) out of their tribal collective... uh 'country'.

In case you didn't know that is exactly what was done in Fallujah. The town was evacuated and the only way to get back in was to be ID'd and photographed by the Marines. They did that in all other hotspots and I won't be surprised if some form of it is going on in Afghanistan now. I am not proposing a permanent governance system. Sometime you unleash B-52s, sometimes you do this. How many times are we told that this is not WW2. FIne, then fight differently.

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After you discover you're riding a dead horse, your best strategy is to dismount.

You really have no idea what you are talking about.

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Unpaid Social Liaison

What are we doing there? If you mean 'Why are our troops there?', then I paraphrase an answer: 'those who forget the past will relive it'. I don't know any families who lost someone on 9/11, but I'm sure many of you do. To allow the Taliban to once again take over a country and give safe haven to those who would train and finance another such attack on our soil is unacceptable to me. To the extent that targeted missile attacks prevent the take over, that is fine by me. Boots on the ground are also required. IMHO.

"How many times are we told that this is not WW2. FIne, then fight differently." - Dakota

This is why we don't or can't win many wars. They are NOT WWII. The only wars we can WIN are WWII-types (fight to the death and bomb their cities into oblivion) or the Grenada-types. Those in-between ones are hell.

Afghanistan is not a war - it's an exercise in nation building.

Something no military should never attempt.

Why we ask ours to do the what they are not trained to do is beyond me.

God help each one called to serve.

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Dennis S
"How many times are we told that this is not WW2. FIne, then fight differently." - Dakota

This is why we don't or can't win many wars. They are NOT WWII. The only wars we can WIN are WWII-types (fight to the death and bomb their cities into oblivion) or the Grenada-types. Those in-between ones are hell.

Sorry, you don't get to choose what wars to fight or where to fight them.

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After you discover you're riding a dead horse, your best strategy is to dismount.

Every day these guys are handed an MRE of $h!t sandwiches and told to digest it. The situation there is not putting the Tailban or AQ out of business at any time in the next decade.

While our million dollar per year per trooper army sweats out yet another day in hell lugging 150 lb of armor and weaponry as well as their own survival gear, the goatherders and locals running around in cotton bloomers are preparing their next kill party.

The US better get a clue here, or they're in for another meat-grinding session.

The "enemy" doesn't care why we're there. They just know that every time they see a convoy, they risk losing another family member. At that level, the Afghanis are just like anyone else.

And we expect them to capitulate?

Read Junger's book about his embedded time in Afghanistan - "War". [www.salon.com]

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Dakota
Sorry, you don't get to choose what wars to fight or where to fight them.

You forgot to tell your friend Bush that. If he hadn't gone off on his adventure in Iraq, the situation in Afghanistan wouldn't have been this bad.

Bush learned along the way and paved the road for Obama to walk up to the podium and shamelessly claim he has won the Iraq war. The very same man who couldn't bring himself to condemn calling the commanding general a liar.

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After you discover you're riding a dead horse, your best strategy is to dismount.

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cbelt3
In case you didn't notice. this is a WAR. Innocents die in wars. That sucks.

The Armchair Warrior's favorite saying.

Lux... yes. And having been in a revolution as a civilian, and gotten shot at.. in fact in Pakistan, I know it sucks.

Daves-

Well put. Afghanistan is NOT a nation. Never was, never will be. We keep trying to herd the cats into becoming dogs, and it's just not possible. Hopefully we can get a clue and let the tribes get back to their main passion, which is killing each other.

This begs reposting, read the Flilliam H Muffman's linked bigthink article, it is eye-opening. It shows how our strategies and allies may not be the best for us and the Afghani people.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/04/2010 07:29PM by Sam3.

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cbelt3
Lux... yes. And having been in a revolution as a civilian, and gotten shot at...

I wasn't aware of any shots being fired during the sexual revolution.

Not from a gun, anyway.

Dakota, had he his way, would have destroyed the revolution that gives him the right to spew his peculiar brand of incomprehensible @#$%&!

This thread is so old that I don't even remember what you are talking about. Visit us more often.

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After you discover you're riding a dead horse, your best strategy is to dismount.