I thought it was about Al Qaeda?

[Geo Patric]

The Pentagon has increased its use of the military's most elite special operations teams in Afghanistan, more than doubling the number of the highly trained teams assigned to hunt down Taliban leaders, according to senior officials.

The secretive buildup reflects the view of the Obama administration and senior military leaders that the U.S. has only a limited amount of time to degrade the capabilities of the Taliban.

- http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-fg-secret-surge15-2010apr15,0,5221105.story

we made a mistake in taking the war to the Taliban and the Afghan people while the terrorists slipped away.

so, now, we increase our futile efforts?

what the hell is this?

geo.

 

[lizzie]

what the hell is this?

geo.

A futile effort. Wasted lives of US soldiers in a place that we can't, nor should we want to, change culturally. I know that most of my conservative cronies here will disagree, but going into the ME was a huge mistake in the first place. We're chasing rats in the desert.

 

[Dav]

We get bombed by Japan, we go to war with Germany.

It's naive to think we can wage war on something and ignore its allies. Especially when its allies were giving them safe haven and preventing us from being able to fight the enemy in the first place, as was the case in Afghanistan.

And the OP is misleading, we never went to war with "the Afghan people".

 

[Arch Enemy]

In an accord with International and NATO laws the Taliban are as guilty of 9/11 as al-Qa'ida.

Dav's example is a bit misleading. A better analogy would be if it was the Japanese Imperial Navy that attacked us, should we then aim directly for the Imperial Navy and ignore.. say.. the army? How about their intelligence services?

The Taliban and al-Qa'ida are intertwined that a point now where it is becoming more and more difficult to separate the two. In the early stages of operations one could tell a Taliban from an al-Qa'ida within a troop from their garb, as the Wahab ideals that al-Qa'ida adheres to stresses a different length in relation to the ground, then the Taliban Deobanism. It used to be that al-Qa'ida was synonymous with "foreigner" in regards to Taliban, but we find al-Qa'ida operatives who are just as Pashtun or Pakistani as Taliban operatives. al-Qa'ida, since becoming isolated, has broken up ranks (it used to have an entire division within the Taliban's army) and put members of an elite group (Leshkar al-Zil or "Shadow Army) throughout Taliban ranks.

I do not see any possible way to conduct a war with al-Qa'ida in Afghanistan/Pakistan without fighting their Taliban allies.

 

[Geo Patric]

We get bombed by Japan, we go to war with Germany.

It's naive to think we can wage war on something and ignore its allies. Especially when its allies were giving them safe haven and preventing us from being able to fight the enemy in the first place, as was the case in Afghanistan.

And the OP is misleading, we never went to war with "the Afghan people".

Mo' betta to go the war with the allies and ignore the enemy?

and I understand the motivation for taking the war to the Taliban. Geo Bush' attempts to negotiate with the Taliban was one of the few times in his admin that he did the right thing the right way.

But, who gets to run the government is not ours to decide. We fight the allies in as they keep us from fighting the enemy. But we have taken to reconstructing the nation instead.

geo.

 

[ricksfolly]

- http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-fg-secret-surge15-2010apr15,0,5221105.story

we made a mistake in taking the war to the Taliban and the Afghan people while the terrorists slipped away.

so, now, we increase our futile efforts?

what the hell is this?

geo.

It's not about Afghanistan, Iraq, or Iran. It's about politics and looking strong to counter the RW Reps accusations of being weak and unprepared.

ricksfolly

 

[BmanMcfly]

In an accord with International and NATO laws the Taliban are as guilty of 9/11 as al-Qa'ida.

Dav's example is a bit misleading. A better analogy would be if it was the Japanese Imperial Navy that attacked us, should we then aim directly for the Imperial Navy and ignore.. say.. the army? How about their intelligence services?

Even your suggestion is misleading... It's more like going to war with a country because one of their citizens was on vacation and ran over a pedestrian. And then for the sake of proving a point, declaring war on a neighbouring country a few months later.

The Taliban and al-Qa'ida are intertwined that a point now where it is becoming more and more difficult to separate the two. In the early stages of operations one could tell a Taliban from an al-Qa'ida within a troop from their garb, as the Wahab ideals that al-Qa'ida adheres to stresses a different length in relation to the ground, then the Taliban Deobanism. It used to be that al-Qa'ida was synonymous with "foreigner" in regards to Taliban, but we find al-Qa'ida operatives who are just as Pashtun or Pakistani as Taliban operatives. al-Qa'ida, since becoming isolated, has broken up ranks (it used to have an entire division within the Taliban's army) and put members of an elite group (Leshkar al-Zil or "Shadow Army) throughout Taliban ranks.

I do not see any possible way to conduct a war with al-Qa'ida in Afghanistan/Pakistan without fighting their Taliban allies.

You forgot to add how they are all intertwined with a variety of intelligence agencies from around the world.

 

[Sergeant Stinger1]

- U.S. doubles anti-Taliban special forces - latimes.com

we made a mistake in taking the war to the Taliban and the Afghan people while the terrorists slipped away.

so, now, we increase our futile efforts?

what the hell is this?

geo.

-
When bush went after Osama and his bunch of thugs every American was happy with that.
THEN lowlife idiot bush went away from Osama and went after Saddam Americans said WTF is bush doing going into Iraq when Iraq HAD NOthING TO DO WITH 911.
-
Now Obama is going to do the job that bush CUT and RAN from.