Should We Pull Out of Afghanistan?

[Rogue Valley]

Yep. 4,000 additional US troops should be enough to pacify Afghanistan.

A frigging brigade. Why didn't the Bush or Obama NSC think of that?

God Dammit ... this has the smell of victory! Oorah!

:rofl

 

[Tigerace117]

Regarding something that takes a long time -

'When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, then men's weapons will grow dull and their ardor will be damped. If you lay siege to a town, you will exhaust your strength.'
'Again, if the campaign is protracted, the resources of the State will not be equal to the strain.'
'Now, when your weapons are dulled, your ardor damped, your strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring up to take advantage of your extremity. Then no man, however wise, will be able to avert the consequences that must ensue.'
'Thus, though we have heard of stupid haste in war, cleverness has never been seen associated with long delays.'

~Sun Tzu - The Art of War

Ah, but he was talking about long delays in operations, as opposed to long wars in themselves.

 

[Tigerace117]

If I remember correctly, from years ago, we are under orders not to destroy their opium fields. Burn the damned things down. As long as they exist, people will fight for the hundreds of millions of dollars these fields MEAN to the victor.

Considering the Taliban had made quite a bit of revenue protecting the opium from the US and Afghan governments....that's debatable.

 

[Tigerace117]

why the Hell are we there in the first place?

oh, that's right; ****ing Mr. ****ing Wonderful .............. George Wonderful Bush ............ the alcoholic cocaine fly boy party animal Air Guard jerk off .............

yep; great war there W.

Hate to break it to you, but we went in because of 9/11.

 

[Tigerace117]

The talk I heard while eating lunch on thew news was that we were going to try to pressure the Taliban militarily to get them to come to the negotiating table with the hope of reaching some sort of settlement. Not sure what that would look like, but included the Taliban in its objective.

Which sounds good, but we'll see how it plays out IRL

 

[SocialD]

Ah, but he was talking about long delays in operations, as opposed to long wars in themselves.

it been long either way. delays lead to ruin, do it do it swiftly and decisively or don't do it.

 

[shrubnose]

Why didnt Obama end the kerfuffle?

just asking

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Call him and ask him.

 

[radioman]

True, but as of now the Taliban are the active threat. Defeating the active threat would make taking down other threats easier.

We chased the taliban out of power in 2001.
Now they're resurgent and a threat yet again.
This doesn't seem like progress to me.

 

[radioman]

I'm not sure it's something as simple as "changing the ROEs to fix the problem". Counter insurgency isn't the type of conflict that it's fast and easy to solve problems in, which is why historically it's been our Achilles heel.

It is historically every nation's Achilles heel.
An extra 4000 troops isn't going to accomplish what 100,000 troops could not.

 

[Rexedgar]

Bring back compulsory military service and see how fast we fold up shop and come home!

 

[Tigerace117]

it been long either way. delays lead to ruin, do it do it swiftly and decisively or don't do it.

We did do it swiftly and decisively. Then the enemy just sorta.....melted into the civvies, and in Sun Tzu's day their way of handling that is not tolerated today

 

[trouble13]

Call him and ask him.

im asking you for your opinion. you gave us your opinion about bush why not obama too

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[Tigerace117]

It is historically every nation's Achilles heel.
An extra 4000 troops isn't going to accomplish what 100,000 troops could not.

Yes and no. There have been a number of successful counter guerilla campaigns.

 

[Winston]

One of the measures of success regarding Iraq and Afghanastan seems to be the absence of a major terrorist attack on US soil. How have our actions in those countries prevented nineteen Saudi Arabians from carrying out a diabolical attack within the confines of the US?

Well, we also set up the Homeland Security Department, and the FBI under James Comey, has ruthlessly gone after suspected Islamic terror persons of interest.

 

[RetiredUSN]

Terrorists slipping across the border into Pakistan is another factor to consider.

 

[SocialD]

We did do it swiftly and decisively. Then the enemy just sorta.....melted into the civvies, and in Sun Tzu's day their way of handling that is not tolerated today

Well no we really didn't though, we started doing it swiftly and decisively , then it was umm lets put this on the backburner and go over to Iraq. we really didn't get ramped up again for 5 years.

 

[Tigerace117]

Well no we really didn't though, we started doing it swiftly and decisively , then it was umm lets put this on the backburner and go over to Iraq. we really didn't get ramped up again for 5 years.

We kicked the Taliban out of power with a great deal of speed and decisiveness.

 

[vegas giants]

We kicked the Taliban out of power with a great deal of speed and decisiveness.

They currently control at least half the country.

 

[SocialD]

We kicked the Taliban out of power with a great deal of speed and decisiveness.

Well its a similar deal in Iraq. got Saddam out pretty quick. but that's not the full victory. There is all of the loyalists. The Taliban started coming back too. THey should have whiped them out so there was no Taliban to come back.

 

[Risky Thicket]

If breeding, supporting or harboring "terrorists" is the reason to have our military (and 3X that number of "contractors") enter and remain forever in (allegedly sovereign) foreign lands then there are certainly places more worthy of our military attention/resources than the wilds of Afghanistan (and now Trump wants to add Pakistan). The problem, as I see it, is that we define "winning" (the only proper time to have our troops leave?) as the total elimination of any "terrorist" threat and the ability of the foreign "nation" to prevent their return.

When we can't even stop ultra-violent street gangs from existing in and terrorizing residents of our own major cities do we really ever expect that these far less wealthy or organized foreign nations can be become, much less be kept, "terror" free? Not every problem has a military solution (the reason that we don't try to develop a military solution to our own organized and/or gang crime problem) and not every bunch of corrupt tribal folks can become a cooperative nation no matter how much we pay to help them pretend that is so.

The goofy notion that we either fight "them" over there or "they" will invade us over here is insane. Iran (and likely other regional powers) are quite content to watch the most powerful military on the planet spend a million dollars to counter attack each of the many "terror" groups that they fund for less than a thousand dollars per "attack". The "terror" threat is real but we can't expect to ever bomb or buy it out of existence.

A successful military campaign must take and control (hold) territory not simply play whack-a-mole in response to occasional "terror cell" activity. The big problem in Afghanistan, as the Russians learned, is that nobody can control (hold) much of that territory no matter how many troops, bases and support facilities they tossed into the effort.

True!

We are wasting lives and resources in Afghanistan. It is way past time to leave. And yes sir, in the meantime Iran, Saudi Arabia and Russia are all grinning like a mule eating dry briars. Who are we defeating in Afghanistan? Ourselves. They love it.

If we "win" in Afghanistan, what do we "win"? I don't have a clue? Will the "win" be worth the effort? Hell, no.

I keep asking why we are there. No one seems to know the official reason.

 

[radioman]

North Korea you say?

No wonder Kim is so grumpy.

 

[vegas giants]

True!

We are wasting lives and resources in Afghanistan. It is way past time to leave. And yes sir, in the meantime Iran, Saudi Arabia and Russia are all grinning like a mule eating dry briars. Who are we defeating in Afghanistan? Ourselves. They love it.

If we "win" in Afghanistan, what do we "win"? I don't have a clue? Will the "win" be worth the effort? Hell, no.

I keep asking why we are there. No one seems to know the official reason.

Because once we leave the Taliban will take over completely and be better able to fund terrorists in America.

We will be there forever

 

[ttwtt78640]

True!

We are wasting lives and resources in Afghanistan. It is way past time to leave. And yes sir, in the meantime Iran, Saudi Arabia and Russia are all grinning like a mule eating dry briars. Who are we defeating in Afghanistan? Ourselves. They love it.

If we "win" in Afghanistan, what do we "win"? I don't have a clue? Will the "win" be worth the effort? Hell, no.

I keep asking why we are there. No one seems to know the official reason.

I suspect that the official reason is to maintain a "military presense" in the region and to justify more "defense" spending. The federal government is well known for mission creep in many (extra-constitutional?) areas and the DoD is no exception to that rule.

 

[Bucky]

Because once we leave the Taliban will take over completely and be better able to fund terrorists in America.

We will be there forever

We need to focus on American Hegemony.

Retreating from American Hegemony is not in our best interest. Trump needs a surge 2.0. The surge in Iraq was working before Obama cut and run from the Middle East.

 

[phattonez]

This is one of the most disappointing days of the Trump presidency, if not the most disappointing. The troops ought to be pulled out immediately, or, if we are going to stay in Afghanistan, at least make it a colony. Right now we're getting nothing for our occupation. Just get out and let's get to work on long overdue domestic problems.