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The U.S. military is sending a contingent of heavily armored battle tanks to Afghanistan for the first time in the nine-year war, defense officials said, a shift that signals a further escalation in the aggressive tactics that have been employed by American forces this fall to attack the Taliban.
U.S. deploying heavily armored battle tanks for first time in Afghan war
Maybe the US should put wheels on the abram. That would be fine, I think. PLUS the war in Afghanistan in not winnable.
war in Afghanistan is winnable, just not by any means that would be acceptable to the global community. If fought under today's standards and restrictions...WWII would have been unwinnable.
And there you have the truth.
can you imagine trying to push the Germans out of France and the Netherlands if you couldn't use artillery because you might hit someone's house. or you couldn't attack german soldiers who were shooting at you because they were in a church. you couldn't drop bombs on any factories because you might accidentally hit a school.
many of the tactics used and actions taken in WWII would be considered "war crimes" by today's standards.
That was a totally different war.
Right we are trying to maintain a good PR because this is an unconventional war that should really only be fought with the Spec Ops and Air Force and Navy. The regular army and marines do not need to be there.agreed, and if fought by todays standards, one that would have been lost. back then the focus was on winning, now the focus is on maintaining good PR.
war in Afghanistan is winnable, just not by any means that would be acceptable to the global community. If fought under today's standards and restrictions...WWII would have been unwinnable.
now the focus is on maintaining good PR.
Right we are trying to maintain a good PR because this is an unconventional war that should really only be fought with the Spec Ops and Air Force and Navy. The regular army and marines do not need to be there.
only according to the geopolitical climate and increasingly liberal worldview. It is not war that has changed, it is people's perception of war that has changed. Do you really think the Taliban gives a rat's ass what some dude sitting in Europe or Australia or the US thinks about their tactics? hell no.
the only reason this is an "unconventional war" is because the world thinks it should be and the US doesn't want to hurt their feelings or piss them off.
So you feel that we should bomb the living crap out of cities and towns that we have soldiers in? What would that do?
I feel that our techonological advancement is not being used because we are using the average grunt. To conduct a war that they should not be involved in. Those average grunts would only be necessary for a war against a foe that uses armies in mass.
We know that the Taliban/Al Qaeda does not care about how they kill. But we know that they are afraid of us enough so that they will avoid most direct firefights. And they will never stay lond enough to be caught. That only means certain death for them. Because we have the tecnology I am in favor of using global hawks to patrol the Afghanistani nation fully and whenever trouble arises. They should fire bombs at them or have spec ops go get them. That is the way war has changed, do you understand?
It is asymmetric war on an insurgency and not a total war. Not only is it not acceptable to the global community to 'do what it takes', it would not be to most American's either. The fact that it is an occupations is one of the reason those many of those standards are there.
It happens to be a political war with certain global ramifications.
War is war. The long term goal in any war, is to win. The only way to win a war, is to destroy the enemy's ability to wage war. The only way to do that, is through the deployment of the maximum amount of violence.
If Afghanistan had been fought like WW2, we would have been outta there 7 years ago and I'll bet that most Americans wouldn't have cared, as along as it was a timely and complete victory over the enemy.
If you cant not understand the difference between a war fought using guerilla warfare vs conventional massed units you really need to read a few books on what each requires
The US already won the battle to take over Afghanistan territory. After that it has two choices, genocide or try to engage the guerillas and remove/reduce local support for them.
Randomly bombing various cities in Afghanistan is not going to cause Afghanis to stop fighting, they have in the past seen entire populations of cities being killed (Herat a few times) yet Afghanis still fought.
See, its not entirely Afghanis who are doing the fighting. Its Pakistanis and Uzbekistanis that are crossing the border and raiding American positions or giving money/weapons to the few Afghanis who are fighting. Basically the Afghanis are out of the fight I say we should probably go into Pakistan or Uzbekistan, prefibly Uzbekistan. But either way we need to get seriously involved with both those nations.
The Soviets tried fighting an armored war and it didn't workout so well. I hope that's not what the Pentagon has in mind.
yeah, basically that's what I'm saying. either you fight to win or you get the hell out. since, given the current standards and restrictions, we are not allowed to fight to win....we should get the hell out.
See, this is why the United States never wins any unconventional wars. ... ... ...
UK Chief of the Defense Staff said:The West is fighting a war against al Qaeda in which its forces can contain Islamic militancy but cannot achieve a conventional military victory, Britain's most senior officer was quoted as saying on Sunday.
"We are equally clear that we have got to support the operation thereafter to make sure that our legacy is an enduring one," ... ... ... said the Chief of the Defence Staff.
... ... ... the region should be stabilized before any withdrawal is completed.
"We are equally clear that we have got to support the operation thereafter to make sure that our legacy is an enduring one," he said.
- Firstly, bombing the hell out of someone isn't the answer.
- Secondly, it is much more difficult to implement some sort of deal in Afghanistan.
But in saying that, "stabilizing the situation" is also hard, and so far has not been accomplished in any recent war that the US or the UK has fought.
If the United States and the United Kingdom fought by that logic, shouldn't they still be in Iraq?
So then what is the answer?
- Let the Taliban have partial control over the areas in Afghanistan where support is strongest whilst still under the control of the central government?
- Erase them completely?
- Withdraw and covertly support Karzai throught funding and weapons shipments?
Everyone thought the same thing about fighting against Russia - Napoleon marched 500,000 men to their frigid, starving deaths - it wasn't battle that brought them under. Napoleon was a fervent conqueror - but when he was defeated at Waterloo it hit hard.
And Russia, long considered a superior force, was later shown to be inferior during the Crimean War.
And the Nazi's - look at them. They could have conquered the world if Hitler wasn't a paranoid control freak :shrug:
It's not *that* you wage a war - it's *how* you do it and the tactics and methods you take.
Funny that Russia's situation in Afghanistan is used to parallel what we might encounter - when they went in against us. Their goal: quickly overturn the communist government (which they did successfully) and kill Amin (which they did) and replace him (which they did).
Where they failed was when, instead of acting as a queller of unrest - they simply heightened the civil war mania that was already going on. And then they were bogged down into it. . . Afghans don't like foreigners - more than anything else.
But does that mean that the Taliban should be ignored and left alone to the detriment of the future?
Can the West avoid Russia's fate in Afghanistan? - Times Online
What the Russias tried to deal with - we're still trying to deal with - and it will continue on for (how long? Forever?) . . . So ignoring them would jsut open the future to repetition - repitition.
Something has to give - and i'd prefer it to be the Taliban et al.
The Soviets tried fighting an armored war and it didn't workout so well. I hope that's not what the Pentagon has in mind.
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