Political Discussions
Afghanistan, Afghanistan, Afghanistan
Posted by polybore • 7/09/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: afghanistan, war
The UK has had a sobering week with the deaths of seven service personnel and the mutilation of many others in separate incidents during the current offensive.
The deaths have included two 18 year olds and that of the highest ranking officer, Lieutenant Colonel, to be killed in action in 30 years. (Since Lieutenant Colonel H Jones was killed leading a charge on Argentine Machine gun position during Falklands War).
Polybore is deeply pessimistic about the future of operations in Afghanistan.
A military surge may have worked in Iraq but Afghanistan is completely different.
80,000 troops is not enough, even with 250,000 troops you would struggle to provide security and you would still be looking at 20years or so, all the time taking casualties, before you even started to get results.
The reasons for the presence of coalition troops are so smudged now polybore really can't see the point anymore.
Can you?
User Comments
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When the West's proxy wars come back to haunt them
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There was a story on the News Hour this evening about our mission in Afghanistan and while there have been some casualties, our mission now is to win the hearts and minds of the people there and help them rebuild their country. There has been very little fighting in most areas. Many of the insurgents have been planting bombs to earn some money -- not out of any ideology. If we can provide them with even a meagre means of earning a living, much of the problem will subside.
Sounds logical. We'll have to wait and see if it works, but that's what we should have done in the late 80s instead of just arming the mujahedeen and pulling out without helping them to rebuild. At least Obama is able to learn from history.-
It is too late for hearts and minds now too many Afghans have lost family members to coalition action.
Also the civilian population have seen that despite occupying Afghanistan for the best part of a decade the Taliban are still there and as active as ever.
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So what do you think these terrorists would do if we weren't fighting them now? Ummm trying to kill us. Thats how we got Sept. 11 Agit8r. By doing nothing.-
Actually we got to 911 by instructing our populace to be complacent before terrorists, and by not giving the general public the crucial information that our tax dollars procured through our intelligence agencies, but which that silver-spoon failed tax-shelter salesman carpetbagging ex-cheerleader was too limpdicked to put to good use!
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Agit8r!! You shouldn't speak of Bill Clinton that way! He was busy with his....cigars. -
I thought Bill's thighs were too flabby for cheerleading...
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Unfortunately the coalition are not fighting terrorists in Afghanistan. The terrorists can train in Pakistan, Somalia, Kashmir etc.
If you use the 9/11 terrorists as a yard stick they were educated, from well of families in the main and for the most part from Saudi Arabia.
Who knows were the next bunch of terrorists will come from or where they will have trained. We can be sure it won't be Afghanistan though. Your typical uneducated Talib fighter would struggle to find their way round an airport. What the Taliban are good at is what they are doing now and have been doing for decades, fighting a guerrilla war on their home turf. -
People forget that the Taliban never attacked American soil. They simply were an inhumane regime in which other radical fundementalists were tolerated and allowed to operate.
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So your saying you still want the Taliban to reign terror on woman in Afghanistan?
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I didn't say that at all. I merely question whether it falls under the enumeration of "providing for the common defense" of the many states?
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Since terrorism knows no borders and since many different terrorist organizations collaborate, one could rationally make the argument that it is in our national interest to defeat the Taliban.
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Since when do the Taliban have anything but regional interests? The argument about fighting them there so they don't get us here just doesn't fly with me, unless someone can show me studies about broader Taliban ambitions than I am aware of. With the logic of terrorism knowing no borders, anticrocks, we'd have to go after every terrorist group on the planet. But terror groups have specific goals that do not always pose a threat to our own territory.
That said, we know what kind of people the Taliban hosted in Afghanistan at the beginning of the decade, and we know that failed states tend to house loathsome trouble-making groups too. As for the rest, see my comments from earlier below. -
This is true. International Terrorism (per se) issues forth from two primary sources. Wealthy Wahabists (primarily from Saudi Arabia--our supposed ally) who promote terror for fanatical religious reasons, and the Iranian government which sponsors terror primarily for political reasons.
The Taliban is primarily localized to Afghanistan and the Pashtun regions of Pakistan. They are essentially the Islamic equivelent of the Klu Klux Klan
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I've just written an article for south Asian strategy and defence review on taking a "military action is not enough, lets talk" alongside launching a major military campaign. Shout me your email, and I'll share -
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I'm of different minds about this.
(!) I feel like Bush went back on a promise this country (the U.S.) made and still needs to fulfill. Ditto our NATO allies, who used Bush's war in Iraq as an excuse to engage less than necessary in Afghanistan.
(2) At the same time, I am keenly aware of the limits of our power, especially after Bush squandered the military's material, manpower, and morale. We have to balance our policy desires against our ability to fulfill those policies.
(3) There seems to be a lot of patience still in the U.S., but I fear this is going to take a long time. Either way, stick it out and maybe achieve success or cut and run, this war is Bush's gift to Obama, to whom it is unfortunately going to stick, for better or worse, probably the latter.
(4) Pakistan is really dangerous at the moment, or so all the experts say, because it is a nuclear nation whose stability is in question. Does it help or hurt that situation to have a large presence nearby?
(5) In the end, I hope we invest a lot more effort than we have so far, but I also have reason to believe that President Obama is capable of being more flexible than President Johnson was in his day. I'm thinking he could let it go if it ever came to that.
(6) All of these thoughts underline a key problem that our soldiers are facing in their effort to win hearts and minds. The residents in the countryside believe that we are not in it for the long haul, but they know the Taliban is.
Quite a quandary. -
8 more UK casualties since polybore first posted this discussion, casualties occurred yesterday and today. The UK has now lost more troops in Afghanistan than Iraq.
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time to break out the Kipling poems?
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Wilfred Owen would be more appropriate.
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oh?
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Surely we're not at Owen yet, at least not the soldiers themselves. Nor, however, would I expect Kipling.
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Americans are afraid to go to war. Even if it is necessary people would start complaining and thus it would end the world. Thank god we had people with balls during WW2
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you mean... FDR?
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jhixon, I don't mean to pick on you this morning, but if you're so pro-war, why haven't you joined the military? We're still short-handed in Afghanistan.
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@jhix...I will say that when provoked or attacked, Americans have no problem with going to war. Look at WWII. Only after Japan attacked us at Pearl Harbor did the sentiment change on a national scale. Isolationism was alive and well up to that point.
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Im not so pro war sati. I have no interest in joining the war and even if I did they wouldn't accept me for medical reasons. My point antics is that Americans are so eager to go to war at first, but when one person dies we start calling it pointless and a waste of time.
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Here's the latest on the conflict from the president: news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8146309.stm
See also the background story on the Taliban: news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1549285.stm-
I'm not saying that the cause isn't noble--or that the enemy isn't vile--but I do question whether it will be too great a burden (as it was on the former Soviet Union) for the U.S. to bear.
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I hear you.
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So do I and so do many Canadians ... SIGH
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wp
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