afghanistan...dont go in?

tripledouble

i dont know enough about the subject to contradict this video, but i found it compelling:

what yall think? try for the military victory that no one else has been able to achieve? get the hell out? option C? politicostrut: saba? rock? motown? jumpjump? lets hear it. shit dont look to promising.

discos_alma

"Afghanistan is where empires go to die"

Ask britain or russia

Reynaldo

Secure the poppy fields, ramp up production.

tripledouble

lol.
and legalize it in cali!!

motown67

Couple quick thoughts.

1) The problem is not Afghanistan, but more Pakistan. They have been the biggest cause of nuclear proliferation and terrorism in the region than Afghanistan ever was. Bush put his full backing behind Musharaf and that backfired. Pakistan is become more unstable and they have nuclear weapons. That's why the Obama administration is tryint to form a regional approach to the issue.

2) Afghanistan will be 10 times harder than Iraq. Iraq was a largley urbanized country where extra troops could be placed in cities and make a diference with the right tactics. Afghanistan is rural with many more tribes and factions than Iraq. Simply sending in more troops there will not be the answer. Supplying them is also far more costly and harder in Afghansitan and the Taliban and their allies have been able to attack and sometimes close the supply routes recently.

3) Afghanistan pretty much went down the tubes because the Bush administration ignored it for Iraq. Rumsfeld's plan was to go in, set up an Afghan government, and get out. Then all the troops and resources were diverted to Iraq where they've been ever since. Afghanistan has only gotten a sliver of the soldiers and reconstruction aid Iraq has. That opportunity the U.S. had after the invasion is now lost.

4) The U.S. military is much more prepared for a counterinsurgency war then before. That's the one big advantage. Whatever strategy they come up with will have to be local.

5) The big problem is still Pakistan and I don't know how they're going to deal with that because they are going to have to work through the Pakistani government and the military which are two separate institutions with separate agendas. That will be the hardest and trikiest part.

sabadabada

Motown. You proved you have the plagiarizing reporting skills in your "Iraq Report" thread. Nobody else had the courage to cut and paste every piece of bad news - reliable or not - into one, long, never-ending screed. I hope we will see an "Afghanistan Report" thread coming to the Strut soon.

tripledouble

saba, whats your take on afghan mission? dont do it? do it hard? (pasue)

sabadabada

between those two options, I'd say don't do it. I'd support small special ops to go after individual targets and do just enough to keep it from reverting entirely into a pakistani satellite.

HarveyCanal

The_Non

Pashtuns want their own country, which would go thru the middle of Pakistan and into Afghanistan. Special ops should stay in Afghanistan to try to find Osama and make sure Taliban doesn't retake the country. Focus should shift to working on the Pakistan problem.

Okem

the Pakistan problem.

Pakistan is in real trouble. And things only look like getting worse for the Pakistani people.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7920260.stm

Gunmen have attacked a bus carrying the Sri Lankan cricket team on its way to play in the Pakistani city of Lahore.
At least six policemen escorting the team bus were killed, along with a driver. Seven cricketers and an assistant coach were injured.
Pakistani officials said about 12 gunmen were involved and grenades and rocket launchers have been recovered.
Officials said the incident bore similarities to deadly attacks in Mumbai in India last November.
The Mumbai attacks were blamed on Pakistan-based Islamic militants.

tripledouble

i had a "friend" from college who was the son of the pakistani amabssador to austria. he got stuck in jail for bringing opium to campus. made some connections in the joint and started moving dope. i dont think he graduated.

i visited him in the embassy in austria once and he tricked me into drinking methadone. pretty wack. he was also selling heroine out of the embassy. not a good scene.

rumor has it that he died, but i doubt it.

thats my only connection to pakistan.

motown67

wow Sab from someone as hyppcritical as you that's high praise.

DrWu

This could be Obama's LBJ screw up. So far I don't understand the premise. Invade the country to suppress small cells of jihadis that want to attack us? This would be much better handled by special ops type of units. Building a viable democracy is simply out of the question given the culture and the terrain.

Okem

This could be Obama's LBJ screw up. So far I don't understand the premise. Invade the country to suppress small cells of jihadis that want to attack us? This would be much better handled by special ops type of units. Building a viable democracy is simply out of the question given the culture and the terrain.

We're there already so it's really just a case of backing up what's happening already, with the sort of force that should've been there in the first place.

Afghanistan held democratic elections in 2004/5. The people of Afghanistan seem to want a stable country, free of the sort of outside interference they've been plagued by.

I think if you wanted to hunt for Osama & al-Qaeda, and it is 2001, then it would've been a job for special forces. I don't think that's the case anymore.

kitchenknight

These LBJ/Vietnam comparisons are a bit premature, imo.
This was a half-completed job, where we installed the mayor of Kabul, and screwed for some other bullshit.

Fixing up a country we helped wreck is the right/responsible thing to do. As it was in 2001...