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Two-day conf on AFG
I went to a USG-sponsored four-day conference, of which two days were devoted to Afghanistan. Many military there, and several controversial speakers, all reputable. Anthony Cordesman, and Ralph Peters, to name a couple. You can look them up and they will have a real rep, not one just made up on the Net.
Here's what I retained w/o consulting my notes on AFG: 1. The President made a HUGE mistake by putting a date for withdrawal down, then trying to qualify it as a maybe. The Taliban has already told various tribes: " No problemo, just wait until Dec 2011 rolls around and the crusaders go home, we'll settle up then." People are actually leaving the country because of it. 2. Al Qaeda is no longer really involved in AFG. Michael Scheuer, the former bin Laden unit leader commented, that AQ only uses AFG for transit purposes. Guess where everyone is? 3. PAKISTAN. The unincorporated agencies/regions are worse than the Wild West. The country is falling apart, not only because of the flooding, the power struggles between military and the civilian gov't , the old tribal (now business) rivalries and vendettas; but guess what? The United States ran out of extra bodies in ISAF (NATO peacekeeping), so they invited the INDIAN ARMY to help. The Indian Army, now looking at a position to encircle its mortal enemy Pakistan, said, " Sure, thanks, glad to!" This caused the PAK Army to hate us. When they hate us, they let Taliban run all over the place and move freely, because they are concentrating on the conventional enemy, which we are helping, in their eyes. BTW Pakistan has nukes :eek::eek: 4. There's also an arms race between Pakistan and India. Guess who's in line to sell to a New Economy giant like India? EVERYBODY, even the Belgians. 4. Anthony Cordesman commented that we need to quit hiring consultants to take surveys of how we are doing in AFG, when all we ask are the guys we hired and paid off, on the local economy. Guess what they think of us? They love us, because we let them distribute the cash to everyone too (one for you, fifty for me, two for you, three hundred for me...). The real locals who should be surveyed like us but hate the way we "favor" the administrators we set up in business. In a word: CORRUPTION. Lots more, but I'll run out of room. The bottom line: Common sense was the first victim of what could have been a short uneventful war in 2001-2002. |
If common sense prevailed there would have been no invasion of Af'stan or Iraq. But it's too late now. The notion that a timeline is a mistake is a mistake. The Taliban are indigenous, they will wait us out no matter how long we waste our blood and treasure trying to dislodge them. The only force that can eliminate the Taliban is the Afghani people, and so far the Afghanis have other things to worry about.
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This whole region is a can of worms. You can't fix Afghanistan without also fixing Pakistan, and you can't fix Pakistan without addressing their issues with India because Pakistan still needs the Taliban in the India border region. Good luck trying to resolve the Pakistan/India issue anytime soon.
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The Marine Corp Times has an article on this in which Gen. Petraeus points out that this date is a target date and nothing more. It all depends on what is going on there at the time.
Gen. Petraeus says he understands how some people could be confused about the date and what is going to take place then. He also points out that nothing is written in stone and events then will determine what will happen next. |
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I recently read an article about the fate of women in Afghanistan. If we walk away and AQ marches back in, it will be a real mess for many. Time will tell, I suppose. Frankly, I think the President will recognize that walking away isn't much of an option; the "you break it, you bought it" position comes to mind here. |
Putting a date on withdrawal was moronic even if it was only intended for domestic ie US liberal consumption. But then of course the same goes for putting a date on "withdrawal" from Iraq or in general any conflict you are engaged in. It's simply purile Unfortunately the US appears too ignorant of the world in general to get a grip. This is unfortunate because the worst consequence of this ignorance is the bizzarre misconception that if we just leave it alone it'll leave us alone.
- Peter. |
It just doesn't matter; at some point the US will leave and the country will be worse off then it was originally. It's just a matter of how much money and how many lives are wasted first. Politically, it won't happen until after the elections and well before the 2012 elections. The US should have pulled the plug years ago.
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- Peter. |
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I would say that India has a significant edge in the definite arms race with Pakistan. One thing about India is there willingness to use weapons from all over the world but they they have shown a lot of ingenuity in integrating various systems. (For example, using French or indigenous avionics in Russian aircraft) This gives India both a numerical and technological edge over Pakistan. |
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Remember, it hasnt "turned out" yet at all. It's ongoing and will probably be ongoing for decades to come. We might cut and run now, or soon, but we will be back, wether you like it or not. Getting rid of the blight on humanity that was AQ and their medieval sponsoring thugs was the right thing do to. But it needed to be done right. Which meant the US had to blitzkrieg the place with no concern for US casualties with the intention of swamping the AQ hideouts and shocking and awing these goons sufficiently that there was enough of a "wedge" in the place that "maybe" something positive could have been accomplished. It's a big "maybe" I agree. However failure was garanteed by the pussyfied way Bush danced with the UN (Blairs doing) and worried so much about the US public not wanting to hear about losing troops in a far away dusty place that they tried to do it by proxy using local gangs to attempt to do our dirty work for us. Never having enough troops in country so that they taliban could see we were too weak to be feared thus effectively fought until such time as our resolve broke. An now finally telling them to just hang on a few more months and we'll hand victory to them on a silver platter. So we will then be in a position of having one of the ugliest gang of criminals back running the country and if Pakistan becomes inhospitable (for whatever reason) to AQ, ready to provide them with another safe haven. But that's ok apparently just as long as yanks can pretend we dont have to fight anymore. Until next time that is... - Peter. |
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That reasoning is the worst of "The American Thought Process", give no consideration to resolution, objective or end game... just wade it with guns blazing and pray, to whatever God you believe in, that it all works out for you... With your "no concern for US losses" remark, I expect your next comment to be that you just signed on to the infantry.... or do you posses concern for yourself, but not for others? |
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I agree that our original premise for AFG was correct, but the execution was flawed. So was Iraq, also by a larger measure. Plus we allowed opportunists in there. And yes, AQ is a blight. Granted the West has done some terrible things, but they rarely institutionalize them these days. Curiously enough, the only countries that still have slavery are Ethiopia and Sudan, both run by radical Muslims. No offense, chilcutt, I put the radicals in the same wacko bag as the abortion shooters. The larger political end game that was created during and after WW2 was at least a start, but there do not seem to be any political leaders who have more vision or savvy than a high-school football coach. The UN is a bankrupt, bloated bureaucracy, and key national powers keep making silly political mistakes which just further complicate things. And people who have the brain of a small rodent or Gila monster, but who also possess used AK-47s, updates 2 or n3 from the 70s (still going strong like an MB diesel) keep on spreading their vitriol and their carnage. Truly, we get what we deserve, because we have sanctioned it or pretended not to see it. |
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- Peter. |
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I doubt that anything we could have done would have achieved the sort of success they are trying to achieve in Afghanistan. Our response to 9/11 should have been to bomb the crap out of selected al Qaeda targets and then build them a bunch of schools, hospitals, infrastructure, etc. That approach might have saved a bunch of American lives. It definitely would have saved us a bunch of money. It would not have resulted in people in that part of the world loving America, but it probably would have reduced the number of people who will hate us for generations to come. Another advantage to that approach is that we are unbelievably good at that sort of thing. Once we started dropping smart bombs down the chimneys of selected huts in Afghanistan, it would not take long for word to get around that you might be better off not messing with the US. Maybe Obama made a mistake with his deadline for beginning to pull out troops, but I do not think it is fair to suggest that some other approach would have resulted in a happy ending in Afghanistan. In the end, his approach is probably no worse than any other. |
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- Peter. |
No Problem Brother, I am with you on this
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Ie: Send weapons, and $$ to the side they think will win...only to have those individuals turn on the U.S. eventually. For the record: If a radical Imam tell me that I have to go kill Americans. I would say-"Where's the gun"?..and when handed the weapon , I would not once hesitate to turn it on him, and project the maniac into the next demision. Thats a fact. Chilcutt~ |
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If a countries foreign policy is held hostage to the inability of it's citizenry to absorb the casualties necessary to to win whatever wars it gets involved in it might as well give up. - Peter. |
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Sorry that you were conscripted, doesn't sound like you enjoyed that part of your life, and glad that you emigrated to a country that does not treat it's people that way. Still, it's no excuse to treat others with the same disdain which you were. Our volunteer troops deserve every chance we can give them for success and survival, and throwing them in waves against the mountains of Afghanistan is irresponsible. |
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- Peter. |
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Wouldn't say that, but a ground conflict in Afghanistan would not have been my first choice. I personally like the "lop off the head and the body will die" approach, but essentially I believe we are on the same page regarding avoidance of drawn out battles of attrition with no real chance to succeed. |
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- Peter. |
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At which time you will understand my present Security Clearance level. Please let us know when the State Department contacts you. Note: It will not be for the reasons that you initiated the search about me. Good Luck Mr. Bill. __ _______________________________________________________________ Mr Coll, will you answer my question please. |
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Gov. Jesse Ventura..(Quote)
"Do you ever think that maybe our country needs a Truth Commision, to understand the crimes that were committed 'in our name' over the recent decades?.
Maybee we need to put ourselves in the position of the little Vietnamese farmer who did nothing but raise his rice. They handed him an AK-47 and in came the United States, and we dropped more armaments on Vietnam than in all WW-2. When push came to shove,he outlasted us. Why?. Becuase he had the resolve for freedom. That Vietnamese farmer wanted self govern, not be a part of colonialism. Maybe we in the United States, should start veiwing our Government as colonialist. Now the rest of us, in our own country, are becoming the colony.'un-quote' Chilcutt~ |
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Tom |
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- Peter. |
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Completely immaterial. One cannot base the morality or ethicality of their actions on the actions of another. Seems like a childish concept, but one that is sorely lacking. If it is wrong, it is wrong. Does not matter what Soviet Russia or little Johnny down the street did, if your actions are wrong, they are wrong regardless of what they did. If they jumped of a bridge.... You too please. |
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Might open a few people's eyes to the rationalizations used by the various groups were are in conflict with. Instead of the knee jerk reaction that all Muslims are terrorists, there could be some realization that we are in some way complicit in forming the mentality that helps create terrorists in the first place. Or, maybe you all think that these folks just invented their hatred for America one day because they were bored.... |
The Wests Illusion
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- Peter. |
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http://cursor.org/venturawatch/dangerous_game.htm |
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Truly unfathomable stretch.... As if being UDT wasn't something to stand tall and be proud of.... Disservice to all the men he served with that he thought he needed to spice up his service by claiming SEAL... |
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