Afghanistan, more troops?

[Excaliber]

I absolutely disagree with the "get in or get out" scenario! While some comparisons can be made to Vietnam I believe the long term down side of a complete pull out in Afghanistan is much more serious than what we faced in Vietnam. Back then we were dealing with a domino theory of communism and what that MIGHT result in. Now? We KNOW what the end result will be in Afghan. The Taliban and Al Queda WILL use it for a training and staging area specifically to attack America. The Viet's just basically wanted to be left alone, here the enemy WILL be planning an attack on us.

Therefore, at a minimum we should leave at least a small contingent of personel and rely on drone's to keep the enemy in check. This is not a long term solution and in the end even that may fail. It is possible there is NO long term solution no matter what we do. As I see it, our only real hope, long term, is essentially "Nation Building" for the Afghans. It's possible such a goal is unrealistic. BUT, if indeed that IS the goal, embracing the PEOPLE is the key. Without their support, their will, we have no chance. Ignore them at our own peril.

[BeanCounter]

Mick,

Sheepdogs get old and scarred up. Maybe it should read retired sheepdog. Laying on the hillside in the sun befits us more than guarding the flock. We've turned that over to younger and better equipped sheepdogs. I've also warned the young dogs that there's a few dumbass sheep they ought to let the wolf eat as a warning to the other sheep.

[Fordzilla]

Yup, I'm still with Kill the bad guys- Kill all of them.

Bernie, I understand. Yes, maybe it should read retired sheepdog or simply tired sheepdog. I'm retired but consider myself a tired sheepdog & can't chase the wolves........... but if one gets too close, I still have a deadly bite!

Yes, there are quite a few dumbass sheep. They see the wolves gobbling the flock but still don't get the warning. Maybe selective feeding of the dumbass sheep to the wolves?!

[Excaliber]

Yup, I'm still with Kill the bad guys- Kill all of them.

We'll sort 'em later. It's not a bad game plan! It's all about how we get-r-done.

Among the administration "voices" on the issue there is wide dissent over what to do. Some say we have Al Queda/Taliban on the run, they number only about a 100 or so. No permanent base camps, always on the move. A very optomisitic outlook in my opinion. Others are firmly in the doom and gloom camp. We might be over run and devastated if we don't take immediate action, NOW! Taliban influence is gaining ground with support from the locals, a view that concerns me and I'm afraid might be accurate.

But Taliban support is not wide spread, not yet, there are pockets here and there, stronger in certain areas. Those areas should be our focus, work to gain back what we have lost in respect to the people's of those areas. And we HAVE lost respect with the locals in too many areas.

No doubt the truth lays somewhere in between...

[Fordzilla]

Excaliber, Your last 2 posts here I can agree with. Yes, there is plenty of opinions & dissent in the administration voices. I don't have a clear cut solution either. As an old soldier I would go with stomp the bad guys until they are gone & treat the good guys well. I know it's much more complicated then that but that's a good place to start.
1- Have Warriors in charge, not politicians.
2- Give those Warriors on the ground the decision making authority to get-r-done.
3- Stomp huge mudholes in the bad guy's azzes & walk them dry.

[fsstnotch]

It IS in fact a simple put in or pull out. At this point we do not have enough troops here to defend ourselves, train the local Army/Police, and aggressively track the enemy..... SOooo, it's either put in or pull out.

There is definitely progress being made, I don't know where people get the assumption that the Taliban are just getting stronger, and we are losing ground.... I'll promise you one thing.... if we leave here, they will get stronger and they will bring this war to your doorstep! I would rather fight them here than in the US.

[Excaliber]

...the Taliban are just getting stronger, and we are losing ground...

That is essentially Gen. McCrystals current assessment and the primary reason he is asking for more troops immediatly. He offers no gaurentee that will produce results even years down the road. Some say, sure more troops now, thousands MORE troops after that, where, when does it end? Ideally more troops will come in the form of the Afghan Army. If that is to happen the "more troops" primary mission would be a training (Nation Building) mission. Leaving is not a viable option, pretty much everyone agrees on that point. Obama has made it clear, even before his election and to date, that is also his position.

At some point another concern will be the "will" of the American people. If the people HERE start to loose faith in the effort there it will be a factor not easily ignored.

[fsstnotch]

[quote=Excaliber;990224] Ideally more troops will come in the form of the Afghan Army. QUOTE]


This is correct, but it just won't happen without more troops now. there are more troops here now than there has ever been, but still not even HALF as many as we had in Iraq(I've been to both). We NEED more troops to shore up the security and set up better training for the Afghan locals. Until we can properly train these people, they will continue to be near useless.

[Excaliber]

I think that is an accurate assessment myself, considering my limited knowledge of actual conditions on the ground. But it does appear to be a situation where training of the local Army is going to take considerable time.

There are TWO groups of fighters we have to contend with:
Al queda and the Taliban

It sounds like Al Queda has been significantly hampered in their ability to wage war. Where as the Taliban may be taking and holding more ground on the local level (towns, villages). I wonder how closely those two groups interact and support each other? If Taliban strength increases will that in turn lead to Al Queda strength increasing? Seem's to me the Taliban focus is within their own country where as Al Queda wants to take on the world.

Where should the focus lay, fighting against which force?

[Dan40]

We face an enemy unfettered by treaties, conventions, or morals! Yet they get FAVORABLE coverage from our own PRESS.
That makes for a tough long fight.
Our troops are second guessed by politicians much more interested in re-election than protecting the USA. The politicians are bolstered by liberal idealogical droolers like those revealed on this board.
That makes for a tough long fight.
We must build up and support the Afghan Army and their political bosses in Guv. Their politicians and Generals are at least as corrupt and self serving as our own pols are. Likely, much more so.
That makes for a tough long fight.
Nationally, regardless of political affiliation, we seem to have no memory of the problems we cause with UNFINISHED wars.
Korea, unfinished war, untold numbers of citizens slaughtered by their Gov. Our fault! It remains a thorn and a threat to the world to this day. Do you think other countries NOT blinded by USA conceit, don't blame us?
Vietnam, unfinished war. Unless you think we lost the war after winning every battle. The anti-war LEFT gave away a finishing victory. The anti-war left that is so concerned about the plight of our less fortunate fellow humans that they renege on our word and leave the Vietnamese people to be slaughtered by the 10's of MILLIONS. It did end their suffering.
First Gulf war, unfinished. Kurds slaughtered by the hundreds of thousands while we OVERFLY and do nothing.
And that is only fairly current events. Do you really think ANY nation believes ANYTHING we say? HISTORY says we could not care less what happens to unfortunate people. That is not foreign relations by GW Bush or B Obama. That is a long standing litany of lying by all our corrupt politicians.
We pull out of the Afghan conflict and history WILL repeat itself there AND shortly after in Iraq too!
And 100% CERTAIN after that, WE WILL BE HIT AGAIN. Almost surely ATOMICALLY!

[VRM]

Both this and the previous administration have done a poor job of project management.
The first part - define your goals - was never done beyond 'Go git 'em', and the current administration has not really improved on that.

The military guys will always do the best job they can, but there are certain jobs that they are just not equipped to do. And it seems that both administrations are constantly setting the military up for failure by not adequately defining the goals. So far it seems as though Bush's failure was in not understanding the local situation and figuring that the military could handle all of it. Obamas failure (so far) seems to be more that he understands that the complexities exist, but does not know what to do about it, and that he also does not understand how to use the military.

The administration should be defining the goals - some of those goals will require the use of the military, and the administration should listen when the military defines the men and material needed to achieve those goals.

The goals should be public, the plans to achieve them should not.

And this sheepdog thing is very cute, but terribly simplistic. Sheepdogs are fine against wolves, but not all enemies are wolves.

Steve

[Excaliber]

Yet they get FAVORABLE coverage from our own PRESS.

Haven't seen much of that, if any,,, must be reading different news reports than some.

Their politicians and Generals are at least as corrupt and self serving as our own pols are.

Not even close. Corruption within the Afghan Government is deeply entrenched. Compared to them we have NO corruption. Never the less, we have to support them, build them up, try to stabilize things. The current election seem's to be steeped in fraud, man, that is definitely a set back.

Our troops are second guessed by politicians much more interested in re-election than protecting the USA.

We should not allow a singular commanding General to obtain everything he wants, when he wants it, no questions asked. While it may SOUND good, there are substantial reasons our Government is setup to review policy decisions. It's slow, clumsy and yet needed. For instance, Gen. McCrystals position right now is that the Afghan Gov. is in immediate or near future danger of collapse and take over by the Taliban. Is it? Some say yes, others no. As a commander in chief I would want opposing view points, more input, before making a decision on how to move forward. Sometimes a General get's it right, sometimes he doesn't. Command NEED'S to be "second guessed", without dismissing their valuable input. Even McCrystal acknowledges that an infusion of an additional 40,000 troops and YEARS of this continued conflict MAY NOT result in a favorable outcome. Maybe we need twice that number? Maybe far less?

Like Afghanistan, the Vietnam conflict was being waged at least a decade before we even got involved. Other countries, before us, "been there done that", got their asses kicked and left. Winning every battle does not win the war in a conflict. Killing more Taliban may win the battle, but without stabilizing the Government it is a hollow victory. In these kind of conflicts there is no clear "victory or defeat". Like with Iraq right now, it will be years, maybe decades before we know the outcome.

Perhaps at some point we will simply have to acknowledge the FACT that the Taliban WILL control Afghanistan and we will have to deal with it as best we can. Suppress Al Queda and turn a blind eye to the harsh treatment of the population by the Taliban. Perhaps they will be the cause of another "killing field" in that country. Perhaps there is nothing we can do about it, as we found out in Vietnam and Korea. There are limits to what we can and cannot do.

When we left these "unfinished wars" there was little else that could have been done. It was time to move on. That might well be the case for Afghanistan at some point, but not now. For now, we fight.

[Jamo]

fsstnotch

Since you're the only one not opining from an armchair...everything seems to indicate that we're dealing with some of the geo-political issues we had in Vietnam, i.e., cross-border issues. As with Laos and Vietnam, the rascals we're trying to nail down jump back and forth across the tribal regions, which owe little alligence to state borders, making it all but impossible to trap them. Then I read that folks kicked out of the Pakistani regions come into Afghanistan ready to fight everybody.

And then we find out today that the Pakistan military got only a fraction of the money we sent them for fighting the basturds.

This is a bit different scenario than Iraq...a state military and nobody jumping across into Iran or Turkey (except for Kurds with their own agenda), and few able to make it to Syria undetected.

Seems also that we're fighting several groups of folks with varying agendas...the Taliban are trying to retake the country, Osama's folks are trying to carry on to regroup and attack targets outside of the region, and the varyious tribes are all fighting to maintain their own fiefdoms. In essence...one approach doesn't seem to fit all.

On top of all that...we have to play politics within NATO and two separate states.

FUBAR?

[dcdoug]

Originally Posted by tcrist

To me, we should not have had to go into Iraq a second time. Little Bush was trying to prove how big of a man he was and that he could do a better job then his dad. He got his d!ck stepped on instead.

If we had spent the resources killing the ones that actually attacked us rather than on inventing a war in Iraq, we might not even be having this debate. We need to do what it takes to kill the Taliban, Bin Laden and Al Qaeda.

[Excaliber]

...kill the Taliban, Bin Laden and Al Qaeda.

Now THERE's a solid game plan. Got any ideas on how to get-r-done? Al Queda, maybe we can take them out, maybe. Taliban? It's going to take more than guns and bombs on our part. They will just keep coming back unless we get a "grass roots" movement to stop them at a local level. I'd even settle for an "astro turf" movement. Let's pay those tribes and fiefdom's a few bucks.

Man was I pissed when I read about those Pakistani's syphoning off the money we gave them for their own personal agenda. Seem's like you can't trust anybody over there, what a revelation!

FUBAR? Yeah, yeah, that about sum's it up Jamo...

[dcdoug]

Not saying there are any easy answers, just saying this is the important war to fight, not the Iraq war that we were conned into and will spend $1+ trillian fighting. That was my real point.

There was an earlier reference to Vietnam. Is this different than Vietnam? The Vietnamese didn't bomb downtown NYC and we need to do what it takes to kill those who did.

[BeanCounter]

Sheepdogs are fine against wolves, but not all enemies are wolves.

Absolutely the most profound thing you have ever said.

I wonder how you'd look with a little sprig of mint behind your ear.

[VRM]

Originally Posted by BeanCounter

Absolutely the most profound thing you have ever said.

I wonder how you'd look with a little sprig of mint behind your ear.

Yup - it's tough to teach an old dog new tricks.

[Fordzilla]

Originally Posted by VRM

And this sheepdog thing is very cute, but terribly simplistic. Sheepdogs are fine against wolves, but not all enemies are wolves.

Steve

For those of you not aware of "On Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs". It's a great read. Here is a link:
http://www.gleamingedge.com/mirrors/...sheepdogs.html

[VRM]

Originally Posted by Fordzilla

For those of you not aware of "On Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs". It's a great read. Here is a link:
http://www.gleamingedge.com/mirrors/...sheepdogs.html

Yep, I've read it many times before, and I like it. It just does not apply here, and the sooner we get our heads out of cold war thought processes the better off we will be.

MacChrystal seems to realise this - hopefully Obama will listen.

Steve