Afghanistan - Why Are We There?

[Sukerkin]

Having read the MOD obituries of another two fine soldiers lost in this conflict that isn't even a war, I am struck by need to ask the question flat out -

- what on earth are we doing there?

Even the conspiracy theorists favourite of it being to secure a pipeline for Haliburton doesn't make any sense to me at this juncture.

Exactly what freedoms of ours are we protecting or what threats to us are we suppressing by having our troops on Afghan soil, largely fighting indoctrinated idiots from Pakistan?

If the threat is in Pakistan, then deal with that rather than spending our blood one soldier at a time in an endless fight that will do no good.

 

[Blade96]

no idea what the bloody hell we are doing there. Its gonna be another vietnam; i knew that from the beginning.

 

[Archangel M]

Live training exercise for Iran...

 

[seasoned]

Live training exercise for Iran...

If so, lets hope we do a better, and more thorough job.

 

[geezer]

no idea what the bloody hell we are doing there. Its gonna be another vietnam; i knew that from the beginning.

I have no idea what the Brits and Canadians are doing there. The Yanks are there because...

1. After 911 something drastic had to be done. Osama Bin Ladin had to be caught, and an example had to be made!

2. Now, we can't pull out. Osama is still out there, so is Mullah Mohammed Omar and the Taliban. If we leave without killing Osama, Mullah Omar, or at least establishing a "stable democracy", we might as well admit our impotence. And any president who allows that to happen will be out of office and relegated to the same doghouse of shame as Jimmy Carter (who famously failed to nuke the Iranians).

So we keep on mucking around hoping for some kinda miracle... like Jesus coming and turning all the Afghans into Republicans.

It also reminds me of the ordeal I have to go through if my wife sees a cockroach in our bedroom at night. I have to get up, move every scrap of furniture and keep hunting, for hours if need be, until I catch and kill the little SOB. It does no good to point out that it has gotten away into the wall through a crack in the baseboard, and besides there are probably dozens more back there anyway, and for chrissakes can I just go back to bed and get a couple of hours of sleep??? No, I have to stay up till I get the bugger. After the second time this happened I finally learned to keep a dead roach in a jar that I can produce as "proof of the kill" should this happen again. God, I hope my wife never reads this! Anyway, maybe the CIA could do the same thing! You know, doctor up a body to look like Bin Laden and then we could all go home and get some sleep.

 

[Ken Morgan]

The best of intentions.

The USA was attacked and we, NATO, and various other US allies went after the SOB’s who aided and supported the terrorists who carried the attacks out. And we damn well should have!

The issue is of course, after almost 9 years, things don’t look a great deal better.

Military might is not how you win wars in Afghanistan. A political solution is needed to end this and we are no where close to achieving that.

 

[Ken Morgan]

the same doghouse of shame as Jimmy Carter (who famously failed to nuke the Iranians).

WTF?? Why??

 

[Archangel M]

If so, lets hope we do a better, and more thorough job.

Defeating armies doesn't appear to be our problem...

 

[Sukerkin]

Quite so, Angel.

Iraq, I think, was something of a turning point in 'modern' warfare. It proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that quality can beat quantity, despite Stalin's assertion that quantity has a quality all of it's own.

That resounding lesson on what happens to second/third tier armies when the honed technology evolved to fight the USSR is turned on them has been well learned by those with grievances {real or imagined} against the West.

 

[Ken Morgan]

Quite so, Angel.

Iraq, I think, was something of a turning point in 'modern' warfare. It proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that quality can beat quantity, despite Stalin's assertion that quantity has a quality all of it's own.

That resounding lesson on what happens to second/third tier armies when the honed technology evolved to fight the USSR is turned on them has been well learned by those with grievances {real or imagined} against the West.

Yes and no.
Iraq is perfect territory for airpower and tank warfare. Its flat, flat land.
Iran and North Korea are mountainous, a real ***** for airpower and tanks to be used effectively.
The Germans certainly had quality over the Soviets circa WW2, but in the end, for various factors, it meant nothing.

 

[Deaf Smith]

Live training exercise for Iran...

In a way you are right. The more combat veterans we have the more experienced our army would be if it locks paws with Iran. Everything from ground GIs, to snipers, to smart bomb throwers, to SF....

But why are we there? We came to overthrow the Taliban government as we had evidence that Al-Qaida had training bases in Afghanistan with the Taliban’s knowledge AND support.

If you remember Bush said on TV that governments that supported Al-Qaida were the same as a terrorist and would be treated as enemy. And thus in Afghanistan we invaded to take out the Taliban government and destroy as much of Al-Qaida as we could.

It was also our policy to be proactive during Bush’s Administration. That is take the war to the terrorist bases and NOT wait for them to attack us.

Between our invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq we forced the terrorist Al-Qaida to focus on protecting these two bases and NOT focus on attacking the U.S. interest around the globe. And that is why so few attacks were even attempted while Bush was president.

We are still in Afghanistan because a) the Taliban are hiding along the border of Pakistan and still a threat, and b) using Iraq as a model, we are trying to build up the Afghans, both militarily, economically, and socially to be able to function as both a capable government and society and not revert to the Taliban. It is difficult because so much of Afghanistan is tribal and very closed to any foreigners, even tribes not 50 miles away are considered foreign to other tribes!

It will be a much more difficult process to turn Afghanistan around than was Iraq. And Obama’s cutting the request the generals gave for troops and supplies hurt! They wanted 40,000 he gave 30,000, and changed the rules of engagement, ROE, making them much more restrictive and costly, and that hurts are efforts quite a bit.

It would be over much sooner if he did a REAL SURGE, as President Bush did in Iraq.

And that is why we are in Afghanistan and why it will take a while to finish this.

Deaf

 

[5-0 Kenpo]

Although Afganistan may have had original intent to destroy those who attacked the U.S. on 9/11, two words sum up what it, and Iraq, have ended up being:

Proxy wars.

 

[Tez3]

Sukekin, at the risk of sounding callous the service personnel who have died in Afghan have at least been honoured and are at rest, the wounded we are getting back are in a horrendous situation. We have had, and this isn't publicised, over a hundred back wounded since our Brigade deployed at the end of April. We have triple amputees, double amputees,single amputees, massive head trauma and one guy in a coma from which everyone is praying he doesn't wake up from, he's in that bad a state, blown away from the waist down. These people will live the rest of their lives asking why we were in Afghan. Even our government has given up saying they are defending their country.

We, the Brits are there, because Tony Blair couldn't -wouldn't say no to America, he bent down and licked Bush's ****. So our troops went off to war...again. Iraq? well same thing , Bush senior couldn't follow through so son decided to, said to Blair jump and he said how high. Simples as the meerkat would say.

Oh yeah it stopped the terrorist bombing around the world..not. Look at the news and see where the bomb went off today, 34 dead so far, some Americans too so didn't make life safer at all did it?

Bollocks to thinking any of us are in Afghan to turn things around, a 'surge' will just get more of our soldiers killed. Any good that is being done there is done by individuals. The police are under paid, drug addicts and corrupt, the army is the same. No one can be trusted. The government is ten times worse and the warlords still run things as they have done for centuries, there is so little difference being made there that if it wasn't so tragic it would be a bloody comedy.

How nice it would be to think we are making a difference, it's what the troops would like to believe but they aren't stupid they know it's political and they are being killed and maimed for nothing other than politicians egos.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew

Someone had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred."

Nothing changes, two soldiers from the regiment that took part in the Charge of the Light Brigade were killed in Afghan recently. Our Brigade are the Desert Rats, they took over in Afghan from the Light Brigade. Both brigades have regiments that have Afghan battle honours from the last time we were fighting there in the 19th century...we lost. The reasons we aren't winning now are the same now as then. We need to get out and we need not to go to war with Iran. Sheer stupidity to start more wars, gunboat diplomacy my ****!

 

[Bruno@MT]

Defeating armies doesn't appear to be our problem...

QFT.

The US is extremely good at defeating armies. It's what you do best.
Sadly, the US leadership is clueless as to what comes after the bullets stop flying.

 

[Archangel M]

The Germans certainly had quality over the Soviets circa WW2, but in the end, for various factors, it meant nothing.

The primary factor being the supreme leadership. Hitler lost his mind and didn't let his generals run the war. That "quality" kicked a lot of *** for a LONG time and probably would have overrun Russia if it were not for Hitlers scatterbrained generalship. It was a steamroll up till Stalingrad...that two front idea and the Stalingrad "fight till the last man" thing of ole Aldolph's was the beginning of the end. And the battle of Kursk..where hundreds of T-34's whomped superior German tanks, perhaps the centerpiece of the "quantity over quality" meme, is now being seen as somewhat of a myth. Again, appearing due to Hitler's leadership...or lack thereof.

http://www.historynet.com/battle-of-kursk-germanys-lost-victory-in-world-war-ii.htm

...
The Soviets closed with the panzers, negating the Tigers' 88mm guns, outmaneuvered the German armor and knocked out hundreds of German tanks. The Soviet tank force's audacious tactics resulted in a disastrous defeat for the Germans, and the disorganized SS divisions withdrew, leaving 400 destroyed tanks behind, including between 70 and 100 Tigers and many Panthers. Those losses smashed the SS divisions' fighting power, and as a result Hoth's Fourth Panzer Army had no chance to achieve even a partial victory in the south.

While it makes a dramatic story, nearly all of this battle scenario is essentially myth. Careful study of the daily tank strength reports and combat records of II SS Panzer Corps–available on microfilm at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.–provides information that forces a historical reappraisal of the battle.

...

But I digress and don't want to take this thread on too wide of a tangent...

 

[CanuckMA]

In a way you are right. The more combat veterans we have the more experienced our army would be if it locks paws with Iran. Everything from ground GIs, to snipers, to smart bomb throwers, to SF....

The more combat veterans you have, the more tired and weary troops you have. The longer it drags out, the more casualties, the less you get people enlisting.

But why are we there? We came to overthrow the Taliban government as we had evidence that Al-Qaida had training bases in Afghanistan with the Taliban’s knowledge AND support.

WADR, it was not about the overthrow of the government. It was about bombing the crap out of the training bases and capturing OBL. It was about defeating Al-Qaeda. But half way through, The US got bored and went and started something else.

If you remember Bush said on TV that governments that supported Al-Qaida were the same as a terrorist and would be treated as enemy. And thus in Afghanistan we invaded to take out the Taliban government and destroy as much of Al-Qaida as we could.
It was also our policy to be proactive during Bush’s Administration. That is take the war to the terrorist bases and NOT wait for them to attack us.

But he did not follow through. If he did, the fight would have been taken to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

All your poppies are belong to us.

 

[chrispillertkd]

The U.S. invaded Afghanistan after 9/11 to engage the Taliban and al-Qaida. Several months later we were largely successful in that endeavor as the Taliban was overthrown and al-Qaida's strength had largely been broken. Elections were held and a government sympathetic to the U.S. was set up. That is when the country's attention was turned to Iraq.

Anyone who thinks that Afghanistan is or ever was a prime candidate for "nation building" should take another look at the country and its history. IMHO, we got as good of a result as anyone could possibly hope for in Afghanistan. We had a sympathetic government in power, the former regime was toppled, al-Qaida was in disarray and we had a cadre of troops in place to deal with any attempted resurgence by them.

The country itself still has its fair share of "warlords" and tribal loyalty which trumps all. That isn't the kind of thing you overcome. Throwing off the Taliban and al-Qaida was a definite positive for everyone involved, the U.S. and Afghanis alike. Iraq had a culture and infrastructure already in place that made it more suceptible to nation building, not least of which included a fairly educated populace that had western sympathies and a desire to get out from under the heel of a madman who liked to use chemical weapons on his own people.

As for how things have been handled in Afghanistan recently, that is another matter. You can't separate that out from the fact that the Democrats cast Afghanistan as a "war of necessity" against Bush's "war of choice" in Iraq. The merits of those appelations, I suppose, are debateable (although Iraq was a state that sponsired terrorism by giving aid and safety to terrorists, such as the 1993 WTC bombers and paid money to the families of suicide bombers). What is not is the likelihood of further success in Afghanistan. Anything more than we had already accomplished would be amazing if not miraculous.

The reason why Obama is increasing our involvement in Afghanistan now is because he has to do so. He spent a lot of time during the election denouncing Iraq and saying we had to concentrate on Afghanistan. He's been trapped by his own campaign simply because he - and the other Democrats - were unable to admit that we had accomplished pretty much everything we could accomplish there.

As for the UK, it's there because its allies with the United States. That's what you do with allies, you support them in times of armed conflict at times with troops like now and at times with material support like with the U.S. aiding Britain in the Falkland Island war.

Pax,

Chris

 

[Tez3]

If we are allies why when Argentina is making warlike noises again has America said it won't support us?
http://momento24.com/en/2010/02/24/the-us-wont-support-british-claims-on-the-falklands-sovereignty/




In the UK poppies are the flowers used for the remembrance of our war dead.

 

[CoryKS]

If we are allies why when Argentina is making warlike noises again has America said it won't support us?
http://momento24.com/en/2010/02/24/the-us-wont-support-british-claims-on-the-falklands-sovereignty/

Because we've been told that imperialism is a bad thing?

Cue the "no blood for oil" protests.