Uhm, didn’t all the candidates in our recent presidential election tell us we are supposed to have a really clear exit strategy before we go to war? If so, what 's our really clear exit strategy this time?
Unfortunately, the terrorists don’t adhere to the same platform.
The situation is dirty no matter what happens. Even if we sit at home and do nothing, that’s not a “clean exit strategy,” as US casualties will doubtless continue to occur.
I always thought that focusing on an “exit strategy” was a recipe for defeat.
We didn’t have an “exit strategy” in the Revolution. We had a commitment.
We didn’t have an “exit strategy” in the U.S. Civil War. We had a commitment.
We didn’t have an “exit strategy” in Germany and Japan in WWII. We had a commitment.
We didn’t have an “exit strategy” when we defended South Korea from the communist invaders. We had a commitment.
This commitment was absent in the Bay of Pigs, in the Viet Nam war, in Lebanon, and in Mogadishu. In each case we were focusing more on plausible denial or on extracting ourselves from the situation rather than on pursuing the conflict to a successful resolution. In each case we hamstrung our allies and got our friends killed alongside our own soldiers, while providing
succor to our enemies.
I don’t think we should plan for an exit strategy. I believe we should choose our commitments carefully, and plan for victory.
Allies come to those who are serious about winning.
Well I thought the exit strategy was fairly clear. Neutralize all obstacles prior to exit.
This course of action also seems to be lacking a clear method by which the Afghani’s can surrender once we take out the Taliban. Are we going to be forced to set up the northern alliance as a puppet government simply to have some sort of government in place that can accede to our demands ? It’s tough to negotiate with a state of anarchy, but that seems to be part of the battleplan here.
A world ruled by “rules and preconditions” may not be our best option.
Too bad Jerusalem wasn’t really in Afghanistan. Perhaps Isreal would be there already and we wouldn’t have to go around looking under rocks for Terrorists.
Along these lines, as Afghanistan is land locked, don’t WE already have the superior exit strategy, or at least the potential exit? We can just close the door on Osama & Co…
Haven’t we, in a sense, already won? Where the HELL could they possibly go?
Are camps for Afghanistan’s people already set up? What is the exit strategy of the citizens of Afghanistan?
panzermanpanzerman (does whatever a panzercan) wrote:
Yeah, and just look at how monumentally successful the Korean War was. :rolleyes:
Well, South Korea is a hell of a lot better off then North Korea. I’d say it was fairly successful.
Marc
Then there was Vietnam…
I don’t claim we were “beaten”, exactly, but it sure wasn’t pretty. The image of all those people climbing that ladder to escape is seared into my memory not much less forcefully than the recent WTC horror images.
But while it is commonplace to hear people talking about our “lack of commitment” in Vietnam, there is considerably more truth in the claim that we were simply outmatched by the highly skilled and highly experienced armed forces and guerrillas of that country, who – because it was their homeland and they were born to it – had the clear edge all along. It is foolish to ignore the fact that our old enemy was made up of excellent troops who knew their homeland probably much better than we know our own.
And, lest anyone forget, the Soviets were as humiliated by the Afghans (in part because of the fine job we did teaching and aiding Osama bin Laden) as we were by the Vietnamese. Many Westerners who were witness to the Afghan wars tell us that, compared to Afghanistan, Vietnam will look relatively easy.
Am I then a pacifist? No. Clearly, we must do something. But we would be idiotic to expect to accomplish much with our typically envisioned armed responses. We need to fight terrorism with our brains!
As Sun Tzu wrote in The Art of War, "In war, it is of supreme importance to attack your opponent’s Strategy."
Not to attack their homes and villages, which are no less their bases of operation than were all those Vietnamese homes and villages. And look where that got us.
ambushed: <<I don’t claim we were “beaten”, exactly, but it sure wasn’t pretty. >>
<<Checking on status of Republic of South Viet Nam as a political entity>>
Umm, yup. We were beaten.
<<But while it is commonplace to hear people talking about our “lack of commitment” in Vietnam, there is considerably more truth in the claim that we were simply outmatched by the highly skilled and highly experienced armed forces and guerrillas of that country, who – because it was their homeland and they were born to it – had the clear edge all along.>>
Nonsense. The Viet Cong was utterly destroyed by the time the Tet offensive came to an end. The communists ultimately won the war not with guerrillas, but with regulars.
The U.S. was beaten, but not militarily. It was beaten politically, which is more decisive.
tracer:
panzermanpanzerman (does whatever a panzercan) wrote:
quote:
We didn’t have an “exit strategy” when we defended South Korea from the communist invaders. We had a commitment.
Yeah, and just look at how monumentally successful the Korean War was.
Well, considering that South Korea has a free people and a thriving economy, and we were decisively successful in driving North Korea out of South Korea thanks to MacArthur and his landing at Inchon, and considering that hundreds of thousands of North Koreans are perishing of starvation as we speak, I’d say that our commitment to the defense of South Korea was pretty monumentally successful.
Umm, nope. That’s not exactly correct. The Axis was beaten after WW II. In Vietnam, there was a cease fire and we withdrew. The difference is small, perhaps, but real.
Why can’t Johnny…, er, panzermanpanzerman read?
If you look again, you’ll see I said “armed forces and guerrillas”. I know perfectly well we were bested by regular armed forces.
But your conclusion that we were not beaten militarily is, again, a commonly held – but very poorly justified – assertion. It’s the same old empty rhetoric of denial we’ve seen since 1973.
They simply out-fought us. They were better troops in a superior position to win. If you insist on using the word “beaten”, then we WERE beaten militarily!
Blaming our loss on “political” factors disingenuously disguises the military reality: they knew the land and how to fight in it better than we did.
Just like the Afghans.
The ‘exit strategy’ you’re talking about comes from the Powell Doctrine, named after Colin Powell, and part of the operating battle plans of the U.S. They came out of Powell’s experience in Vietnam, and basically, what it states is that the U.S. will not engage in a war unless:
[ul]
[li]There is a clear military objective[/li][li]The military is given the full support of the people and allowed to use all the force it can bear to achieve the goal of a swift conclusion of hostility. In fact, I think the doctrine calls for ‘overwhelming’ force.[/li][li]There must be a clearly defined set of objectives that can be stated to be completed so that the hostilities can end, and[/li][li]There must be a clear exit strategy, so the troops can be withdrawn without giving up that which has been achieved, and with minimal or no casualties.[/li][/ul]
That’s a pretty good doctrine, if you ask me, and certainly applies to conventional actions like Desert Storm. In fact, Desert Storm was really the first full-scale application of it, and was a fabulous success within those guidelines. But one of the reasons Saddam wasn’t taken out was because Powell gave the coalition the goals and exit strategy before the war started, and pledged the United States to stick to them. That was necessary to get countries like Saudi Arabia onboard, which was terrified of the U.S. becoming involved in a never-ending Middle-East quagmire.
It sounds like Powell is still trying to stick to that, because he’s been frantically trying to restrict the scope of the conflict. For instance, there is a battle going on right now between the State Department under Powell and the Military under Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld wants to bring down Iraq, and Powell wants to limit the direct conflict to Afghanistan.
I’m a big fan of Powell’s, but in this case I think he’s wrong. This is a ‘war’ in name only. In reality, it more like a new world police force, and the terrorists are like the Mafia - organized and connected.
Police officers don’t have an ‘exit strategy’ after which they can hang up the badge, because there will always be criminals. And there will always be terrorists.
<<They simply out-fought us.>>
Where?