Not only are they in harm’s way over there, now they are in harm’s way over here!
Time to bring 'em back home, Mr. President!
It’s another Viet Nam, it really IS!
Jesus, we can’t win this one, I swear it.
Q
I was all for invading Afghanistan. That’s where al-Qaeda was, and that’s who attacked us. I tried to tell my coworkers, before we invaded Iraq, that we had no business going to Iraq. I was shouted down. The Rove/Cheney propaganda machine had done its work. Remember when Bush said he’d get bin Laden, dead or alive? And then it became, ‘Oh, I hardly ever think about him.’ Resources that could have been used against al-Qaeda were instead used in a war of choice. Seven years lost to vanity and evil. We lost our momentum.
As a former army guy, I don’t like the world as it is.
But I can’t change it by myself. I’d just try to make sure my 4x4 space is nice.
I’d rather take care of the person next to me than the person across the world from me.
We’re all just people, eh?
[moderating]
I think this thread is better suited for Great Debates, since that’s what this subject usually turns into.
[/moderating]
I agree. It is beyond our means to change the culture in Afghanistan. The only thing we’ll do is spend a ridiculous amount of money and get many soldiers killed. I spoke with an officer that had rcently returned from there and he was telling me that he was completely frustrated with the entire thing. It seems he had a meeting with some village elder or something in Afghanistan. The people told him that they wanted the Taliban out of their area and they knew where they were. But they refused to tell him unless the US promised to build a soccer stadium in their village.
We may need to take measures to protect ourselves and our interests from terrorism, but we can’t do it this way.
As a current army guy, although one that is considering retirement, I feel ya, man. And I’m tired of seeing kids 20 years younger than I am come home dead or badly wounded.
Yeah, sorry, IW! I forget sometimes. :smack:
Q
Not to be trite, but…
As a former ‘been there, done that, got the T-shirt’ guy, as well as a former officer, I would have to agree with you.
These people (most sand dwellers, not meant to be racist or anything) seem to think this way. Their way of life is alll that they have known and their beliefs are paramount and deeply founded within their religious beliefs. One of my primary responsibilities was to deal with a local tribal leader re: our actions in their “land” and he was totally disagreeable. IMO, no army or politics is going to change this, unless we resort to brute force and martial law. It is a potemkin war. We should just cut our losses and get the hell out.
I know this is an unpopular opinion, but when Walter Cronkite said the same thing about Vietnam, he was considered unpopular. But look at what happened.
Our boys stopped being killed in a war we could not win.
I don’t like losing my friends to war.
A massive immediate pull-out!
It can be done.
Let 'em fight their own war!
They’ve been doing it for centuries!
Yes, our nation (and globally) took a hit with the “Twin Towers” attack, but the escalating loss of life of our young ones isn’t worth the heartache!
They want a “soccer stadium”???
How about a nuclear bomb instead??
JESUS H CHRIST!
Bring 'em home and lets shore up our defenses!
I’m sorry if this is an unpopular opinion within our military Dopers, but this NEEDS to stop, and it needs to stop before we have to admit, “Yeah, it’s another 'Nam”!"
By then, it will be too late.
Mass Pull-Out. NOW!
Q
An immediate mass pullout is impossible. Seriously? Seriously? “It can be done.” Really? You’ve obviously no clue what you’re talking about. Even if coplete withdrawal orders were to be given right away, you’re still talking about months to remove all the equipment and personnel, probably well into next summer.
I’ve got more but you’ve exasperated me beyond having any motivation to keep typing.
Really?
FYI, one of the victims, Franchesca Velez, graduated from Kelvyn Park HS in Chicago, where I teach. She wasn’t my student, but it still shook me up to hear it. Ironic that she made it through a year in iraq, only to be killed on her home soil.
In an effort to bring some sort of decorum to this discussion, what are the “official” projections of what would happen if the Coalition forces did just cut their losses, leave some equipment with the Government they’ve set up, and withdraw?
I think it’s fairly well established that Afghanistan is unconquerable- the British Empire tried (at least twice) without success, as did the Soviet Union. If they couldn’t manage, then there’s no way the current US-led Coalition is going to manage.
The problem then becomes “What do we do with Afghanistan?” Because “Building a wall around it and shooting anyone who tries to leave” sounds like the plot for a straight-to-video film starring Kurt Russell, Christopher Lambert, and some girl from a moderately successful TV show- not to mention the fact it’s wrong on just about every conceivable level (the first thing, not the movie thing).
Personally, I would have thought the solution was to build soccer stadiums and bring infrastructure to the country. Free. Just have it, with our compliments.
It’s got to be a better alternative than the mess that’s currently happening, at any rate.
I don’t think anyone is talking about an Evacuation of Saigon-style pull-out.
As I said, I think the invasion of Afghanistan was justified. I think most people around here know my loathing of our former president; so it should be no surprise to anyone if I blame the current situation in Afghanistan on Bush’s stupid, unjustified (and IMO, illegal) war-of-choice in Iraq.
So where does that leave me? On one hand, I’d be very happy to see bin Laden’s head on a pike. On the other hand, seven years of incompetence have made the situation worse. I don’t want our people there. But if we pull out, then al-Qaeda wins. If we stay, our people are going to die, and we probably won’t be any more successful than the British or the Soviets. Remember that the civil war has been going on for three decades.
[Foxnews] Obama has had ten months to get it right and they still can’t figure it out.[/Foxnews]
I think that going into Afghanistan was justified, but I’ve thought right from the start that it was a bad idea. I don’t know enough about the situation to say what the best response is, but at the very least, we need a plan for getting out, starting right now.
How does Pakistan factor into the equation? If the U.S. pulled out, is there a chance of the Taliban could destabilize them? Seeing as how they’re a nuclear power, I’m sure that wouldn’t be a good thing.
We can do this!
Pull them out NOW!
You have GOT to be SHITTING ME!
Our kids can come home NOW!
We CAN bring them HOME!
And we CAN secure our borders.
Q
Pakistan isn’t stable anyway.
But basically the Taliban are ethnically Pushtun and can’t really project force into Pakistan in any areas that are not already Pushtun tribal areas. Pakistan of course could be ripped apart by Pushtun and Baloch separatism pulling it in two separate directions. In which case it’s Shi’ite populations might follow suit as well as losing it’s grip on Kasmir which could result in a tense situation with China and India making claims to what used to be held be Pakistan.
As has been mentioned upthread, the only way to get all the Coalition forces out of Afghanistan right now would be an Operation Frequent Wind (the codename for the evacuation of Saigon) style operation where the only things the soldiers brought with them was the clothes they were wearing and their service weapons, leaving everything else behind. Which means you’ve suddenly got factions in a civil war (previously being fought with WWI-era Lee-Enfields, Cold War-era AK-47s and RPGs, and utes with machine-guns on the back) that have access to armoured cars, tanks, the latest in automatic weapons, and all sorts of stuff that insurgent groups in third world countries really, really should not he playing with.
And then you’ve got a power vacuum. One moring eveyone wakes up and the Farangi have gone, leaving behind immeasurable quantities of guns, ammunition, heavy ordnance, tanks, and no-one in charge of the country.
Is that really an improvement over things the way they are now? It might involve less Coalition forces being killed, although maybe not- the first time the British retreated from Kabul in 1842, somehwere between 16,000-30,000 British soldiers and civilians left Kabul and headed for India under a flag of truce. Do you know how many made it?
A mass evacuation of Afghanistan is not, to put it bluntly, something that can be thrown together or done in a half-assed way. A more orderly withdrawl would take months- perhaps even a year- to be done properly.
As to your final point: US borders are more or less secure, IMHO (undocumented Mexican immigrants notwithstanding). Speaking as a foreigner who has visited the US several times over the past 15 years, the attitude by the Government towards people visiting has changed from the pre-11/9 “Welcome to our country! Please, share in our bounty and consider yourselves our guests!” to the more recent rigamarole of having to get permission to even get on the freaking plane to fly there in the first place, fingerprinting and photographing tourists as they arrive, and the whole paranoid security theatre thing. And this is for tourists from US Allied countries, not people from somewhere like Venezuela or the Cote D’Ivoire.
I realise you’re upset about the shootings at Ft. Hood- and they are tragic, no argument, and also raise some valid issues regarding the current military involvement in the Middle East. But getting worked up about it and demanding (on a messageboard, as opposed to letters to your Senator/Member of Parliament) that the soldiers come home right this instant is A) unrealistic and B) not doing anyone any favours.
Everyone agrees that Afghanistan is a lost cause. The problem is what to do about it.
As for the OP, and apart from his other points, he loses me quite a bit when he refers to our military personnel as kids.
That used to grate on me when I was active duty and trying to do some of the hardest jobs I’ve ever done, and it still bothers me a lot.
It is possible to care about military members without infantilizing them.
Well, you could blow up all the left over equipment and ordinance so no one could use it. Or, you could create a ‘safe zone’ (eg. local population not allowed) in a relatively unpopulated area where everyone congregates while the expensive equipment is being loaded for removal.
Just saying.