Or you could maintain an organized withdrawal.
Just saying.
I don’t disagree with you; I was just responding to the OP’s insistence that a withdrawal happen right this very instant and in the shortest time possible.
Sure, you could blow a lot of stuff up (or shove it into lakes or whatever) but in the chaos of a hurried withdrawal, a noticeable percentage of it is going to end up in the wrong hands even if you do take those precautions.
Like I said, I’m not arguing for a moment that the war in Afghanistan needs to be prolonged; I’m just saying that you can’t decide, at this stage, decide to “Bring the Troops home for Christmas” and bring everyone back home to their respective countries without leaving a lot of stuff behind- stuff that really shouldn’t be left behind.
I sympathize with the OP. My step-son is there now. Nothing will be accomplished by him being there. The troops are essentially being used as targets and all the politicians do is dither.
Get them out or allow them to win. Allowing them to win will take lots of money, more troops, or brutality. The politicians don’t want to spend, send more troops, or build the mountains of skulls that winning would require.
So, the only rational option is to get them out. And if that is the option then why wait?
We can’t secure a military base. I don’t know what you’ve sampling lately in the way of food supplements but you are so far out in left field on this that Earth looks like a grain of sand. The word “US border” is nothing but ink on a map. Our own politicians are trying to make it impossible to even ASK if someone is an illegal alien. On top of that, this killing was done by a US born citizen who thought God was too fucking lazy to smite his enemies which happened to be his own countrymen.
Personally, I like the idea of fighting these bastards on their own soil.
I agree with you, don’t get me wrong. The problem is that there are nearly 50,000 US soldiers, 10,000 British soldiers, and 40,000 Coalition forces in Afghanistan and short of just dropping everything and walking way (and maybe even then), there’s no practical, safe, efficient way to effect a complete withdrawal in a short space of time.
As a comparison, when the Soviets finally withdrew in '89, it had taken them two years to get a withdrawal plan organised and then the actual withdrawal itself took another two years on top of that.
So, between the Soviets saying “You know what? This was a bad idea. Let us not stay in Afghanistan after all, it is a Silly Place” and the last Soviet soldier crossing the Afghani/Soviet border back into the Soviet Union, it took four years.
There is, in short, no simple, easy way out of this.
I am not the only one who calls them our “kids”.
Would you prefer I used “sons and daughters”? I can do that, no problem.
I’m not 100% certain, but I think the majority of our enlisted personnel are under age 30? That makes 'em “kids” to this Viet Nam era “Zoomie”.
Also, as to a “pull-out”, I do agree it would be problematic, I just don’t want us to “hide behind” the old adage, “Well if we don’t do something to stop this, it could be us next.” It’s already been us and it still is, apparently. I am not convinced that the Fort Hood shooting incident wasn’t a terroristic act.
We have the technology and military strength to protect our country. We just need them all here at home.
Finally, I hope the US is over this “I’ve got the biggest dick”, thing. We haven’t had that since WWII, and the sooner we get out of that mindset, the sooner we can bring our sons and daughters back home where they belong.
In conclusion, let me just add that I don’t mind being disagreed with! It makes for good discourse and that’s what The Dope is all about, IMHO!
In short, I think y’all are awesome, and I wish we were closer than just on the 'net!
Quasi
I’ve pointed out in the past that Afghanistan has been conquered many, many, many times throughout history. And while the British had repeated rebellions they definitely had subjugated Afghanistan for much of the 19th century; saying the British never conquered Afghanistan is like saying the Romans never conquered Judea–of course they did, it was just tough territory to hold.
I disagree. We live in an open society with open boarders. The 9/11 attack was done by a dozen people at zero cost. The result was a half trillion dollars of damage. No amount of tanks would have stopped it from happening.
I should add what I’ve also said in many other threads on this subject. When we went in to Afghanistan it was my understanding we had two immediate goals:
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Knock the Taliban out of power–because they were providing a safe refuge for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
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Try to disrupt al-Qaeda’s operations in Afghanistan.
We succeeded with both of those relatively quickly. As a matter of policy we never had a huge problem with the Taliban prior to 9/11; on an “emotional” level Americans would disagree with almost everything the Taliban does and et cetera but there was never any serious movement to go in and knock them out of power prior to 9/11. So essentially as a matter of foreign policy America was not overly concerned with anything going in with Afghanistan until it was essentially used as a physical safe haven for a terrorist organization that attacked us.
By and large I think al-Qaeda’s major operations have more moved into lawless regions of the world like tribal Pakistan than Afghanistan. By and large I think our original mission in Afghanistan has been mostly over for a long time, and further pursuit of al-Qaeda is more of a diplomatic approach that we have to do in concert with Pakistan (which is why it’s a diplomatic thorny bush.)
I’ve never supported nation building unless it is in the interests of the United States, which it rarely is. Historically nation building can be a convenient cover for imperialism–and I’m 100% fine with imperialism where it benefits the United States; problem is throughout most of the 20th century maintaining empires has not been a net gain for the mother country.
The solution in Afghanistan is to pick a few horses we like and keep them well supplied and let them fight it out with the rest of the country. Win, lose, or perpetual war, all are roughly the same for us and relatively minor arms shipments to these various entities will represent a minuscule commitment compared to our current efforts.
There is some hand-wringing concern that by giving weapons to various militant groups we’re just setting ourselves up to be shot at with our own guns down the line. My response to that has always been “so what”, conventional munitions aren’t super-hard to come by.
In Iraq I felt we had a moral obligation to do almost anything necessary to create a stable Iraq; even though I generally look at foreign policy from a more Bismarckian realpolitik viewpoint.
However in Afghanistan we didn’t go in and eradicate a “stable government”, Afghanistan has been locked in perpetual war for years with large swaths of the country being under local warlord control.
While I think that nation building in Afghanistan isn’t worthwhile for the United States I think that such emotional bullshit as “our sons and daughters” is worthless to the debate.
As a retired officer I recognize the emotional connection to your warfighters but I reject that in decision making. Decision making needs to look only at the big picture, and individual “sons and daughters” aren’t part of that. By and large the human loss for us has been trivial in both Afghanistan and Iraq, like a few grains of sand out of an hour glass. What is much, much, more important from a strategic decision making perspective is the material and financial resource cost.
People that make nation-state level decisions need to look at the nation-state level equations. And by and large I think that is how individuals need to look at their country’s foreign policy. As an individual citizen my support or opposition to a war will not be based on the number of casualties as that is by and large not really relevant or hasn’t been relevant to the success or failure of American military operations in recent history.
Yes, we were caught “unaware”, but didn’t we learn from that? And open borders can be closed, Magiver, as I hope they will be.
To HELL with trying to protect others and proving we’re the “Big Kid On The Block”!
We just *aren’t * any more, and we need to “fix” ourselves before we go raging into someone else’s fight!
This whole “war” is senseless, and we cannot win it!
Q
I love you dearly but we will have to agree to disagree.
Somalia.
With modern weapons and equipment we have to abandon to load everybody into the airlifting planes and bring them home.
Unless we pile every scrap of metal into big heaps and saturation bomb the heaps.
Besides, we can not do a Berlin Airlift cycle and bring the total population back to the nearest NATO facility in one week. There are countries that will not allow a MAC flight into their airspace, or land in their country.
The evacuation of Saigon is nothing like what would have to happen to evacc Afghanistan … the evac of Vietnam in toto even abandoning the equipment took almost 3 months. Heck, people were even trickling out of Saigon for 2 full months in advance and it was still holy hell.
A real catch 22. You cant pull out unless it is peaceful, and it wont be peaceful until you get out.
make big piles and bomb the piles. About the only thing I could actually think of.
I am sorry you feel that way, Sir.
I never made it beyond three stripes, but I knew even then, that the 'Nam war was senseless, as this one is.
“Sons and Daughters”, our “Kids”…
How else could I refer to them in order to meet your requirements?
Tell me.
Thanks
Q
a?
Of course we can disagree, and I love you dearly as well!
So?
Let’s melt it all down, then!
Unless I’m missing something, you’re saying we cannot MAC-LIFT our troops home, like in the next few days, even if it means leaving weapons behind?
Sorry, everyone! It’s been a while for me, but I think we need to get the fuck outta there and let them suicide-bomb* themselves *up - not our sons and daughters.
Q
Hey, Quasi.
The problem is that they won’t suicide-bomb themselves. (OK, they will; but they’ve been fighting each other forever.) What would happen is that terrorist groups will say, ‘See? We chased the Great Satan out of our country! Now we must strike them in their own! We did it once, and we will make them pay for their crimes! Allahu Akbar!’
We went in to fight the terrorists, and to take down their leadership, for their attacks on U.S. soil. Little Boots had to secure his ‘legacy’ by attacking Iraq. (I think his legacy is secure. Just not the one he wanted.) I’m not at all sure we can achieve our objectives, and I certainly don’t want our people fighting there; but if we just take our ball and go home, then I believe there will be more terrorist attacks in the U.S.
“American Soldiers”?
I agree. We should have been doing that anyway. How can we expect them to change their ways, if we don’t attempt to give them the same distractions we in the developed countries have?
“Soldier” usually refers to someone in the Army. I assume the OP wants all military personnel out of Afghanistan, so “Troops” or “Military” would be better.
They’re soldiers, they aren’t children. I find your tone actually insulting to these brave men and women. We have an all volunteer military and it is the action of an adult to go to war for their country, not that of a child.