I supported the Afghanistan invasion - their government was the Taliban. One of the most brutal and corrupt and sick twisted governments that ever existed. They were aiding and supporting Al Queda. They were supporting and protecting Bin Laden.
Here is what I would have done, if I were in command. Instead of holding back, I would have thrown everything we have at Tora Bora. Entire armies of soldiers, in an ever tightening circle, like a noose. No exits. Well, maybe one false exit to serve as a death trap. Narrow mountain passes make great death traps. Let them in, close the exits, and let the destruction begin. Massive air strikes. Carpet bomb the mountains until they crumbled. I would have kept the locals mostly out of it, expecting that not all of them could be trusted. I would have used these locals to leak false information to the enemy, counting on at least one of them to run back to his real masters. In short, turn the entire country upside down and inside out, until the enemy was totally erased.
I would NOT have declared “mission accomplished” and left the job unfinished. I would NOT have divided my forces by going into Iraq on false “facts”, as that was a strategic and tactical blunder, and there was no connection to be made. Even if Iraq did have WMD and nuclear capabilities, I would have finished with Afghanistan FIRST.
Nice job of cutting and pasting! I asked you to read it before you started to do all that implying on me.
And then I put forth my belief on the way anti-war Bush-hating libs (not pointing fingers here) would react under a certain scenario as if that was what I originally put forth to debate.
Try to read my OP again as if someone else had written on it.
I believe the point I was making is that there is nothing in your OP about Clinton. You brought up Clinton as a dodge when you received a comprehensive and well-documented response to your OP.
If you are trying to claim that your OP expressed no particular opinion one way or the other - that is true to a point. However, your Bush-bot posting style in general, and your practice of evading honest debate, bringing up Clinton as a dodge, and predicting how those critical of Bush’s failure would have responded had he not failed, make quite clear that your protestations of innocence are worthless.
If you wanted a debate on your OP, respond to SteveG1 without resorting to allusions to Clinton and lawyers.
I’m tired of not getting any answers, and dealing with more and more false questions, evasions/misdirections/dodges/redherrings etc. People here don’t want real discussion.
Sorry about mentioning Clinton lawyers. I could have started another thread but I wouldn’t want to do that now would I? BTW, I responded in separate posts to get that all important response/start ratio up !!
Since you don’t want to go back and comment on my OP I’m going to do some nuancing to it and come back.
I’m not sure whether we could have gotten Bin Laden or not, given the terrain obstacles, the loyalty (to Bin Laden) of the residents, and the lack of cross border cooperation w/ Pakistan I think it was less than a 50/50 possibility. OTOH if we had used sufficient troops along w/ following up the initial invasion w/ military police, civil affairs and reconstruction efforts, we could almost certain have established a democratically elected government that was nationwide and very effective, as opposed to the tentative government that exists in Afghanistan now. This could have been the “foot in the door” we need to plant the seeds of democracy in the M.E. This, along w/ U.N. inspection teams in Iraq, could have caused increased unrest and cracks in Saddam’s regime and even a possible internal uprising.
Dividing our forces before we had established firm control in Afghanistan was sheer folly and invading Iraq has caused far more problems than it solved.
If this is meaningfully different than my statement, it must be around the focus on the Taliban. If you recall, we offered the Taliban the opportunity to turn bin Laden over to us, which you seem not to recall. This means that the Taliban were secondary to our aims, and Bush implied that they would not share al Quada’s fate if they complied with his demand.
With your expertise, I would prefer that you explain why we couldn’t have done so.
I’ll give you some parameters to help shape your answer. Kabul fell on November 12, 2001. On November 25, we established a forward operating base south of Kandahar. On that day, we were also able to use AC-130s and Black Hawks for three days to put down a revolt at Mazar-I-Sharif prison. By that time, the Taliban had fallen to Northern Alliance forces. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._invasion_of_Afghanistan.
By December 1, we had established a Main Operating Base, “Camp Justice,” with at least 1,000 marines. Source: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/afghanistan/rhino.htm
Yet on December 5th, we had 2,000 local tribal militiamen begin trying to take Tora Bora.
So, please explain to me why we could not have significantly advanced our introduction of ground troops into Afghanistan. Why could we not have had 2,000 marines there to take Tora Bora instead of asking 2,000 Afghan militia men to do it? For that matter, why could we have not had 4,000 there?
My point in bringing up the significant support of our allies is not to suggest that we might have outsourced the job to yet a third party, but to remind you that we were being supported by our citizens and by our allies alike, which you seem to have forgotten. If there was a time we could have made a commitment to an effort, it was then.
If it is true that we could not have trusted the militia to not attack us, why the hell did we trust them with the effort to carry out our main objective?
And it is hard to take seriously the post-hoc justifications of Bush failures presented by a dyed in the wool Bush supporter that it would have been really hard, so it couldn’t have been done.
Again, you lack the ability to discriminate between being against the war in Iraq versus being “generally anti-war” or against the invasion of Afghanistan.
And this is your failing. Where I would have once been sad, I am now unsurprised. “You’re against Bush, so you would be against anything good happening!” You fail to be able to recognize that one can be critical of Bush for specific and good reasons, which puts lie to your claims to be able to be critical of Bush yourself.
Really? How much protesting have you heard about the war in Afghanistan? People are upset about the war in Iraq. People understand the difference between a war being fought for good reasons and one being fought for questionable reasons.
Do you know anything about what happened? The entire idea that Saddam could have been taken was based on what one guy said. He was a shifty character in Africa who contacted the US government and said he’d deliver bin Laden if we paid him several million dollars upfront. American intelligence looked him over and said he was a crook running a scam who had no contacts with bin Laden or the Sudanese government. The only reason people are still talking about him is because it benefits some people to claim that Clinton passed up a chance to capture bin Laden.
You said we went into Afghanistan to go after Bin Laden. That wasn’t true, though we used that as ONE of the justifications for the invasion. However, when we attacked Afghanistan we did so to eliminate the Taliban, to disrupt AQ operating in Afghanistan and perhaps to capture or kill high AQ operatives…including Bin Laden. Yes, I thought this was significantly different than what you said.
I’m no expert, nor do I claim to be…but I can look on a map. Check out where Kandahar is…then look up where Tora Bora is. Then look on a topographical map and observe the difference in terrain. Ask yourself if 2000 marines, unfamiliar with the terrain and operating alone without heavy support (unless you were going to bring in such things as tanks, artillary, etc) and at the end of a pretty long logistics line (or were you going to build a series of fortified bases up to Tora Bora to protect the convoys?) would fare. How would you get the wounded out…and how good were the military hospital facilities in ‘Camp Justice’ to handling large numbers of casualties?
It doesn’t take a military genuis to see that using local troop would be in order (they know the terrain, supply and support themselves, and all they need was some forward observers to direct in the air strikes…the one thing they DIDN’T have)…unless you wanted to delay while you flew in a hell of a lot more troops, tanks, supplies, etc. Which leads to the question…from where and how long would THAT take? You don’t just send out 2000 marines into the wilderness without something to back them up if thing go south…least the US military doesn’t do that (except occationally when we get caught with our pants down like in Somolia).
Easy…because its not just a matter of putting warm bodies on the ground. Even so I doubt we could have put many more light troops in the area. Remember that even our largest transports only take a few hundred troops (along with a basic load of equipment) max…and they are dog slow. And we don’t exactly have thousands of thousands of them sitting around doing nothing. Also, they have to land serially (I assume there was a single landing strip at this camp), offload and perhaps refuel. That all takes time. And after all that, what do you have? Lets say you COULD have gotten 4000 troops into this base by Dec. 5th. So what? Do you have all the other stuff they need to support them marching (oh, did you want trucks and mech. vehicles to move them?) from Kandahar up to Tora Bora? Do you have the facilities to treat the wounded (it was some pretty grim fighting up there IIRC)? You certainly have air support…but what about if they run into tanks or other mech forces (IIRC the Taliban had some older T-55s, T-62’s and even a few T-72’s…shit tanks, but if they got them and you don’t it kind of sucks).
And my point is that France has less ability than the US to move large forces outside their borders. Having them and the other allies on our side is great…but how do they GET their troops and tanks to the battle area? How do they support them once they are there?
[QUOT=Hentor the Barbarian]If it is true that we could not have trusted the militia to not attack us, why the hell did we trust them with the effort to carry out our main objective?
[/QUOTE]
Easy…it was THEIR show. We were bit players, merely supporting them in the field as THEY did the bulk of the fighting. Our support however was invaluable to them (intelligence, recon especially satelite, and air support)…so it was a mutually productive alliance of convinence. However I’m not sure how they would have reacted if we’d have launched a massive invasion. A few divisions and some Special Forces teams wouldn’t be threatening (and also would show that we were supporting THEM…instead of trying to take over the show). Heavy formations with tanks and artillary, large concentrations of troops…well, perhaps the Northern Alliance folks would have been ok with that. I doubt if many of the splinter troops would have been too keen. And the Taliban/AQ might have been able to use that to their advantage. As we’ve seen in Iraq, a few pissed off tribesmen can ruin your whole day, and the Afghani hillman is orders of magnitude nastier than anything in Iraq. Ask the Brits or the Soviets…or Alexander the Great (well, you could channel him presumably).
Well, its hard to take you seriously when you spew this kind of shit in nearly every thread you and I butt heads in. My question would be…if I’m such a ‘dyed in the wool Bush supporter’, why bother even answering my posts? Put me on ignore and be done with it.
I will say that, though I think you are a partisan hack I still usually take your posts seriously.
I don’t think so. YMMV but I think that most folks in this thread (not all…I don’t put Little Nemo in this category for instance) are mainly anti-war reguardless of circumstance and are using this simply as another bat to beat GW up on.
Uhuh. I know you have some kind of reading disability where it comes to my posts, but I’m against Bush on nearly everything he’s done. So…since I know this is true it would be kind of silly for me to say this. If you want to be critical about Bush in Afghanistan, fine by me. Start with what we did AFTER the Taliban completely fell, how we pretty much ignored the country in our ramp up to attacking Iraq. How we’ve failed to support Afghanistan properly since then, how its become a very secondary theater as we focus completely on Iraq. There is LOTS of stuff to bash Bush on…I just don’t think this is one of them, not by any reasonable measure of what the US can and can’t do militarily. And certainly not when weighing the costs of men and material to essentially hunt down and kill ONE frigging terrorist, no matter how key he is preceived to be.
If that makes me a ‘dyed in the wool Bush’ fanatic, so be it. If anyone disagree’s with you this is becoming your fall back position in any case. You must be taking lessons from rjung.
I see a lot of your opinion that we couldn’t have gotten more troops in there, xtisme, but no support. Do you have anything at all that suggests we couldn’t have done it, or does it come down to “How you gonna get tanks in there?”
I have not ever seen one report from any knowledgable source, including Tommy Franks, that supports the assertion that we could not have done the job if we had tried. Do you have anything at all xtisme, or are we to rely on your time playing Axis and Allies?
Listen carefully to time number 2: The point of noting France’s support is that we, the US, had enough political support to commit ourselves fully to doing the job we set out to do. Think hard - not France, but us, the US, could have given all the necessary resources to do the job. Unless, of course, we were holding some back for Iraq?
Uh, Bin Laden attacked us, not the Northern Alliance. It was our “show,” until we pulled up lame on opening night and the understudy militia had to step in.
Sorry to nitpick, but why do you constantly spell the word “regardless” as “reguardless”?
As for your beliefs about the motivations of others - how is it that you divine that some, such as yourself, are capable of reasoned criticisms of Bush, whereas others must be hell-bent Bush bashers incapable of rational thought on the topic. Are you such a paragon of integrity and intelligence?
Why start after the Taliban fell? Why give Bush some sort of pass in terms of the execution of the invasion of Iraq and the primary mission of getting our number one enemy? The only reason I can see for such a pass is some predisposition to support Bush. Surely a critic with a modicum of integrity could examine the entire operation?
[QUOTE=xtisme]
I’m no expert, nor do I claim to be…[.QUOTE]
That’s right you’re not. So why should I for one, take your strategy over mine? I would have known what to do, and I would have had at least SOME chance at success.
2000 Marines, Oh please. Entire divisions, Whole armies. I took my plan right from commanders such as Sherman and Patton and Attila. Brute power (shock and awe, used properly), moving fast, never stopping to hold or build anything. Total war. Scorched earth. No rest for the enemy. Attack attack attack. Not sending enough fighters shows me a distinct lack of the will to win. Play for keeps or not at all.
It would take as long as it takes. I already said that but you ignore it. You keep going forward. You never back off. You never stop. As there is fighting, you constantly bring in more and more and more. 2000 men is laughable. You throw everything at them. No half measures.
Yes we did have people sitting around doing nothing, but you chose to ignore that cite of mine. We also left before the job was done.
LAW rockets. A10 gound support planes. Mines. Besides, their tanks would be useless in this terrain you want to keep talking about. The Russians learned that the hard way. Catch them in a pass or valley (another comment of mine that you ignored), close off the escapes, and then incinerate them.
Do I sound anti-war? I am against phony war for no reason, against “limited” war that you are not allowed to win by your own leaders, and finally against war against some weak schmuck (Sadaam) who was miles and miles away, was no threat, and was a disastrous distraction. Lousy tactics, even lousier strategy.
And for what. Nothing was accomplished. Terror was not defeated, if anything we fuel it and help it to spread.
War means killing your enemy and destroying his land. You don’t stop until he is dead. It is not some “policy” from Wolfowitz’s “term paper”. It is not a paragraph from the Neocon “charter”. It is not a tool to boost poll ratings. It is not about “maintaining a presence” or creating a “hegemony” or “sphere of influence”. It is about killing and destroying. It damn sure is not a game.
Now I have questions. Instead of you asking questions and requesting more and more cites, what would YOU do? How would you have done it? What would YOU do now? What are your reasons and what would the expected results be? Would you be willing to accept war for what it is, and be willing to go all the way?
My way is honest at least. You make sure of your enemy. You set your heart on it, and make sure you are right. Then you obliterate him.
Nope, just my opinion (of course, I formed said opinion based on a study I read a few years ago and simply can’t find now). If pointing to logic such as where would the big stuff come from (Saudi most likely, perhaps some from Europe) and then pointing out that, you know, there is no way to get from Saudi to Afghanistan except via air isn’t enough, if looking at our last two major campaigns (i.e. Iraq I and II) and how we went about building up troop strength and supplies isn’t enough to convince you then it won’t. If only a cite by some ‘expert’ will convince you then I lose…I simply haven’t got the time or energy to sift through mountains of links in google to find what I’m looking for to ‘prove’ my case. And frankly it wouldn’t do any good anyway…you would still remain unconvinced.
I’d have to see what General Franks was talking about. I never said flat out we couldn’t do it…we COULD send men to Mars, we COULD build a sky scraper several miles high, we COULD do a lot of things. SHOULD we do them, is the cost worth it, can we do it in a specific time frame…those are the questions I’m asking. Maybe I’m simply wrong and General Franks specifically said we could put sufficient ground force into Afghanistan in the time period to make a difference in getting Bin Laden. It wouldn’t be the first time I was wrong after all.
We probably WERE holding some back for Iraq…not forces mind you (we probably were doing that too) but transport. ‘Regardless’, whether we had France’s support or not doesn’t really effect the logistics equation. Of course, since you don’t really believe me that putting major ground forces into Afghanistan AND supporting them in the field would have been extremely difficult (and not worth it), then its kind of a moot point. Certainly if we could lift all our forces into Afghanistan we could move France’s in too.
This is too complex to even dip a toe into. I’ll just say that the Northern Alliance had been fighting a civil war with the Taliban for a LONG time. It WAS their show. THe only reason we joined the party was because AQ was operating in Afghanistan. Additionally, we THOUGHT that there were many high level AQ leaders, including Bin Laden, in Afghanistan and hoped to kill or capture them. But saying it was our show and the NA were just along for the ride shows the kind of arrogance that got lots of Soviet lads put in pine boxes.
Because I can’t spell?
General experience on this board. I’m certainly no ‘paragon of integrity and intelligence’, nor do I claim to be. I’m just this guy, see? But I’ve been around enough to know which posters are rabid anti-Bush and knee jerk on anything the man does, and which are simply critical. One indication I use is when a poster repeatedly calls me something to the effect of ‘dyed in the wool Bush supporter’…thats usually a good telltale.
Because I think they did it right up to that point. Oh, I’m not sure if they MEANT to do it right…I’m half convinced they were already eyeing Iraq and the reason they did what they did was because they wanted to be in position to jump down Saddams throat. However, blind nuts and squirels and all that…they got this part right.
It will sound cold perhaps but I’d much rather have Afghani’s fighting and dieing in their own civil war than to have thousands of American boys and girls do it…and do it when there was no need, to simply get one guy. In addition, we DID hurt AQ…badly. We DID cap a number of the big boys. We didn’t get ObL but I really don’t care that much about that…I think he’s a front man, not the real brains behind the outfit. Even if he WAS the brains I wouldn’t be prepared to risk thousands of American lives in the meat grinder that I thought (and still think) Afghanistan was. YMMV and all that…but really I don’t think it would had we actually attempted a full scale invasion and a full scale assault on Tora Bora. In order to REALLY effectively cut off retreat for Bin Laden we’d have had to put a VERY large force in the region (and probably had to violate Pakastan territory to boot)…and you can bet that we’d have been hurt in there. Badly.
Am I being deliberately ignored here? What would you have done Xtisme? What is/was your battle plan? You want to critique and invent excuses, but you still have not said anything at all worth hearing. Not one thing. Stop all the “what ifs” and “what abouts” and tell us what you would have done. Otherwise, just stop. At any rate, here is the War Prayer. It describes war as it really is, minus the flag waving and the glory and the speeches. In short, war as it is, stripped of all the bullshit, in its purest and most honest form. It is war as I would fight it, if war was indeed necessary. No quarter, no mercy, no remorse. Anything less is bullshit. It shows my evil side I guess, but I at least acknowledge I have one. I even accept it for what it is.
"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle – be Thou near them! With them – in spirit – we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it – for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
I’d like to apologize for my part in the nastiness above. Looks like I started it too. After re-reading the whole thing (except for all the linked cites, sorry Steve) it doesn’t look like I need to explain the OP. Looks like most everyone gets it.
I think I got a little outraged when SteveG1 oppined on “could” and “should” but then went on to offer up the Osama-as-Boogieman reason why we “didn’t” and put forth starting wars and curtailing rights as Bush’s motive. Then he stated that everything would be over “had we gotten Osama and the Taliban”. That all was just a little too much right off the bat.
So then I got patronizing in **responding to someone else’s comparison ** of Clinton and Bush in the Get Osama effort. Incidently here is a link to the story I had in mind that I already admitted has been “debunked” to the extent that we all agree that Clinton and the 9-11 Commission are the definitive word on the matter:
Then some implications were made (is that the right way to put it) that were incorrect and the rest is history.
For the record:
I don’t know if we could have and neither does anybody else.
I think we should have as long as it didn’t cost too many US soldier’s lives and we couldn’t have marginalized him in other ways at less cost.
I still wonder what would happen if we had gotten him … would all the rest of the bad guys have given up? Is he still effectively contributing to the terrorist effort?
I do believe that … “the people who say we blew it by not getting him would be the first to say that we lost too many soldiers, killed too many innocents and destabilized things in Pakistan too much even if we did get him. Especially if he was incinerated at the bottom of a cave in Tora Bora.”
I should have been more clear that by “people” I had Democrat politicians in mind not every single person on the other side of this issue.
I thought I’d already layed out my ‘battle plan’. I thought what Bush et al did was pretty much spot on. Use local forces supported by our Special forces guys and air support. Hammer the AQ and the Taliban from the air, provide close in support using imbedded laison troops and let the Northern Alliance do the heavy lifting on the ground.
If you don’t agree, thats fine. If its not worth listening too, then don’t listen Steve. If my posts are meaningless then put me on ignore or just skip them. Why ask me to elaborate though if you feel that way?
As for the flag waving bit, I’d say YOUR (and those who support your view) are the flag wavers here. You are essentially saying that only if the US plays the central role can anything worth while be accomplished. That the Northern Alliance were simply flunkies and we needed to get in there in a big way to hep em out. White mans (or maybe American Citizens) burden and all that. If anything MY battle plan (and what Bush actually did initially) is just the opposite of flag waving as the US took a lesser role. Now, I’m not sure Bush did this for the same reasons I would have…in fact, I’m fairly sure he DIDN’T. But IMHO he took a blindfolded swing at the pinata and got lucky.
On the assumption this was directed at me I’ll simply point out that I’m an agnostic bordering on complete athiest.
How one can feel that a plan was “spot on” when it failed to get the mission accomplished is beyond me.
Apart from that, the role of the Northern Alliance should always have been regarded as suspect because a) they were an alliance of militias who were generally poorly equipped and trained; b) it was not their fight; and c) their allegiances very likely could be bought by anyone.
I think that you need to check the definition of “white man’s burden” before you go using it further.
And SteveG1, your mike is on - I have appreciated greatly your contributions, and find your description of the course of action required much more compelling than the “Hmmm… I like what you’ve done here” analysis.
Its beyond you because you still don’t realize that the mission wasn’t to get Bin Laden…it was to take out the Taliban and to destroy the training bases AQ had in Afghanistan. Both of those missions were fairly successful.
A) So?
B) Huh?
C) Sure Hentor.
Perhaps we should have simply ignored them and simply bulled our way into Afghanistan with main strength and awkwardness? Or maybe we should have attacked the Taliban AND the NA…while they fought each other? Which would have been your strategy?
Er…ok. From Wiki:
Seems fairly close to what I was getting at. 'Course, I was using it loosely…Kipling was talking about our Euro pals, not the US. Still, I think, allowing for a bit of license and a hefty portion of tongue in cheek its close enough for government work. Whats in YOUR wallet?
In the final analysis, the tactics used failed to accomplish all the stated goals. They worked, so far as toppling the Taliban - that’s a good thing, they needed to go. They hit the Al Queda training camps hard. That’s good. But, they (tactics) allowed the big leaders, or just enough of them, to escape. That’s bad. They allowed to Taliban and Al Queda to retreat into the hills and hide and rebuild. You never ever let your enemy rebuild. You knock him down and then start kicking. I don’t see the remaining Taliban giving up ever, I see them switching to guerilla tactics to topple the new government and take over, if they can. They have the skills and experience for that kind of fighting. Now, the Al Queda is still in Afghanistan Pakistan, and Iraq. The Taliban still exists. If the goal was to wipe them out, it was a failure. It’s a given that they will never surrender. The only choice left is to annihilate them. Bin Laden is a symbol, a rallying point, and a money man. He may even be the leader/brains behind it, as he represents himself to be. Kill the symbol, cut off at least some of the money. What’s more, I have a personal “thing” for him, just as he seems to have “a thing” for us.
