Sooooo…you’re saying that a guy like me that served five years in the Army and spent time in the ME during the first gulf war, a guy like me who has cousins that either have or are currently in Iraq or Afghanistan, a guy like me with a Dad and two uncles that all graduated from West Point and served twice in Vietnam, all retiring at the rank of colonel or higher…wouldn’t have a little more insight into how the military operates than the average joe?
Interesting and duly noted.
I read the poll. interesting but not convincing - particularly as your summary is entirely negative. It doesn’t take a large percentage of ‘strongly opposed’ to disrupt anything. Have you been keeping track of the assassinations of female MP’s, teachers and police?
And I stand by my shit-hole statement because it is true. It is a shit-hole full of barbarians and we have no prospect of fixing it into a democracy that no -one wants. The power is in the hands of warlords and gangsters and at best (as now) they go along with a democratic facade (which we have conspired with them in pretending).
There’s no constituency for a democracy, there is no power base for it. Just shifting alliances of murderous, drug-dealing corrupt warlords who will, as they have always done - change sides whenever it suits them.
I no longer see any reason for our soldiers to shed blood for them. We’ve spent untold billions building up their chocolate soldier army and institutionally corrupt police force. Let them bleed instead.
No, I’m saying that your cherished military family traditions aren’t a sufficient basis for claiming your opinion has any validity, just as my family history is no basis for the validity of mine. Or a basis for claiming the opposite side of the debate (including the assertion that indiscriminate killing is a fundamental feature of the current wars in the Middle East) are less valid.
As has also been noted there are soldiers who have been through the exact same thing you have and have come to the exact opposite conclusions regarding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As have soldiers who enlisted and served in Vietnam alongside your father and uncles. So it would seem to me that while you might have more of an insight into the daily functioning of the military than someone like me who’s never even considered enlisting, that insight does not in and of itself give your opinion on the current wars any added weight of truth, or remove such from mine.
I disagree. The Afghan was was practically ignored while Bush went after Iraq. We had it pretty well started ,but ran off for an Iraqi sport war.
Interesting philosophy we have. Blow the crap out of ancient, beautiful cities, kill many thousands of people, and they will love us and work with us. They will live without water, electricity and medical care. Somehow they will love us. The only ones who do, are being paid well. When they take over ,they will turn on us and they should. I suppose if your family members got killed in a war of your enemies choosing, you could take solace that it was only Collateral damage.
What it looks like from here is that no meaningful military force can be applied in Afghanistan unless we do it the old school way. The really old school way, where our soldier actually gets within rifle range of theirs, and shoots him. We would much prefer not to, we would much prefer to use our advantages in airpower and firepower to make him absorb shrapnel, but it isn’t going to work here. Afghanistan is perfectly suited to frustrate that approach, even if the Taliban had tanks, they wouldn’t use them in an environment that is as much vertical as horizontal.
Such an approach would certainly reduce inadvertent civilian casualties. But the manpower needs are absurd, we would have seize, hold *and garrison *every mountaintop in a nation made up of mountaintops. And, of course, the levels of stress would be astronomical. One wretched lesson learned from Viet Nam: when you can’t tell the enemy from the civilians, you survival depends on assuming that every one you see may be the enemy. From there, its a very small step to assuming that every one you see is the enemy. Paranoia becomes a survival skill. But where is the switch in the human brain to turn it off when its no longer useful?
These are the conditions that turn the best and brightest into civilian hating occupiers. And ours are the best and brightest, I’ve no doubt. But they remain human, and these are conditions that bring out the worst in us, and stifle the best. There are men who can face such conditions with their humanity intact. They are rare, and I am not among them. Where do you go to recruit saints to kill?
It won’t work. It simply won’t work. However noble our motives, the ugly facts are immune to nobility. The only question becomes how many young lives we feed into the grinder before we admit it.
I don’t think many soldiers returning from any current conflict will disagree with the position I stated before about these conflicts you’ve mentioned. I stated that Vietnam was an unecessary war, and so was Iraq. The Afghanistan war is a justifiable war.
No war is inherently good by nature and our citizen soldiers are reluctant to fight, but go they will when ordered.
If you’re claiming that soldiers you have known are expressing an opinion differing from mine on the rules of engagement and/or how operations are conducted wrt collateral damage, fire away.
It’s a hijack of the thread anyway, but it has proven quite interesting.
http://ivaw.org/ This organization of Iraq War vets ,is very much against the war and the horrible things they had to do.
I read that a lot of soldiers are refusing Afghannie re-deployment. We are using them over and over. Considering the suicide rate is terrible, we can not pretend to speak for them. But, you put a bunch of soldiers together in combat, they would have to justify their actions. They also wind up fighting for each other.
Part of the problem is that the Army is stupid. They have 18 month long deployments. The Marines do 12 months. From speaking to Marines that I know, they also get more time at home in between tours to hang with their families and regroup.
I’m not sure why that is, since the Army is much bigger than the Marine Corps.
Also, the Iraq war is not the same as the Afghanistan war gonzomax, and I have already stated that I think the Iraq war was a horribly misguided waste of resources and lives, which in my opinion is in stark contrast to the Afghanistan war. We may not be able to ultimately achieve all our goals in Afghanistan, but we at least have a valid reason for being there, as opposed to the Iraq war.
IVAW isn’t just for Iraq vets, it’s for Afghan vets as well. There are soldiers who argue the US has no valid reason to be in Afghanistan, either.
Hey, that’s great. Seriously. Everyone has a right to their views. I’m a vet of Iraq (well, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War if you want to get technical) and I am against the Iraq war, even if I was for it initially because I believed what the government was selling in 2004-05.
I’d be willing to bet that the number of vets from both theatres that are opposed to the Iraq war is far greater than that opposed to the war in Afghanistan.
And therefore what? I’m inclined to give greater weight to the men and women who saw action in Afghanistan and are opposed to the war than those who haven’t been but support it. Is there any valid reason I shouldn’t?
With caution. Direct experience is instructive, but limited. The guy who stormed Normandy Beach had not the slightest clue who Churchill and FDR had sold down the river for the sake of their alliance with Stalin, nor likely would have cared if he had. Guys who were in Viet Nam play the same trump card to support thier contrasting views. You don’t have to get cancer to be an oncologist, it probably doesn’t even help.
Yes, but people presume to speak for all the soldiers. That I disagree with.
Perhaps we had a reason after 911. Not now. It was 8 years ago.
From the CIA data book
45 % of Afghan population is from 1-14 yrs old
the median age is 17.5
They are easy to convince that the evil empire(USA) is after them. we are thousands of miles from home blowing the shit out of people who have nothing to do with us.
Not pointing fingers at any particular country, but do you believe The World should have done more to help Afghanistan after the Soviets left the country?
Also, do you see a connection between the withdrawal of the Soviets and the rise of the Taliban? Do you believe the argument that Taliban control of Afghanistan was an important factor in Al Qaeda planning the 9-11 attacks?
As you should, but isn’t that also a little bit of confirmation bias on your part since you are getting your own beliefs validated? I wasn’t ever there. I only know one person that was. He said it was hell, and that he hated it, but that he’d go again if asked because he believed in what they were doing.
I would like to see more than the words of a war protest group that happens to have a membership consisting of veterans. I respect them and believe their sincerity, but how many members do they have? And what’s the number of soldiers that are serving in Afghanistan or haved served there that support the operation?
I cannot speak for all the soldiers. If you have a problem with it, the people that truly “speak for them all” currently reside in Congress and the White House are the ones that get to decide their fates.
Forgetting our war lovers on the board, I do agree that it is our elected officials keep wars going, endlessly and stupidly. We keep fighting and losing to countries that are utterly devoid of an airforce or a navy. We have all the advantages and can finish nothing. The lesson is that people fight desperately to defend their homeland. Afghanistan is about the size of Texas. It has 34 million people. What will this victory look like? It is not rich in bomb targets. It is very difficult terrain. It would require an enormous force to win. Lets take our fighters home now.
No, because I’m not completely ignoring those soldiers who support the war and the reasons they give for their support. Soldiers and civilians who support the war can’t be dismissed simply because they disagree (such an approach deserves the ‘confirmation bias’ label); their arguments need to be addressed and countered.
As I think I’ve said before in this thread (and if not, I’m saying it now) I don’t oppose the war in Afghanistan solely because of the indiscriminate killing of civilians; the genuine objectives of the US - unquestioned dominance in the Middle East and Central Asia - are imperialist and anti-democratic in nature. This is the basis for my opposition and the opinions of those soldiers who’ve been there and have seen the reality behind the headlines help to strengthen it.
Can we equally forget the war clueless? Disregarding them because, well, they are clueless, I’d have to say that, yeah…elected officials do stuff like this. Being elected, and all, they sort of do what the electorate tells them. Afaik, there is no great hue and cry to have us run from Afghanistan, so I’d be curious as to why someone would think the pols would do differently, but considering the person making the statement, I’m militantly unsurprised.
I’d point out that there is a big difference between political will and military capability, but my guess is the distinction would fly right over your, um, head.
So…Afghanistan is the size of Texas, has only 34 million people, and is ‘not rich in bomb targets’ (whatever that is supposed to mean), full of difficult terrain. Got all of that. It’s even quasi-correct, as far as it goes (amazing, considering you posted this).
Why would it take an ‘enormous force to win’, exactly? Leaving aside what winning actually means, why would it take substantially more force than we (and NATO) already has there? Myself, I’d say it will take more TIME…not more force. But, being the noted military expert you are, perhaps you could go into some details why it would take an ‘enormous’ force…and, what exactly an ‘enormous’ force entails.
-XT