RE: http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,161263,00.html

Go back 20 years...We were jubilant at the crisis that confronted the Soviets in Afghanistan. The Soviets withdrew one year later. Now we find ourselves in a similar crisis. I hope that we will come to the same course of action next year as the Russians did in 1989; and may it precipate an end to the current foreign policy of global war against Islam.

The Russian withdrawal is what led to the rise of the Taliban in the first place.

An odd analysis. Staying until Afghanistan is secured. with or without Iraq you're talking a long long deployment. Decades. The Russians kept about 100,000 troops there and only succeeded in losing 15000 dead and 500,000 sick or wounded. Afghanistan is similar to the American 'wild west' btween 1860 and 1900. Only economic development giving rise to improved infrastructure and improved communication will ultimately reign in the lawless areas whether we have 50,000 or 500,000 troops on the ground.

cure this problem with nukes

quote:

Originally posted by AGBrina:
RE: http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,161263,00.html

Go back 20 years...We were jubilant at the crisis that confronted the Soviets in Afghanistan. The Soviets withdrew one year later. Now we find ourselves in a similar crisis. I hope that we will come to the same course of action next year as the Russians did in 1989; and may it precipate an end to the current foreign policy of global war against Islam.

I think you should read Field Manuel 3-24 "Counter Insurgency". Just a thought.

Whose side are the guys that write this on? What is the purpose of this? Is it to undermine the morale of our armed forces. Is it to influence public opinion and lower the CINC public approval? This is just like the media talking us into recession. We would be better served if they would focus on the positive things that are happening vs the continuous gloom and doom. Get a grip.

quote:

Originally posted by Shankmove:

quote:

Originally posted by AGBrina:
RE: http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,161263,00.html

Go back 20 years...We were jubilant at the crisis that confronted the Soviets in Afghanistan. The Soviets withdrew one year later. Now we find ourselves in a similar crisis. I hope that we will come to the same course of action next year as the Russians did in 1989; and may it precipate an end to the current foreign policy of global war against Islam.

I think you should read Field Manuel 3-24 "Counter Insurgency". Just a thought.

WOW!!!

FM 3-24 is only good if you have
1. The troops to back it
2. The reconstruction teams to back it
3. A collective workable plan with all the various militaries and civilian organisations working as one. (Centralisation)
4. All this working in sync.
5. Anything I left out..

At present your have none of this..

Not being capable of diplomacy or rational thought (our politicians)in the current situation probably has as much to do with this problem than anything else. When ya slip and drop the ball, someone else usually grabs it and uses it against ya while ya pick splinters outta yer arse. Iraq has got to be the worst boondoggle made by us in a hundred years or more. We are fighting our war in the wrong place. Sadam certainly wasnt an angel by any stretch, but we put him in power and propped him up and because of "unknown" reasons we pulled him down. One thing we are pretty certain of: A-Q was NOT welcome in Iraq and we gave them a pretty good butt kicking in Afghanistan. Maybe our priorities should center on what is good for America instead of what is good for politicians and the people who are getting the profits of this endeavor. Its amazing what greed and propaganda can do for people who only want power.

Money buys power and kills freedom for the rest.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: AFRet91,

Shankmove:
I have kept my military manuals in a special place in my library at home; and bring them out to demonstrate or to prove a point during the rare occasions when someone is interested -or polite enough to appear interested- in learning what was once standard procedures. Included among them is the Special Forces manual called "Counter-Insurgency Warfare".

I have not read the current manual; but I am quite sure that the Marine and Army officers, charged with "re-inventing the wheel", probably came up with something very similar to the original. It is tragic that no one , it seems, from the Commander In Chief down to the company commanders bothered to refresh themselves with the contents of the original manual prior to entering Afghanistan or Iraq.

The Special Forces, who were sent into Afghanistan in 2001, were employing a strategy and using tactics more like those of the OSS in World War II. They treated the Northern Alliance as if they were partisans rather than guerillas. Our leaders took the "quick and dirty" approach on the assumption that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", which of course is rarely true.

I see that you have chosen to hide your personal profile from public view. If you had taken the time to check mine, you might have chosen a different way to disparage my point of view.

quote:

Originally posted by TDR_AUST:
WOW!!!

FM 3-24 is only good if you have
1. The troops to back it
2. The reconstruction teams to back it
3. A collective workable plan with all the various militaries and civilian organisations working as one. (Centralisation)
4. All this working in sync.
5. Anything I left out..

At present your have none of this..

It's likely I would have "gone a different way" in the handling of current ops. That's probably true of us all. However, I'm not in that CP, I don't have their intel, and I'm not in their position or making their decisions, therefore, my opinion on their decisions is insignificant. I just try not to cast aspersions.

As for my suggestion on the manual, it was a friendly one, not criticism. If it was meant in an unfriendly way, it would have had a very different tone. And, if AGBrina took it as criticism, I appologize.

I gathered you comment re FM 3-24 was not serious. If it had been I would have shot harder.

As for the CP, fundamentally it does not matter which AO you are in over there, (assuming you are there at all), COIN was a shot ideology from the start as it did not even get off the ground. Both AOs started with poor logic and it took too long to even sort out how to do something constructive. Ok some local regions used commonsense and things worked. BUT that was limited and also for a limited time before the conventional battle thinkers arrived.

Hindsight is always 20/20.

AGBrina, mind if I catch up with you via email ...

All is lost,Retreat back to Berkeley.(Where's the story on that?)It's all you know who's fault! Ya think it's bad now.There is a big change commin and we haven't seen the worst of it.By..By.. miss American pie.....

The enemies of the United States have shifted strategy, and the leadership of American is not able to react.

In the late 1990s al Qaeda was well established in Afghanistan with the compliance of the Taliban, who ruled the country at that time. From there bin Laden and members of al Qaeda planned and trained for attacks on American including what happened on 9/11.

The American invasion of Afghanistan forced the Taliban from power and drove al Qaeda from the country, mostly fleeing to Pakistan.

In Pakistan, al Qaeda and the Taliban regrouped. They figured out that there are certain parts of Pakistan where tribes were sympathetic to their radical Muslim views. They found safe haven in north-west Pakistan where the Pakistani government had little control and could not touch them.

Being opportunistic, al Qaeda has shifted the center of the war on terror from Iraq where they cannot win, to Pakistan where the prize of a destabilized government is them getting nuclear weapons.

Because of the fragile political situations of the Presidents Bush and Musharraf, they are cornered into doing very little to meet the threat that is growing in north-western Pakistan.

Both governments have been out maneuvered by their main enemy al Qaeda. And after years of spending billions of dollars and thousands of lives both Pakistan and the United States are under threat of attack by a group of militants that live in caves and remote villages.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/world/asia/27pakistan...h&emc=th&oref=slogin

The plan coming out of the White House now – hope that Musharraf can hold on until Bush is out of office.

quote:

I see that you have chosen to hide your personal profile from public view. If you had taken the time to check mine, you might have chosen a different way to disparage my point of view.

Ok How about this: How does a guy with ALL those qualifications totally drop the bal in the most self serving and moronic manner by mis labeling the war on terrorism a war on Islam in the face of all the evidence?
We've liberated..yeah Jack, LIBERATED, two Islamic countries from oppression and safeguarded another. We bend over backwards to accommodate Muslims at home. Jesus H! WE. WE! restored one of the most sacred Shiite rituals, the annual pilgrimige to Karbala.
'The h*** is wrong with you? Getting your half-baked notions from the "Nation of Islam" or something?

why leave when we have done so much good there and there is more to do.... see agbrina you are believing the enemy propaganda and thats just not a good thing.,... first step is to admit that you are believing what the enemy wants you to believe... when you get to that step ill tell you want more to do....

quote:

Originally posted by Cleatus45:
cure this problem with nukes

that might happen./.. lets see how the Marines do ... but way up in them mountains it is really really really really really hard... i am just not going to say impossible but like what i did say...

A well schooled idiot is still an idiot.

call it cut and run, I don't think so. but get out, let them fight it out, and give warning, if any attacks on the US the country harboring the attackers will be wiped off the face of the earth, man woman and child.give the country warning to get there woman and children out and let loose a bombing that will make the gulf war look like fire crackers.until we have the balls to do that we will never never gain one grain of sand there.
some may say a barbaric way to do it, but it's all they understand, bout time we operated on there level.

How secure are Paki nukes???
Remember that the Pakis' nuke man has helped others.