The Great Game, another loss

[Fragony]

..............................................

So, all America has to do, is keep up the billions we are bleeding out every month, until we "shoot every last bad guy."

That's fine talk, from someone whose great-grandkids aren't going to be paying the bill.

You really believe this is a sensible response to terrorism? That we have achieved optimal results for the investment put in?

Not just america, also england, australia, poland, norway, germany, france, holland, belgium, canada england, denmark, not all shooting but all helping neverthless.

Great investment, no dead beard is likely to become alive again, saves us 30 tennis tables and community centres here.

[Koga No Goshi]

Not just america, also england, australia, poland, norway, germany, france, holland, belgium, canada england, denmark, not all shooting but all helping neverthless.

Great investment, no dead beard is likely to become alive again, saves us 30 tennis tables and community centres here.

I'm just glad you're nowhere near a meeting of the Joint Chiefs or a budget meeting. :)

[Brenus]

“Oh common the same guys that are crying foul now are the same ones crying foul when supposedly a genocide was being conducted in our own backyard.”
Well, aren’t they the same crying about Russian Intervention against Georgia?
I agree. I do remember all the reports and news about the Talibans, public hanging, widow dying of starvation because no right to work, no doctors for women for the same reason and the fact tat a man can’t touch a woman, a country back to the stone age, no music, nothing just a plain theocratic dictatorship. The intellectuals making noises for supporting Massoud and its Northern Alliance… Hey guys it is done… The “right of intervention” at work…
I supported the Russian intervention against the apprentice genocider, I support the US intervention in Afghanistan. I wish we would have done that in Former Yugoslavia at the start, when the Croats started to hunt the Serbs in Vukovar…
Can we expect better for Afghanistan. Yes. It was better, not perfect, under the king. I have not a great admiration of kings in general, but it did work, even under the communist rule…

“You mean that reality where Afghanistan was never planned properly and never conducted properly? Where the thing has been such a cock up that it is likely to re-create the conditions which leade to 9/11?”
Probably not well planned, I think. Who would have planned to invade Afghanistan before? So, it leads to improvisation meaning alliances with the Northern Alliances, and few war lords, and the disaster of Bora Bora. And of course no planning for development and democratisation, civil society and Post War Psycho-Social Progrmme, demining etc...
To invade a country is not so much a problem, to keep is. In fact to make it safe is.
Yes, the US founded and trained the guys who killed them. Yes, the US Foreign Policy was so blind by the “Communist” menace they didn’t see the other one coming. They forget that the best enemy of communism s fascism and Nazism because they hunt on the same grounds
But no, the Taliban have no chance to win without the support of a big power… Like the one they had against USSR. And apparently Putine and co thing a little bit clearer than the Reagan Administration…

[Fragony]

Well, aren’t they the same crying about Russian Intervention against Georgia?

Nope they have succesfully mentally blocked that, they are currently undecided nobody has told them what to think.

[Incongruous]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...r-Taliban.html

Mmmhmm, the smell of history about to repeat itself, Taliban no.2 here we come!

Brenus what are you talking about?
I'm sorry but are you in support of the "intervention"? Or are you pointing out that it has been a cockup?
Again stop going on about the women for God's sake they still do not have it better, in fact most of them have it worse off.

[Kralizec]

Again stop going on about the women for God's sake they still do not have it better, in fact most of them have it worse off.

Care to support that?

Afghanistan was practicly a collection of stone age tribes in 2001. The only reason that some people (and women in particular) are arguably worse off is because the Taliban targets people wich are perceived to be pro-Kabul and have started getting illusions about being free to walk umolested in public, etc. The Taliban's reign was the proverbial bad peace that's worse than war.

I've not given up mentally on Afghanistan myself by the way, but a lot will depend on what happens in Pakistan.

[Brenus]

“Or are you pointing out that it has been a cockup?”
Actually, both. I did support and still do understand the US intervention after the mass murder (in police reference) of the Twin Towers and others. I do acknowledge the splendid missing of opportunities done.
Now, what the US should have done? Sheikh Omar refused to give Bin Laden, so let the guy walk around the world, let his supporters teaching the world how the US are weak, even not trying to revenge their dead. What a paper tiger, look how they are. They are scared of the Holly War, let’s do more…

I still think it would have been done differently. No permanent Allies Bases but from out side countries, Long Range Recon Patrol and neutralisation/elimination of all Taliban leaders. Search and kill, and let them organise the country. When he does not behave properly, we drop (heliport) a command, and out of the traffic. Soviet method by the way.
The French did that as will in Vietnam. The commando Van den Berg was attacking only the tax collectors and the payroll officers, and the district administrators. It was hundred times more efficient than the big operations. He was so efficient that he was assassinated by a double agent infiltrated in his commando.
It would probably cost less.

“Again stop going on about the women for God's sake they still do not have it better, in fact most of them have it worse off” Oh, you mean they are more than hanged an stoned to death, or killed because they drive?
Or perhaps they have to wear a double mobile jail (burka)?

One of my sisters worked on the Afghan Refugees Camps in Pakistan. Her translator was judge before the Soviet Occupation. She had pictures of her in mini skirt and driving a car in Kabul. Even under Soviet Intervention, the women were better off.
I hardly imagine what could be worst for a woman than to live under Taliban’s rules.

[Incongruous]

Yes, yes of coarse Brenus, the rampant rape which is now a daily feature of most women's lives really proves that things have improved. Those anti-Taliban warlords sure do keep them safe.

[Incongruous]

Care to support that?

Afghanistan was practicly a collection of stone age tribes in 2001. The only reason that some people (and women in particular) are arguably worse off is because the Taliban targets people wich are perceived to be pro-Kabul and have started getting illusions about being free to walk umolested in public, etc. The Taliban's reign was the proverbial bad peace that's worse than war.

I've not given up mentally on Afghanistan myself by the way, but a lot will depend on what happens in Pakistan.

Well in that case I would give up in every aspect of the matter, Pakistan is down the hole, what with having no money.

[Brenus]

"Yes, yes of coarse Brenus, the rampant rape which is now a daily feature of most women's lives really proves that things have improved. Those anti-Taliban warlords sure do keep them safe": And the Taliban were the best in women's right protection were they? And they never raped women? Or perhaps, because it was always the woman fault, it was not recorder or reported? Ooops...

[Koga No Goshi]

I think we're getting off track here.

The Taliban was really bad. However, drudging it up over and over again to justify how poorly plans have been implemented in Afghanistan is a recipe for nothing.

Afghanistan: Plans need to change or no?

[Brenus]

“I think we're getting off track here.
The Taliban was really bad. However, drudging it up over and over again to justify how poorly plans have been implemented in Afghanistan is a recipe for nothing.
Afghanistan: Plans need to change or no?”

Yes and no. The justification for the anti-war clan is “things are not working”.
So the drugs and all unresolved problems are put as fault on the Allies shoulders as the Taliban period was a peaceful and quite time, deliberately ignoring:
- The constant war again the “Northern Alliance”
- The reign of terror against all minorities (religious and ethnic)
- The reign of terror of a mad Theocratic State
- The training and exportation of this “model” in others states and nations.

It is too late to change plan. Plans have to be fully implemented, knowing it will cost time, money and human lives.

In one hand military operations, full strength.

Other hands, development: Buy all the opium production, destroyed it: First you give to the peasants something to eat and something they can produce, then you cut the war lords from their income AND you spoil the drug traffic…
Building health Rural Centre, and markets, repair roads, give jobs to people. That is NGO and Charities are good at, small economical business project development, USAID and others know how to do it.
Massive reconstruction programme with Post War Rehabilitation Programme: Very Helpful to calm down the Post War Traumatic Disorder. You have a society which lived the last 30 years either in war or in “peace” of terror.

A need of training of the local authorities in respect with Human Right Conventions and standards is obvious. So, need to create schools in Kabul for the future leaders.
We will probably teach some of the future enemies if things go wrong but most of the pupils will be the next politicians and leaders.

[Incongruous]

“I think we're getting off track here.
The Taliban was really bad. However, drudging it up over and over again to justify how poorly plans have been implemented in Afghanistan is a recipe for nothing.
Afghanistan: Plans need to change or no?”

Yes and no. The justification for the anti-war clan is “things are not working”.
So the drugs and all unresolved problems are put as fault on the Allies shoulders as the Taliban period was a peaceful and quite time, deliberately ignoring:
- The constant war again the “Northern Alliance”
- The reign of terror against all minorities (religious and ethnic)
- The reign of terror of a mad Theocratic State
- The training and exportation of this “model” in others states and nations.

It is too late to change plan. Plans have to be fully implemented, knowing it will cost time, money and human lives.

In one hand military operations, full strength.

Other hands, development: Buy all the opium production, destroyed it: First you give to the peasants something to eat and something they can produce, then you cut the war lords from their income AND you spoil the drug traffic…
Building health Rural Centre, and markets, repair roads, give jobs to people. That is NGO and Charities are good at, small economical business project development, USAID and others know how to do it.
Massive reconstruction programme with Post War Rehabilitation Programme: Very Helpful to calm down the Post War Traumatic Disorder. You have a society which lived the last 30 years either in war or in “peace” of terror.

A need of training of the local authorities in respect with Human Right Conventions and standards is obvious. So, need to create schools in Kabul for the future leaders.
We will probably teach some of the future enemies if things go wrong but most of the pupils will be the next politicians and leaders.

No Brenus, the anti-war crowd are not depicting the Taliban as rosy cheeked cherubic messengers. They simply do not hold them up to bthe same standards as the West, which has shown a complete lack of ethics in Afghanistan and the region as a whole.

Afghanistan is lost because we can no longer afford the bill, the British army is in a terrible state and the MOD shows little sign of improving for lack of funds. In short, we lost.

[Brenus]

“Afghanistan is lost because we can no longer afford the bill, the British army is in a terrible state and the MOD shows little sign of improving for lack of funds. In short, we lost.”
This is a thing I accept. Not “we lost because we can’t win”.
All the Western Government left their armies in bad state, ignoring the cost of an efficient and up-dated force.
Because the modern needs of an army needed to match the multiple aspect of the new conflicts cost more and more, and the need of more professional soldiers don’t go with the splashing of money and gift to the riches, they all cut in expenses.
Well, the sons and daughters of the poor go to war any way, so no need to put too much money in the army. It pats the time when the Nobility had to “earn their spurs”…

I read a document from a French General complaining about the “racket” of the soldiers buying their own equipment. The Republic has to provide the needs to his children to go to war on her name, he said.
Well, apparently not, when a President prefers obviously luxuries and Yacht than to really care about his job.

But that just mean a lack of will from the political bodies to commit really in the war effort. But the army should as well re-thinks the needs in this particularly war.

[Incongruous]

Well the main reason the British Army crapped out was due to the wrong types of military equipment being used.
Sand is apparently a rather annoying aspect of the conflict which the MOD simply didn't get to grips with.

Oh and I do not think anyone said Afghanistan could not be won, but that it was lost very, very early on.
It was most definatley lost in 2006 when the RA was given overall command of bombing operations and stepped up indiscriminate high altitude bombings. We were no friends to the Afghans then.