Thread: Afghanistan 2009 & 2010

Originally Posted by Jet Gorgon

Originally Posted by Milkman

The U.S. troops had to wait more than an hour for attack helicopters to come to their aid and their appeal for artillery fire was rejected, with commanders citing new rules designed to avoid civilian casualties, the report said.

As the boys say, as soon as Tango has fallen and his pals take his/her guns, the c^nt is a fekin civilian. Thanks, Obama, for protecting the troops.

This Strategy has nothing to do with Obama who is not in control of daily combat Ops in Afghanistan. It is Gen. Stanley McChrystal who started limiting use of artillery and air strikes. Stop with the propaganda bs. If you don't know what is going on on the ground over there then keep your mouth shut. This is a quote from the military times;

"U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who took over last month as the commander of U.S. and NATO forces, has said he wants his troops’ first priority to be protecting Afghan civilians, not using massive fire power. McChrystal’s new guidelines went into effect last week, and officials released a declassified version Monday.

The three directives for U.S. and NATO forces, posted on the military’s Facebook page as part of a longer statement, are:

• Airstrikes must be very limited and authorized but can be used in self-defense if troops’ lives are at risk.

• Troops must be accompanied by Afghan forces before they enter residences.

• Troops cannot go into or fire upon mosques or other religious sites. This is already U.S. policy.

In the statement announcing the guidelines, McChrystal said the Taliban cannot defeat U.S. and NATO forces but that “we can defeat ourselves” by alienating the Afghan people.

“This is different from conventional combat, and how we operate will determine the outcome more than traditional measures, like capture of terrain or attrition of enemy forces,” the new order says. “We must avoid the trap of winning tactical victories — but suffering strategic defeats — by causing civilian casualties or excessive damage.”"

link: Rules for reducing civilian casualties released - Military News, News From Iraq & Afghanistan - Military Times

^ Who is the CINC again?

Originally Posted by Jet Gorgon

^ Who is the CINC again?

Its nice to know that we have you jet an expert on American military operations at teakdoor to rely on. I will sleep better knowing that you are playing armchair quarterback.

You a military boy, snubbie? I think not. I know you like to drink beer.

Originally Posted by Jet Gorgon

^ Who is the CINC again?

You're asking a rhetorical question - because you cannot add anything.

I'll be more specific, and ask, you, Jet.

How has the Afghanistan Military & Special OPs changed since the change of the CinC?

^booya!!

Originally Posted by Jet Gorgon

You a military boy, snubbie? I think not. I know you like to drink beer.

Soldiers don't like beer? Not much of a student of history eh Jet?

Charlie Wilson's take on Afghanistan. He has the experience and authority to know. Thanks to the poster I found this from.

article at: Former U.S. Rep. Charlie Wilson coming to Scranton to discuss war in Afghanistan - Arts & Living - The Times-Tribune

The U.S. military's ongoing conflict in Afghanistan is a movie Charlie Wilson has seen before, and he isn't thrilled with where the plot of this one is going.

"I think they're looking at us more and more like occupiers," he said.

The former Democratic congressman from Texas, whose efforts to arm the Afghan mujahideen during the 1980s Soviet occupation became the basis for the book and movie, "Charlie Wilson's War," will tell his story Thursday at the Scranton Cultural Center at The Masonic Temple.

"I decided the Afghans were really going to put up a fight," he said. "Basically, I just wanted to embarrass the Soviets as much as possible. Then I got into it big time."

Using his seat on the House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, he was able secure enough funds for the CIA to arm the mujahideen freedom fighters with automatic weapons and Stinger missiles.

"It was harder than it sounds," Mr. Wilson said. "We had to buy Russian-made weapons. We had to deal with Poland and Romania. That was all pretty intricate."

As President Obama considers whether to send tens of thousands of more troops to Afghanistan, Mr. Wilson worries that the war could become "another Vietnam."

"It's probably best to make a calculated withdrawl," he said.

I'd probably shut it down, rather than lose a lot of soldiers and treasure."

He says this as someone who knows as well as anyone just how fierce and tenacious the Afghan fighters are.

"I'd rather take on a chain saw," Mr. Wilson said. "They're the world's best foot soldiers, best warriors. And they're fearless.

"They're fearless, and they've got nothing to lose. And they have a pretty serious hatred for those who try to occupy their country."

Whether realistic or not, it's a boost for morale and PR:

US forces leave isolated Afghan base after attack

Oct 9, 7:20 AM (ET)

By TODD PITMAN
p {margin:12px 0px 0px 0px;} KABUL (AP) - U.S. forces have withdrawn from an isolated base in eastern Afghanistan that insurgents attacked last week in one of the deadliest battles of the war for U.S. troops, the NATO-led coalition said Friday.
The pullout from the Kamdesh outpost near the Pakistani border is likely to embolden insurgent fighters in the region. The Taliban swiftly claimed "victory" for forcing the coalition to leave and said they had raised their flag above the town.

The withdrawal, however, had been planned well before the Oct. 3 battle and is part of a wider strategy outlined by the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who has said for months he plans to shut down such isolated strongholds to focus on more heavily populated areas in an effort to protect civilians.

Link & Entire: My Way News - US forces leave isolated Afghan base after attack

Originally Posted by Milkman

Public supports is eroding. Objectives difficult to achieve. Afghanistan seems to be the smaller reminder of another foreign American intervention in the past. Seems like the momentem is changing, and I am sure the insurgents are monitoring the US and western media.

http://www.military.com/news/article...24&ESRC=dod.nl

Ambushed Marines' Aid Call 'Rejected'
September 10, 2009
Agence France-Presse

NATO-led forces are investigating the death of four Marines in eastern Afghanistan after their commanders reportedly rejected requests for artillery fire in a battle with insurgents, the Pentagon said on Wednesday.

Thanks for the report, Milkie.

GANJGAL, Afghanistan — We walked into a trap, a killing zone of relentless gunfire and rocket barrages from Afghan insurgents hidden in the mountainsides and in a fortress-like village where women and children were replenishing their ammunition.

'We're pinned down:' 4 U.S. Marines die in Afghan ambush | McClatchy


(audio report included)

Originally Posted by sabang

"As of March 2009, there were 68,197 DoD contractors in Afghanistan, compared to 52,300 uniformed personnel. Contractors made up 57% of DoD's workforce in Afghanistan. This apparently represented the highest recorded percentage of contractors used by DoD in any conflict in the history of the United States."

And if I can get my divorce finalized I will be right there with them. For at least a year. Then on to drink some beers with you guys in Thailand.

Soldiers volunteer to go out and kill or be killed. Its brutal and primitive, but thats what they have chosen to do and thats what they get paid for.

Civilians, aka people like you, me and our families, however just want to get on with their lives as best they can under the circumstances.

Sacrificing foreign civilian lives to protect US soldiers is morally obscene in the extreme. Nothing short of murder. One Afghan civilian life is just as precious as an American civilian life. The devaluation of foreign civilian lives by some right wing warmongers is downright immoral.
Same goes for terrorists targeting civilians. Both try to justify the killing of civilians as a means to and end. Both are nothing more than murderous war criminals.

A short piece from LENIN'S TOMB

The latest analysis from what used to be known as the Senlis Council says that 80% of the territory of Afghanistan currently experiences "heavy" insurgent activity. 17% experiences what they call "substantial" insurgent activity. And a mere 3% of the territory, in a region called Sari Pul where the dominant language is Dari Persian and the dominant ethnicity Uzbek, experiences only "light" insurgent activity. The number of insurgents, as estimated by the US, has risen from 7,000 in 2006 to about 25,000 today, which slightly more than the total number of insurgents reported killed.

The figure offered by the US seems likely to be a sizeable underestimate. This 25,000 or so insurgents are supposed to be ranged against almost 65,000 ISAF troops, 45,000 non-ISAF American troops, 9,000 British troops and purportedly 100,000 members of the Afghan National Army (most of whose troops are probably working for the ruling pro-US warlords). The implication is that a combined army of over 200k troops armed to the teeth and with godlike aerial power to back them up can't thwart an insurgency of an eight of the size with comparatively poor weapons and no air force. There must be a substantially larger hardcore of insurgents, and a very large periphery in the supporting population. This is what is so illogical about the continued pretense by US-led forces that their foes are an unpopular rump. They may once have been, but evidently now command the loyalty of broad social layers, perhaps comprising a majority in places such as Helmand. Still, if the figures nonetheless correctly identify a trend, then the insurgency has more than tripled in size since 2006.

Not only are the insurgents growing in number, the sophistication of their attacks is increasing. For example, a recent attack on a military outpost in Nuristan killed eight American soldiers. Another attack on a UK base in the Helmand province killed a British soldier. These are just samples from the dozens of weekly attacks that strike occupation forces. Now, Obama - anxious to justify that Nobel prize, no doubt - is looking at the idea of buying off a section of the insurgency, just as Bush was able to do with a layer of the Iraqi resistance. The alternative is the McChrystal plan of sending up to 60,000 more troops, which is known to divide the Democrats and will force Obama to rely on GOP support if he wants to push it through. The assumption behind the idea of paying insurgents to fight on the American side, though, is that the majority of those fighting the US take up arms because it pays well. Perhaps that's true of some, but the reality is that what has escalated the insurgency from being a relative nonentity into a force that could (so military leaders predict) defeat the combined occupying forces is the mode of rule and repression that the US has developed. The client-state of warlords, the air war, the selective 'war on drugs' are all mainstays of the occupation, and can't easily be dispensed with. Moreover, the success of this strategy in the 'Sunni triangle' depended on the occupiers' ability to coopt the leadership of some of the disarticulated networks of military resistance that characterised the Iraqi insurgency. The leadership of the insurgency is nowhere near as divided in Afghanistan, and the 'neo-Taliban' are waging a smarter war than those fragmented groups that have been fighting in Iraq. The only realistic option for those still committed to this war is escalation. However, that then raises the question of whether America's allies are prepared to throw in more troops and money - an issue over which NATO has divided before.

Originally Posted by Panda

Soldiers volunteer to go out and kill or be killed. Its brutal and primitive, but thats what they have chosen to do and thats what they get paid for.

Civilians, aka people like you, me and our families, however just want to get on with their lives as best they can under the circumstances.

Sacrificing foreign civilian lives to protect US soldiers is morally obscene in the extreme. Nothing short of murder. One Afghan civilian life is just as precious as an American civilian life. The devaluation of foreign civilian lives by some right wing warmongers is downright immoral.
Same goes for terrorists targeting civilians. Both try to justify the killing of civilians as a means to and end. Both are nothing more than murderous war criminals.

I wouldn't change a word. Very very well spoken. Green sent.

Originally Posted by sabang

As for the rest of the Nato forces (Us, UK, Oz, & maybe Poland 'cus they're being bribed), they should be working on an exit plan. There will be no oil pipeline. If there ever was going to be one, the time to have stabilised Afghanistan and make this possible was back in 2002/3- but of course the dufus Neo-cons decided to switch their emphasis to invading Iraq instead, and in the process stuffed up both countries plus left us with an expensive hangover, not to mention two lost or losing wars. Nice one guys.

Are our Politicians ever going to leave their Imperial fantasies behind? If we are going to interfere in another countries affairs, and occupy them militarily, we have to install or prop up a government that has actual legitimacy, and support from the people. Clown Karzai doesn't, no more than was the case in South Vietnam. The writing is on the wall, and ultimately Afghanistan will be yet another 'Mission unaccomplished'. Shame, because there was once a chance- but Bush & co blew it.

Good post.

The New American Century with tag along sidekick UK sharing the spoils didnt come off as planned.

BTW, I greened Dan for ya .

Ah, if war was only so simple where the enemies came out face to face and shot each other instead of hiding in civilians' homes and neighbourhoods. What was that book where all war was simulated and if your area was bombed in the fight programme, you had to line up for extermination?
Face it folks, wars are never going to be like the ones where armies lined up to shoot each other.
And no, I think warriors deserve backup.

Jet, what you been endorsing is the killing of civilians to protect soldiers.
I believe "collateral damage" is the nice, inoffensive term commonly used to describe this murder.

Here's something which was published in Afghanistan: Interview with Malalai Joya -- The occupation is `a war on the Afghan people' | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal There's a short interview with Malalai Joya followed by a message to Australian anti-war campaigners from her. It's interesting to hear a voice from Afghanistan, something which, with the exception of occasional squeaks from Washington-sanctioned rulers and suitably mental Taliban, is all too rare. Mostly, discussions about Afghanistan are conducted by the imperial powers with almost no reference - beyond the most abstract - to the country's inhabitants. It's amazing how little this has changed in the last hundred years:

Malalai Joya has been described as “the bravest woman in Afghanistan”. A long-term opponent of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) presence in her country, Malalai Joya first rose to prominence through a heartfelt and controversial speech in 2003 that was an indictment of the powerful positions gifted to Afghan warlords by the US-led coalition. She was elected to the Afghan parliament in 2005 and continued her campaign against war criminals and fundamentalists there until being suspended in 2007 for criticising fellow MPs. Activists Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein are amongst those who have called for her reinstatement. In spite of four attempts on her life and having to live under constant protection, Joya continues her campaign against the government of Hamid Karzai, its fundamentalist allies and its Western backers.

You were thrown out of parliament for attacking the war criminals and religious extremists that make up a large proportion of the current Afghan MPs. How were so many of these people elected and why do more MPs not speak out against them?

The 2005 elections were held with the participation of the most infamous warlords and drug lords in the county. It was a rigged election under the shadow of the guns, threats and money of these criminals and therefore many of what I call the dirty elements entered the parliament. They are hated among the people, but because they had power and arms they threatened the people to vote for them. There is a saying that it is not so much who votes that is important but who counts the votes, and all the ballot boxes in Afghanistan were in the criminals' hands. Crucially, the corrupt extremist candidates were also strongly supported by the US and other countries like Iran and Pakistan and therefore their chances of success were quite high.

So when you ask why more MPs do not speak out against these extremists, it is because the majority of the parliamentarians are fundamentalists and also because some MPs will simply collaborate with such criminals for their own benefit. There are a handful of parliamentarians who are against the extremists but they are afraid of being killed and therefore they do not dare to speak out.

During the initial invasion, the NATO strategy was to deal with the Northern Alliance in order to oust the Taliban. You have since attacked this as being detrimental to the development of genuine democracy in Afghanistan. Do you think it is possible for any government in Afghanistan to oppose both the warlords and the Taliban and still maintain stability?

Of course I believe this strategy has been detrimental to democracy because the Northern Alliance are just another set of terrorists like the Taliban and they share the same mindset. Both are fundamentalists with a heavy criminal past. They are harshly anti-freedom, anti-democratic and anti-women. The Northern Alliance has a long list of crimes to its name, like raping, looting, killing and bombing during their regime in the 1990s. They have been even worse than Taliban in wounding our people.

A stable government without the Taliban is possible only if we have a democratic, secular and independent government that is not beholden to the US or any other foreign power. Unfortunately, since the democratic forces have been trampled and are very weak in Afghanistan, they cannot offer a strong alternative. Stability will only be achieved if our democratic forces join hands with like-minded people around the world to raise a powerful voice and uproot every brand of fundamentalism, whether Northern Alliance or Taliban, and pave the road towards a democratic and prosperous Afghanistan.

The new NATO commander in Afghanistan, General McCousins, has said that coalition strategy will now shift its emphasis from attacking insurgents to protecting civilians. How do you think public opinion in Afghanistan will respond to this move?

The Afghan public has lost its trust and interest in such false words. In the first days of the invasion US President George W. Bush also said that the war would not harm civilians and many high-ranking Afghan and foreign officials have been repeating this over the last eight years. But on the ground we can see that civilians are being killed and injured by foreign troops. Civilians killed by the foreign troops are entering the thousands, whereas killings by the Taliban are not even in the hundreds. That is why people believe the US war is against them and not the Taliban, which is stronger than before while the people's sufferings have increased with every passing day. Our people are fed up, and such small changes in war tactics will not win the “hearts and minds” of our people.

(There's a wiki page on Malalai Joya at Malalai Joya - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia It's worth having a look - she's got some balls.)

Here is an article regarding the rules of engagement.

People talk of sending more troops. But with the rules of engagement like this?

Bernard's criticism is aimed at new rules of engagement imposed by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the senior American commander in Afghanistan, five weeks before Joshua Bernard was killed. They limit the use of airstrikes and require troops to break off combat when civilians are present, even if it means letting the enemy escape. They also call for greater cooperation with the Afghan National Army.

Link & Entire: Fallen Marine's father wants change - Military- msnbc.com

Originally Posted by Milkman

the rules of engagement.

You don't win without winning hearts and minds. You don't do that by killing them. We did it in Nam and then wondered why the people helped the Viet Cong. So we created "free fire zones" where killing anything that moved...women...children... didn't matter, then wondered why they kept hating us. The arrogance of empire and a rightous cause.

Originally Posted by Milkman

Here is an article regarding the rules of engagement.

People talk of sending more troops. But with the rules of engagement like this?




Link & Entire: Fallen Marine's father wants change - Military- msnbc.com

A touching story that shows the tragedy and suffering of a family losing a loved one in war.

However, it is not only American families who suffer terrible grief and anger when their loved ones are killed. And it is particularly hurtful when those loved ones are not soldiers but innocent civilians, -- often women and little kids killed by a foreign military.

For every innocent Afghan civilian killed by the US military, a deep resentment, hatred and anger against the foreign invaders is created among the surviving family members. Some of whom will go on to become armed fighters with hearts full of hate for USA and bent on revenge.

Apart from the moral, ethical aspect of willfully killing civilians to protect soldiers, the practice simply doesn't make good tactical military sense in the long term. Kill a dozen civilians to get at a handful of insurgents and tomorrow you have created twice as many new insurgents and many more insurgent sympathizers.
The US strategy of killing civilians to protect US soldiers or to get at the enemy insurgents merely serves to exponentially increase the number of those insurgent enemies tomorrow. As Mr G has indicated, the USA has learned nothing from their previous experience in Vietnam.

Afghan civilians are not just numbers to be sacrificed for Americas military ends. They are human beings the same as you and I. The have the same feelings of grief and anger when a foreign military kills their loved ones that you or I would have. I think I speak for most men of all races and culture when I say that if a foreign army murdered my wife and daughter I would gladly sacrifice my own life to take out as many of those foreign invaders as possible.

Yea, Afghan people are humans too. They suffer and get angry when their loved ones are killed. It is not only American people who have these feelings.

Almost every 'on the ground' expert that I have listened to in the last several days has said that the Afgan people generally support the coalition's presence and their real frustration and anger is against their own hapless and corrupt government. The popular support for the Taliban is at 4-8% according to polls.

I'd take that with a truckload of salt. How many 'experts' raised questions about WMDs? Even after the event, there was barely a squeak. It's not that surprising that media institutions which merge seamlessly with those state institutions organising the occupation of Afghanistan should claim that everyone really does love the occupiers and that it's all someone else's fault. And as the Karzai government is intimately connected to the occupiers, I'm not sure that it really make any sense to separate the two.

This from Sept. 8th.

" ...this past weekend, the President reviewed a strategic assessment prepared by General Stanley McChrystal widely portrayed as a prelude to a request for an escalation. Should the president approve such a request, he'd be saying, in effect, that to protect democracy in America and to build it in Afghanistan, we must trample it.

On September 4, I went on al-Jazeera English to debate the future of U.S. foreign policy versus Abe Greenwald. When I insisted that we don't have indications that the Pashtuns are flipping their support to the Afghan national government, Abe asserted that polling shows that American forces and the Afghan national government get higher marks than the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Based on the most recent polling I can find on Afghanistan public opinion, he is roughly correct. His assertion is also irrelevant.
I am assuming that Greenwald refers to a 1/12/09 ABC News/BBC/ARD poll, versus the more-recent IRI polling (if he wasn't, then he should have been, as it asks more relevant questions about Afghan desires on U.S. troop levels). According to that poll, the Taliban presence is supported by only eight percent of those surveyed. The Afghan government gets 49 percent job approval. The United States gets a 47 percent favorable rating. So yes, according to this poll, attitudes among all Afghans toward the United States compare favorably with the Afghan government and the Taliban. Again, this warm feeling is irrelevant.
The problem for Abe's argument is that the 47 percent approval rating for the U.S. is accompanied by a 52 percent disapproval rating among Afghans. That unfavorable rating has spiked 20 points since the end of 2007. The pace with which the unfavorable rating grows is accelerating. The number of Afghans who say attacks on the U.S. and allies can be justified doubled since 2006. Only 32 percent say the U.S. has performed well in Afghanistan. Only 37 percent say that the local population supports Western forces. And -- here's the most important question regarding the decision before President Obama -- when asked about coalition troop levels, only 18 percent of Afghans wanted troop levels increased. Twenty-nine percent wanted the same number of troops, and 44 percent wanted troops decreased.


Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/derrick-crowe/war-gone-wild-in-afghanis_b_278472.html