The Taliban

Ok guys we have been in Afghanistan for almost 9 years with no major overall victory in sight. I am aware that there have been achievements in many areas of Afghanistan such as girls be allowed to go to school, some roads being paved, a better economy, but how is it the Taliban has remained a major obstacle.
The Taliban has no tanks, war planes or surface to air missiles so how are they able to keep the worlds only Super Power(USA) and other powerful NATO nations at bay? Some of you may say that well the Taliban were able to drive about the Soviet Union when they were a SuperPower, but reemember the big difference was the USA was funding the Taliban aka the Muhajadeen and also were supplying the Taliban with sophisticated weapons to fight the Soviets. The Soviets lost a lot of their jets thanks to the U.S supplied shoulder launch Stinger missiles, but there is no Super Power or other powergul nation that is funding the Taliban of today- so why is it that the U.S, NATO and the Afghan govt can't get rid of the Taliban?

Its very simple, they hide among the innocent's and we will not do what is necessary to eliminate them, which is to kill them all. We are a compasionate nation even at war and they know that. They know that we will for the most part always yield to the side of safety for the innocent.

Its very simple, they hide among the innocent's and we will not do what is necessary to eliminate them, which is to kill them all. We are a compasionate nation even at war and they know that. They know that we will for the most part always yield to the side of safety for the innocent. Originally Posted by dirty dog

So dirtydog do you think we are wasting our time in afganhistan? I actually thought the Iraqis would give us a tougher battle but it looks liek the talibanare puttingg up a much tougher fight.

Well I suspect were fighting a combination of both in both places, I think the enemy is a combination of Taliban, ALQeda,Tribel Militia and Iranian Shiites. My personal opinion is that anytime you have to fight a war anywhere that has rules which allow the enemy to use structures and areas to fight from that you cannot attack such as Mosques then your wasting your time. I think if the matter was important enough to go to war then you should fight the war fully like we did in WW2. These political led wars such as Korea, Vietnam and now Iraq and Afghanistan just waste assets and time. Whether we leave now or in 5 years, as soon as we are gone the government in charge will be overthrown or they will surrender to the insurgents and will once again fracture into tribel domenated societies. We will have gained nothing. This is one of the major points that I disagreed with Bush, I supported going into Iraq only if we fought it fully, dominated it and then installe a government, but I was very much concerned we were going to get involved in a drawn out political cluster fuck like Vietnam.

Well I suspect were fighting a combination of both in both places, I think the enemy is a combination of Taliban, ALQeda,Tribel Militia and Iranian Shiites. My personal opinion is that anytime you have to fight a war anywhere that has rules which allow the enemy to use structures and areas to fight from that you cannot attack such as Mosques then your wasting your time. I think if the matter was important enough to go to war then you should fight the war fully like we did in WW2. These political led wars such as Korea, Vietnam and now Iraq and Afghanistan just waste assets and time. Whether we leave now or in 5 years, as soon as we are gone the government in charge will be overthrown or they will surrender to the insurgents and will once again fracture into tribel domenated societies. We will have gained nothing. This is one of the major points that I disagreed with Bush, I supported going into Iraq only if we fought it fully, dominated it and then installe a government, but I was very much concerned we were going to get involved in a drawn out political cluster fuck like Vietnam. Originally Posted by dirty dog

Good points but also was all this worth it even let's just say we capture Osama Bin Laden and execute him? It will not end terrorism there will be someone else to take Osama's place and we don't even know if he's alive or not. there are some who believe that these wars of "terrorism" are not meant to be won.
I think America is really spread out too much in the world and trying to solve the worlds problem- no other country including China and Russia gets involved as much as we do and quite frankly if I were Obama or any other President in the past or future I would let Isreal deal with Iran. Yes, I support Isreal but for Christ sakes must we do all their dirty work? Isreal has one of the best trained military machines in the world they need to deal with Iran not us.

Well it depends on how you look at it, is it worth it, if it stopped attacks from occuring on American soil it was, if it sent the message that if you attack us we will respond it was, what if we had done nothing, do you think Al Qeda would have been encouraged or discouraged. If you base it soley on whether or not we captured Bin Bin, then no it wasn't. Would it have been worth it has we fought the war the right way, yeah it would have been. Bush didnt and neither has Obama, so like I have said before, if were not going to fight to win, then pull out and let them kill each other.

First question: What is victory?
Second question: Do you think that the situation in Afghanistan would be better today if military resources and hundreds of billions of dollars hadn't been diverted to Iraq?
Third question: If the only remaining rationale for invading Iraq is regime change, then was the cost too much to get Saddam out of power? Keep in mind that regime change is not only FROM Saddam, but TO something else in the future. Looking to the future, if all we've done at the end of a ~20 year span in Iraq is create a painful transition from Saddam to an Islamic theocracy...can we call that a victory?

"First question: What is victory?"

Well as I explained in my previous post it could be many things (see post)

"Second question: Do you think that the situation in Afghanistan would be better today if military resources and hundreds of billions of dollars hadn't been diverted to Iraq?"

I dont think money and resources is the problem with Afghanistan, there are two problems, the first is it's tribel mentality which makes it very difficult for any government to succeed on its own, which means they are always going to need our help. The second problem is the politics which was going to limit our success anyway. So no I dont think it would have made a difference in the long term, it may of in a short term on the battlefield, which is not where we are being defeated, we are being defeated in the politics.

"Third question: If the only remaining rationale for invading Iraq is regime change, then was the cost too much to get Saddam out of power? Keep in mind that regime change is not only FROM Saddam, but TO something else in the future. Looking to the future, if all we've done at the end of a ~20 year span in Iraq is create a painful transition from Saddam to an Islamic theocracy...can we call that a victory?"

No, IMHO we should never have removed Sadam, but hindsight is 20/20. Sadam was the right person for that region, because he knew that the only way you can ever make these tribes get along is to step on their necks when they get out of line. You are making your point from the vantage point of knowing there were probably no WMD's. I think you would be hard pressed to find many people who would say Bush made the right call, but at the time no body knew whether it was or wasn't. I think what most people object to is the view point from the left that it was some kind of wicked master plan, IMHO I think Bush may have been mislead by some others in the advice he was given, of course this advice included that of Colin Powell.

But what if the reason for going into Iraq had nothing to do with the reasons given, what if the reason given was to ensure that the nation who is keeping us alfoat financially China, was getting enough oil. What if this oil was to eventually be delivered via a pipe line that was suppose to go through Iraq and Afghanistan to china.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37577656...il_and_energy/


But to answer your question, looking back, I think Iraq was a big mistake, I think Afghanistan was a mistake, but at the same time necessary. Those who wish to hurt us must know there is a cost to doing so.

DirtyDog I know we have disagreed on various topics before but I think you are making some very good points, but in your opinion what do you think Bush should have done differently if we had to do 9-11 over? Because let's just say the taliban turned over Osama to the U.S officallys then the problem we would have is that Afghanistan would still be a nation where women couldn't be educated and have limited rights- also I know Afghanistan is still tday considered a poor country by our standards, but had the U.S not invaded Afghanistan they would economically be in far worst shape. I think even if the taliban had given us Osama we still would have found some way to invade Afganistan for some reason. Now I am not a big conspiracy person but there has been a lot of talk that the U.S made a deal with Saudia Arabia that concerned running a pipeline from Saudia Arabia through Afghanstan to control some of the oil in that region.
The one fundamental difference why the Taliban will be a tough battle that you didn't mention Dirtydog is that unlike Iraq the Taliban do not care about money- the Taliban live in a scoiety where they cling more so to their religion and guns than they do the material wealth. I have to be honest but the truth of the matter is that we may still be fighting Al-Queada today had not the U.S paid off the Sons of Iraq who basically carried out attacks against Al-Queada nad pretty much ran them out of the region, but money means nothing to the Taliban.

Well Afghanistan has the equivilent to the Sons of Iraq in the Northern Alliance, which is why intially we were able to push the Taliban out to the edges of Afghanistan into the mountains along the Pakistan border. Had we continued to fight them, I think we would have taken them down to a point of near non existance. The problem is we let up on them and tried to let the Afghani government and security force control them and without our "boot on their neck" they were allowed to regroup and recover, this is the basic premise for the troop increase ordered by President Obama to return out boots to their neck. You can't beat terrorist's "you can only hope to contain them" to steal a line from Chris Berman. There is never going to be a victory like we saw in WW2. Victory in the war on terror is found by not letting them kill us. Like a cancer terrorism has spread and while you might remove a piece here, remove a piece there, I dont think you will ever get rid of every trace of it.

What could Bush have done differently? Hmmmm (serious contemplation here, chin in hand, squirls running furiously in my head), For one I am not sure we should have been nation building, we should not have worried about taking out the government, we should have been worried about finding the target of our search which was Mulla Omar and Osama Bin hiden. If this entailed conflict with the Taliban then so be it. I would also not have been so quick to trust the northern alliance. I think Bush saw the opportunity to provide what he considers to be a better life, which of course is ours. This is one of the fundemental problems anytime we involve ourselves in the affairs of of other countries, we want to install democracy, which is of course no different than the Russions wanting to install Communisim. Its a cold war mentality which is still pervasive in our government. We cant make people want to live in a democracy, this however became the primary goal of our country once we got there, rebuilding adghanistan and installing a US friendly government. This is where Bush lost sight of the target. I would have kept my eye on the target, found Bin Hiden, and then worried about the Taliban and a new government.

You are making your point from the vantage point of knowing there were probably no WMD's. I think you would be hard pressed to find many people who would say Bush made the right call, but at the time no body knew whether it was or wasn't. I think what most people object to is the view point from the left that it was some kind of wicked master plan, IMHO I think Bush may have been mislead by some others in the advice he was given, of course this advice included that of Colin Powell. Originally Posted by dirty dog

Are you saying that Bush was mislead by Colin Powell? Wasn't Colin Powell mislead by Tenet (CIA)? And Bush would have been mislead by Cheney and other Neocons more than by Tenet or anyone else. I just don't buy that the White House was full of passive victims that were mislead. After all, the President is by definition a leader (if not mis-leader). The Downing Street memo shows how Bush was "leading".

"There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

Bush wanted regime change and merely used the threat of WMDs and terrorism as tools.

LM, I am saying Bush was misled by his advisory group, and yes I include Powell, you got to remember at this time Powell was prepping himself for a run at the big prize. This war idea had a lot of support and was wanted by the old wing of the Republican party this would include the neocons, which I would include Cheney, Rumsfeld in.

You have got to understand my whole concept. Bush was a relative nobody when he was chosen to run, he needed the support of the powers that be in the Republican party, in order to get this support he had to sell his soul to the devil, he had to agree to the placement of people that the Republican power brokers wanted which is how he ended up with Cheney, Rumsfeld etc. It was in this way that the power brokers could ensure control. So I would agree with you yes, all of the people you named. I am not going to say he was misled, I am going to say he was forced to take actions that others wanted. This is the same thing that I said would occur when Obama stated he was going to run, think back to Dennis's board, I said several times that in order for Obama to win he has to sell his soul to the Democrat power players. He did and they got what they wanted. Look at the people chosen for key positions. Obama said he was about getting rid of the old washington, we got Biden as VP, Getting rid of politics as usual, we got Rham, getting rid of the old ways of doing things, we got Robert Gates a Bush retread. This is not an anti Obama rant, this is the game in Washington and he is playing the game.

You say Bush wanted regime change, I say someone wanted it, I am not so sure it was GW. I think of GW sometimes as I do Oswald, a patsy. Never new what was happening until it was too late. Of course I am a little bit dunk tonight, so if i strayed off target a little I am sorry. BY the way a memo can be made to say anything.

You make more sense when you're drunk. HA! And spell better, too!

Hindsight being 20/20, there is one point that is missing from all of the topics regarding the invasion of Iraq. While there may or may not have been WMDs in Iraq prior to the invasion, Saddam was acting as though he did have them and was threatening their use if he was attacked. Intelligence reports provided at the time said the WMDs were there. Now there were reports the WMDs were taken out of Iraq and into Jordan before the invasion occurred, and there was a cache of disabled WMDs discovered after Saddam was captured, so some of the intelligence was correct.

Put yourself into the situation Bush 43 found himself in at that time. Given the intelligence provided at the time, the lack of cooperation provided by Saddam and his subsequent defiance of the UN, the possibility that WMDs were in his possession and his previous propencity for using chemical and biological weapons, what would you have done? The US called Saddam's bluff - he had a weaker hand and went "all-in"; the US had a much stronger hand. The message at that time was "don't fuck with us." I think at the time it was the right decision.

As far as Afghanistan goes, the Soviets found it tough there when they invaded in 1980. It is rough territory where the tribal leaders have more influence than the central government. As far as Obama Bin Laden is concerned, it's the perverbial "needle-in-the-haystack". OBL is considered a hero in Afghanistan and in many regions of Pakistan, so he can hide in plain sight there. Saddam was reviled by the majority of Iraqis, so his discovery in hiding was probably due to someone who took the reward money.

Ok guys we have been in Afghanistan for almost 9 years with no major overall victory in sight. I am aware that there have been achievements in many areas of Afghanistan such as girls be allowed to go to school, some roads being paved, a better economy, but how is it the Taliban has remained a major obstacle.
The Taliban has no tanks, war planes or surface to air missiles so how are they able to keep the worlds only Super Power(USA) and other powerful NATO nations at bay? Some of you may say that well the Taliban were able to drive about the Soviet Union when they were a SuperPower, but reemember the big difference was the USA was funding the Taliban aka the Muhajadeen and also were supplying the Taliban with sophisticated weapons to fight the Soviets. The Soviets lost a lot of their jets thanks to the U.S supplied shoulder launch Stinger missiles, but there is no Super Power or other powergul nation that is funding the Taliban of today- so why is it that the U.S, NATO and the Afghan govt can't get rid of the Taliban? Originally Posted by wellendowed1911

Please provide us with your answers to your questions. I'm interested in what you think.