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Chibibar
@epsy: thanks 
@dubyamn: yea, I might be an "idiot" to you but if that was true, why the war takes 10 years and still going with little progress? I say little progress cause if we pull out say today, it is a whole mess over there that the government itself can't sustain itself. I guess I'm mixing Taliban with Al Quada. my bad, two separate group with no relation to each other. I misread the articles where U.S. citizen join the Al Quada and get training to bomb places (and some fail thank goodness) and link them to Taliban.
edit:
I usually get the two mix up
Iraq = Al Quada
Afgan = Taliban
sorry for the mix up.
@dubyamn: yea, I might be an "idiot" to you but if that was true, why the war takes 10 years and still going with little progress? I say little progress cause if we pull out say today, it is a whole mess over there that the government itself can't sustain itself. I guess I'm mixing Taliban with Al Quada. my bad, two separate group with no relation to each other. I misread the articles where U.S. citizen join the Al Quada and get training to bomb places (and some fail thank goodness) and link them to Taliban.
edit:
I usually get the two mix up
Iraq = Al Quada
Afgan = Taliban
sorry for the mix up.
Variety of reasons but I think it really boils down to a mismanagement of resources following the invasion and the fact that we didn't build a stable governmental institution.
I could go into detail but mostly it's because the people in charge aren't that good at planning.
Oh my no we set up a really crappy government in Afghanistan and unfortunately our "ally" Karzai is too corrupt to think of how he can use his position to make the government better.
Ah okay your post makes allot more sense now. Though even Al Queda don't believe in fighting to the last man they routinely surrender and defect.
Uuh, unless I'm horribly misinformed that's not it at all.
Both Al Queda and the Taliban were in Afghanistan at the beginning of the war. The Taliban had control in most of the country (not the North) and was letting Al Queda hang out and plot terrorist attacks. Post 9/11, the world took a serious look at the Taliban for harboring Al Queda, and when the Taliban refused to kick Al Queda out then they had essentially cast their lot in with the terrorists.
Aerial bombardments began, and then we joined the fight alongside the Afghan Northern Alliance (who were generally regarded as the legitimate but powerless government of Afghanistan).
As far as I understand it, the 'enemy' in Iraq was the Iraqi army, but is now a mish-mash of terrorist groups and guerrilla fighters.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
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Chibibar
Uuh, unless I'm horribly misinformed that's not it at all.
Both Al Queda and the Taliban were in Afghanistan at the beginning of the war. The Taliban had control in most of the country (not the North) and was letting Al Queda hang out and plot terrorist attacks. Post 9/11, the world took a serious look at the Taliban for harboring Al Queda, and when the Taliban refused to kick Al Queda out then they had essentially cast their lot in with the terrorists.
Aerial bombardments began, and then we joined the fight alongside the Afghan Northern Alliance (who were generally regarded as the legitimate but powerless government of Afghanistan).
As far as I understand it, the 'enemy' in Iraq was the Iraqi army, but is now a mish-mash of terrorist groups and guerrilla fighters.
Correct me if I'm wrong.[/QUOTE]
I dunno. that is what I was thinking, hence the argument I made. It is really really hard to win a war when you fight against someone who is devout religion. Now of course there will be some who will defect and see the whole moral thing, but there are devout leaders who can convince the people to follow their way either by religion (hard to turn), intimidation (easier to turn, but only when it is safe) and desperation (need improve infrastructure and opportunity)
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Chibibar
yea. that is a good motivation as well
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Chibibar
Why Afghanistan's Proving to be "Catch-22-ville" - CBS News
Ok. I take it all back. It is possible that the U.S. training program doesn't involve local knowledge at all. Trying to train U.S. only stuff to people and spend billions on them (at least that is what I understand). The article does give some insights, but I don't think it is the whole picture.
Ok. I take it all back. It is possible that the U.S. training program doesn't involve local knowledge at all. Trying to train U.S. only stuff to people and spend billions on them (at least that is what I understand). The article does give some insights, but I don't think it is the whole picture.
Thats some good news.
Necronic
Staff member
Avoiding the death of civilians should be an absolute priority of our military. And here's why you should care.
1) Basic Morals? We, as the people of a democratic nation, are responsible for starting this war. It doesn't matter who you voted for. We are responsible for seeing it fought correctly. Funny thing, this is more a dig at the left than anyone else though, as they have made grossly irresponsible statements about leaving the warzones ASAP leaving the countries in a worse place than we started.
2) Military Strategy? Killing civilians undermines every bit of our mission there. It destroys infrastucture (workers). It destroys local Afghan support. It destroys foreign support. It gives support to our enemies.
3) Money? Ok, am I speaking your language now? Killing civilians costs money. Like lots of money. By damaging the military strategy it ends up taking us longer to rebuild the infrastructure without local support or workers. Worse though it makes it harder to beat the enemy, as it fuels their forces. And if we kill more civilians to kill those enemies then...you see where I am going? 3 steps foreward 2 steps back.
Do I think we have killed a lot of civilians? I don't know. I know we don't target them. But the concept of Total War is dead, has been for more than a century. It doesn't work. Any time that civilians are targeted it backfires massively. Look at 911. The pentagon getting destroyed was one thing. The world trade center? We started 2 wars for that. And people are still so pissed about that there has been the tenuous possibility of another world war founded on religion for almost a decade.
But, we don't target civilians, thank god. But we sure as hell should do our best to make sure they don't die. I mean, ffs that's what we're there for right? To free them? To liberate them? This ISN'T A PUNITIVE WAR RIGHT? It's interesting that Dresden was mentioned earlier. That was part of a purely punitive measure. Hiroshima was a bit more complex (was also showing off to the Russians and keeping them from getting the surrender.) Firebombings in general were almost entirely punitive. The only reason that Japan and Germany didn't end up totally fubared is because their armies surrendered and we were able to peacefully rebuild them, and we rebuilt them in a way we haven't done for any country since.
Punitive measures are stupid, dangerous, self defeating, and immoral. Sherman's march did so much damage to the South that it never fully rebuilt, and is considered one of the sources of the rise of the KKK.
All the other stuff listed, meh. The use of Reapers is great, because they actually limit civvie casualties. Special forces going after leaders? Awesome, surgical strikes limit civvie casualties.
1) Basic Morals? We, as the people of a democratic nation, are responsible for starting this war. It doesn't matter who you voted for. We are responsible for seeing it fought correctly. Funny thing, this is more a dig at the left than anyone else though, as they have made grossly irresponsible statements about leaving the warzones ASAP leaving the countries in a worse place than we started.
2) Military Strategy? Killing civilians undermines every bit of our mission there. It destroys infrastucture (workers). It destroys local Afghan support. It destroys foreign support. It gives support to our enemies.
3) Money? Ok, am I speaking your language now? Killing civilians costs money. Like lots of money. By damaging the military strategy it ends up taking us longer to rebuild the infrastructure without local support or workers. Worse though it makes it harder to beat the enemy, as it fuels their forces. And if we kill more civilians to kill those enemies then...you see where I am going? 3 steps foreward 2 steps back.
Do I think we have killed a lot of civilians? I don't know. I know we don't target them. But the concept of Total War is dead, has been for more than a century. It doesn't work. Any time that civilians are targeted it backfires massively. Look at 911. The pentagon getting destroyed was one thing. The world trade center? We started 2 wars for that. And people are still so pissed about that there has been the tenuous possibility of another world war founded on religion for almost a decade.
But, we don't target civilians, thank god. But we sure as hell should do our best to make sure they don't die. I mean, ffs that's what we're there for right? To free them? To liberate them? This ISN'T A PUNITIVE WAR RIGHT? It's interesting that Dresden was mentioned earlier. That was part of a purely punitive measure. Hiroshima was a bit more complex (was also showing off to the Russians and keeping them from getting the surrender.) Firebombings in general were almost entirely punitive. The only reason that Japan and Germany didn't end up totally fubared is because their armies surrendered and we were able to peacefully rebuild them, and we rebuilt them in a way we haven't done for any country since.
Punitive measures are stupid, dangerous, self defeating, and immoral. Sherman's march did so much damage to the South that it never fully rebuilt, and is considered one of the sources of the rise of the KKK.
All the other stuff listed, meh. The use of Reapers is great, because they actually limit civvie casualties. Special forces going after leaders? Awesome, surgical strikes limit civvie casualties.
Necronic
Staff member
Also, I want to make my view clear on this. I believe that our soldiers are for the most part doing the best they can in a very difficult situation right now. Because of how the Taliban/Al Qaeda fight this war it is exceptionally difficult to avoid civilian casualties. They fight out of uniform, in urban areas, and hide amongst the civilians. That is a recipe for civilian casualties if there ever was one.
So I am not passing judgement on the abilities of our troops to avoid civvie casualties. What I am passing judgement on is the attitude of 'it happens, it's war' because that is a terrible mindset, from a military, moral, and economic standpoint.
So I am not passing judgement on the abilities of our troops to avoid civvie casualties. What I am passing judgement on is the attitude of 'it happens, it's war' because that is a terrible mindset, from a military, moral, and economic standpoint.
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