Author Topic: Mattis: ‘We are not winning in Afghanistan’  (Read 883 times)

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Mattis: ‘We are not winning in Afghanistan’
« on: June 13, 2017, 04:12:09 pm »

Mattis: ‘We are not winning in Afghanistan’

By Connor O’Brien

06/13/2017 11:45 AM EDT


Defense Secretary James Mattis, facing tough questions from Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, said Tuesday that the U.S. and its allies “are not winning” in Afghanistan and promised a new strategy by the middle of July.

McCain slammed the administration and sharply questioned Mattis over why a new strategy has not been developed to help turn the tide of the war in Afghanistan, where the militant Taliban is overwhelming the Afghan government in key parts of the country and other terrorist groups, like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, have made new inroads.

“We want a strategy, and I don’t think that’s a hell of a lot to ask,” McCain, an Arizona Republican, told Mattis. “We’re now six months into this administration. We still haven’t got a strategy for Afghanistan. It makes it hard for us to support you when we don’t have a strategy. We know what the strategy was for the last eight years: Don’t lose.”

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http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/13/jim-mattis-not-winning-afghanistan-239488
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Offline EC

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Re: Mattis: ‘We are not winning in Afghanistan’
« Reply #1 on: June 13, 2017, 04:31:37 pm »
McCain is full of it.

The strategy in Afghanistan for the last 7 years has been laager up and don't make waves. Destroy the tenuous working relationship with the warlords by dropping the whip used to keep the sods in line.

Mattis is right. You're losing in Afghanistan. The reason you are losing is you permitted yourself to be boxed in and contained.
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Offline thackney

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Re: Mattis: ‘We are not winning in Afghanistan’
« Reply #2 on: June 13, 2017, 04:47:19 pm »
Mattis: ‘We are not winning in Afghanistan’

I have often wondered if winning is possible in Afghanistan, and that goes back to the Soviet occupation times.

Within the different groups within Afghanistan, the only people they hate more than each other, is anyone from the outside.
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Offline Sanguine

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Re: Mattis: ‘We are not winning in Afghanistan’
« Reply #3 on: June 13, 2017, 05:39:33 pm »
I have often wondered if winning is possible in Afghanistan, and that goes back to the Soviet occupation times.

Within the different groups within Afghanistan, the only people they hate more than each other, is anyone from the outside.

Goes back farther than that.  Churchill commented on the implacability of the Waziristan area.

Quote
The inhabitants of these wild but wealthy valleys are of many tribes, but of similar character and condition. The abundant crops which a warm sun and copious rains raise from a fertile soil, support a numerous population in a state of warlike leisure. Except at the times of sowing and of harvest, a continual state of feud and strife prevails throughout the land. Tribe wars with tribe. The people of one valley fight with those of the next. To the quarrels of communities are added the combats of individuals. Khan assails khan, each supported by his retainers. Every tribesman has a blood feud with his neighbor. Every man's hand is against the other, and all against the stranger.

Nor are these struggles conducted with the weapons which usually belong to the races of such development. To the ferocity of the Zulu are added the craft of the Redskin and the marksmanship of the Boer. The world is presented with that grim spectacle, "the strength of civilisation without its mercy." At a thousand yards the traveller falls wounded by the well-aimed bullet of a breech-loading rifle. His assailant, approaching, hacks him to death with the ferocity of a South-Sea Islander. The weapons of the nineteenth century are in the hands of the savages of the Stone Age.

Every influence, every motive, that provokes the spirit of murder among men, impels these mountaineers to deeds of treachery and violence. The strong aboriginal propensity to kill, inherit in all human beings, has in these valleys been preserved in unexampled strength and vigour. That religion, which above all others was founded and propagated by the sword -- the tenets and principles of which are instinct with incentives to slaughter and which in three continents has produced fighting breeds of men -- stimulates a wild and merciless fanaticism. The love of plunder, always a characteristic of hill tribes, is fostered by the spectacle of opulence and luxury which, to their eyes, the cities and plains of the south display. A code of honour not less punctilious than that of old Spain, is supported by vendettas as implacable as those of Corsica.

In such a state of society, all property is held directly by main force. Every man is a soldier.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/taliban/tribal/churchill.html

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Re: Mattis: ‘We are not winning in Afghanistan’
« Reply #4 on: June 13, 2017, 05:41:19 pm »
Go back to 1839. Same deal.
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Offline the_doc

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Re: Mattis: ‘We are not winning in Afghanistan’
« Reply #5 on: June 13, 2017, 05:53:48 pm »
McCain is full of it.

The strategy in Afghanistan for the last 7 years has been laager up and don't make waves. Destroy the tenuous working relationship with the warlords by dropping the whip used to keep the sods in line.

Mattis is right. You're losing in Afghanistan. The reason you are losing is you permitted yourself to be boxed in and contained.

I think Obama's strategy was more sinister:  Make sure you don't lose in a way that gets Obama blamed for losing the war outright.  Losing was otherwise okay.  What was not acceptable was winning the war.

I believe Mattis was actually telling us that we are losing because of Obama's rules (without playing the blame game).  That mess can't be fixed overnight.  (Besides, Iraq-Syria is still a huge mess that has to take priority over the short term.  McCain's rant does not help.  [The more I hear from McCain, the less I respect him.])

Offline truth_seeker

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Re: Mattis: ‘We are not winning in Afghanistan’
« Reply #6 on: June 13, 2017, 05:56:43 pm »
James Michener wrote a book titled "Caravans," in 1963.

One thesis of this historical fiction, is that Afghanistan has been largely resistant, to takeover by outsiders for centuries.

Many tried, nobody succeeded. This predated the USSR involvement, but was predictive of their result.

Now 16 yrs. after 9/11/2001 and several reboots, we ought to ask what our goal is, what price in blood and treasury we will pay, and how about other approaches.

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Offline Fishrrman

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Re: Mattis: ‘We are not winning in Afghanistan’
« Reply #7 on: June 14, 2017, 12:54:10 am »
With all due respect, General, it's taken you how many years to come to this conclusion?

A dummy like me already had figured that out by '03...

Offline Fishrrman

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Re: Mattis: ‘We are not winning in Afghanistan’
« Reply #8 on: June 14, 2017, 01:01:30 am »
thackney observed (correctly):
"I have often wondered if winning is possible in Afghanistan, and that goes back to the Soviet occupation times.
Within the different groups within Afghanistan, the only people they hate more than each other, is anyone from the outside."


The "enemy" in Afghanistan is not the Taliban.
The "enemy" in Afghanistan is not isis.

We cannot "overcome" it and achieve "victory" by the defeat of any government of men, or by the defeat of any particular group of fighters within.

The enemy is something else.
It is ruled over by a dead man.
It's guided by the book of instructions he wrote.
It lives on in a system of control he established.

When you dare to speak outloud the name of the man, the name of the book, and the name of the system, you'll know what "the enemy" is.
And then you'll know what must be done to win.

Until then, it's like Jimmy Martin (the king of bluegrass) once sang:
"Twenty-twenty vision and I'm walkin' 'round blind".

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Re: Mattis: ‘We are not winning in Afghanistan’
« Reply #9 on: June 14, 2017, 01:10:26 am »
McCain is full of it.

The strategy in Afghanistan for the last 7 years has been laager up and don't make waves. Destroy the tenuous working relationship with the warlords by dropping the whip used to keep the sods in line.

Mattis is right. You're losing in Afghanistan. The reason you are losing is you permitted yourself to be boxed in and contained.

The reason we are losing is that until recently we had a CIC who was determined to make it so.  " We are not currently winning in Afganistan and we are going to correct that!"  James Mattis
 
« Last Edit: June 14, 2017, 01:11:00 am by Bigun »
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Re: Mattis: ‘We are not winning in Afghanistan’
« Reply #10 on: June 14, 2017, 08:07:54 am »
Even a moron like DeGaulle warned of muslims and the problems we would see from them.