What should happen in Afghanistan?

[Sanguine]

There is a lot of discussion as to what we should be doing in Afghanistan.  What do you think?  Are you a Rand Paul or a John Bolton, or something else entirely?

[Cyber Liberty]

Other.

We need to leave, and decide the logistics (so not "tomorrow").  Consider, for example, our hardware we brought.  I understand Afghan wants to charge us $$$ to remove our stuff, so we need to gather it into big piles, destroy them and then leave.  No sense in leaving the Taliban military equipment they can use against us.

This "exit charge" was discussed years ago, maybe back when Bush 43 was still President.

[Sanguine]

Other.

We need to leave, and decide the logistics (so not "tomorrow").  Consider, for example, our hardware we brought.  I understand Afghan wants to charge us $$$ to remove our stuff, so we need to gather it into big piles, destroy them and then leave.  No sense in leaving the Taliban military equipment they can use against us.

This "exit charge" was discussed years ago, maybe back when Bush 43 was still President.

Good point.  I'm going to add that option.

[mystery-ak]

Do a "Shock and Awe" and win the war.

I'm a Bolton fan...nuff said

[Cyber Liberty]

Do a "Shock and Awe" and win the war.

I'm a Bolton fan...nuff said

Ouch!  Tough day...I liked him too, but disagreed with many of his ideas.

[XenaLee]

Ok, I voted to pull out tomorrow (why are we making the same dumb mistake by being there that Russia did for years?).  But, I'm open to someone convincing me  (or to try) as to why that would be a bad idea. 

[Bigun]

I voted for the "Exit in a controlled manner" option fully realizing that the "Leaving noting for the Taliban to exploit" part carries MANY implications I doubt many have thought about.

[roamer_1]

Do a "Shock and Awe" and win the war.

I'm a Bolton fan...nuff said

Me too. A penultimate DEFCON from the foreign policy side... I would trust him to care about what the military needs there.

But a win was never in the cards. Afghanistan has broken the back of every army to ever attempt it.
Leaving is inevitable, but on our terms, without tucking tail.

[XenaLee]

Me too. A penultimate DEFCON from the foreign policy side... I would trust him to care about what the military needs there.

But a win was never in the cards. Afghanistan has broken the back of every army to ever attempt it.
Leaving is inevitable, but on our terms, without tucking tail.

I agree with that.   And no, never with "tucking tail".   Always with "making wisest decision for America".

[roamer_1]

I agree with that.   And no, never with "tucking tail".   Always with "making wisest decision for America".

 

[Right_in_Virginia]

Get out now … do a shock and awe on the way home. 

And burn every poppy field to white ash.

 

[EdJames]

Ok, I voted to pull out tomorrow (why are we making the same dumb mistake by being there that Russia did for years?).  But, I'm open to someone convincing me  (or to try) as to why that would be a bad idea.

Here, I made this desk for you:

[Cyber Liberty]

Here, I made this desk for you:

Pull out tomorrow, or risk the Birth of a Nation in 9 months or so....

 

[Ghost Bear]

Error 404 (Not Found)!!1

[austingirl]

I regret the billions if not trillions spent on building infrastructure which the seventh-century savages promptly blew up. I do not think the war was worth a single life, limb, or eye. We should have ended it early and decisively from the air.

[corbe]

   'Shock and Awe' had the USSR, Churchill and Alex the Great had our resources, they would have done the same (early in the campaign), and we wouldn't be having this conversation today.

[XenaLee]

Here, I made this desk for you:

Uhhh.......

[bigheadfred]

This was always a CIA war. Including the Russian period.

[corbe]

[mystery-ak]

Get out now … do a shock and awe on the way home. 

And burn every poppy field to white ash.

 

I will change my mind if they do it this way...

[truth_seeker]

This was always a CIA war. Including the Russian period.

Why not ask that paragon of integrity, character and virtue, John Brennan, Mr. CIA

Then go and rummage around in the basement of the Deep State, for the "career" diplomates that have been working for decades, to do exactly what?

I am sure you will find many who disagree with Eisenhower's warning to avoid "millitary, industrial, Congressionaal complex, neverending situations.

The next time he muslim hordes attack us by air, it will likely be with drones they learned to build and fly, while studying in our universities.

"Islam is a religion of peace?  GW Bush

"Hearts and minds" Gen. Petreas, PhD. 

[bigheadfred]

"Our" job in that place was to restore the opium production. Do some shock and awe on the way out. Mostly as self-defense as we go.

Don't you people remember? The Taliban was killing EVERY person who even thought of growing a poppy. They had pretty much stopped it. Production was very low if not zero.

Here we come along and put it to right. We made them the number one opium-producing country in the world. Year after year after year...

We don't need to try to "burn every poppy field to white ash".

Production soared after the Taliban took control of most of the country in 1996. But it banned the crop in 2000, leading to a 75% drop in the global supply of heroin but leaving farmers destitute, as no alternative to poppy cultivation was provided.

Cultivation was at a historic low in 2001, when the US and its coalition partners invaded.

The Taliban will do it.

[EdJames]

Uhhh.......

 

[EdJames]

This was always a CIA war. Including the Russian period.

You got it buddy.... your subsequent post also tells a part of the story....

@bigheadfred

[jmyrlefuller]

Nuke them.

[Cyber Liberty]

Nuke them.

Would anybody be able to tell the difference after?

[bigheadfred]

Nuke them.

"Nuking them" is sorta what you want to do. Since most of the worst, and thus the ones that need to be killed first, live in caves, the chance of "nuking" them is low.

So the better idea is to irradiate them.

The rule for nuclear explosions is 7 times 7 times 7. After 7 hours, 90% of the radioactivity is gone. After 49 hours, 99%. After 2 weeks, 99.9%.

Instead of burying our nuclear waste in Nevada, dump it on F ghanistan.

[Absalom]

Read a book on military history and repeat what Alexander did!!!

[jafo2010]

Some things to know.  When George Bush left office in 2009, ISIS controlled six provinces in Afghanistan.

I am a Trump supporter, but he continues to blatantly lie about the conquering of ISIS.  Simply not true.  What they did is run from Syria and land in other countries.  There are at least 16-18 countries with a strong base of ISIS in it, including Afghanistan.  They controlled six provinces in 2009 when Bush left office, I do not know how much they control today...more most certainly.

Taliban and ISIS and el Qaeda are all in league with one another.  We pull out, they re-establish Afghanistan as a training ground for future terrorists.

So, there is one word that tells it all. 

V  A  N  Q  U  I  S  H

We need to vanquish ISIS, el Qaeda, etc to such an extreme, that they do NOT reappear in the next 50 years.

So, what am I suggesting?  Well, we know what provinces are controlled by ISIS in Afghanistan.  We destroy every town, city, village.  Use as many MOAB bombs as necessary to destroy every city, town, village controlled by ISIS.

George Bush was an idiot, wasting treasury and the blood of our youth ON THE GROUND.  He could have destroyed Afghanistan from the air, but he was a puppet of the military industrial complex.  He granted government contracts worth tens if not hundreds of billions to Haliburton with NO COMPETITION, Cheney's company he was CEO prior to becoming VP.  Corruption never answered for.

The reason Gen George Patton and Admiral William Halsey were beloved during WWII was because they got it.  They understood the ONLY way to win a war was to vanquish your enemy.  Both held the opinion the only good German or good Jap was a dead one.  In fact, Halsey in a speech in 1943 said, 'the only good Jap is a Jap that has been dead six months or more.  In a country that supports the military as they do in Japan, the only good Jap civilian is a Jap civilian that has been dead six months or more'. 

That's why Bush and Petreas were/are idiots.  You do not vanquish an enemy by winning their hearts and minds.  Ugggh  You win by killing enough that they are no longer a problem.  We do not have that in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, et al.  We have created sovereignties that will be a major nightmare in time for the western world.

Even John Bolton did not espouse this mindset.  He was a spokesperson for the military industrial complex.  He did not have as a goal the complete vanquishing of the enemy.

Bottomline, kill every last mother's son of them, or fight them again one day in the future.  That is the choice.

[bigheadfred]

@jafo2010 .

 

[TomSea]

They beat ISIS in Iraq, the freaking Iraqi government said so.

USA led coalition with our SDF support on the ground and our air strikes by the coalition, sure as hell as won the ISIS capitol of Syria, Raqqa, won the Syrian North, Kurdistan, Rojava...

And if you are saying we didn't beat ISIS cause they pulll off a bomb attack in Europe somewhere or are in the Sinai, Afghanistan, then, I've got serious problems with your definition of victory if it entails going into every backwater to track them down.

Like we have in Africa.

Iraq government declared them defeated, they thanked us for our conribution.

That's all she wrote on that question, we must remain vigilant and probably should remain in some of these places, we are going to in Iraq into the foreseeable future.

That's no freaking lie. Sheesh.

[TomSea]

Some things to know.  When George Bush left office in 2009, ISIS controlled six provinces in Afghanistan.

Right off the bat, you mean the Taliban, not flipping ISIS in 2009 in Afghanistan, gee.

Well, we know what provinces are controlled by ISIS in Afghanistan.  We destroy every town, city, village.  Use as many MOAB bombs as necessary to destroy every city, town, village controlled by ISIS.

You mean Taliban, how many times,

T A L I B A N

No big deal, sometimes, we have to search for words.... I don't think you mentioned Taliban once in your comment,

ISIS in Afghanistan control very little land.

[TomSea]

Afghanistan: Who controls what
Nearly 18 years after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the armed group is still active across war-torn Afghanistan.

Alia Chughtai | 24 Jun 2019 05:24 GMT | Asia, Afghanistan, Taliban, Humanitarian crises, War & Conflict



https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2016/08/afghanistan-controls-160823083528213.html/

So, as of June 23, 2019 as the map says, No ISIS mentioned, I don't know if can be said they control anything, maybe they are just a menace.  I thought they were in some far corner of the country.

[bigheadfred]

Right off the bat, you mean the Taliban, not flipping ISIS in 2009 in Afghanistan, gee.

You mean Taliban, how many times,

T A L I B A N

No big deal, sometimes, we have to search for words.... I don't think you mentioned Taliban once in your comment,

ISIS in Afghanistan control very little land.

I don't know that it matters what name they go by. Recruits from places all over the world. Mix and match. They are all the same.

 

[TomSea]

I don't know that it matters what name they go by. Recruits from places all over the world. Mix and match. They are all the same.

 

Do you call the Italians and the Germans the same for World War II? The Fascsts and the Nazis as the same. I guess, if one is using this kind of reasoning, then it is.

Yeah, say ISIS controlled parts of Afghanistan in 2009 before there was an ISIS, makes sense.

And no, the Taliban is not ISIS.

[Skipper]

ISIS and the Taliban are enemies as of now.

[bigheadfred]

Do you call the Italians and the Germans the same for World War II? The Fascsts and the Nazis as the same. I guess, if one is using this kind of reasoning, then it is.

Yeah, say ISIS controlled parts of Afghanistan in 2009 before there was an ISIS, makes sense.

And no, the Taliban is not ISIS.

A wolf is a wolf is what I am saying. The Taliban pack fighting the ISIS pack doesn't mean they are different animals.

http://www.wolfsongnews.org/news/Alaska_current_events_3015.html

Destroying both groups won't really change things. Another group, or groups, are waiting in the wings to take up the reins. Different name-same animal.

[jafo2010]

Let's be clear, I am NOT confusing the two.

I get a lot of info on security worldwide from Stratfor.  Here is a recent article by them, and it does not appear ISIS is defeated.  I believe it was Stratfor that had the assessment in January, 2009 that ISIS controlled six provinces in Afghanistan.  I am not making this up!!!!!!!

https://www.stratfor.com/article/tracking-jihadist-movements-2019-islamic-state

Tomsea...you do not have the ability to discern the difference between winning a battle versus winning a war?

The Japanese thought a major blow to the USA at Pearl Harbor would knock us out from the get go.  Trump has delivered a Pearl Harbor blow to ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and yet they are established in many other countries.  We pull out of Afghanistan, ISIS will rise like a Phoenix and control much of the country over night.