Ooh Ooh Surge Afganistan- that's what a serious leader would do!

[chunksmediocrites]

Good gravy. Surge will solve it, right?
No question as to what the fuck we are doing in Iraq or Afghanistan.
The Point: What Bush got right offers clues for Obama by Mark Bowden- The Philladelphia Inquirer

Three years ago, the war in Iraq seemed lost.

There was little disagreement that the Bush administration, having toppled Saddam Hussein with relative ease, had badly bungled the aftermath. Tank units led by Gen. Tommy Franks had led U.S. forces triumphantly into Baghdad. There had been a ceremonial toppling of Hussein's statue, and the presidential "Mission Accomplished" news conference . . . and then the real war started.

It was a mistake seemingly made in every war in human history; commanders enter superbly prepared to fight the last war, not the one they are in. It turned out that the war in Iraq was not about seizing territory but battling a stubborn, murderous, and determined insurgency embedded in the Iraqi population.

President Bush made a courageous decision in the summer of 2006 to reverse direction, but not the reversal sought by Congress (including then-Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden), the American public, the overwhelming majority of the press (including this newspaper), and even most of his own military advisers. Instead of cutting our losses and pulling out of Iraq, as we did in Vietnam, Bush doubled down. He invested more troops and, more important, embraced an entirely new strategy.

And Bush was right. What had happened beneath all of the politics was a small revolution in war-fighting philosophy, championed and implemented by an unlikely military leader, Gen. David Petraeus, a soldier/intellectual molded as much by the think tank as the battlefield. He calls the movement his "Counterinsurgency Nation," and it has rewritten the way America fights. It is not a completely new idea - there are few of those in the study of war - but its basic principles came into clearer and clearer focus as a new generation of military officers fought in Afghanistan and Iraq. Its guiding principle is simple: The prize in these countries is not territory, but people.

Yeah... that op-ed was reprinted in our local rag this Sunday. Here's my response that I posted in their comments:

It turned out that the war in Iraq was not about seizing territory but battling a stubborn, murderous and determined insurgency embedded in the Iraqi population.

The majority of insurgents in Iraq were Sunni Iraqi nationalists, resisting an illegal, stubborn, murderous, and determined foreign occupier- the US. As well, it turned out the reasons for 'preemptively' attacking Iraq were fabrications.
Mark Bowden argues that the surge was an effective strategy in Iraq and should be used similarly with minor modifications in Afghanistan.
The surge occurred at the end of internal displacement and civil war in Iraq. As the US failed in protecting the nation it was occupying, Iraqis began segregating based on religious and tribal affiliations. Sunni and Shiite militias regulated and controlled majority Sunni or Shiite neighborhoods and regions, forcing out by intimidation and murder any of other groups. As millions fled internally, and areas ceased being battlefields for which group controlled which street, the surge began. For our military or political leadership to take credit for the reduction in internal warfare ignores what was happening already. For the US to suggest there is a 'winning strategy' in illegally occupying a foreign nation is ludicrous in its construction.

Bowden misses the essential point as well regarding Afghanistan: the initial bombing of Afghanistan was a supposed response- group punishment of the nation- for the Taliban government stating that they would not extradite Osama bin Laden directly to the US. They agreed to extradite bin Laden- if they could capture him- to the Pakistan government, another Islamic country. This was somehow our 'justification' for attacking and then occupying portions of Afghanistan. They had nothing to do with 9/11.

Frankly I believe the US attacked Afghanistan because the US wanted to demonstrate to the world that if we were attacked, *somebody* was going to get bombed to hell, even if they weren't responsible. Even if the parties responsible were stateless. Afghanistan provided a convenient target, being Islamic, unable to strike back effectively, and nominally friendless in the global community.

As well, no army has ever held Afghanistan for long or well or without massive death and costs- even back to Alexander the Great. Afghanistan is not going to recover from the decades of war fought on its soil anytime soon. Trying to depose the religious fundamentalist population living in the remote, barren, infrastructure-less, and rural areas of Afghanistan -through warfare- is futile. Afghanistan has numerous ethnic and tribal groups and most of the populace is functionally illiterate, including the military. There is no class of Afghanis educated or prepared to take up the reigns of governance, if it were possible. What foreign military presence in Afghanistan does is make the US a pawn in political and tribal disputes while putting the lie to every western relief/aid and infrastructure operation.

Afghanistan does not need our military, and the US needs to look to our domestic failures in our own economy and infrastructure and our religious extremism before we suggest in our vast hubris that we are ready to tackle another nation's problems... if that had anything to do with why we are in Afghanistan in the first place.

[Ari]

I'm amused and saddened that the same people whining over Obama's "Death camp" medical reform think the best way to solve Afganistan this is to throw more bodies onto the fire, and kill more furners.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

The most recent US soldiers killed in Afghanistan were 8 and 10 years old on 9/11. That's how long we've been there https://t.co/ZcQFwGBRMo

— mark seibel (@markseibel) August 4, 2017

[MonCapitan2002]

That is deeply depressing in more ways than one. When the September 11, 2001 attacks occurred, I was older than the legal drinking age in the United States of America while these men were children. In any case, I at least can say I lived long enough to see my thirties. These young men never will, and that is a terrible tragedy.

[chunksmediocrites]

Marine Recruits Learn an Important Lesson: What Happened on 9/11
The U.S. war in Afghanistan has been going on for so long that the newest recruits weren’t alive when it started
Paywall for an article you don't need to read- p. much covered in the title and subtitle

[JoeP]

[thanks] for the title and subtitle, not that you need to read this reply because it's pretty much covered in my "Thanks, from: JoeP"

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Vet talking about Afganistan

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Some interesting revisits.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Alexander sent Afghan soil to his mother? - pothos.org

[Pyrrho]

Absolutely heartbreaking.

[Basset Hound]

For you American advocates of 'nation building'. Mostly between Canada and Mexico there is a nation. Why don't you spend your time, effort and resources building that nation up and leave others alone?

[Stephen Maturin]

The liberal () mainstream media is losing its goddamn mind. This is their new Benghazi, except new and improved since it'll garner the support of wingnuts and a substantial percentage of "libs" as well. This may be how the GQP retakes both houses of Congress.

[davidm]

Originally Posted by Stephen Maturin

The liberal () mainstream media is losing its goddamn mind. This is their new Benghazi, except new and improved since it'll garner the support of wingnuts and a substantial percentage of "libs" as well. This may be how the GQP retakes both houses of Congress.

I think it might be hard for the Fascist Jim Crow Party (formerly known as the Republican Party) to make serious hay with the Afghanistan outcome, given that their beloved Orange Shit Gibbon was formally pulling out of the Graveyard of Empires before Biden put the finishing touches on the withdrawal. OTOH, given the immense gullibility of average Americans, with their short attention spans, anything is possible. This is especially true in the Neo-Confederate States of America, land of Stump Jumpers and Jebus Fellaters.

And — this just in! — The rewriting of recent history by the Orange Shit Gibbon himself, and the Fascist Jim Crow Party, is already happening!

[Stephen Maturin]

Originally Posted by davidm

I think it might be hard for the Fascist Jim Crow Party (formerly known as the Republican Party) to make serious hay with the Afghanistan outcome, given that their beloved Orange Shit Gibbon was formally pulling out of the Graveyard of Empires before Biden put the finishing touches on the withdrawal.

Good to see ya, David! Hopefully things will calm down between now and the midterms, but as of now . . . Jesus Fucking Christ. It's one "Could Biden Possibly Be A Bigger Fuck-up?" headline right after another on CNN.

There is, of course, no way any of this should work. There's recent video of the old incontinent fat guy who used to live in the White House bragging about how Biden wants to stay in Afghanistan forever but he's gotta get out because of the sweet withdrawal deal said fat guy negotiated. But . . .

Originally Posted by davidm

OTOH, given the immense gullibility of average Americans, with their short attention spans, anything is possible.

Yessir. Along with the stump jumping hicks, more than a few "libs" will be amenable to "Look what that fuckup Biden did to those poor Afghan women and girls who were depending on us" arguments.

And as the temperatures start dropping and COVID comes roaring back bigger and badder than ever, it'll be "Biden fucked up the Afghanistan withdrawal AND the pandemic response! What a FUCK UP that guy is!"

Originally Posted by davidm

And — this just in! — The rewriting of recent history by the Orange Shit Gibbon himself, and the Fascist Jim Crow Party, is already happening!

The old incontinent fat guy who used to live in the White House is nothing if not a consistently unhinged revisionist historian!

And I see the Republican National Committee scrubbed from its website all stories about the awesome peace deal the fat guy struck with the Taliban, including the photos of ghastly piece of shit Mike Pompeo and his Taliban buds.

[Stephen Maturin]

And before I forget entirely, ups to Rep. Barbara Lee, the one and only member of Congress to vote against the authorization for use of military force that gave the Shrub administration carte blanche in the wake of 9/11.

Speech on 9/14/01 - YouTube

[specious_reasons]

The cynic in me suspects that the few semi-competent people in the previous administration set the withdrawal deadline sometime into the next term, with the expectation that either:
- They can claim all the credit at the time while the next guy get all the blame when the inevitable happens.
or
- It happens early enough after being reelected to avoid too much long-term damage.

It sucks. It's a tragedy that will linger for decades (at least).

[But]

Shocking footage of Afghans falling from sky...

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what a successful mission looks like. Isn't that great? It's raining men, just like on 9/11. Even the registration number fits. Is that the symbolism you were going for, Gramps?

[ChuckF]

Now that we have finally left this place we never belonged, in the most ignominious and humiliating way, with all the inevitable consequences, there will be a corresponding reduction in defense appropriations that were previously attributable to operations there. Right? Right?

[davidm]

Mainstream media bullshit on Biden and Afghanistan

[Ari]

Well yeah, I mean the media isn’t going to admit they fully had a part in being a propaganda wing for this 20 year cluster fuck. It’s amazing how many suddenly care about people in Afghanistan. Americans would love to forget how in the early 2000s the sentiment was “kill them all! Ra ra ra!”

This was all inevitable. The moment I found out US officials mixed Shia and Sunni muslims after the invasion of iraq because muslims are muslims, it was obvious this would all eventually fail. It doesn’t matter how scum the Taliban are, their zeal and basic understanding of their own culture was always going to beat out foreign apathy.

[ChuckF]

Originally Posted by Ari

It’s amazing how many suddenly care about people in Afghanistan. Americans would love to forget how in the early 2000s the sentiment was “kill them all! Ra ra ra!”

Isn't that amazing? I expect we'll be promptly forgetting again, once the Afghanistan débâcle-upon-exit stories that have been sitting in draft for the past two decades are exhausted.

Or maybe there will be a sincere, durable groundshift in thinking about how the US uses its ground forces and treats its allies. Just like all that national soulsearching about the Kurds, which continues to this day!

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Thanks for the input, Dubya.

[Sock Puppet]

Yes, let's be sure to be compassionate and polite while we piss down their backs and tell them it's rainin'.

Meanwhile, Tucker Carlson tells his troglodyte followers that Afghan refugees are coming to eat your children and rape your men, so keep 'em out and shoot 'em all if they get through. (No point in linking it.) Dubya is such a RINO.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Twitter Frog Account Successfully Negotiates With Taliban To Secure Safety Of Spanish Diplomats After Government Fails - NewsFinale

[viscousmemories]

Create Two, Three, Many Saigons. That Is the Watchword: The Thirty-Third Newsletter (2021)