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Originally Posted by Jordanls19
one of the militant islamist primary demands is that the U.S. leave the middle east forever.
therefore, I think we should dig in tighter than a tick and never leave. ever.
build bases with their own airfields and a ten mile kill zone around it.
then let them do what they like. run their government how they please. but we'll be there and when we locate terrorist activity we kill it with extreme meanness.
From the time of Hannibal, nobody has won a war against the local Afghani's. The Soviets killed 1 to 2 million Afghanis, displaced another 5 to 10 million, 1/3 of the countries total population, and we all know how that ended. Their warrior culture and terrain make it impossible to win unless you just shoot everything that moves... or go with a nuke.
Why not Wal-Mart made slaves of most Americans, it should work there too.Quote:
Originally Posted by KevDen2005
How about we just destroy our enemies with a huge display of force and leave the ruins as a warning to anyone else who wants to finance ideologies that promote attacks against the US and its allies.
We could be out of the whole region within a month and not have to come back.
Oh, wait, I forgot. We're there to help the poor, oppressed people of the mideast breathe free, ie, vote in Islamic republics everywhere so they can do even more harm to us [Bang]
You have to remember, the only reason the tide turned for the Afghans during the Soviet occupation was because we started giving them munitions, money and training... If the USSR had really comitted and we didn't lend a hand they'd all be part of the Russian Republic of Afghanistan.Quote:
Originally Posted by youngmedic
But historically, yes, no one has ever conquered the Afghanistan frontier in over 3000 years of recorded history. But we are making headway in that. Because of the conflict over there we have adapted and even indoctrinated our forces in true asymmetric warfare, which as JFK predicted- the future of war will not be against standing uniform armies but will be against smaller more maneuverable and guerrilla forces. Of course this was before we really got heavily involved in Vietnam, and we all know how big of a lesson that was.
I thought this had become proxy war for Pakistan, plenty of food, ammo and tea refills on the other side of the border. Can't win with that shit happening. That and the seemingly limitless supply of foreign jihadies.
I watched some documentaries about Vietnam over Memorial Day. It was eerily similar language to what we are hearing now. "no matter how many we kill, they seem to be able to keep refilling their ranks" (paraphrasing). I don't have any recommendations, but it seem to sound all too familiar...
A lot of people are comparing the conflict in Afghanistan to Vietnam. Unfortunately, we have to play nice and wear kid gloves because of the fallout from the international scene and our own media if we kill innocents (by accident or on purpose). When the enemy hides among the local population and can just drop their guns after an ambush and blend in, that's when war takes a bit of a difficult turn and you really have to watch it. I say we should stop worrying about the liberal media, what people think of us, and just kill anyone suspected of being a baddie and go from there. I always tell journalists and naysayers against the war: "Oh so you're an expert in modern warfare? It's not as easy as 'shoot the guys with the red arm bands,' we actually have no clue sometimes who's with us or against us, but if you can do a better job I'd like to see you try." If we put public opinion and our reputation out the window we could accomplish a lot more, but the Pentagon doesn't want to be harassed by picketers every day they walk into work because we're fighting fire with fire instead of a raging inferno with plastic squirt guns.
The problem is that we have made these wars too PC. We hesitate to use a scalpel, when we should be using a big f**king chainsaw. Instead of making surgical strikes with drones, and falling over ourselves apologizing every time a civilian gets a hangnail as a result of them sheltering these islamic militants, we should be making high level carpet bombing runs with B-52s, and instead of apologies, making statements to the effect of "If you don't want civilians to die, stop aiding the terrorists". We don't have to step over the nuclear line to be able to cause significant destruction. FAEs like the Daisy Cutters and MOABs make a pretty solid pop, without the nasty cleanup issues of nukes.
As much as this point is reiterated I think people are still forgetting a couple big factors. States in the gulf (Saudi Arabia as the head piece) were matching us dollar for dollar. Guess who is still pumping money into the warlords pockets, and the madrassas across the border. We also have less troops in country than the USSR did. Oh and no natural border to use as a supply route and defensive backstop. We can't keep playing nice with countries like SA and Pakistan if they want to play both sides, allies my ass.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronin13