Losing Ground in Afghanistan

[Nickdfresh]

Editorial
Losing Ground in Afghanistan

Article Tools Sponsored By
Published: July 23, 2006

Things are not going well in Afghanistan, the original front in the war on terrorism.

American and NATO casualties are rising in some of the deadliest fighting since 2001. The Taliban are enjoying a resurgence in presence and power, especially in their traditional southern and eastern strongholds. And with civilian casualties mounting and economic reconstruction in many areas stalled by inadequate security, the American-backed government is in danger of losing the battle for Afghan hearts and minds. If this battle is lost, there can be no lasting military success against the Taliban and their Qaeda allies.

There is still a chance to turn things around. The first step must be enhanced security, so that foreign and local civilians can carry out reconstruction projects. That will require a large and long-term foreign military presence, with a large American component. Unfortunately, Washington is headed in a different direction. With the Army overstretched in Iraq and Congressional elections coming up, the Pentagon is moving to prematurely reduce already inadequate American troop strength.

The plan is for European and Canadian NATO forces to step in and provide security for civilian teams in southern and eastern Afghanistan while the remaining Americans concentrate on fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda. This is a new variant of the Bush administration’s misbegotten theory that Americans should be war-fighters and leave nation-building to others.

There are two big problems with this. First, in violent situations like that in southern Afghanistan, NATO can assure security only if America, its leading member, provides reconnaissance, transport and combat support. Second, the idea that American troops are there not to bring security to Afghans but to hunt down the Taliban — and too bad if Afghan civilians are caught in the cross-fire — is a disastrous approach to counterinsurgency warfare. It has not worked in Iraq and it is not working in Afghanistan.

In the end, international military efforts can only buy time to build an Afghanistan its own people will fight to defend after Western troops leave. In addition to foreign aid, that will require improved performance by the government of President Hamid Karzai, which has been plagued by corruption and hobbled by the alliances it has made with local warlords to extend its authority beyond Kabul.

In particular, the Karzai government has not made much of a dent in Afghanistan’s hugely profitable drug trafficking operations. Corruption and governmental feckless are only partly to blame. This is an area in which Afghanistan’s multiple problems have begun to feed off one another. A lack of credit and security has left farmers few economic alternatives to opium. Drug revenues feed corruption and make the warlords who run many of the trafficking rings more powerful. They, in turn, use their additional money and influence to recruit more fighters and expand into new areas, promoting wider instability.

Building a stable Afghanistan that can stand up to the Taliban once Western soldiers leave is going to take many years, many billions of dollars and more foreign troops for longer than most Western governments are now prepared to contemplate. Yet signs of fatigue with the Afghan mission are already beginning to appear in Western capitals, including Washington. These must be resisted.

Washington made the mistake of premature disengagement once before, after the 1989 Soviet withdrawal. That opened the door to the Taliban, Al Qaeda and Sept. 11. If America now means to be serious about combating international terrorism, it cannot make the same mistake twice.

Link (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/23/opinion/23sun1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin)

[Nickdfresh]

(CBS) In the aftermath of Sept. 11, President Bush ordered his then top anti-terrorism adviser to look for a link between Iraq and the attacks, despite being told there didn't seem to be one.

The charge comes from the adviser, Richard Clarke, in an exclusive interview on 60 Minutes (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/19/60minutes/main607356.shtml)...Clarke says that as early as the day after the attacks, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was pushing for retaliatory strikes on Iraq, even though al Qaeda was based in Afghanistan.

Clarke suggests the idea took him so aback, he initally thought Rumsfeld was joking....

You voted for this Neo Cons...

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
You voted for this Neo Cons...

Now there is a well though-out post.

:rolleyes:

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
You voted for this Neo Cons...

No, "we" didn't.

We voted for someone who was, and still is, a better choice than algore.

We don't agree with all of the people he has chosen in his Administration, particularly that idiot Rumsfeld.

We didn't vote for every single decision he ever made. No, we don't agree with them all. No we don't.

We don't agree with all of the speeches he has ever made or of what his policy for particular issues will be in the future. We reserve the right to disagree, even though we voted for him. That is America in it's infinite glory.

That is the right of EVERY American voter...to disagree with someone even if they did cast their vote in his/her direction. People who didn't cast their vote for the incumbent also have the right to bitch. The only Americans that should keep their yaps shut (but usually don't) are the dumbfucks who didn't see fit to vote at all.

:gulp:

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by BigBadBrian
No, "we" didn't.

We voted for someone who was, and still is, a better choice than algore.

We don't agree with all of the people he has chosen in his Administration, particularly that idiot Rumsfeld.

Yeah, he's better than Gore alright, he just hires douche bags, and refuses to fire treasonous cunts in his administration...

BTW, why didn't you vote for Kerry then? Lying or stupidly believing in his own lies not enough for you?

You voted exactly for this shit! At least be a good little conservative and take responsibility for your actions...


We didn't vote for every single decision he ever made. No, we don't agree with them all. No we don't.

We don't agree with all of the speeches he has ever made or of what his policy for particular issues will be in the future. We reserve the right to disagree, even though we voted for him. That is America in it's infinite glory.

That is the right of EVERY American voter...to disagree with someone even if they did cast their vote in his/her direction. People who didn't cast their vote for the incumbent also have the right to bitch. The only Americans that should keep their yaps shut (but usually don't) are the dumbfucks who didn't see fit to vote at all.

:gulp:

No, you just help enable and elect one of the biggest douche bags in Presidential history, along with the vast majority of uninformed fools that continue to vote against their own interests, because they some how beLIEve that they're conservative.

You voted exactly for that! C'mon Bri, you're a dedicated Republican! You'll vote for any asshat they put out no matter what...

[BigBadBrian]

Nick =

http://www.strangecosmos.com/images/content/367.jpg

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by BigBadBrian
Nick =



Wow, another articulate, thoughtful post from everyone's favorite mindless douche bag, BigBitchBrian...:)

[WACF]

I take issue with this part....

The plan is for European and Canadian NATO forces to step in and provide security for civilian teams in southern and eastern Afghanistan while the remaining Americans concentrate on fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda. This is a new variant of the Bush administration’s misbegotten theory that Americans should be war-fighters and leave nation-building to others.


Canadians have been fighting and Candians have been killed...this paragraph portrays that the US will only fight.

Pure misinformation.

[WACF]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com//servlet/story/RTGAM.20060720.wblatchford20/TPStory/National/columnists

Canadians earn laurels in Afghan testing ground

CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD

From Thursday's Globe and Mail

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — Brigadier-General David Fraser, who seems a shy and introverted man, said this a couple of days ago just after the microphones were turned off. But I think he will forgive me quoting it here anyway, because of the affection for his troops it reveals: “God bless those little buggers.”

He was indulging in a rare moment — he is after all the Canadian commander of the multinational coalition task force here — of national pride. He was referring to the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, and the rest of the Canadian battle group, particularly the approximately 600 soldiers and the logistical crews who support them who were still out in the field in the withering heat of the Afghanistan summer, trying to drive out the Taliban from remote areas in the volatile southern provinces of the country.

Though mere weeks from being relieved by the Royal Canadian Regiment and going home, their six-month tour drawing to a close, these soldiers aren't being allowed to let up even a little.

Asked if the Canadians aren't exhausted, Gen. Fraser replied with the passion that probably only his intimates usually see.

“We're here to support Afghans,” he said. “They've been at it a lot longer than we have. We are going to go home one day, the soldiers in this brigade. Afghans are not going home. This is their home. They're more tired than we are.

“I don't think we owe them anything less than 100 per cent from the day that we get here until the day that we leave,” he said, his regard for the Afghans with whom he closely works, in government and the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police, evident.

“This is important,” Gen. Fraser said. “This is providing people who are less fortunate than us something that we take for granted at home.”

When the PPCLI et al. get back to Canada, he said, and get to “sit down and pop a cold one” over a barbecue, “there are Afghan soldiers, men and women here, who will be fighting this time next year, have been fighting for 30-odd years. So, I don't think, you know, that the soldiers are tired. I know they're tired.” But they're here “supporting those Afghans who have nowhere else to go.

“We won't rest on our laurels,” he said.

Laurels, however, the Canadian battle group here has earned in spades, so much so that two PPCLI companies, slated to return after a mission in Helmand province, were diverted to another dangerous part of the province. With their light armoured vehicles — the now-famous LAVs manufactured in London, Ont. — and honed fighting skills, they are in hot demand by their coalition partners.

Indeed, this Afghanistan mission and the collective Canadian performance is widely regarded by senior military leaders, and those who observe them, as a landmark, institution-altering one.

As Royal Canadian Military College professor and military historian Sean Maloney — a rare bird in that he is in Kandahar watching first-hand the very subject, contemporary warfare, that he teaches — said the other day, “What you saw here is a seminal event in Canadian military history.

“You saw a battalion-level combat operation that was executed very well. And this was a battalion, not just infantry, but logistics. ... It was a real combined effort, logistics, maintainers. It is a unique event, a seminal event.”

Colonel Tom Putt, the 47-year-old reservist who is the deputy commander of Task Force Afghanistan (Canada's overall operation here), said in a recent interview that the experience will have “a huge impact on how the army is going to operate for the next decade. There are so many positives.”

He quickly rhymed off some of them: Canada was the first nation to use in the field the newest big M-777 howitzer guns; in the LAVs, Canada has the best family of vehicles here; Canada was the first to put into theatre the Nyala, or RG-31s, with the new automatic weapons system that allows the crew to fight from inside; Canada leads the small but highly sophisticated base hospital.

“Canada's playing in the big leagues now,” he said. “We are the best-equipped ground force here. ... Everybody wants us.”

And with a strong contingent of young soldiers — Dr. Maloney calls it “Gen X leading Gen Y and both of them proving they're tough” — Canada was also uniquely equipped for the modern counterinsurgency.

“These kids adjust to the technology so fast,” Col. Putt said. “The whole chat-room concept is invaluable in command and control. In the old days, command was one guy in one place, sitting before a big screen directing things.

“Now it happens simultaneously on five different screens, with officers and NCOs chatting to each other ... sometimes not one word is said, but ‘Meet me in chat room X.' We of the caveman generation were wringing our hands at the thought, but it's all happening in chat rooms, and the captains and sergeants are the ones.”

These young men, junior officers and new sergeants, are expected, and will expect, to rise rapidly through the ranks and drive the new army, as senior leaders see it. They have operated here with tremendous independence, and are unlikely to have much tolerance, back at home, for a slow-moving, or slow-witted, bureaucracy.

Dr. Maloney likes to describe it this way, and says he delivered the message at the military staff college as long ago as six years ago: “I said we can't have disco-era leadership in a gangsta-rap world, and this is a gangsta-rap world.

“We're dealing here with one of the most complex political environments I've ever seen, and in the future, conflicts will look like this — corruption, drugs, tribalism.”

Chiefly, though, having been tested in the fire of combat, the Canadians have learned to do what Col. Putt calls “pull the B.S. card” out of any given deck.

In the old days, he said, “if a guy broke his ankle, it was the end of the universe,” but in Afghanistan, “if there's a rocket attack [and there was another last night], there are three young captains at night working on it, I never even see the report.”

Lieutenant-Colonel John Conrad, the articulate commander of the National Support Element, whose young drivers and maintainers have enabled the combat troops to stay in the field, puts it like this: “It is seminal. We never had a TV war. This is our first real battle in your living room every night, the battle of Pashmul [where Canadians earlier this month were in a two-day-long fight with the Taliban] ... it is seminal.

“One thing about Kandahar: It's an anvil upon which the truth gets hammered out.”

A new army, new leaders, a new kind of war, yet still with ancient traditions.

Cols. Putt and Conrad and Gen. Fraser began one working day this week with a quiet medals parade for the 300 members of the NSE. The soldiers were among the first here to be presented with the lovely looking South West Asian Service Medal. There were tears in a lot of eyes.

“This is history,” Col. Conrad told the soldiers, “and you are an intrinsic part of it.”

Later, he remembered when the unit was training in Wainwright, Alta., a visiting British officer was there, and he warned them, “You're gonna have to fight” in Afghanistan. “And Dave Fraser said, ‘You're goddamned right.'

“We deserve to be represented this way,” Col. Conrad said. “It's a real coming of age for the country. Canadians care about having a voice in the world, and that voice goes silent without boots on the ground. You want a voice at the G8, you gotta pay. I think Canada is ready for that.” cblatchford@globeandmail.com

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by WACF
I take issue with this part....

The plan is for European and Canadian NATO forces to step in and provide security for civilian teams in southern and eastern Afghanistan while the remaining Americans concentrate on fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda. This is a new variant of the Bush administration’s misbegotten theory that Americans should be war-fighters and leave nation-building to others.


Canadians have been fighting and Candians have been killed...this paragraph portrays that the US will only fight.

Pure misinformation.

True enough...

And they're highly thought of, especially the snipers...

[Nickdfresh]

Canadian Forces and Afghan Nat'l Army troops battle Taliban in firefight:

Video (http://www.ogrish.com/archives/2006/july/ogrish-dot-com-canadian_and_afghan_forces_engage_taliban.wmv)

[ELVIS]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh

Washington made the mistake of premature disengagement once before, after the 1989 Soviet withdrawal. That opened the door to the Taliban, Al Qaeda and Sept. 11

Whatever, dumbass...

You actually believe this New York Times bullshit ??


:elvis:

[Cathedral]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
Wow, another articulate, thoughtful post from everyone's favorite mindless douche bag, BigBitchBrian...:)

Nope, not this time, he nailed it and YOU to the diaper.

BBB just admitted that Bush is flawed and that is what you have been after for awhile.
Now that he's done that, IT ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU!

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by ELVIS
Whatever, dumbass...

You actually believe this New York Times bullshit ??


:elvis:

Yes Elvira, I do, you dispute any of their facts you druggie illiterate? Or did they use too many "big words" for you to bother to read it?

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by Cathedral
Nope, not this time, he nailed it and YOU to the diaper.

BBB just admitted that Bush is flawed and that is what you have been after for awhile.
Now that he's done that, IT ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU!

Yet he'd still vote for him again, because God told him too...

Let's go back and look at some of BBB's contradictory, hypocritical posts contaminated with self-serving lies, shall we? I recall him nearly ejaculating all over himself when Dumbya won in 2004, well, you voted for the stench of failure, this is what you get.

[Nickdfresh]

And THERE WAS A PALPABLE TRACK RECORD OF FAILURE IN 2004!!

[Cathedral]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
Yet he'd still vote for him again, because God told him too...

Let's go back and look at some of BBB's contradictory, hypocritical posts contaminated with self-serving lies, shall we? I recall him nearly ejaculating all over himself when Dumbya won in 2004, well, you voted for the stench of failure, this is what you get.

I don't know BBB personally or well enough to know the answers to what you propose.
But, i do know that if I could have seen the future i'd have had more thinking to do before I voted for him.

Just try to remember that the alternative in both elections didn't do much to make people think harder about their choice.

Religious nutcases are, well, nutcases and no matter what they do it is done in the name of something I consider to be false.

I made a mistake, but i learned from that mistake.

[Nickdfresh]

Well I respect that. True Conservatives a fleeing Bush faster than mice from the Titanic...

[Cathedral]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
Well I respect that. True Conservatives a fleeing Bush faster than mice from the Titanic...

That analogy actually made me shutter, Nick.
The mice had nowhere to go but a freezing, watery, and certain death.

[Nickdfresh]

Well, that's what happens when you betray every promise you made when taking the Congress in 96'.

[LoungeMachine]

Originally posted by ELVIS
Whatever, dumbass...

You actually believe this New York Times bullshit ??


:elvis:


You sure believed the NYT when they were hyping BushCO's pre-war bullshit. :rolleyes:


Once again, a dummy con doesn't like the message, so he denegrates the messenger.

You're an idiot, E.

Plain and simple.

[LoungeMachine]

Originally posted by BigBadBrian
No, "we" didn't.

We voted for someone who was, and still is, a better choice than algore.

We don't agree with all of the people he has chosen in his Administration, particularly that idiot Rumsfeld.

We didn't vote for every single decision he ever made. No, we don't agree with them all. No we don't.

We don't agree with all of the speeches he has ever made or of what his policy for particular issues will be in the future. We reserve the right to disagree, even though we voted for him. That is America in it's infinite glory.

That is the right of EVERY American voter...to disagree with someone even if they did cast their vote in his/her direction. People who didn't cast their vote for the incumbent also have the right to bitch. The only Americans that should keep their yaps shut (but usually don't) are the dumbfucks who didn't see fit to vote at all.

:gulp:



Yet you still bitch about "Liberals" in here all of the time, and other than this post, usually don't say one negative thing about this Administration.

Or better yet, you whine about how "NO ONE TALKS ABOUT ALL OF THE GOOD NEWS COMING FROM IRAQ"

As if it soemhow negates the decades of misery and strife this occupation is going to cost us, and the world.


Regardless, nice to see you on the record as seeing this Administration as the failure it clearly is.

See you in November. ;)

[ Let's see how RoveCO does without a majority this time]

[WACF]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
True enough...

And they're highly thought of, especially the snipers...

They have sniping with these too....

http://www.combatcamera.forces.gc.ca/netpub/server.np?

Clouds of smoke are released as call sign 15C fires an illumination round in support of Coalition forces. The M777 155mm howitzer are firing from the base at Kandahar Airfield. B Troop is part of A Battery The 1st Royal Canadian Horse Artillery based out of Shilo Manitoba. They are part of 1st Battalion Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry (1 PPCLI) Battle Group.

[WACF]

Damn red x...

Imagine a big ass gun.

[Nickdfresh]

You mean this:

http://news.xinhuanet.com/mil/2005-03/17/xinsrc_27203021716287761611923.jpg

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
Yet he'd still vote for him again, because God told him too...

Let's go back and look at some of BBB's contradictory, hypocritical posts contaminated with self-serving lies, shall we? I recall him nearly ejaculating all over himself when Dumbya won in 2004, well, you voted for the stench of failure, this is what you get.

You need to kick back, have a beer or ten, and take your blood pressure meds.

You're going to kill yourself with all that hatred.

Could it possibly you're so pissed because the Dems couldn't muster up anyone to beat someone who you feel is inferior? It just may be...

Next election, you Dems need to run someone who is competent and that most Americans will respect rather than the two dimwits you ran in 2000 and 2004.

Also, I was pushing Bush's victory in your face a year and half ago because most, if not all, of you libs predicted his defeat. :D

:gulp:

[LoungeMachine]

Originally posted by BigBadBrian
Also, I was pushing Bush's victory in your face a year and half ago because most, if not all, of you libs predicted his defeat. :D

:gulp:


Good thing you had Ohio ;)


:gulp:

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by LoungeMachine
Yet you still bitch about "Liberals" in here all of the time, and other than this post, usually don't say one negative thing about this Administration.




I don't need to. I don't believe I, or anyone else for that matter, is required to state my position on every single issue facing this country. Face it: the "discussions" around here are usually limited to only a few subjects...and name-calling.

Anyhow, it would actually be nice for Liberals to actually discuss an alternative platform to Bush rather than just give the same old song and dance and insult him and the people who voted for him.

In order for "you guys" to win this fall and in 2008 you need to convince guys like myself, Cat, Warham, DiamondD, etc. that you guys are actually running people that are better, not just more suited at insulting the other guy.

[LoungeMachine]

Originally posted by BigBadBrian


Could it possibly you're so pissed because the Dems couldn't muster up anyone to beat someone who you feel is inferior? It just may be...



Why can't you guys ever accept the simple fact our "anger and hatred" is a direct reaction to the failures and lies coming from this president and his administration?

We don't hate him for the R after his name, much as you'd love to believe.

It actually comes from his incompetence, not that of his opponents.

Do you get that?

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by LoungeMachine
Good thing you had Ohio ;)


:gulp:

...and Florida in 2000.

:cool:

[LoungeMachine]

LMAO

But at least in Ohio you were able to get the votes changed.

The votes actually would have shown you LOST in FLA.

You're getting better at vote theft, I'll hand you that.

[WACF]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
You mean this:

http://news.xinhuanet.com/mil/2005-03/17/xinsrc_27203021716287761611923.jpg

That would be the beast....

[kentuckyklira]

Well, there´s more good news!

Do any of you know how much of Pakistan the Taliban effectively control nowadays? Well, check it out, but better not on Faux News!

And, in case you need a reminder, Pakistan has nukes, and the means to deploy them!

Next reminder, Pakistan has been near bankrupt for decades now! Guess whose checkbook will have to keep them from selling to the highest bidder! Or whose boys and girls will have to die keeping the Taliban out of Karachi and Islamabad!

"Mission Accomplished"!

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by kentuckyklira
Well, there´s more good news!

Do any of you know how much of Pakistan the Taliban effectively control nowadays? Well, check it out, but better not on Faux News!

...

About one-third...