Al quaeda isn’t a thing
It is an umbrella term for several islamist extremist groups
It means The Base
Within a few years islamist extremist group will be exploiting Afghanistan for it’s poppies and closed culture to attack infidels
Mark my words
Not a chance in hell, which is why Al Qaeda is no longer operating effectively out of that region.
It’s been 20 years since they could.
Did you forget about ISIL already? Sheeeeeiit.
Right. You read a book. In that vein, you’re a self described expert. A pimple on the man’s ass knows more about history than you.
You read any of these?
https://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/ltgen-james-mattis-reading-list
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Sure, pick one.
The United States achieved victory in Afghanistan pretty fast. We’re only still there because of Iraq.
We have air superiority over the entire region.
Thank you, next.
Naw. We’ve had air superiority from day one. When we’re totally out we’ll still have air superiority.
Exactly.
If it makes you feel better, I totally disagree with his position now. He’s white knighting a little, but I don’t blame him. His biggest job ever was to protect the Department of Defense from Donald Trump.
"“we had to try to do something in nation-building, as much as some people condemn it, and we probably weren’t that good at it.” - 2019
Now he wants to save Afghanistan, and it’s 2021. Sorry, Charlie…that wasn’t the mission now was it.
Here’s some further reading for you from another great General.
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“make sure that the enemy didn’t feel like they had any safe haven, to destroy their sense of security in southern Afghanistan”
Mattis, pg 45.
“Make sure the plebes have quotable material.”
Mattis, excerpted from editor’s unpublished notes.
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Well the taliban certainly think they beat America and kicked them out of their country
You can count on that happening right now. It will just be even worse later.
They have no air force, and rely heavily on Pakistan for defense (good luck with that). So they can chant and do hippie drum circles screaming in Pashto for all I care.
Afghanistan may have it’s freedom someday but that’s a fight they’ll have to make themselves. That was not the AfPak mission.
AfPak worked, but now AQ is in Africa, Europe, and scattered around Syria, Iraq and the remnants of ISIL.
That would be incredibly stupid on AQ’s part. Zawahiri is still alive but barely, trapped somewhere near the AfPak border.
The Taliban are not an effective fighting force off the ground, which is why we needed to leave (they will kill Americans on the ground and every death is a victory).
The moment any training camps resume anywhere near those mountains, they’re going to get glassed, drone style. And they know this, which is why they’ve moved into the jungles and deserts.
The VC didn’t have an air force either
Nor did The Wolverines for that matter
The taliban have show that despite the overwhelming technical superiority of the coalition A-symmetric warfare works
They have chased the foreign devils from their land and will now destroy the servants of the Great Satan among their countrymen
Any claims of victory over the Talibs or any other islamist insurgency in Afghanistan are entirely without merit
It remains to be seen if the people of Afghanistan have the stomach for a protracted civil war to vindicate the allied blood and treasure spilt on their poppy fields
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Really? Then why does your claim contradict the experts?
Also, your comments about the Viet Cong and Wolverines have no bearing here. Neither one was an international terror network. Insurgencies are not the same as what AQ is, which is why Zawahiri can’t show his face anywhere lest it get the DFA treatment.
AQ is not Taliban.
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Exactly, which is why Pakistan won’t dare let the Taliban allow AQ to operate inside their borders again, unless it’s in a cave somewhere, and if so great.
Bury them alive or dead, all the same.
Mission’s over, there. At least we didn’t fuck it up as bad as the Soviets did, and lasted longer, and left on our own terms (and aren’t leaving behind a large, well armed Mujahideen army).
Afghanistan will go back to being a beautiful country controlled by religious nuts. Which is ironic considering the US is starting to experience its own internal religious nut insurgency.
Sun Tzu had a lot to say about a country with a military campaign this old (our oldest)…and none of it was good. “War weary” is bad for any nation’s soul.
Perhaps we should discuss the conditions of victory, and whether they have been met
I quoted General Mattis’ actual mission objective above. It was to
“make sure that the enemy didn’t feel like they had any safe haven, to destroy their sense of security in southern Afghanistan”
By all accounts that mission was a success, although at Tora Bora et al., we kept missing big targets even as we wasted little ones en mass, but the strategic goal was always on target: herding terrorists into packs, then blowing them apart, rinse repeat. With that strat, the big ticket leaders like OBL and Zawahiri don’t matter as much and end their lives as sick old men dying in the sand and dirt where their bones belong…
By 2010, we had decimated AQ in Afghanistan, and in 2011 DEVGRU double tapped Osama Bin Laden’s face just over the border where he was hiding like a dog, right under Pakistan’s nose. End of line.
So I’d say mission accomplished as of then, as long as you stop there and forget about that whole Iraq thing that went on in parallel. If only we had stopped with Afghanistan, things would have been different, but then again we wouldn’t have decimated AQ’s descendant crews in Iraq and Syria the way we did.
Now they can only operate openly in the most lawless places…inner Africa, Somalia, and anywhere else still run by warlords. For the most part, the stable sovereignties like Iran, Pakistan, Syria don’t want to be the next Iraq, where we decide for shits and giggles to take out a dictator to see what happens.