Worthwhile WSJ read from a few days ago.
He FAFO.
Yet, a month before the US draw down has finished the talibs are back on the offensive, and before long Afghanistan will become the safe haven it was before for AQ affiliates
According to whom, exactly? Because thatâs not the current consensus at all, and the only people claiming this are essentially war profiteers and certain news agencies that rely on the last 20 years of war coverage to stay in business (no names, you know who they are and you can spot them as Muslim hate baiters).
The Taliban on âthe offensiveâ isnât that impressive, from a US national security standpoint. The only âwinsâ they can even count are the occasional dead US soldier, and withdrawing on the ground basically takes that one thing away from them. Now they get to literally pound sound, while trying to avoid long range drone strikes from overhead.
And like the Georgetown professor I posted said, Pakistan wonât allow the Taliban to host terror camps now, because they know what will happen if they do. We can put the SEALs anywhere in country, right up the Aiwan-e-Sadr poop chute.
Without the US it is inevitable
I donât always agree with you but youâre nailing it on this thread.
Itâll be business as usual in probably less than a year.
That long�
2 Likes
The US is pulling out of Afghanistan because it is time to invade/support and invasion of Iran.
1 Like
Nah
America stopped invading countries that can defend themselves in the 50âs
1 Like
Or âassistâ an invasion.
Let Israel pepper the shit out of their infrastructure and then kinda just mosey on in uninvited to stop Isis filling the space or whatever worked in Syria .
Iraq was kinda invadey?
Light reading, basically pointing out again how Pakistan and Afghanistan are out of commission for now.
Particularly the senior AQ leadership that fled to Syria
Still on the lam, hiding in holes.
https://direct.mit.edu/isec/article/43/2/45/12208/What-Explains-Counterterrorism-Effectiveness
As far as Iran, haha remember just before COVID? We killed a general, someone shot down a plane with a Russian missile, there was some insurgent activity and base assaults and thenâŚsilence.
Maybe COVID really is a biowarfare weapon. It sure fucked up the Revolutionary Guard.
All the more sense and reason to bring the troops back out.
Deal with terrorists the best way we know how. Bomb them out of existence with precision guided ordnance. Going door to door the Kandahar way is out, and got a lot of young people killed for little benefit.
What are you talking about? The Talibanâs mission was to eject foreign forces from the country and regain control of the entire region, theyâre 99% there.
They werenât kidding when they said that whilst we had the watches, they had the time.
2 Likes
Who are they âejectingâ? The US didnât suffer a military defeat in Afghanistan. The opposite happened. Contrast with the USSR, who left Afghanistan in tatters (losing the Cold War along the way).
We are choosing to leave because the mission there was to destroy AQâs training bases (all gone now).
So the Taliban mission is fine and dandyâŚbut it never came to be. And Pakistan is who truly controls the region, and they are not going to fuck with the US after we showed them how easily and quietly we can put SEALs on the ground.
So 99%? More like an inch away from a Hellfire at all times.
Pakistan might even take out new training camps before we do. They donât need another 20 years of Islamic terrorism hiding out in their back yard. Nuclear power or not, they have as much to lose from new AQ camps in Afghanistan as we do.
But ultimately, drone warfare has become cheap and efficient since 2001. And we have fleets of them very ready and capable of incinerating both Taliban and AQ forces if they decide to try again.
Out Intel organs are so heavily infused in that region, there will never be another surprise out of there. AQ is training in places like Somalia and other failed states we canât even land in.
I fully understand your doubts, itâs understandable. Fool me onceâŚbut the reality is the Pentagon made a very serious cost/benefit analysis and realized the last 3 Presidents had something in commonâŚthey all knew we had to end our presence there, as hard as it was.
Itâs not easy, arguing with generals.
You donât have much knowledge of the area and you seem to be going off of rather old press releases and articles plus you keep conflating AQ and the Taliban.
The main objective of OP Enduring Freedom (specifically to Afghan), was to destroy the Taliban and any AQ elements. This half-worked as AQ was indeed largely ousted but the Taliban still maintained a lot of strength in the south. In 2014 OP Freedom Sentinel and Resolute Support replaced OP EF with the goal of giving the government in the north and the Afghan National Army autonomy over the country so that US/NATO could leave the country a better place.
Seeing as the Taliban are set to retake control of the entire country before the year is out and with that they can do what they want regarding harbouring foreign cells (drone strikes only get you so far and Pakistan only care if theyâre effected. ISIS are actually a bigger threat), both missions have been a failure by default.
To be clear, this isnât the fault of the military of any nation. This is the fault of very senior officers promising politicianâs something that was impossible to achieve. A stable Afghan by western standards. This was never possible but it became a game of professionally and politically passing the buck.
In truth, the âWarâ became more of an occupation and theyâre doomed to fail the longer they go on. The Taliban knew this from square one and so did anyone who didnât have political skin in the game (or at least they wouldnât admit it it).
2 Likes
Iraq and Afghanistan taught us that invasions are the easy bit
Itâs the 20 years of occupation that sap ones resolve
As two Iraqâs pre 2003 defence capabilities, how great were they?
Speaking from one of the greatest occupiers of countries in history the US simply lacked the commitment to the full retard that is necessary to occupy a nation .
And by full retard I mean ruthless slaughter.
The Taliban knew that and used it as a weapon.
As Kovac said they even told the world what they were doing.
As did vietnam and north korea.
Assad needed a little help from uncle Poots but got it done in the end.
One angry patriot with a suicide vest is worth 100 well trained, well equipt occupiers
Not so, if following the first few suicide attacks the soldiers wiped out the entire village from which they came there would be less of them .
Im not saying thats what they should do i am just saying that is the only way to deal with it.
Sadam Husain was a good example of this, he had that are buttoned down , all those batshit fanatics were there when he was there but he ruthlessly kept them in check.
Again I am not saying he should have been left in place I am just saying that before you create a void you should think allot harder about what it takes to fill that void with what you would like prior to pulling the trigger and if you do not have what it takes then perhaps you should not .
Iran will be another Iraq/Libya when âthe alliesâ whoever they are (cough US, cough UK , Cough Israel, Cough maybe Saudi Arabia) is done.
But the good news is that creating perpetual war in the middle east is great for weapons sales.
UK weapon sales went down from ÂŁ907M in 2019 to ÂŁ450M in 2020.
US sales went down $1.5b in the same period.
If only there was an oil rich country in need of democracyâŚ
REally, taking out Iran would cut off AfghanistanâŚ
We shall seeâŚ
The irony being both Iraq and Iran were created by US meddling in Middle Eastern affairs back in the 50âs/60âs
A big reason for The Taliban still having money to fight wars is because the allies didnât napalm the poppy fields and/or decriminalise heroin