Afganistan ye or ney?

[Minor Axis]

Seeing as how the Afganistan military commander McChrystal got fired today. What do you guys think, stay or go?

 

[Zorak]

I'm not sure if I can say definatley stay or go, considering the simplicity of the question.

I will say however, could the money spent on war and prolonged occupation be better spent elsewhere? Yes, of course it could.

 

[Minor Axis]

Got the 30 day poll up. I just don't think we can afford it on a solo basis. Now I do think other countries are paying something, but I think we are paying the bulk. The rest of the world can step up to the plate if it's a problem that needs resolving right now. I'm all for strategic strikes.

 

[Guyzerr]

Canada got sucked into your drug war there. It would have been nice to see an option for us to discontinue our participation but considering there isn't one I can't vote.

 

[Accountable]

He's put Gen Petraeus back in. Business as usual. Nothing to see here.Carry on.

 

[dt3]

If I was Petraeus, I'd tell them to fuck off and then retire. Something along the lines of "I won in Iraq, almost single-handedly. All you fuckers on the left did was bitch and slander me in the media. Go win your own war."

 

[dt3]

Here's another thought. If Petraeus turns Afghaniland around, he's on somebody's ticket for VP or President in 2012.

 

[dkwrtw]

I am completely ignorant of what's going on in the world right now, I didn't even realize we were even in Afghanistan.

 

[Alien Allen]

we need to get out

let special ops and drones do the work

you can not win another countries civil war. Why we keep forgetting that with Korea and Viet Nam is mind boggling.

 

[AUFred]

we need to get out

let special ops and drones do the work

you can not win another countries civil war. Why we keep forgetting that with Korea and Viet Nam is mind boggling.

:homo::nod: We will never learn. We should have gone in Afghanistan first after Osama.

 

[dt3]

We should have gone in Afghanistan first after Osama.

We did... :confused

 

[dt3]

we need to get out

let special ops and drones do the work

you can not win another countries civil war. Why we keep forgetting that with Korea and Viet Nam is mind boggling.

What about Iraq's civil war? We're doing pretty damn good there.

You're right, Korea and Nam were both civil wars, which no doubt made it difficult. But I think the defining trend that caused them to end the way they did is they were extremely politically charged and micro/mismanaged from DC. In my opinion, Iraq and Afghanistan started that way too, but we realized it early enough to rectify the problem (which Petraeus deserves a lot of the credit for, Bush too like it or not).

And for the record, we didn't lose in Korea. Last I checked there's still two of them. It was a draw, like every World Cup game so far.

 

[AUFred]

We did... :confused

From a non-military man's perspective it seemed we were far more interested in completing what Bush 1 did not have the balls to accomplish instead of going after the man claiming to take out the twin towers.

 

[dt3]

From a non-military man's perspective it seemed we were far more interested in completing what Bush 1 did not have the balls to accomplish instead of going after the man claiming to take out the twin towers.

Agreed. But we did go into Afghanistan first (November 2001 vs. March 2003 for Iraq, I believe), presumably after Bin Laden.

 

[Alien Allen]

What about Iraq's civil war? We're doing pretty damn good there.

You're right, Korea and Nam were both civil wars, which no doubt made it difficult. But I think the defining trend that caused them to end the way they did is they were extremely politically charged and micro/mismanaged from DC. In my opinion, Iraq and Afghanistan started that way too, but we realized it early enough to rectify the problem (which Petraeus deserves a lot of the credit for, Bush too like it or not).

And for the record, we didn't lose in Korea. Last I checked there's still two of them. It was a draw, like every World Cup game so far.

Afghanistan is nothing like Iraq

Iraq has more structure politically and the three basic elements of Kurds, Sunni and Shia

Afghanistan has a boatload of warlord cowboys.

The USSR got their but handed to them there and we will too. Only ours will be a more drawn out process.

It is not a winnable situation. The best we can do is to contain. That and get off of oil so we don't need to give a shit about that region.

 

[Accountable]

Ol' Billy Clinton's looking better & better, ain't he?

 

[dt3]

Ol' Billy Clinton's looking better & better, ain't he?

Nobody has ever bombed so many empty tents and camels as effectively as him

 

[Minor Axis]

you can not win another countries civil war. Why we keep forgetting that with Korea and Viet Nam is mind boggling.

Very well said. :clap

Afghanistan is nothing like Iraq

Iraq has more structure politically and the three basic elements of Kurds, Sunni and Shia

Afghanistan has a boatload of warlord cowboys.

The USSR got their but handed to them there and we will too. Only ours will be a more drawn out process.

It is not a winnable situation. The best we can do is to contain. That and get off of oil so we don't need to give a shit about that region.

Unless you kill them all, they will just wait us out. They can afford to. Can we?

 

[dt3]

Very well said. :clap



Unless you kill them all, they will just wait us out. They can afford to. Can we?

Can we afford not to? I mean, technically it would take over 75,000 more 9/11's to take us all out, and I'm sure they'd never pull it off. But is even one more acceptable?

 

[Zorak]

Very well said. :clap



Unless you kill them all, they will just wait us out. They can afford to. Can we?

The reason a lot of the locals refuse to help the coalition forces is because they believe, correction: they KNOW, that long after the coalition is gone, the Taliban will still be there. So don't piss them off.