Afghanistan finally moves into the Lose column

[Grifman]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/15/world ... ml?_r=1&hp

I just can't picture Cheney, Rumsfeld, or even Gates being so afraid of his own troops as to have them disarmed before speaking to them. Just unreal.

It has nothing to do with anyone being afraid of their own troops. Afghan troops were attending the meeting and not allowed to bring firearms. It was decided to require the same of the US troops as to not treat the two groups differently.

Was never an issue before!

So circumstances never change?

[Victoria Raverna]

Roadside bomb kills 13 in Afghanistan

http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/15/world/asi ... index.html" target="_blank

Thirteen people were killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan's southern Uruzgan province, police said Thursday.

The vehicle hit the homemade device as it traveled near the district of Dehrawod, Uruzgan provincial police spokesman Farid Ayell said.

The blast killed nine children and four women, he said, as well as injured two men.

He blamed the attack on "the enemies of Afghanistan."

Roadside bombs -- used primarily by militants to target members of NATO's International Security Assistance Force -- are a frequent cause of Afghan civilian casualties.

I guess it's ok for the Taliban to kill Afghans since no one is protesting this incident.

There is a minor difference here. The roadside bombs are used to target members of NATO's International Security Assistance Force which mean Afghan civilian casualties are collateral damages. I think by now Afghans are used to collateral damage and they become "acceptable", no matter which side is the cause. You don't see much protest when drone hitting civilians by mistake anymore.

Targeting and murdering civilians on other hand is still not that usual so not as acceptable.

[dbt1949]

Ask Syria.

[LawBeefaroni]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/15/world ... ml?_r=1&hp

I just can't picture Cheney, Rumsfeld, or even Gates being so afraid of his own troops as to have them disarmed before speaking to them. Just unreal.

It has nothing to do with anyone being afraid of their own troops. Afghan troops were attending the meeting and not allowed to bring firearms. It was decided to require the same of the US troops as to not treat the two groups differently.

Was never an issue before!

So circumstances never change?

I think it's probably better not to invite the Marines at all rather than asking them to give up their weapons. That is counter to all their training.

[Kraken]

And now Afghanistan is officiallythe new Vietnam.

WASHINGTON - Support for the war in Afghanistan has hit a new low and is on par with support for the Vietnam War in the early 1970s, a bad sign for President Obama as he argues that to end the war responsibly the United States must remain in Afghanistan another two years.

Only 27 percent of Americans say they back the war effort, and 66 percent oppose the war, according to an AP-GfK poll released Wednesday.

A November 1971 Harris poll showed a record-high 65 percent of Americans said that continued fighting in Vietnam was “morally wrong.’’ By that time the United States was already drastically cutting the size of its fighting force in Vietnam on the road to a full withdrawal in 1973.

[Holman]

And now Afghanistan is officiallythe new Vietnam.

WASHINGTON - Support for the war in Afghanistan has hit a new low and is on par with support for the Vietnam War in the early 1970s, a bad sign for President Obama as he argues that to end the war responsibly the United States must remain in Afghanistan another two years.

Only 27 percent of Americans say they back the war effort, and 66 percent oppose the war, according to an AP-GfK poll released Wednesday.

A November 1971 Harris poll showed a record-high 65 percent of Americans said that continued fighting in Vietnam was “morally wrong.’’ By that time the United States was already drastically cutting the size of its fighting force in Vietnam on the road to a full withdrawal in 1973.

The statistics are arresting, but they don't tell the same story. I'd imagine that most people who oppose the Afghanistan war think it's an unwinnable quagmire because that's how insurgencies are, but they don't reject it as "morally wrong."

We got sick of Vietnam for idealistic reasons, but we're sick of Afghanistan for pragmatic ones.

[LawBeefaroni]

Yeah, exactly that.

"Oppose the war" in 2012 is much different to "Oppose the war" in 1971.

[Kraken]

And now Afghanistan is officiallythe new Vietnam.

WASHINGTON - Support for the war in Afghanistan has hit a new low and is on par with support for the Vietnam War in the early 1970s, a bad sign for President Obama as he argues that to end the war responsibly the United States must remain in Afghanistan another two years.

Only 27 percent of Americans say they back the war effort, and 66 percent oppose the war, according to an AP-GfK poll released Wednesday.

A November 1971 Harris poll showed a record-high 65 percent of Americans said that continued fighting in Vietnam was “morally wrong.’’ By that time the United States was already drastically cutting the size of its fighting force in Vietnam on the road to a full withdrawal in 1973.

The statistics are arresting, but they don't tell the same story. I'd imagine that most people who oppose the Afghanistan war think it's an unwinnable quagmire because that's how insurgencies are, but they don't reject it as "morally wrong."

We got sick of Vietnam for idealistic reasons, but we're sick of Afghanistan for pragmatic ones.

Well, unless you consider the draft pragmatic. I was being facetious in equating the wars; only their unpopularity is the same.

[ydejin]

And now Afghanistan is officiallythe new Vietnam.

WASHINGTON - Support for the war in Afghanistan has hit a new low and is on par with support for the Vietnam War in the early 1970s, a bad sign for President Obama as he argues that to end the war responsibly the United States must remain in Afghanistan another two years.

Only 27 percent of Americans say they back the war effort, and 66 percent oppose the war, according to an AP-GfK poll released Wednesday.

A November 1971 Harris poll showed a record-high 65 percent of Americans said that continued fighting in Vietnam was “morally wrong.’’ By that time the United States was already drastically cutting the size of its fighting force in Vietnam on the road to a full withdrawal in 1973.

The statistics are arresting, but they don't tell the same story. I'd imagine that most people who oppose the Afghanistan war think it's an unwinnable quagmire because that's how insurgencies are, but they don't reject it as "morally wrong."

We got sick of Vietnam for idealistic reasons, but we're sick of Afghanistan for pragmatic ones.

Bad for Obama, except for the fact that Romney and the Republicans want us to stay there with no withdraw and no end in sight. Romney is far more hawkish and in fact has a lot of Bush-era foreign policy people as his foreign policy advisors. If this becomes a foreign policy election (which it probably won't) Romney loses.

The Republicans have been quite tarnished on Foreign Policy. Obama has been quite effective taking out terrorists via drone (whether or not that's a good idea is an open question, but he's taken down at least as many terrorist leaders as Bush did). Plus the country has not forgotten that the Republicans got us in the current foreign policy mess.

[Holman]

I think the usual routine is to cast Iraq as "Bush's war" and Afghanistan as "Obama's war." Iraq is considered a success since Saddam was eliminated (and no one mentions the lingering unrest or the never-discovered WMD's), while Afghanistan grinds on with no definitive success.

[Canuck]

Iraq was a win? I had no idea. Funny how Afghanistan is being compared to Vietnam. There certainly aren't as many protests these days as there were then. Perhaps people are too busy with their iPhones these days. I'm currently reading In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan by Seth G. Jones and it's eery just how many parallels there are between the Soviet Union's quagmire and NATO's today. If you changed some of the names/countries around then some of the paragraphs would match perfectly with 2011.

[msduncan]

Iraq was a win? I had no idea. Funny how Afghanistan is being compared to Vietnam. There certainly aren't as many protests these days as there were then. Perhaps people are too busy with their iPhones these days. I'm currently reading In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan by Seth G. Jones and it's eery just how many parallels there are between the Soviet Union's quagmire and NATO's today. If you changed some of the names/countries around then some of the paragraphs would match perfectly with 2011.

Iraq no longer has a dictator, the troops are home for the most part, and it is reasonably stable for the time being.

That's a win.

[Kraken]

There certainly aren't as many protests these days as there were then.

No draft. War's personally threatening when it can reach out and pluck any young man out of his life.

[ydejin]

Iraq was a win? I had no idea. Funny how Afghanistan is being compared to Vietnam. There certainly aren't as many protests these days as there were then. Perhaps people are too busy with their iPhones these days. I'm currently reading In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan by Seth G. Jones and it's eery just how many parallels there are between the Soviet Union's quagmire and NATO's today. If you changed some of the names/countries around then some of the paragraphs would match perfectly with 2011.

Iraq no longer has a dictator, the troops are home for the most part, and it is reasonably stable for the time being.

That's a win.

Iraq, the traditional counterweight to Iran has been weakened badly, and is spinning into Iran's orbit. Iran has been strengthened by our invasion. The cost to our military, to our budget, and to our prestige has been great. That's a loss.

[LordMortis]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18175964" target="_blank

Trying to process this.

What is our end game and what is Pakistan's end game and how does Afghanistan fit into it?

[Kraken]

Article on why nobody cares anymore about the longest war in US history.

[LawBeefaroni]

Are we even keeping score anymore?

KABUL—A newly recruited Afghan village policeman opened fire on his American allies on Friday, killing two U.S. service members minutes after they handed him his official weapon in an inauguration ceremony. It was the latest in a disturbing string of attacks by Afghan security forces on the international troops training them.

Later Friday, an Afghan soldier turned his gun on foreign troops in another part of the country and wounded two of them, a spokesman for the NATO coalition said.

The attacks in the country's far west and south brought to seven the number of times that a member of the Afghan security forces—or someone wearing their uniform—has opened fire on international forces in the past two weeks.

[$iljanus]

Are we even keeping score anymore?

KABUL—A newly recruited Afghan village policeman opened fire on his American allies on Friday, killing two U.S. service members minutes after they handed him his official weapon in an inauguration ceremony. It was the latest in a disturbing string of attacks by Afghan security forces on the international troops training them.

Later Friday, an Afghan soldier turned his gun on foreign troops in another part of the country and wounded two of them, a spokesman for the NATO coalition said.

The attacks in the country's far west and south brought to seven the number of times that a member of the Afghan security forces—or someone wearing their uniform—has opened fire on international forces in the past two weeks.

Sadly I don't think we've paid attention for a very long time. Eating in a restaurant and seeing a family come in with a guy who suffered facial burns and has a prosthetic arm reminds you that we are at war. The fella in question is a patient in Walter Reed.

[Anonymous Bosch]

The ludicrous bullshit put out by the NATO brass here seems particularly egregious:

The attacks in the country's far west and south brought to seven the number of times that a member of the Afghan security forces — or someone wearing their uniform — has opened fire on international forces in the past two weeks.

Such assaults by allies, virtually unheard of just a few years ago, have recently escalated, killing at least 36 foreign troops so far this year. They also raise questions about the strategy to train Afghan national police and soldiers to take over security and fight insurgents after most foreign troops leave the country by the end of 2014.

The NATO-led coalition has said such attacks are anomalies stemming from personal disputes, but the supreme leader of the Taliban boasted on Thursday night that the insurgents are infiltrating the quickly expanding Afghan forces.

Perhaps it's just me, but I haven't heard a single utterance from either the Commander-in-Chief or the Republican presidential candidate on the issue of Afghanistan in the campaign so far. How is this not an issue in this election? How is a war involving ~90,000 U.S. soldiers fighting as we type and costing gajillions of dollars we don't have, not an issue at all? It certainly would be nice if just one, single day of the Presidential campaign could be dedicated to discussing what we're accomplishing in Afghanistan while continuing to fight the longest war in U.S. history.

[LordMortis]

AB, I think it's not an "issue" because they mostly agree:

http://2012.republican-candidates.org/R ... nistan.php" target="_blank

http://www.mittromney.com/issues/afghanistan-pakistan/" target="_blank

[LawBeefaroni]

Sadly I don't think we've paid attention for a very long time. Eating in a restaurant and seeing a family come in with a guy who suffered facial burns and has a prosthetic arm reminds you that we are at war. The fella in question is a patient in Walter Reed.

I see quite a few vets around the RIC. But suprisingly (or maybe not) the problems I have to deal most often are with psych benefits, not medical ones.

[Anonymous Bosch]

Oh, I realise it's likely not an issue because Romney obviously wants to run to the right of Obama (who endorses whatever it is we're supposedly accomplishing in Afghanistan), and evidently that means Romney dare not even bring it up. But that's a fucked-up way of running things when lives (and trillions of dollars we don't have) continue to be wasted in Afghanistan.

[Kraken]

Perhaps it's just me, but I haven't heard a single utterance from either the Commander-in-Chief or the Republican presidential candidate on the issue of Afghanistan in the campaign so far. How is this not an issue in this election?

Neither candidate has anything to gain from bringing it up. We have an exit strategy and timeline -- what more is there for Obama to say? Romney has only some minor differences. Why raise the subject at all if the public just doesn't care?

Fewer than 1% of US citizens are active duty military personnel. Everybody else is insulated from the war. They didn't even raise our taxes to pay for it. We salute the flag and praise the troops; we civilians are doing our part!

I was shocked that it didn't even make the list of Americans' top 27 issues, though.

[El Guapo]

I was shocked that it didn't even make the list of Americans' top 27 issues, though.

How could something like a war compare with an issue like "lack of respect for each other"?

[Carpet_pissr]

I was shocked that it didn't even make the list of Americans' top 27 issues, though.

How could something like a war compare with an issue like "lack of respect for each other"?

Because that very issue prevents us from having a serious national dialogue on actual issues, like war. It's certainly a growing concern of mine.

OTOH, who answers these polls? Literally, who answers every call they get on their landline these days, to be able to take these polls?

I personally haven't answered an unsolicited call at home in....years? (other than family or friends of course)

[LordMortis]

OTOH, who answers these polls? Literally, who answers every call they get on their landline these days, to be able to take these polls?

Who has a landline these days? As soon as I could hook my TiVo to the Internet, the last reason I'd ever need a landline was gone. I'll take that extra $30 a month a put in my mortgage.

[Carpet_pissr]

OTOH, who answers these polls? Literally, who answers every call they get on their landline these days, to be able to take these polls?

Who has a landline these days? As soon as I could hook my TiVo to the Internet, the last reason I'd ever need a landline was gone. I'll take that extra $30 a month a put in my mortgage.

Exactly. I meant to put that in there as well.

Seriously, what demographic group:
1. Still has and uses a landline
2. Does not have Caller ID on said line, or does have Caller ID, but chooses to answer solicitation calls anyway
3. Stays on the line of a solicitation call long enough for them to explain they are not selling something?

If you think about that for a second, it seems logical that the results we see in these polls that get so much attention will likely be skewed to that demographic, no? (And I really don't have an idea who that might be...the over 65 and retired crowd? The unemployed? The bored?)

Now personally, I would actually be interested in giving my feedback on some of these polls, but even if I were to answer a call from an unknown caller (would never happen these days), their first 5 seconds better be damn clear about what they are doing or I'm hanging up, or worse.

[LawBeefaroni]

Sadly, I don't think it makes a big difference. If they used twitter and Facebook to snare a different demographic, the apathy about Afghanistan would probably remain the same.

[Rip]

In the latest episode of this long-running sitcom, the Afghan army is killing GIs. Yes. Blowing them away right and left. In Washington, the Five-Sided Wind Tunnel is in shock and maybe awe. It has stopped training Afghan troops because it is scared of them. It has ordered our soldiers to stay armed to protect themselves against our devoted allies, to whom we are bringing democracy, because they want to kill us.

How can this be, you ask? The brass are puzzled too. The reason can’t be that Afghans don’t like night raids, torture, GIs going house to house and shooting women and kids, drone strikes blowing up weddings, and other routine mechanisms of democratization. Instead, it must be…Taliban infiltrators. Yes. This being decided, all is now well. Just as the military calls routine atrocities “isolated incidents,” it attributes Afghani hostility to Taliban infiltrators. Problem solved. In the modern marketing military, you don’t need a solution, just a saleable explanation.

OK. In the Guardian, I learn that actual Pentagonal military psycho-wonks have done a study on what Afghans and gringos think of each other. (report) Saith the Guardian:

"One group sees the other as a bunch of violent, reckless, intrusive, arrogant, self-serving, profane, infidel bullies hiding behind high technology; and the other group [the US soldiers] generally view the former as a bunch of cowardly, incompetent, obtuse, thieving, complacent, lazy, pot-smoking, treacherous, and murderous radicals. Such is the state of progress in the current partnering programme. Over a decade of fighting shoulder-to-shoulder had created mutual loathing that was impossible to camouflage.”

Who would have thought it?

Anybody with the slighytest acquaintance with reality. Tell you what, brothels and cisterns, I could have written every word of it, and I’ve never been to Afghanistan. It’s Viet Nam all over again. Which means that it’s all over, again. GIs and Afghans hate each other.

What do you expect when you put combative, not too bright, half-educated, unsophisticated lower-middle-class guys into an illiterate thirteenth-century culture with a history of detesting invaders? I know, I know: you figured it would spark a love-in, koom-bah-yah, Oprah as featured speaker.

http://www.fredoneverything.net/Soap_Op ... abul.shtml

Just ran into this guy looking at another article and caught this one. He seems to have some good ones and some not so good ones.

[Carpet_pissr]

In the latest episode of this long-running sitcom, the Afghan army is killing GIs. Yes. Blowing them away right and left. In Washington, the Five-Sided Wind Tunnel is in shock and maybe awe. It has stopped training Afghan troops because it is scared of them. It has ordered our soldiers to stay armed to protect themselves against our devoted allies, to whom we are bringing democracy, because they want to kill us.

How can this be, you ask? The brass are puzzled too. The reason can’t be that Afghans don’t like night raids, torture, GIs going house to house and shooting women and kids, drone strikes blowing up weddings, and other routine mechanisms of democratization. Instead, it must be…Taliban infiltrators. Yes. This being decided, all is now well. Just as the military calls routine atrocities “isolated incidents,” it attributes Afghani hostility to Taliban infiltrators. Problem solved. In the modern marketing military, you don’t need a solution, just a saleable explanation.

OK. In the Guardian, I learn that actual Pentagonal military psycho-wonks have done a study on what Afghans and gringos think of each other. (report) Saith the Guardian:

"One group sees the other as a bunch of violent, reckless, intrusive, arrogant, self-serving, profane, infidel bullies hiding behind high technology; and the other group [the US soldiers] generally view the former as a bunch of cowardly, incompetent, obtuse, thieving, complacent, lazy, pot-smoking, treacherous, and murderous radicals. Such is the state of progress in the current partnering programme. Over a decade of fighting shoulder-to-shoulder had created mutual loathing that was impossible to camouflage.”

Who would have thought it?

Anybody with the slighytest acquaintance with reality. Tell you what, brothels and cisterns, I could have written every word of it, and I’ve never been to Afghanistan. It’s Viet Nam all over again. Which means that it’s all over, again. GIs and Afghans hate each other.

What do you expect when you put combative, not too bright, half-educated, unsophisticated lower-middle-class guys into an illiterate thirteenth-century culture with a history of detesting invaders? I know, I know: you figured it would spark a love-in, koom-bah-yah, Oprah as featured speaker.

http://www.fredoneverything.net/Soap_Op ... abul.shtml

Just ran into this guy looking at another article and caught this one. He seems to have some good ones and some not so good ones.

51 NATO troops killed this year by trained (our training!) Afghan soldiers! FIFTY FUCKING ONE.

Ridiculous. I was seething when I read the article on CNN yesterday about the 21 YO soldier in Afghanistan who wrote to his father that if he had to be there until November, he probably wouldn't make it out alive (specifically due to "blue on green" violence). Sure enough, a week or so later, he was dead, a day or two before he was supposed to go home. Dead at the hands of the ones he helped train.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/16/us/new-yo ... ml?npt=NP1" target="_blank

*(&^#$&*#^$&*%^!!$#

[Canuck]

That's an astounding number alright. Something needs to be done. I can't think of anything though other than pulling up stakes and leaving.

[Carpet_pissr]

That's an astounding number alright. Something needs to be done. I can't think of anything though other than pulling up stakes and leaving.

Agree, but I wish we had done it ....years ago when it came up for discussion, and Obama decided to pour in MORE troops. I was completely with Biden on that one...should have just left (and yes, I am fully aware of the history of the region, and what has happened in the past when we "just left"). But we've been there a long time already, and the Taliban is being merged with Al-Qaeda seemingly, in the minds of the American public, which is a huge mistake. Hell, probably even happening at policy decision maker levels in Washington.

[LawBeefaroni]

51 NATO troops killed this year by trained (our training!) Afghan soldiers! FIFTY FUCKING ONE.

Ridiculous. I was seething when I read the article on CNN yesterday about the 21 YO soldier in Afghanistan who wrote to his father that if he had to be there until November, he probably wouldn't make it out alive (specifically due to "blue on green" violence). Sure enough, a week or so later, he was dead, a day or two before he was supposed to go home. Dead at the hands of the ones he helped train.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/16/us/new-yo ... ml?npt=NP1" target="_blank

*(&^#$&*#^$&*%^!!$#

And 206 killed by other means. It's silly, the number of "blue on green" casualties, but don't forget that troops are also dying in conventional ways too.

[Arcanis]

The high number of blue on green casualties is enough for me to say screw them and leave them to rot in their cesspool. I don't give a crap about them or improving their lives anymore, they obviously don't want to change enough to elevate their quality of life.

[Carpet_pissr]

And 206 killed by other means. It's silly, the number of "blue on green" casualties, but don't forget that troops are also dying in conventional ways too.

Of course, but the 51 are particularly abhorrent because it's specifically Afghani troops that we are trying to help, intentionally targeting and killing our guys! These 51 are not accidents (I don't know that number), and again, that's just year to date for 2012.

[stessier]

I think it's more a matter of mis-identification. You can call it a "blue on green" casualty, but clearly some of those should have been red instead. It's not like every single person they've trained has turned on them. I think they are still doing good, it's just hard to identify who the bad guys are and thus the losses.

I agree it sucks and they should do everything they can to eliminate the danger, but I don't think the solution is to slam the door and leave.

[Carpet_pissr]

I think it's more a matter of mis-identification. You can call it a "blue on green" casualty, but clearly some of those should have been red instead. It's not like every single person they've trained has turned on them. I think they are still doing good, it's just hard to identify who the bad guys are and thus the losses.

I agree it sucks and they should do everything they can to eliminate the danger, but I don't think the solution is to slam the door and leave.

That's true, and I should have mentioned that I did read a recent report from the Pentagon showing that their estimates of number of Taliban that had infiltrated the Afghan army, were low by about half (IIRC, they thought about 10%, but actually it's more like 20% according to latest report) How they know that now, I have no idea...seems odd that you could even place that.

[Holman]

Infiltration seems more likely than conversion-in-uniform.

How does the Afghan army screen new recruits for sleeper terrorists? Do they exclude tribes/regions/towns known to be disloyal?

[GreenGoo]

The high number of blue on green casualties is enough for me to say screw them and leave them to rot in their cesspool. I don't give a crap about them or improving their lives anymore, they obviously don't want to change enough to elevate their quality of life.

There was little evidence that they ever wanted your help in the first place. Afghanistan was about terrorists, from start to finish. Iraq was about all sorts of things depending on who you asked, and when, but I think it settled in on forcing iraq to be democratic.

I'm not actually trying to a dick, I just don't think the Afghani were ever looking for help. They mostly like being backasswards tribes preying off each other, as far as I can tell.

[Carpet_pissr]

The high number of blue on green casualties is enough for me to say screw them and leave them to rot in their cesspool. I don't give a crap about them or improving their lives anymore, they obviously don't want to change enough to elevate their quality of life.

There was little evidence that they ever wanted your help in the first place. Afghanistan was about terrorists, from start to finish. Iraq was about all sorts of things depending on who you asked, and when, but I think it settled in on forcing iraq to be democratic.

I'm not actually trying to a dick, I just don't think the Afghani were ever looking for help. They mostly like being backasswards tribes preying off each other, as far as I can tell.

Agree