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President Karzai said he was pleased with the American military review of strategy, which focused on militant activity in the area. President Obama is planning on sending 4,000 troops to train Afghan security forces. Do you think this is wise? Is it a preliminary to declaring war? Or is it just what it is, a training mission? Is this a plan to the best way to reach bin Laden, as he is known to be hiding in the Afghan mountainous region?
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Re: Afghan Military Review
Dec 6, 2009 7:09 PM
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RC,
I guess I'm just asking that alternative explanations also be considered (posited), absent definitive evidence to the contrary. I'm all about simpler answers IF THEY FIT, as they are almost always INDEED ARE the actual answer. NONETHELESS, OCCASIONALLY, OTHER ANSWERS fit the facts as well, ESPECIALLY when particularly opportunistic and intelligent/dishonest humanoids enter the picture as well. Granted, doesn't happen often, but in the off chance that it occasionally does, it behooves NO ONE IMO to ignore it. Wouldn't you agree?
DaN
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Re: Afghan Military Review
Dec 6, 2009 6:54 PM
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> Sorry RC, what was that? In ENGLISH please!
>
> DaFN
It is what most conspiracies cannot defend. It means -- plurality should not be posited without necessity. It has been used in science since the 15th century. Newton used it to describe gravity.
For instance 9/11 conspiracies maintain huge levels of complexity. We did see, unless my lying eyes are wrong, two airplanes hit the WTC. What is the simpler cause of the towers falling? The heat from two airplanes crashing or a mind boggling conspiracy with tons of explosives and thousands of people working on it.
Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate is also known as Occum's Razor. Another way to say it is that the simplest answer is usually the correct answer.
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Re: Afghan Military Review
Dec 6, 2009 6:41 PM
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Sorry RC, what was that? In ENGLISH please!
DaFN
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Re: Afghan Military Review
Dec 6, 2009 6:36 PM
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> As promised, some links to sites that question the
> facts surrounding 9-11.
Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate
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Re: Afghan Military Review
Dec 6, 2009 5:42 PM
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See now JaredP, you keep talking that shit, you might just fuck around and make some "sense," which would of course, upset the whole apple cart (aka "plan"). Your inputs are appreciated nonetheless, provided of course you limit them to boards such as this.
Thanks for that. We'll get back to you, I PROMISE!
DaFN,
Personal Pseudo-Economic Advisor to the POTUS
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Re: Afghan Military Review
Dec 6, 2009 4:52 PM
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The tribal nature of Afghanistan could actually work in our favor if we stopped pissing off the locals with "collateral damage." It would allow for the isolation of extremists and automatic armed resistance of them. Further, they would appreciate education and supplies. Instead we keep killing dozens of locals to try to get one "taliban." When that Taliban leader may just be a pragmatist defending his homeland not an extremist wanting to attack ours. This is insane.
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Re: Afghan Military Review
Dec 6, 2009 4:42 PM
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spydoy and leffersmith,
All good stuff, but I have to add, the major difference (and its a BIG ONE) between Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan, is that the former was and is at least one historically harmonious culture (well, as harmonious as any culture CAN be at least) that came together and healed exceeding well and quickly after our departure, while the latter two are MOST DECIDEDLY anything but. I would even venture to say that the period of Saddam Hussein's rule might be affectionately termed "the good old days" soon enough in Iraq, if its not already in at least some quarters.
I think its quite likely that Saddam will be proven correct in his assertion, albeit posthumously, that the US invasion will turn out to be the "mother of all wars."
DaFN
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Re: Afghan Military Review
Dec 6, 2009 3:46 PM
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Spydoy1;
I agree. Republicans agree on a plan. They plan and have strategies before they go into congress to meet the Democrats head on. They are successful becasue they agree as a party on the moves that they make.
>This was no dummy. 'They' accomplished everything 'they' set out to do. Bush and Cheney got it done.
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Re: Afghan Military Review
Dec 6, 2009 3:43 PM
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Spydoy1;
Wasn't this called "Vietnamization" 40 years ago. And do you remember all the soccer balls and school supplies we bought and sent thru the US Army community to Kosovo and Bosnia.
It was clear to me in the early years of Iraq that the only people that were finessing the war - was the US Army who as a caring community knew that school would need books, supplies, and help with construction.
I have to edit...my link doesn't speak to the effort of getting food and peaceful supplies to friendly Vietnamese. So I have to explain hear. There is a movie about John Paul Van as a special advsor who falls in love while he is there. I think it is based on a book.
>Counter-Insurgency 101 recently written by Gen Petreous.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamization#Vietnamization.2C_1969.E2.80.931975
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Edited by LeffersmithJohnston at 12/06/2009 12:57 PM PST
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Re: Afghan Military Review
Dec 6, 2009 2:30 PM
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> GWOT is a hoax.
Hoax?? Most likely Jet ol' buddy.
It's also one of the all-time money makers the MIC has ever put together, with flags waving and lapel pins glinting, and the Cheney-Rumsfeld-Palin-energized-GOP-base defending it, attacking any and all questioners as un-American, non-troop supporting, terrorist sympathisers.
We all laugh at Bush and swap stories of how stupid he was and wonder how such a man could actually be President when he failed at every business he ever got near.
And even with the knowledge that it was Salim bin Laden's family cash that floated these losing business sink-holes, as if Saudi Arabia needed to invest in a losing Texas oil company, and even knowing the Taliban visited Texas as guests to negotiate a pipeline deal while Bush was Governor, and even knowing he sat there like a dummy when told of the second plane crashing into the WTC, that it was an attack, knowing all these facts, the American people still allowed themselves to be led to support this 'dummy' to attack a country that had absolutely no connection to 9/11, even after we toppled the Taliban in a month and had Al-Qaeda on the run,
yes even after all of that, this 'dummy' got us to sign on for the GWOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This was no dummy. 'They' accomplished everything 'they' set out to do. Bush and Cheney got it done.
They really pulled it off. Worst approval ratings, constant scandals, cutting the VA by $400 million during wartime, with tens of thousands of seriously injured in the pipeline, they still managed to wave the flag as true patiots and 'real' Americans all while cutting back civil liberties and destroying the economy even as they and their Wall St. cronies milked it.
The rise of the private contractors, that brilliant money-saving transformation of Rumsfeld's that had us believe that by hiring civilians we could 'shrink' the military thus saving money.
Oh really?? hiring truck drivers and carpenters for 100K+ a year is cheaper than having $40K soldiers doing the same job?
All these VIP security guards from Blackwater and the like making $500 to $1500 a DAY!! Instead of regular soldiers doing it is cost saving??
All these freed up troops were supposed to increase our Combat strength, yet now we hear rumblings about increasing the size of the military to 'meet future threats'.
Sure, now that the Private Contractors are established fact, no more talk of shrinking the military, but rather the opposite- increasing it.
The GWOT in its operation and in its even more expensive replacement costs is one of the all time money-makers ever.
In '91, we sat in the Saudi desert, bored to death, from August till January, then we had a 100 hour ground war after the Air War. The bulk of the trrops were back home by April.
The amount of equiptment deemed 'unsalvageable' or 'beyond repair' was, I thought at the time, staggering.
So what must it be now, or what will it be, after almost a decade of tough service, desert sand and IED's??
I am sure that while we all laughed at him, and his approval ratings were the lowest of all time, the approval ratings of Bush and Cheney among the MIC was and is the highest of all time.
They really accomplished all their assigned tasks.
For them, it really is MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!!
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Re: Afghan Military Review
Dec 6, 2009 1:46 PM
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Jetfuel
You are right. We should just let Global Corporations improve Afghan Infrastructure. Clearly some countries are not truly Sovereign since they are tribal, fight with one another, and have no cohesive future, society, politics, of governmental structure (Backshish, mordida level that doesn't prevent government functions).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordida
I would say that GWOT is as ill conceived as our Foreign Policy (Still continued by President Obama)...or anything that happened in Washington DC by Politicians up to the Obama Whitehouse.
>To me, the question of whether the Afghans "deserve" our "beneficence" is strictly philosophical.
>The more important question, with an obvious answer, is whether this country can afford to spend all this money we don't have in "improving" Afghan infrastructure after we destroy that infrastructure?
>We're broke, by any standard one chooses. Our infrastructure is ancient and needs to be updated constantly.
>We cannot afford to waste money over there, either destroying or rebuilding.
>GWOT is a hoax.
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Re: Afghan Military Review
Dec 6, 2009 1:15 PM
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There has been a lot of progress made and lessons learned, but it hasn't been military.
What has been learned is that the people are the prize in any counter-insurgency.
Putting the real weight of our effort into schools and agricultural projects and medical programs are a real, proven way to get the people, the average Afghans, to cooperate with and even support an American presence, according to meetings with dozens of Tribal elders and Tribal councils.
As is often said, we can't stay forever, and if anything at all is to be left behind of value to our future security and possible future good relations with the Afghan people, its helping them with what they need, not the memory of yet another foreign military that came and went with nothing but collateral damage and dead citizens in its wake.
The military side of this now is to have enough troops to defend the people and projects from the enemy and to attack that enemy when the opportunity presents itself.
If the main thrust of our efforts is seen as providing the average folks a way or ways to better their lives and futures, then we will have left behind a much better chance of peace than if we're perceived as supporting corrupt regimes and indiscriminately killing civilians.
But this is no secret, its counter-insurgency 101 as re-written recently by General Petraeus.
A military effort only lasts as long as we're there to hold or deny territory from the enemy.
So they will just wait, and we'll go, and they'll walk right back in.
In the mean time they'll keep up the harrassing attacks that cause maximum US casualties to wear down public support at home, speeding our withdrawal.
A book I'd like to read is 'Stones for Schools', I think its called. The author spent time meeting with Tribal councils and working on creating a girls school, or schools.
I heard an interview with him, and what he had to say was very interesting, more so because he seemed a quiet, average type guy, not comfortable on a national cable news interview, but really passionate about the people to people contacts he was making.
He said that these type of efforts are the ones that create the lasting benefits that are really needed for a better future, both ours and the Afghans.
I believe it.
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Re: Afghan Military Review
Dec 6, 2009 10:40 AM
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As promised, some links to sites that question the facts surrounding 9-11. I've read quite a few others, most that dealt with engineering facts surrounding the twin towers collapse. Like most people, I'm totally unqualified to know if they were speaking truth whatsoever, so I demised them pretty much out of hand. This is an aviation site, and since I'm a former aircraft maintainer, made a bit more sense to me, particularly the flightpath information of American 77 which hit the pentagon. Quite a bit of flying that totally unqualified terrorist did there!
This site is notable as well in that it doesn't allege conspiracy (although it certainly implies it), but rather just legitimately questions the facts. It also surprises me somewhat that those who so readily concede that Bush/Cheney lied and concealed just about everything else they could reasonably get away with, wouldn't try something like this as well if they thought they could get away with it. I don't even think any such proposed conspiracy would have to be all that broad based in terms of numbers of people in the know, as long as the wall of silence was maintained with integrity. Especially if strictly compartmentalize the knowledge based on task and need to know.
Anyway:
http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2009/11/911-conspiracy-theorists-take-hit-5.html
http://www.pilotsfor911truth.org/core.html
http://pilotsfor911truth.org/pentagon.html
Cheers!
DaN
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Re: Afghan Military Review
Dec 4, 2009 1:13 PM
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> >
> > And I know enough to know what special
> > interests want and an endless occupation
> > of backwoodsy Afghanistan is not one
> > of their priorities.
>
> Jim,
>
> My point exactly. Do they really deserve our
> valuable resources at this time? No.
>
Nevertheless we are there. Our armed services
have made the commitment and sacrifices and
so, that being the case, I prefer to concentrate
on the war which hasn't yet been started (that
would be Iran) as a much more constructive
endeavor than further criticizing this one now
that the president has made his decision.....Although
I'm likely to keep posting news from Afghanistan as
well as other peoples opinions on it as well as
occasional speculations based on theory
in the interest of free speech.
In fact, here's an opinion already:
Obama's Exit Strategy....by Patrick Buchanan
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Edited by JimEarl at 12/04/2009 10:44 AM PST
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