The Military History Thread

[deepsepia]

On the war front, one interesting statistical association is that conflict deaths are much more common as you move towards the Equator.

Can't find the reference now, but your latitude has a strong association with the likelihood, today, that you'll be killed in a conflict.

[Navvet]

The official line is that the USA invaded Afghanistan because the Taliban would not surrender Osama Bin Laden. It's been over a year since Bin Laden was killed. So my question is, "what the Hell are we still doing in Afghanistan?"
The overwhelming majority of Americans couldn't care less what kind of government takes hold in Afghanistan. If the Taliban returns, so what? It's ultimately up to the Afghan people themselves to decide the sort of government they want. Whether that choice comes through elections, or through civil war, it's no ones business but theirs.

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by navvet

The official line is that the USA invaded Afghanistan because the Taliban would not surrender Osama Bin Laden. It's been over a year since Bin Laden was killed. So my question is, "what the Hell are we still doing in Afghanistan?"
The overwhelming majority of Americans couldn't care less what kind of government takes hold in Afghanistan. If the Taliban returns, so what? It's ultimately up to the Afghan people themselves to decide the sort of government they want. Whether that choice comes through elections, or through civil war, it's no ones business but theirs.

There's a mind boggling consistency to the error: the cost of war is usually predicated on the "cost of going in".

Again and again, it's been demonstrated that the cost of getting out is both far greater, and far more complex than invasion. Invasion is the easy part.

You'd think that somehow this would get through to people, but it doesn't.

[bombermouse]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

There's a mind boggling consistency to the error: the cost of war is usually predicated on the "cost of going in".

Again and again, it's been demonstrated that the cost of getting out is both far greater, and far more complex than invasion. Invasion is the easy part.

You'd think that somehow this would get through to people, but it doesn't.

People excel at ignoring facts that don't support their preconceived notions.

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by navvet

The official line is that the USA invaded Afghanistan because the Taliban would not surrender Osama Bin Laden. It's been over a year since Bin Laden was killed. So my question is, "what the Hell are we still doing in Afghanistan?"
The overwhelming majority of Americans couldn't care less what kind of government takes hold in Afghanistan. If the Taliban returns, so what? It's ultimately up to the Afghan people themselves to decide the sort of government they want. Whether that choice comes through elections, or through civil war, it's no ones business but theirs.

This is a Sorcorer's Apprentice thing and it goes back at least as far as December 1979 and the Russian invasion. The West, led by the USA sided with anti-Russian forces simply because they were anti-Russian. Geographically Afghanistan is strategically important and has been since Alexander the Great. It is the stepping stone between the old Soviet Union and the present day Russian sphere of influence and Iran (Persia as was) or Pakistan, countries which adjoin the Indian Ocean. The trouble was, as was not clear in 1979 except to very well informed people, the territory of Afghanistan is almost impossible to control and offers no secure corridor in either direction. The threat was much less credible than it looked.

People in the West foresaw a danger of a Soviet expansion taking in either Iran or Pakistan. This underpinned public opinion when it used to support the "freedom fighers", our friends who won't let girls go to school. This underpinned the decision to de-stabilise the Soviet backed puppet governments. It was a conscious strategy to drive the Russians out and prevent the risk of further expansion. No one cared what happened after that or thought that they needed to care. Unfortunately, creating a bandit-country meant that there was a ready-made haven for terrorists to exploit and this is what happened. By working to overthrow Najibullah, the Western powers had created the space from which Al Qaeda prepared the attack on the World Trade Centre.

And now?

When the Coalition forces withdraw, Afghanistan will revert to what it was before they arrived. New generations of Islamo-Fascist terrorism will spawn. The opportunity to create a viable unitary state was lost when the Bush administration turned its back on Afghanistan and chose to pursue a different adventure in Iraq. But whenever the US and their allies pull out of Afghanistan, this dreary cycle will repeat and, sooner or later,terrorists will reach out from there to hurt us all again. When they succeed in hurting us enough, we will return and hurt them. When someone mounts an atrocity on the scale of the WTC attacks, and when the victim knows the attacker's return address, there is only one possible outcome, as we have seen.

It has all the relentless inevitability of a Norse Saga.

[palo5]

Originally Posted by tygrkhat40

The arming of the Mujaheddin was something done by the US with a short-term goal in mind, making the Soviet Union look like we did in Vietnam. And that succeeded. But little or no thought was given to what would happen when the Soviets did what we eventually did in Vietnam, which is leave...

The Americans did not think about this before Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq. They thought no exit strategy was necessary because they would win so quickly. This was bad intelligence work

The USSR made the decision to enter Afghanistan not because of bad intelligence, because we already knew the place was bad news - only a year before they had been told "No, you will not have Soviet soldiers. Here are some AKs, roadbuilders, doctors and teachers. That's all"

It was because of idiotic politics, and opinions that were manipulated. If we hadn't had such fossilized leadership, it couldn't have happened, imho

There is much to be regretted

[palo5]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

...By working to overthrow Najibullah...

Did you know he was tortured and castrated before he was hung?

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by palo5

Did you know he was tortured and castrated before he was hung?

I didn't, but I am not surprised. These were not even the Talebans, they were even lower scum than that; the likes of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and similar gutter trash who got fat on the suffering of the innocent. The values of enlightenment civilisation have never really taken hold in Afghanistan; it is bandit country.

I have no doubt that today, now that there is no Soviet Union and no serious perception of a threat of Russian world conquest, the USA would gladly give place to a return of Najibullah. Afghanistan would be better off under a Marxist-Leninist dictatorship than under this hypocrite and thief, Mohammed Karzai, and under this vacuum where authority ends at the maximum range of US and coalition rifle bullets.

Whenever the coalition troops do withdraw, I will be most strenuously opposed to any offer of asylum to Karzai or the Afghan national army or police. I would not actively wish them to end up like Najibullah; I just won't cry or anything if they do. Being allied to them has given we in the West an insight into them which we did not have before; no fate, no horror is so bad that one could say these people do not deserve it. Let them take their chance.

[Mal Hombre]

Originally Posted by palo5

Did you know he was tortured and castrated before he was hung?

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll over to Your rifle and blow out Your brains,
And go to Your Gawd like a soldier.
Rudyard Kipling

Some things never change....

[palo5]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

I...Being allied to them has given we in the West an insight into them which we did not have before...

You've had an 'insight' for almost 200 years, Comrade. Did no one tell you about the 1839 war that wiped out British forces?

Or the other two wars, both lost?

Asian history is not easily viewed from the outside