I don’t think a semblance of victory in Afghanistan was out of reach from the get-go. The fact is that our intelligence and military apparatus is vastly more capable than any other empire that has found its grave in the mountains of Afghanistan in years past. The mission could have been accomplished. I hate to Monday morning quarterback things, but an honest reflection on the last 11 years points to our failure being a result of bad strategic decisions. At a tactical level, a force on force engagement with any US ground combat forces is an unwinnable proposition. Yet even major tactical losses equate to strategic victories for the Taliban on the I/O front.
The idea of kinetic actions being tactical victories yet strategic failures was not recognized quickly enough. That is failure number one. Every 0-5 that gets his first battle space wants to make a name for himself. You don’t make a name for yourself because of the shots you don’t take. But that is how
we could have won the people.
Failure number two was in the way that we created the new Afghan Army. We modeled the indigenous force off of ourselves. We created an Army in our own image. That Afghan Army is now unsuited for the threat it faces. From the beginning, the Afghan military should have mirrored ENEMY forces, not us. Now, ANSF is disconnected and impotent. It’s not an easy thing to explain how ridiculous it is that the Afghan Army drives down the road in HMMWV’s with .50 Cals just waiting to get blown up or RPG’d when the Taliban lives comfortably in the villages right off the road. We separated the Afghan military from the population by putting them in bases, trucks, and uniforms. They should be living in those villages so that the Taliban cannot. Why the fuck does the ANA live on US bases?
On a similar note, the Afghan equivalent of the Iraqi SOI/CLC/Saweh program was way too late coming. Why did it take so long?
I realize that a litany of complaints is not a solution. In many ways this was uncharted territory for our leaders, and I believe that they did an outstanding job with the knowledge they had. Hindsight is 20/20. Far be it from me to take their accomplishments from them.
Strategically, I thing we’re seeing the cold war filters negatively effecting the mission. For too many policy wonks, this was our opportunity to prove we could do what the Russians were unable to do. When in fact, they should have spent more time regarding what the Russians did wrong.
In hindsight, when the Taliban got put in the crosshairs after 9/11, the best thing Bush could’ve done is go have a private chat with Putin and ask some serious questions about Afghanistan. Sadly, he was surrounded by people like Rumsfeld, Cheney, etc., who were not giving sound strategic advice. To paraphrase a popular battle meme, “One does not simply walk into Afghanistan…Not with ten thousand men could you do this. It is folly.”
Our “leaders” had no concept of what was actually there. They even believed Al-Qaeda and the Taliban had the mountain equivalent of the Ho Chi Minh trail at Tora Bora. They did not. When you have no concept of the enemy you face, victory is anything but assured. The Bush administration should’ve followed Sun Tzu rather than Clausewitz.
We wanted to bring American democracy to Afghanistan, which they cannot fathom or assimilate. The most they could handle is perhaps Mexican democracy, as exemplified in the corruption of the Karzai led government. Of course, so long as Karzai tows the US company line, we don’t mind. THAT, will net us additional enemies for years to come. It’s like fucking herpes, the gift that keeps on giving.
Agreed. I would say there were three major fuck-ups:
Anaconda - The SOF elements on the ground wanted the support of Rangers and Paratroopers. Instead, the micromanaging big brains in the White House gave them the slap-nut Northern Alliance. When OBL asked to talk surrender terms the Northern Alliance insisted respected the request. OBL slipped out the back door.
Not fully supporting the Northern Alliance to include giving them their own country. They just needed to push their territory out to where they could legitimately claim independent status in the UN.
Allowing conventional forces into Afghanistan. It should have stayed a SOF mission. For all of the things that have gone wrong in Afghanistan the one thing that worked well was sending ODAs out with a sack full of money.
We could, in fact, ‘save’ Afghanistan but we would have to CORRECTLY employ SOF, cash money, and UAVs. But, since we will not do this, it’s time to shut it down.
Agreed. Pakistan sees the writing on the wall and has fully committed to a long term strategic relationship with China. The best thing for us to do, is deep six their asses and work on a strategic relationship with India.
Agreed. We never should have gone into Afghanistan. We should have contracted out the ISI/Pakistan to handover UBL and his subordinates in exchange for continued US aid and not interfering with Pakistan’s strategic interests. If they didn’t deliver, we should have held them accountable. Nation building is not in the interest of the US. This was back in 2001 when the US had clout. Now we’re weakened by a decade of war and approaching financial insolvency. UBL’s long term strategy seems to be working:(. Just my 2 cents.
Not really a surprise announcement from them. All the so called up upcoming talks with them means jack shit. They are jockeying for position while perpetrating this negotiation BS. Everyone who is sane, anticipated this as being the effect of our withdrawal. All this war amounted to was mission creep of the highest order.
Our budget deficit for last year was greater than the cost of both the Afghan and Iraqi wars combined for a decade. We have a financial insolvency but 100 billion dollars a year is nothing in comparison to a 1.6 trillion dollar annual deficit.
When it was announced that we assassinated Al-Awlaki I emailed my dad and told him that UBL won.
The exponential power grab by the government at the expense of civil liberties, 6k dead and tens of thousands injured, horrible world opinion, failing dollar, insurmountable national debt, endless war after endless war (next stop: Iran) that rally the ME against us and weaken our national security, the TSA, DHS, Patriot Act, NDAA, it doesn’t end. UBL wanted to destroy America, he obviously couldn’t physically destroy America but look at what has happened in the last decade and try to convince yourself he didn’t.
We have a long road back to what we are supposed to be, with no sign we are going to start down that road anytime soon.
I assume you’re referring to my post? America is a democratic republic. Unfortunately, we have a bunch of morons who believe we’re a true democracy, which is merely mob rule. I blame the education system and parents for the poor civics of our once great nation.
The question we need to remember is what was the goal when the U.S. (followed by it’s allies - including my native Sweden) invaded Afghanistan? It was to bring OBL to justice (or death - his choice) - not to fight the Taliban.
Essentially the Talibans got “caught in the middle.” As some of you may remember the Taliban government actually debated quite heatedly whether or not OBL and AQ should be turned over to the U.S. for 9/11. But after lengthy discussions they decided that as it is their custom (Lokhay Warkawal - ask Marcus Luttrell about it if you don’t know) to provide their guests with every protection available to the host, they could not comply with the U.S. demands. It was more important to the Taliban to preserve their culture and way of life than to risk the full wrath of the U.S.
So yeah, I’m very sorry that so many have been lost and wounded in Afghanistan, but the outcome was always going to be the same.
But in WWII the vets came home to a thankful public, a HUGE array of great veteran benefits, jobs, jobs, and more jobs thanks to a newly industrialized US with lots of excess capacity and NO foreign competition (mostly because it all got bombed).
Post VN, veteran benefits were drastically scaled back, there are no jobs (especially for returning vets), China has wiped out most heavy industry in this country, and the public at large really couldn’t give a fuck less about vets beyond putting a yellow magnet on their minivan.
And, both political parties are fairly anti-veteran.
And they wonder why every few months a vet goes on a shooting spree!?
It is worth noting that many vets naturally gravitate toward Ron Paul and the ‘occupy’ movement. Think about it…
I agree with Armati on this. the atmosphere is different now and there is a significant amount of anti-establishment undercurrent in society as a whole. when you add typical re-adjustment that vets go thru when “coming home” to the undercurrent you get a particularly volitile situation.
The anti-government types are not the same as they were in the 90’s. they are much more savvy and better trained and more on the leading edge than the trailing edge of things. they have watched how the establishment has manipulated things and see how it’s done. they are not falling for the same rhetoric this time round.
If only we could get people to turn off thier TV’s now. Especially the “News”
If anyone thought that Afghanistan was going to turn out to be a democracy free from the Taliban and Pakistan was somehow going to be the keystone…I’ll have whatever it was you were smoking.
From day one of karzi being “chosen”, that’s when the fail started. Ahmed Massoud was the only hope of a quasi democracy in Afghanistan.
