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| Afghanistan |
| US encounters stumbling blocks in training Afghans |
| 2009-11-01 |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #10 Let the Han colonize it. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2009-11-01 19:57 |
| #9 But Afghanistan and Pakistan are the fluid boundaries of the same problem, Nimble Spemble -- hammer and anvil are both necessary. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2009-11-01 15:13 |
| #8 It will take a generation to fix Iraq. It will take 4 to bring Astan to the twentieth century. And it's called the white man's burden. We aren't going to carry it that long for a place and people so unlikely to succeed. Iraq or Pakistan is more important in the long war and losing either is not worth Astan. If Barry had any intestinal fortitude he'd double down on Pak and abandon Astan. Let the Chinese and Persians have it. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2009-11-01 15:07 |
| #7 This is going to take at least a generation of hands-on involvement -- both training and demonstration -- to change. We're not just dealing with the culture of the army and police forces, but of the country as a whole. The alternative to sticking it out is to leave, thus proving to the entire Ummah that Osama bin Laden was right when he said we haven't the attention span for a real war like his jihad, which is a war of opportunistic actions over the course of decades. The lesson if we leave is to absorb whatever punishment we mete out, then pick at us in small attacks on the troops and civilian population for a few years until we elect politicians who throw up their hands at the trouble, apologise, and bring the troops home. On 9/11 something like 90% of the world's Muslims thought the terror war, a.k.a. jihad, against the West was a wonderful idea. Since then, the West has waltzed through two battlefields Al Qaeda, et al had designated as the seat of their future caliphate -- Afghanistan and Iraq -- leading to the deaths of fifty thousand or so jihadi volunteers from around the world and the injuries of likely a similar number. Jihadi terror groups that have been having things mostly their own way in the Philippines, North Africa, Indonesia, and Malaysia are finding their numbers depleted to such an extent that the North African groups had to amalgamate under the Al Q. in the Maghreb label. Islamist theorists favoured by the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda have recently published books stating categorically that the current terror jihad against the West is not only un-Islamic but will send its practitioners to hell instead of a paradise filled with 72 beauteous perpetual virgins per jihadi. If I recall correctly, currently only about 30% of the world's Muslims will admit to interviewers to thinking that jihad against the West is a good idea. But if we retreat, that will change again. The world's troublemakers are already pushing to see if President Obama is made of the same stuff as his predecessor. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2009-11-01 14:51 |
| #6 iAlmost sounds like the US Army in Germany in the mid 70s. Drug abuse, race riots, high levels of UCMJ actions, the Donks gutting defense funding [except for pork projects], living at the edge of poverty, etc. Race riots weren't just in Germany. |
| Posted by: badanov 2009-11-01 11:45 |
| #5 Race riots weren't just in Germany. |
| Posted by: badanov 2009-11-01 11:44 |
| #4 The Afghans usually fail the first lesson, which is more of a demonstration: "This is $#!+, and this is Shinola. Questions?" |
| Posted by: AlmostAnonymous5839 2009-11-01 11:40 |
| #3 They simply need more time. Perhaps we should come back and give it another go in say.....four thousand years? |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2009-11-01 09:05 |
| #2 But the training effort has been drastically slowed by rampant corruption, widespread illiteracy, vanishing supplies, lack of discipline — and the added burden of unifying a force made up of a patchwork of often hostile ethnic groups. Almost sounds like the US Army in Germany in the mid 70s. Drug abuse, race riots, high levels of UCMJ actions, the Donks gutting defense funding [except for pork projects], living at the edge of poverty, etc. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-11-01 07:45 |
| #1 I wonder why? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2009-11-01 05:32 |