Article

2020-03-04 Home Front: WoT

I cheered the Afghanistan invasion. I was wrong.

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Herb McCoy 2020-03-04 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11134 views ] Top

#1 I had no problem with going after Osama, but my reading of history told me it wasn't a great place to try to occupy and reform.

These things are always (supposedly) black and white in hindsight.

Posted by charger 2020-03-04 00:24|| 2020-03-04 00:24|| Front Page Top

#2 Nothing wrong with a punitive expedition. Salt the earth, destroy AQ's/juhad's haven.

But under W's Christian mission civilisatrice, the punitive expedition morphed into Three Cups of Tea, Hoorah for Afghan Girls' Education, and Let's Make Afghanistan Safe For ~~Graft~~ Democracy bullshit.

THAT's where & when we went wrong, IMO.

Posted by Lex 2020-03-04 00:40|| 2020-03-04 00:40|| Front Page Top

#3 Ref #1: I had no problem with going after Osama, but my reading of history told me it wasn't a great place to try to occupy and reform.

Says it all right fok'n there.

Posted by Besoeker 2020-03-04 00:44|| 2020-03-04 00:44|| Front Page Top

#4 The invasion was correct, but the lengthy occupation was wrong...

OBL did not hate us for our freedom, but his attack on us was part of a plan to establish himself as a modern Saladin by mobilizing the masses to stand behind him when he attacked the great Satan...

The 9/11 attacks started with the assassination of Massoud (to consolidate power in AF) just prior to the attack on us...and was to culminate with the assassination of Saddam.

OBL would have been able to consolidate regional and religious power by placing a figure head in charge in Iraq (largest standing army in ME), receiving tribute from the Gulf States via threat, and ruling from his protected base in AF.

We had to invade to disrupt his plan and we did so. Staying there and trying to reform that country was the bridge too far.

Posted by Tennessee 2020-03-04 01:15|| 2020-03-04 01:15|| Front Page Top

#5 GW Bush had it right when he 'declared victory' and moved the fight to Iraq, but public pressure to fight the 'good' war in Afghanistan forced it to be renewed (even though it did not end the Iraq effort.)

Posted by Glenmore 2020-03-04 01:43|| 2020-03-04 01:43|| Front Page Top

#6 Never heard of that OBL plan with Iraq. You sure this wasn't some weirdo after-the-fact justification of the war we started under false pretenses? You know, the whoppers about Saddam giving Al Qaeda WMD. Boy, I don't know how anyone fell for something that unbelievable. It would be like Jews giving Zyklon B to the Nazis.

Posted by Herb McCoy 2020-03-04 04:27|| 2020-03-04 04:27|| Front Page Top

#7 Huhhhh... mumble..

Posted by Dron66046 2020-03-04 07:24|| 2020-03-04 07:24|| Front Page Top

#8 The Week, moving up to a campus publication?

Posted by swksvolFF 2020-03-04 10:15|| 2020-03-04 10:15|| Front Page Top

#9 The Great Game by Peter Hopkirk on the British experience in Afghanistan should have been required reading for US military and policy makers once the punishment phase was over in Afghanistan and the nation building began.

Posted by York Harding 2020-03-04 12:57|| 2020-03-04 12:57|| Front Page Top

#10 Herb, I don't see the 9/11 attack as post facto justification in the invasion of Iraq v.2 even if OBL had designs on placing a true believer proxy leader there (if he was successful killing Saddam). That is the whole thing about dictatorships, they can be replaced with one bullet. AQ and the Iraqi leadership were at odds and did not appear to be um, co-conspirators that is for sure.

OBL was very strategic and believed in the long game...if you read the portions of the 9/11 report that Obama declass'd you can see inferences that he intended to dirty up the Saudi gov't with the 9/11 attack as well...who really knows whether Bandar was connected with Zubaydah/Bassan/Bayoumi...maybe he really did support...the truth is likely buried. Although if the Saudi gov't took a hit for the attack it benefited OBL.

Posted by Tennessee 2020-03-04 13:07|| 2020-03-04 13:07|| Front Page Top

#11 W bet that Islam was compatible with Democracy.

If he was right the world would be a much better place and it all would have been worthwhile, but he was wrong. They are compatible in small groups but not as a culture, not as a nation. Turkey has been trying for decades and still has to crack down once in awhile.

Posted by rjschwarz 2020-03-04 13:40|| 2020-03-04 13:40|| Front Page Top

#12 If he was right the world would be a much better place and it all would have been worthwhile, but he was wrong.

So we learn from that mistake and move on.

Posted by Abu Uluque 2020-03-04 14:09|| 2020-03-04 14:09|| Front Page Top

#13 Second York Harding's book suggestion.

Read it anyways; the prose is easy and the topic exciting, some real life James Bond shit happened.

Might even find out the British, French, Germans, Russians were mucking about the area long before the US even thought about getting involved.

Posted by swksvolFF 2020-03-04 15:05|| 2020-03-04 15:05|| Front Page Top

#14 You know, the whoppers about Saddam giving Al Qaeda WMD.

There was video of cadres from Al Qaeda and other jihadi groups practicing poisoning dogs with aerosolized chemicals at Salman Pak, Saddam Hussein’s site for advanced training of his extra special forces on one side and a variety of jihadis and the IRA on the other. They had their very own commercial jet plane for practicing hijacking techniques, too. It’s all in the Rantburg archives, Mr. McCoy.

Posted by trailing wife 2020-03-04 16:20|| 2020-03-04 16:20|| Front Page Top

#15 /\ Salmon Pak? Animal cages at remote labs? Yes, been there done that, seen it. What are your questions ?

Posted by Besoeker 2020-03-04 16:22|| 2020-03-04 16:22|| Front Page Top

#16 Third York H's book suggestion. A wonderful read.

Posted by Lex 2020-03-04 16:33|| 2020-03-04 16:33|| Front Page Top

#17 Also recommend Edward Rice's "Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton." Burton reputedly spoke 29 languages, was a spy soldier and adventurer across Afghanistan, India, Africa, the Middle East.

Posted by Lex 2020-03-04 16:37|| 2020-03-04 16:37|| Front Page Top

22:54 DarthVader
22:27 JohnQC
21:53 Don Vito Crereng5853
21:19 swksvolFF
21:19 Whiskey Mike
21:03 Mullah Richard
21:00 Mullah Richard
20:33 ruprecht
20:27 Frank G
19:56 Don Vito Crereng5853
19:43 Woodrow
19:41 Woodrow
18:47 The peanut gallery
18:23 Besoeker
18:08 lord garth
17:49 Skidmark
17:46 Lex
17:38 Lex
17:36 Lex
17:25 Skidmark
17:23 Skidmark
17:18 Thing From Snowy Mountain
17:13 M. Murcek
17:06 jpal