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2018-08-15 Afghanistan
101st Airborne, US Special Forces Called Into Ghazni Battle
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Posted by Besoeker 2018-08-15 07:57|| || Front Page|| [11131 views ]  Top
 File under: Taliban 

#1 Freedom is not free - a good man already paid the ultimate price: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/afghanistan/article-6057071/US-commando-dies-explosion-southern-Afghanistan.html

I feel that the entire population of 7th Century Afghanistan is not worth the blood of one US Army Private - and that we have no business shedding blood and spending treasure in that hell-hole.

All US casualties in Afghanistan died in vain. It pains me to say it - but it is true. They do not call that accursed place "The Graveyard of Empires" for nothing.
Posted by Lone Ranger 2018-08-15 12:14||   2018-08-15 12:14|| Front Page Top

#2 
"MOAB! MOAB!"
Posted by gorb 2018-08-15 15:10||   2018-08-15 15:10|| Front Page Top

#3 Some things are simply beyond repair. Oftentimes difficult to accept, but true nonetheless.
Posted by Besoeker 2018-08-15 15:12||   2018-08-15 15:12|| Front Page Top

#4 What do we do to keep the jihadi problem from metastasizing, gentlemen, given that the borders of Pakistan and Iran are both porous and both countries are gateways to the West? Afghanistan is for the Afghans to fix, but how do we keep them from providing a safe space in which transnational jihadi groups can grow big enough to infect the rest of the world? The Viet Kong were beaten in Viet Nam, but they had safe havens across the border from which they burst out to overrun the country.

Afghanistan and the Pashtun border regions host the Afghan Taliban, the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), the original Al Qaeda cadres, ISIS, Uighurs, Chechens, etc. (someone else would be better able to lay out the list of hard boy inhabitants of the area — I can’t keep them all in mind). And they trade personnel and training like boys trade baseball cards. Even though Pakistan has started building a fence along the Durand Line, odds are it will never be finished, and even the finished bits will not be impervious to bribes, while Iran welcomes those who would be their tools, given a little support. Some of the bin Laden family and their friends have been sheltering in Iran since the excitements at Tora Bora.
Posted by trailing wife 2018-08-15 15:48||   2018-08-15 15:48|| Front Page Top

#5 I agree with TW and Besoeker, and propose that the US withdraw from Afganistan with a simple warning that if any entity or government allows a re-establishment of terrorist havens that area will be reduced to rubble, all signs of civilization will be destroyed, and that neither aid nor reconstruction will be allowed. If they want a no man's land, then give it to them. I don't want my great-grandchildren to learn how to spell Afganistan.
Posted by brujotejano 2018-08-15 16:00||   2018-08-15 16:00|| Front Page Top

#6 What do we do to keep the jihadi problem from metastasizing, gentlemen, given that the borders of Pakistan and Iran are both porous and both countries are gateways to the West?
It seems pretty obvious that what we are doing is not working and is not likely to ever work. Perhaps there is no good answer to this question.
Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2018-08-15 16:53||   2018-08-15 16:53|| Front Page Top

#7 VX, or something similar. Area denial weapons.
Posted by Whiskey Mike 2018-08-15 17:28||   2018-08-15 17:28|| Front Page Top

#8 Neutron emitters with 1000 year half life.
Posted by Whiskey Mike 2018-08-15 17:29||   2018-08-15 17:29|| Front Page Top

#9 No more US involvement. Get out of Afghanistan. Now. We have been nation-building there since 2001.

"When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains.
Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains.
And go to your g-d like a soldier."
Posted by irishrageboy 2018-08-15 17:52||   2018-08-15 17:52|| Front Page Top

#10 The Old British Colonial Policy was called "Butcher And Bolt" -- every generation mount a massive Punitive Raid to convince the surviving "sane" tribals to restrict their banditry and mayhem to within their own borders.
Posted by magpie 2018-08-15 18:07||   2018-08-15 18:07|| Front Page Top

#11  brujotejano, we have the power but not the will.
Posted by AlanC 2018-08-15 18:10||   2018-08-15 18:10|| Front Page Top

#12 As my father used to say, gettafukout!
Posted by Raj 2018-08-15 18:47||   2018-08-15 18:47|| Front Page Top

#13 The Old British Colonial Policy was called "Butcher And Bolt"

I believe the Israelis talk about mowing the grass, For them it used to be every 10-15 years, as each generation of kids became old enough to self-organize, but Hamas in Gaza seems to require about a doubled tempo.

if any entity or government allows a re-establishment of terrorist havens

The havens have been in place in Afghanistan for decades, brutotejano. The fighting between the Taliban and ISIS in several provinces over the past week or so has led to several hunded deaths, suggesting a good many more bad guys remain unkilled. If the Afghan government were capable of dealing with the problem, they would have done so, but they are very far from that at this point.
Posted by trailing wife 2018-08-15 20:20||   2018-08-15 20:20|| Front Page Top

#14 fwiw, Operation Enduring Freedom was declared over in December 2014 and we are now in Operation Freedom's Sentinal, below are quotes from Obama and Hagel

----------------------
"Today's ceremony in Kabul marks a milestone for our country," Obama said. "For more than 13 years, ever since nearly 3,000 innocent lives were taken from us on 9/11, our nation has been at war in Afghanistan. Now, thanks to the extraordinary sacrifices of our men and women in uniform, our combat mission in Afghanistan is ending, and the longest war in American history is coming to a responsible conclusion."

"At the end of this year," Hagel said, "as our Afghan partners assume responsibility for the security of their country, the United States officially concludes Operation Enduring Freedom. … In 2015, we begin our follow-on mission -- Operation Freedom's Sentinel -- to help secure and build upon the hard-fought gains of the last 13 years.
Posted by lord garth 2018-08-15 21:02||   2018-08-15 21:02|| Front Page Top

#15 I don't think "responsible" and "responsibility" have the usual meaning in these two quotes.
Posted by gorb 2018-08-15 22:40||   2018-08-15 22:40|| Front Page Top

23:49 JohnQC
23:05 CrazyFool
22:49 gorb
22:46 gorb
22:43 gorb
22:41 gorb
22:40 gorb
22:17 Si vis pacem
21:48 DooDahMan
21:35 Bugs Thud4877
21:10 Frank G
21:02 lord garth
21:02 Clem
20:55 Clem
20:50 Procopius2k
20:46 Regular joe
20:36 Dale
20:24 trailing wife
20:20 trailing wife
20:18 KBK
20:16 Frank G
20:15 Frank G
20:09 KBK
20:09 K. Couric









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