That's just an invitation for terrorists to turn civilian areas into free-fire zones.
My son leaves for Afghanistan next week. For whose freedom is he fighting? The American people ought to be screaming at the politicians to protect our troops and let them fight to win, or bring them home. But we are too busy watching the blue box of Babylon. He is not fighting for our freedom at this point. The sad thing is he knows it but volunteered to go to help get his brothers home safe. Our country and our politicians have abandoned them.
As an NCO, if my troops are in the shit I would call in Arty, Air, Naval Bombardment, hell the Wrath of God, locusts, famine, floods, whatever if I had His call sign. Anything less you are not doing your job of taking care of the troops and acomplishing the mission. We didn’t choose where and how the enemy fight. We damned sure shouldn’t let them make us play their games at the cost of American lives.
Petraeus has no control over the orders. These orders come STRAIGHT from the White House and Obama.
Strike one................... =.=
Afghanistan commander Army Gen. David Petraeus has renewed orders to American troops to refrain from calling in artillery or air power when battling Taliban forces unless they're certain that no civilians are present.
May as well pull our forces out of Afghanistan. If we are not going to kill the enemy and break their will, what is the sense in being there?
5.56mm
...to refrain from calling in artillery or air power when battling Taliban forces unless they're certain that no civilians are present.The most effective implementation of this is to reclassify all enemy KIAs as combatants. Otherwise, Petraeus has become tits on a boar, and needs to retire, now.
A sweet and sour decision. Sweet on having a local Afghani with your troops. It worked in Vietnam and civilian casualties dropped with better intell.
Sour in that a few good heavy air and artillery strikes on a Taliban-held compound kill all the enemy and act as a warning to civilians to get out of Dodge if the know that the Taliban is in the area.
There will be some civilian casualties, but the locals can then tell the Taliban that they are not welcomed because of the guaranteed devastation they will bring on them.
If the Taliban refuse, the locals have a lot of hidden guns, and they are starting to turn them on the unwelcomed intruders.
If they are welcomes intruders, then the local have to pay.
War is hell, not a f*king tea party.
It was a good effort and our troops are to be commended for their gallantry, but unless our Country's resolve is to actually WIN a war, we have no business fighting them.
Obama IS the boss.
Outrageous.
The traitor who ordered this
INFORMED the enemy how to avoid return fire.
Petraeus is a huge disappontment. Another political general officier who sees hmself as a manager first. The warrior part is a distant 5th or 6th in this man’s priorities.
His first priority is to please the boss—even it puts our solidiers at risk. He’s no better than McChrystal.
This idiot would have been fraged in Vietnam. In WWII he would never would have gotten to full col. let alone general officer. Those military leader’s only priority was to win the war.
So we can not shoot or kill the Taliban. Such insanity !The Taliban are civilians.
Obama has done a fine job of ruining the careers of Generals.
One more on the way down.
The more soldiers, the harder establishing logistics based on terrain.
The population has strong ideological and religious inclinations that seem impossible to break. They do not seek Western stability. We are on their home turf trying to force a square peg into a small circle.
Our civilian commanders seem disinterested and think conjuring up Barbara Eden from a bottle to wish tranquility is all it takes. One cannot fight a pure war or fight with their hands behind their backs (Stringent ROEs)
Carpet bombing and air superiority helps in some ways but are not completely effective against guerrilla warfare. Also, occupying cities become a disadvantage in this type of war environment/ideological war because you need to concentrate of turning people who hate us into supporting us. Top of that, they have no problems helping our enemy which makes the job that much tougher. Heck, the Taliban have a whole network woven into the “civilian” population that consist of different tribes, meaning the Taliban is evolving. The enemy is not divided, in fact they (”Civilians”) are strongly united by ideology, galvanized by a war with the West.
Are we there to mainly kill the Taliban or wasting lives while spending billions to protect their population? That is McChrystal/Obama "tactic"/ meaning of why we are there, to focus on protecting the civilian population (Not war) and it seems to be Petraeus/Obama "tactic" as well. Pakistan and a willing populous protect the Taliban, hmmm...
