Posted on 10/25/2013 9:06:34 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
U.S. and Afghan politicians are in the middle of a heated debate over whether a small American and NATO force will remain in Afghanistan at the end of next year.
But what's a political and strategic question at the negotiating table is an emotional question at bases around Afghanistan, where soldiers watch the discussions with one eye on their sacrifices over the past 12 years and the other on the American withdrawal from Vietnam four decades ago.
In short, they don't want to go home without the win.
After repeated combat tours, an untold number of divorces and nearly 2,300 U.S. dead, American servicemen want their losses in Afghanistan to have been worth it. For many of them, that means keeping a residual force here to help the Afghans fend off a resurgent Taliban.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
This has been and always will be primary Bush's fault.
No, noob, Obama is the one that accelerated the premature withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
Then we should have left.’
I agree.
And the tough guys who I know, and there are quite a few,who were there, think they were screwed and misused and the operations of nation building after the initial offensive were a pointless waste of soldiers and material.
TWB
Another democRAT in office causes another war loss like VN. Or perhaps the combat zone bonus and accelerated promotions or lack of garrison duty BS that’s stateside is the appeal or the fags in the showers. Or perhaps unlike in VM where anyone in a combat zone can be fired upon first, isn’t the rule in AFG or the inability to call in air strikes or artillery without having to get a 4 man consensus is the draw. Doubt it. Take a vote from every trigger-pulling serviceman in the field and then come back here with the TRUE opinion.
Their government websites work?
Exactly - "DesertRhino" sounded more like "Deserting Whino"
I'm sorry - how many? I just want it repeated, since we haven't heard any war death numbers from the MSM since, um, let's see, roughly January 21, 2009.
Short of an all-out, unrestricted war on the Religion Of Peace, there will never be the possibility of a win.
It was all for nothing. The 5th column made sure of that. They should come home full of rage against this government.
I agree with a lot of the sentiment expressed here so far, but if I could add its also primarily young white men who want to fight instead of coming back to “Mommy Professor’s day care center for Tolerance.” PC is primarily directed at them, and this is an escape.
I'd suggest the the RoEs preclude such.
Seems we did this back in the day. Like 1975 or so. We Nam vets feel we won the war, big. It was the government that lost the war. The John Kerry Wing of Socialist Anti-American, US Military hating, Commie Loving, Obama butt kissing wing of the Homo Loving Dim Party.
Bingo!
Just make that “stone age.” It’s the toilet part they can’t handle. With 90 % illiteracy (or was it in-bred illegitamacy?) these people can’t handle flush terlets. They can’t make ‘em and they can’t use ‘em. Try to buy toilet paper in Afganyland. Without an effort at education all the rest is futile and while I agree with the GI’s that their effort/sacrifice shouldn’t be wasted the support has to come from DC and that’s where the “waste” is.
In short, they don't want to go home without the win.There were two ways to win in Afghanistan: one, arm the opium farmers and agree to buy their entire crop, as much as they could grow (for processing into medication, the rest to be destroyed, or refined and shipped into Russia, China, and the OPEC countries to make heroin addiction dirt cheap), they'd have annihilated the Taliban in about two weeks; two, just kill every mullah and destroy every mosque and madrassa in Afghanistan.
“The troops dont want to pull out without a win because that would mean all the lost lives and limbs of their brothers were for nothing.”
As they did in Iraq (we called it a win after our midnight flight from the country)...
I seriously hope these troops don’t believe victory is possible; to “win” in Afghanistan would require a type of war no leader in the US will ever sanction, and as long as Islam exists “our” Afghans will gladly train their weapons on US troops. Overthrowing the Taliban was a worthwhile goal in light of 9/11, but there was really no plan beyond that. We should have left after killing whatever Taliban leaders we could find (using eatraordinary and illegal means to do so); that would have been sufficient (and just).
The U.S. actually did win in Iraq. But the Obama Administration sabotaged relations with the Iraqi government as a prelude to abandoning any role there. A prosperous, relatively stable Iraq might have justified Bush and discredited Obama’s anti-surge, antiwar position.
The only thing I’d add is that to actually destroy the Talib, Pakistan (the sun source of the Talib) would have to be destroyed too... and imo, it should be destroyed.
You can’t civilize a people who’s religion requires them to stay in the stone age. Islam needs to go, but they won’t have that. So they need to go, I’m sure it wouldn’t take too long to rig up a few dozen neutron bombs.
I know a number of them that do not want to go back and many that want to leave. Even the civilian contractors want to leave as they live in terrible conditions and the money isn’t worth it anymore. They make $200k-$350k but work 15 hours days and 7 days a week, have zero privacy, crap food (usually an MRE), zero entertainment, zero social life, hostile superiors and “friendly” forces, etc.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.