Posted on 10/29/2011 7:10:08 AM PDT by Perdogg
Thank you all for your kind words. I’ll remember that the majority of the people here believe in what our military was trying to do on their behalf.
And when the budget cuts happen and our guys are pulled out before the job is done, as we watch that country collapse into a worse situation than when we found it, as the terrorist organizations rally and the attacks on our homeland resume, I’ll try to comfort my husband that it’s not his fault.
It’s the failing of our politicians and the short-sighted Americans that put them in office.
And if we reach a stabilization point like in Iraq (supposedly), should we stay there indefinitely?
With all due respect, I am of the Viet Nam generation so I know about "cutting and running". That was a huge waste of some 58,000 Americans. However, that enemy were idealists not religious fanatics. If we had stayed the course after our win of the Tet Offensive, we could have come home victorious once South VN was defensive capable. The South Vietnamese WANTED liberty. Tribal Islamists don't even comprehend it.
So eventually, Aftgan will revert back to their Islamic roots unless we stay there for a generation or two or more.
I'm really on yours and your husband's side and think his efforts are worth keeping our nation safe, but have you been reading lately about the "Arab Spring"?
Your husband (and you by extension) and many other thousands, including our clandestine services, have kept us safe all these years. So, I see no waste of life and limb. It's what the military and covet ops do. It's their job and they have done it extremely well. For that, I thank every single one.
I just think we should stop the ridiculous ROE or pull out. I simply don't agree with trying to win their hearts and minds. They simply don't want it, with the few exceptions. WHEN they regroup and attack Western civilization again in mass, then carpet bomb those responsible and those who supported them into oblivion. And no, nukes are not off the table for me. That's my position.
If I haven't already said it, THANK YOUR HUSBAND AND THANK YOU FOR FIGHTING FOR MY WIFE AND CHILDREN!
You are saying what my husband is describing perfectly.
He’s really frustrated with the way we fight modern war. In his humble opinion, we need to go back to WWII. You go over as a group and you stay until the job is done.
We are wasting so much time and money with these rotations. My husband spends the first three months trying to undo the last guy’s issues and set a new standard. He spends the last three months getting his guys ready to come home and setting up the next guy for success.
The American people have no friggin’ idea how much it costs to rotate two battalions.
The military machine has turned into a bureaucratic nightmare. We get things done in *spite* of this.
Local contacts and relationships that take six months to build go up in smoke when the next personality takes your place.
With this system, we can FIGHT a war really well. We keep our troops from getting exhausted. It’s not bad for that purpose.
But nation-building takes stability. Our system is not set up for this.
That’s why it’s so wasteful and time-consuming. Our military is being asked to do something that it’s not (and never has been) designed to do.
Awesome and true post, Marie.
We'll have to pray for a future leadership that will immediately see the threat and attack it ruthlessly as soon as it rears its ugly head.
I meant brigades, not battalions.
Guess having lived through the VN days slants my perspective, but apparently we are in agreement about the "cultural/religious war" we're fighting versus an ideological war. Also, thanks for the new perspective about how "rotation" affects our nation building efforts. Very informative.
***It’s the failing of our politicians***
Precisely - most of whom have never warn a uniform or served one day under fire in a battle zone.
Shame on all of them.
Their so called President said he'd support Pakistan against the US. And if you don't believe Pakistan, Karzi and the Taliban are in cahoots than I wish God would console your mind or that you see a therapist that can help check you back into reality, a place you are very far from right now.
I'm sick of 13 of us dying for every 1 of their suicide bombers!!! Either nuke em to the ground or bring our troops home. Russia couldn't win, Alexander the Great couldn't win, something tells me after 10 years of fighting a PC war we have no chance in hell unless we fight fire with nuclear bombs.
You can't win a PC War and I don't owe anyone an apology. You owe those dying for you in a PC War an apology instead of those still buying the BS thrown at you by Jay Carney and Obama.
A few tactical nukes in 2001 could have ended this war, instead thousands are dead and maimed many more thousands of family and friends are traumatized for life. For what? So Hamid Karzi could make billions selling heroin???
Screw Afghanistan, I am as right wing and support our troops as they come. I was one of the founders of the Support our Troops Rally by FR in 2003 in Chicago which drew 3000 people. So don't question my motives or my patriotism.
When I fear that my 19 year old friend's head will be blown from his body every night, then come back to me.
I believe war should be fought in the style of General Patton, not these PC losers who are too busy golfing in Tampa than releasing the most devastating weapons that man has ever seen. We have the weapons, we just don't use them because the military idiots rely on public opinion polls conducted in the worst hell holes on the planet where the population is partying like it is 668 A.D.!!!
We all praise your husband, and now a new generation who were 9 year olds when 9/11 occurred are now going over to that hell hole to fight what? We don't know what we are fighting for? To change hearts and minds?
Worked well in Egypt and Libya where they now are under sharia law! Now more insane politicians want Syria to become another country under sharia!
I remember when some of our soldiers were merely kids. This isn't World War 2 with a defined goal. Right now we have losers in the Pentagon too afraid of CNN and Reuters than wiping the scourge off the planet.
I think George Washington said it best in his farewell address about "foreign entanglements" but I guess Washington was an anti-war hippie according to you and the other PC War supporters.
And I'm not anti-war I'm anti PC-war, meaning a war that is impossible to win because you are too afraid of blowing up terrorists who run into a mosque for protection. Did we hesitate to blow up Monte Casino in World War 2 when the Germans were in there? No. Different leaders, different generation.
Now the leaders not your husband, are cowards.
No shit, Sherlock, I’ve spent two years overseas and had many a haji try to kill me. What’s your point?
If we don’t have the will to win, we need to leave, fine, but don’t denigrate someone for pointing out the EXACT reasons why we’re over there. I hated every one of those POS hajis over there, and I wanted nothing more than to nuke the country and go home, but I was able to calm myself down by admitting I’d MUCH rather kill those bastards over there than fight them over here. That’s an important statement that Marie made, and, given that she has also paid a price for the GWOT (far more than most people), she deserves a tad bit more consideration than being called a “kool-aid drinker.”
That was a long time ago, wasn't it?
If Afghanistan is another Vietnam, then don't blame me for it. Blame the @ssholes in Washington who have pissed away thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars on a "nation-building" campaign that has now gone on longer than this country's involvement in World War I, World War II and the Korean War combined.
If Afghanistan was truly a threat to the U.S., then the place should have been a smoking ruin years ago.
You had the last word and then reopened our discussion! (;^)
The answer to your question is “Certainly not.”
However, your beef is with our government leaders. Those leaders often but not always, as we have very recently seen, use some of the high quality intell they receive along with the opinions of domestic and international experts and leaders for their decisions.
Let me underscore your beef is not with Marie or her husband, they are us: American patriots. It is unattractive to “us” when someone urges a patriot to cease being a patriot.
“some dope stand up in Washington and sanctimoniously proclaim that “Islam is a religion of peace.””
It’s exactly like the “peace in our time” statement. It’s a diplomatic statement. You know history is going to yell at you, but it’s still the right thing to do from the diplomatic perspective.
As long as the PEOPLE know it’s bull****, that’s OK. And I think by and large, they do.
Karzi is starting to see the light.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/01/karzai-rules-out-taliban-negotiations
the bigger question is: WHY has it taken so long for him to step back from the table?
It is US. He didn’t have a strong enough central gov’t to stand against the Taliban. (Especially a Taliban fortified with Pakistani support.)
Because of our fickle politicians and the fickle support of the US people, he can’t be sure that we’ll be there to back him up a year from now. We have a bad reputation of getting everybody riled up, then leaving our allies hanging when the public gets bored.
So he’s had to play both sides of the table - try to get Taliban cooperation - so that he won’t be crushed by a bug when we drop him like a hot potato.
The fact that he’s finally ready to stop playing with the terrorists tells me that he’s finally in a strong enough position to defend his administration after we leave.
And of course I know that Pakistan is a major problem. They’re supporting and sheltering Taliban terrorists as we speak.
I can read.
That needs to be dealt with at the State Department and UN levels. A combination of ‘carrot and stick’ incentives (sanctions/aid) might give them the motivation to start rounding the terrorists up instead of sheltering them and avoid an expansion of military conflict.
Stop drinking the Kool-Aid.
“...but my friend just got shipped back over there and he should be in fricking college not fighting a PC War. “
One more thing: We have an all-volunteer military. There is no draft.
Every kid who signs up knows darn well that there’s a good chance that they’ll be in a war zone within a year. Your friend made a choice to be a soldier instead of going to college.
They need our support. Not our pity. They are not victims.
I know the "reasons" given. We have had those same reasons since Bush took us there way back when this started. Karzi is in power, Bush is out of power, Karzi is working with the enemy, Obama's DOD is run by a bunch of egg heads who run the war by polls and fear of CNN.
A new generation, (not to disrespect the thousands dead Americans) has entered still clueless as to why we are there trying to change the minds of people utterly living in the Stone Age.
Read a little history, Alexander the Great ran over the world and his end came in Afghanistan, the fall of the Soviet Union can come down to being out spent military, how much do you think they spent fighting a war without end in Afghanistan?
I have no ill feelings towards FReeper Maria, I wish for her family that her husband was home safe.
If the upper brass of the military refuse to fight this war in a matter to win, than Maria's husband, my friend and the thousands of other of troops are nothing more than easy targets for some nut with a bomb strapped on them! You are dealing with an entirely different method of thinking.
When the US started heading West in the early 1800s, many missionaries followed. Many of those missionaries were scalped and had their bodies chopped up and paraded by various Indian tribes. Some people will not be changed no matter how "nice" you want to be towards them. When they are born and raised on hate and anger, do you really think they are going to drop their guns, leave their goats and sing "Yankee Doodle Dandy"?
Get with reality, I've studied military history since I was a child down to the tactics used by the Romans against Carthage. And I can site wars dating back to the Mongols using bodies of their victims in order to climb over "indefensible walls". History repeats itself. Alexander the Great, the USSR, and now the US, it ain't going to work. You can't will something to happen.
And the truth is everyone right now is dying in vain and I don't blame the troops I believe the idiotic leaders of the ilk of Mike Mullen who simply refuse to use the weapons we have which could utterly obliterate the Taliban in three days.
I am certain this shall reverberate through the Occupy movement.
Oh wait, they don’t care about war or troops.
They just want- stuff.
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