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couchmaster
climber
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Dec 29, 2018 - 10:56am PT
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Great thread. Nice to see the late Doug Buchanan's on the money posts. I know lots of folks here made fun of him, but to those that did that, go re-read his posts and see if your feelings about him may have changed. Here's the brief 2018 update from John Sopko: "Well, part of it is that we spent too much money too fast and we didn't hold the Afghans accountable". (Inspector General John Sopko, an Obama appointee, watches over the spending of all that money.)
The price tag currently, per the same man, is $120 Billion. So far, but it's only been 16 years of killing for the US. Estamated up to 1 million dead so far (it depends who is counting - http://www.stopwar.org.uk/index.php/news-comment/2599-america-s-afghan-war-16-years-as-many-as-one-million-killed
(reporter) "Knowing what you know now if you could go back to the very beginning, 2002, what would you recommend we had done differently on the front end?
John Sopko: To have a more complete strategy that identifies who are the corrupt elements in the government. Which tribe, which group you have to avoid. We got into bed with a lot of bad people and now we can't get out. And this is the biggest point: you have to have people accountable. I have spoken to so many contracting officers U.S. contracting officers who have told me they get it an annual performance ratings not based on whether any of the contracts are good or not on just on how much taxpayer dollars they put on contract. If that's the way you reward our contracting officers are we surprised that money's being wasted? We did a very poor job of spending the money in protecting the taxpayer dollars. We have wasted billions of dollars in Afghanistan, in a nutshell."
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Dec 29, 2018 - 12:21pm PT
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Our invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were ignorant way before each day one. The Neocons were going to find an excuse to invade Iraq/Afghanistan regardless as was well documented in the letters section of the Project for a New American Century.
As far as DB goes, a monkey at a keyboard occasionally spells a word, same goes for cogent thoughts from conspiratorial nutjobs.
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ecdh
climber
the east
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Dec 29, 2018 - 12:55pm PT
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Afghanistan was being bombed and was crawling with men on the ground for several years before Oct 01. What changed was media coverage.
The first 6 months give or take worked to plan because that particular plan was already in motion.
After that it became a 'not all this again' event that we are still embroiled in.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Dec 29, 2018 - 01:10pm PT
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Inadequate force-levels, inadequate humint, inadequate asymmetric warfare planning, no plan for leaving the country better than we found it, incessant carpetbagging, a litany of bad/worse alliances of the moment and of convenience, underestimating the role of government and non-government Pakistani elements, and a general unwillingness to commit - i.e. it was a bad idea from long before day one.
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ecdh
climber
the east
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Dec 29, 2018 - 01:19pm PT
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Yep. Tho I'd actually argue all those elements were sufficient or correct for the initial operation - root out the training network, solidify the opposition, buy as friends the foreign elements.
There never was an intent to leave because 'we' never had a point of arrival, forming a consistent part of the countries wallpaper for centuries.
What f*#ked it all was the assassination of massoud. That wasn't in our game plan and suddenly flipped the boat. Then it became a game of second choices right when things upscaled.
I was around for all that, next door in Iran. The buzz was amazing as news on masoud emerged, then NY. Crazy times...
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Dec 30, 2018 - 07:47am PT
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I'd disagree, none of those elements were sufficient for any incursion. And really the balance of power in Afghanistan was split between the government, warlords and the Taliban. The Taliban came to power countering the abuses of the warlords who we then sided with to counter the abuses of the Taliban. Add to that the Pakistani support of the Taliban and the countries to the north supporting the warlords and the place was generally a mess . We didn't have the requisite grip on the dynamics involved and all we did was further complicate an already complicated dynamic without providing any stability or other value add. Worse, the decision to invade was driven entirely by a long-standing political agenda in the US and the Neocons weren't going to let anything as mundane as realities and details on the ground stop their jihad to restore white male dominance over the world.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Dec 30, 2018 - 08:44am PT
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Charlie Wilson’s War is a must read for the complete etiology of this disease. Of course,
Charlie was a good ol’ boy old school Democrat obsessed with the Red Threat.
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ecdh
climber
the east
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Dec 30, 2018 - 12:47pm PT
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Healyje, that's the hindsight, cleaned up version and a far cry from how the chessboard really was.
There was no established govt, no actual northern alliance, the warlords were infinetly more complex, the Taliban was nothing close to a unified group and Pakistan was merely one of several major players (just as they are today).
The US didn't show up and invade, they tried to get a result in a rapidly decaying scenario, and I'd argue did OK initially. It was when the plan changed to secure too many pieces of the equation it all f*#ked out. But initially, to consolidate groups to punch out the wayward Taliban leadership, it worked.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Dec 30, 2018 - 12:52pm PT
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Again, we disagree.
But initially, to consolidate groups to punch out the wayward Taliban leadership, it worked.
Only at the expense of bringing back the brutality of the warlords which is exactly why the Taliban are back - both are bad news, both are oppressive. Either one being in power is bad news let alone the back and forth seesawing we've engendered.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Sands Motel , Las Vegas
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Dec 30, 2018 - 05:32pm PT
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What would you two do differently if you were calling the shots in Afghanistan...? What's the best solution for everyone involved....?
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Dec 30, 2018 - 06:01pm PT
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Nuke ‘em for,their,own good.
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fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
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Dec 30, 2018 - 08:00pm PT
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What's the best solution for everyone involved....?
Have the CIA or whatever other bs alphabet soup agency grow poppies stateside and just call it what it is.
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Fritz
Social climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Dec 30, 2018 - 08:29pm PT
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The Brits did not enjoy their times in Afghanistan, despite having Flashman there at the end of their first occupation of Kabul.
Flashman barely survived the British retreat from Kabul in 1842, mainly due to luck, wits, & his cowardly nature. Of course he ended up a hero, as the only British survivor.
I've read the book twice & give it two-daggers up.
Much of the 19th century British concern with Afghanistan was due to fears that Russia would occupy it & then move on India. A century of spying, political infighting, & occasional British incursions, was dubbed "The Great Game."
Here's how the first British occupation of Afghanistan ended:
Outbreaks continued throughout the country, and the British eventually found their position untenable. Terms for their withdrawal were discussed with Akbar Khan, Dōst Moḥammad’s son, but Sir William Hay Macnaghten, the British political agent, was killed during a parlay with the Afghans. On January 6, 1842, some 4,500 British and Indian troops, with 12,000 camp followers, marched out of Kabul. Bands of Afghans swarmed around them, and the retreat ended in a bloodbath.
The two other major British occupations of Afghanistan were costly fiascos as well.
I don't think Kipling had anything positive to say on the subject either:
When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
So-oldier of the Queen!
Written Between 1889 and 1891
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Fritz
Social climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Dec 30, 2018 - 09:43pm PT
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Robert L. I must dispute your post:
Looking at Russia's terrain. If you are going to do a large scale land invasion of Russia, you need to enter from Afghanistan.
I suspect your point is not obvious to me, but the western way Napolian & Hitler invaded Russia has little in the way of geographic barriers & most of Russia's population. Their failures don't mean that invasion through the mountains & deserts on Russia's southern borders would have been sucessful.
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 30, 2018 - 10:00pm PT
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America should stop invading.
And get a brain ...... And life.
Instead of slaughtering everything they touch ......
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Dec 30, 2018 - 10:25pm PT
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Healyje, that's the hindsight, cleaned up version and a far cry from how the chessboard really was.
There was no established govt, no actual northern alliance, the warlords were infinetly more complex, the Taliban was nothing close to a unified group and Pakistan was merely one of several major players (just as they are today).
The US didn't show up and invade, they tried to get a result in a rapidly decaying scenario, and I'd argue did OK initially. It was when the plan changed to secure too many pieces of the equation it all f*#ked out. But initially, to consolidate groups to punch out the wayward Taliban leadership, it worked.
All these considerations seem to make the strategy followed in the First Gulf War, all the more brilliant. There was a clear and defining goal (liberate Kuwait). exit when done. get the hell out.
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Don Paul
Social climber
Washington DC
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Dec 31, 2018 - 04:10am PT
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re: the opium poppies. The first thing to know about Afghanistan is that the terrain is very much like Utah. Except the Himalayas are more than twice as big as the Wasatch and all the trails are mined. In 2003 I spent a week or so on Herat near the Iranian border. There is a huge used car market there and I tagged along with a friend who was buying one.
I met a Euro working in counternarcotics for the UN, who told me that the only place poppies grew were in the mega irrigation projects built by the Soviet Union decades before. Those are the only places with water to grow crops. They are not hard to find. He told me that all the food there was imported from Iran. The irrigation projects were too valuable to waste on that. As part of the US strategy to work with anyone, we just looked the other way until opium production went back to the pre-Taliban levels.
Reilly I am disappointed to hear you advocate nuking the Afghans, even as a joke. They are a great people deserving of respect.
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kpinwalla2
Social climber
WA
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Dec 31, 2018 - 10:11am PT
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Just finished the book "Khyber" by Charles Miller, published in 1977, which is a history of the interactions of the British Empire with the Pathan tribal people of what is now the Afghan/Pakistan border region (things did not go well). I conducted geologic research in this region, in the Pakistani tribal areas, for 15 years, beginning in 1985 when the Russians were still in Afghanistan. I wish I'd read that book before my first trip, I would have better understood the reaction of urban Pakistanis when they learned my field assistant was a native of Waziristan. I think it should have been required reading for anyone in the US government or military who had anything to do with Afghan policy. My takeaway is that if you want to control this part of the world, you would first have to exterminate all the native inhabitants. If you're not willing to do that, you should stay the hell away. I personally found the Pathan people to be the the most hospitable and generous people I have ever met. I spent many, many days hiking through the rugged countryside, in remote areas never before visited by foreigners, and never felt threatened. I was constantly offered food and tea and shelter for the night. At the risk of stereotyping an entire ethnic group, if these folks are your friends, they are the best friends you'll ever have, if they are your enemies, they are the worst enemies you'll ever have.
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