Trump’s Afghanistan War Plan: Fight Forever and Call It ‘Victory’

I am EXTREMELY suspicious of your characterization of the ROE under Obama. Especially considering the fact that I wrote an extended essay on the existing ROE whIle in law school in 2010. But I'll be curious to see your evidence.

 

Speak for yourself but not the whole base

Just don't vote for him next time if it bothers you that mcuh

 

So what did you and the leftness just think his base would do. What.....quit supporting him. Are you and the leftness really that comical to believe that ****? Did you actually think his support would walk away from him all because of this? Are those smart powers showing again?

Oh and do you think Candidate Trump knew what was actually going on with Afghanistan. Like President Trump does now?

Do you know who is getting the credit for getting Trump to change his mind?

 

Really? I'm not a military man, but all I've heard about the last few years was the stupidly restrictive ROE that is keeping our guys from being successful. I would hope that a little less PC, and a lot more KA (kickass) would be blended into the industrial sized cans of whoopass we are opening going forward.

 

Nope - just laughing in our sleeves at the clueless nature of candidate Trump and the hypocrisy of his supporters on this issue.
Reality, what a concept, eh?

 

What choice does he have? If he pulls us out. Daesh and AQ have their piece of the ground to train and arm Jihadis. Daesh is already spreading to Asia and Indonesia.

The Russians are already talking to a group of the Taliban.

Like I mentioned AQ Prime pledged themselves to the Taliban.

His other promise was to kill Daesh and AQ. Which he has been doing that in Syria and Iraq.

 

We pull out and it forces nearby countries to come up with a solution to eliminate ALQ/ISIS..etc

 

You know, all it takes is one mis-guided missile, one bullet hitting a child, and EVERYTHING that the US will gain by putting in more troops will be lost.
There are reasons to use restrictive engagement rules. You can't win this war unless you win the support of the locals.

 

Killing terrorists rather than blaming global warming or unemployment or the Crusades.

Quite a mission change.

 

Totally.

Trump is a MORON (with no intellectual perception of what is happening in Afghanistan).

So, what now?

His fanboys are impressed because he can read words (obviously written for him that mirror the decisions of his Generals) off of a teleprompter?

As always, the Trump supporters have a very low bar.

Trumpist thought process: "He can actually READ? Yippee!".

Trump?

What an IMBECILE.

 

He's literally, to the dot, using President Obama's horrible Afghanistan plan. And yes, I'm furious.

 

I know that the political opposition must make political hay wherever possible, but I don't really hold a change of positions based on new/complete information against any potus. Before you've ever stepped into the White House, it's easy to say all kinds of stuff that later you realize was not possible/accurate/advisable. No one here has the complete picture that the President now does. I think that his change of direction probably reflects a deference to the wisdom of his military advisors.

He has also, apparently, come to the realization that he does NOT know more than the generals about ISIS and resolving the conflicts over there. This is a good thing.

He is playing India against Pakistan. He's saying to Pakistan: "If you don't work with us, I'm sure your rival, India, will jump at the opportunity." I'm not sure how that's gonna work out, but it WILL make Pakistan sit up and take notice, which I think is the desired effect.

 

You can thank obama for this.

 

So what?

He has a few Generals telling him what to do, and he is taking their advice.

That said, taking the advice of a bunch of Military War Mongers is right up Trump's alley.

 

"Like the man said, "Lead, follow, or get out of the way"

and trump is leading" = Remember that when we're falling off the cliff to our doom.

 

The problem wasn't how we fought the war in the beginning With a few SF and Paramilitary on the ground, letting the 14 tribe Northern alliance do the ground fighting and our air power, together we drove the Taliban out of Afghanistan. Of course that didn't get us UBL. But once absent of the Taliban all the 14 tribes of the Northern Alliance was to return to their homeland with tribal rule by each tribes elders and clergy as was had been done for a thousand or more years.

We could have kept a few SF and paramilitary on the ground and sent back our air power to counter an Taliban once they tried to return. Leaving the Afghani to continue to fight them on the ground. But we decided in nation building and forcing democracy on the Afghani. To make a nation out of a place that wasn't a nation as we would define it. It was a country made up of 18 tribes with each tribe ruling over their own area being ruled by each tribes elders and clergy. Much like our American Indians weren't a nation or united. Each tribe was a nation of their own.

I don't think the Afghani with loyalty to tribe and not a central government or country will ever embrace democracy as such as we know it. Most Afghani had never heard of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. Now we placed on individual, elected, to rule over all the tribes which wasn't what they wanted. That was what the Taliban wanted, to rule over all the tribes as one. But not what the average Afghani wanted.

If it were up to me, I'd pull the troops out and let the Afghani decide the issue on their own. They would go back to the civil war of the Taliban against the other tribes with the other tribes shifting alliances as each tribe needs. UBL is dead, regardless of which tribe or tribes come out on top if any do in Afghanistan, it isn't going to mean a hill of beans to the world as a whole. Most Afghani don't want to be ruled by one man, one tribe from a town called Kabul. Perhaps it's about time we realized that. Just because one ruler is elected, doesn't mean he has the support and is wanted by all, just look at Trump.

 

so much for trumps promises

winning now rubes?

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...cision-gloves-are-off-inside-afghanistan.html

 

The Glorious Don won largely for his promise to fight islamic terrorists. This has been in the works since he met with the group of islamic leaders in the KSA.

We ain't there to take over your governments. We're there to kill terrorists. They're all on board.

 

Well then by all means post it. I'd love to see your armchair quarterbacking.

I on the other hand actually knew guys fighting over there, and have first hand knowledge of being shot at, although thankfully not under Obama.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/nov/26/rules-of-engagement-bind-us-troops-actions-in-afgh/

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121330893

http://www.wnd.com/2016/05/shoot-dont-shoot-rules-of-engagement-confuse-u-s-forces/

Obama never listened to his generals, and even liberal media went after him regarding it.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/oct/15/obama-ignores-generals-on-troop-levels-for-unprece/

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/15/obama-ignored-generals-pleas-to-keep-american-forc/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...dafd96295f0_story.html?utm_term=.7f0a3b17a2aa

The fiasco in the ME is because Obama thought he was a better general than people with actual military experience.

Here's a great synopsis of why Obama was such an idiot. Well, one of them.

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=721

Also under orders from the Obama Administration, a new military handbook for U.S. troops deployed to the Middle East contained a list of “taboo conversation topics” that soldiers should avoid, including “making derogatory comments about the Taliban,” “advocating women’s rights,” “any criticism of pedophilia” (because older Muslim men often take child brides), “directing any criticism towards Afghans,” “mentioning homosexuality and homosexual conduct,” or “anything related to Islam.” Further, the manual suggests that the increase in deadly attacks by Afghan soldiers against coalition forces (resulting in more than 60 coalition deaths during 2012) was due to Western ignorance of Afghan culture, rather than to Taliban infiltration of those forces: “Better situational awareness/understanding of Afghan culture will help better prepare [troops] to more effectively partner and to avoid cultural conflict that can lead toward green-on-blue violence.”

In 2012, Breitbart.com reported that: "The rules of engagement (ROEs) governing a U.S. soldier's response to enemy fighters in Afghanistan has made that country more dangerous for U.S. soldiers under the Obama administration." The report quoted some members of a Cavalry Scout Platoon that was on the ground near Camp Wright in Kunar Province, Afghanistan:

• "During the Bush administration, we were able to engage terrorists planting IEDs with greater ease. Now, if we see two guys on the side of the road and it looks like they're planting an IED, we are told to wait -- because they might be farmers. It's like our goal is to kill them with kindness. We're going to win Afghans over with money, clinics, roads, etc., instead of winning their confidence by killing the Taliban or the Hezb-i-Islami Gulbuddin (HIG)."
• "We have certain counter-insurgency (COIN) techniques that support the Afghan population by removing the terrorists from their midst. COIN involves clearing the enemy out, keeping the enemy out, and helping the people get on their feet once the threat is removed (clear, hold, develop). However, under the current ROEs, while we hold the area we've cleared, redlines are set beyond which we can't venture. This creates a perimeter beyond which the enemy remains untouchable. The enemy literally sits outside those lines and waits for us leave so they can move back in. Another problem is that once we've cleared a place, we only hold it for a short time before we move on to the next place in order to show 'progress.' The bad news is that this 'progress' might look good on paper, but it doesn't involve the aggressive killing of the enemy which is necessary if COIN is to be carried out the way it was designed."
• "[W]e have Escalation of Force Kits. These keep people away in a non-lethal manner. To do that, they used to contain 'KEEP BACK' signs we'd put on our trucks during a convoy and the kits also had small flares we could fire. These things were taken away and instead we were told to drive with the same courtesy we would use if driving in the U.S. That means if cars get backed up behind us, we are to pull over and let them pass. This takes our buffer -- our zone of safety -- completely away. Because once we pull over, the cars get to pass right up against us and that opens the door for suicide bombers, suicide bombs, and gun fire. We allow people to get so close to our vehicles that we have no time to react should they try to do something."

 

You mean you are not viewing through partisan lenses?

 

So the logic is that you should never eliminate a problem because someone else will just start it all over.

 

delete - too fast on the trigger!

 

The war in Afghanistan would end if the US pulls out and the Taliban took control. But that would end the opium trade, which is why we are there. We want the opium trade to continue.

 

Why didn't he mention any of this on the campaign trail? I don't recall his promise to "deal with Isis quickly" contained any interventionist caveats.

Tucker Carlson gets it right. He's basically behind Trump all the way, but not to the point of irrationality. He holds Trump's feet to the fire (case in point this very issue). As such, he's a credible interlocutor, and his support for trump is all the more credible as a consequence, because it's substance based. Hannity's support is entirely irrelevant because it's person based, not substantive.

That's the problem with almost everyone. The media is hysterically anti Trump, opposition which has no credibility because it's demonstrably about the person, not the facts. Democrat opposition is equally dismissable. Just the same, the Hannity style Trump supporter who will hang onto "their guy" at any price has no credibility.

If you are exclusively motivated by tribality your words mean nothing because they spring from your love of the person not their actions. Anyone who checks my post history will see I was batting for Trump (from some distance) from the beginning. But I am happy to criticise him when he earns it, and my support should be all the more credible for being substantive and not tribal.

So on that last note: this is a key campaign promise betrayal. No way you push the non intervention angle the way he did and then expect to be excused when he does a total 180° spin. He just doesn't have that card to play. OK, so "what else could he do?", "well now he's in office it's different", "well he's not nation changing"...all bullshit. It's a campaign promise betrayal. Let's call it for what it is and be better than the media and his vacuous opponents with their BS Trump Derangement Syndrome.

 

yes of course, why? because trump says so!!