If the military wanted Al Qaida gone, they'd have done it already.

I don't profess to be some military expert. But it seems obvious that if you declare war on the Taliban, invade Afghanistan and make superficial progress over 10 years, you're either doing your job horribly or have some other goal in mind.

So here you are. Mired in Afghanistan with no sign of a withdrawal ever, and troops keeping a permanent presence there just like any other hubristic U.S. base.

Thus far, all I've seen the U.S. army and its subsidiaries do is cordon off oil and toss drones at huts, seemingly at random (to the undeserved enrichment of war contractors).

You need to stop reading Daily Kos and websites like it then. There has been a fuckton lot more done in Afghanistan than you think.

Secondly, Afghanistan has no oil reserves untapped or otherwise.

So what you're saying is that you have a choice between believing in human stupidity and human malevolence and you've chosen the wrong one?

Oil isn't the only valuable resource in the world and there have been surveys of Afghanistan's resources.

It's hard to completely wipe out an opponent in an asymmetrical war without resorting to complete barbarism.

Think of declaring war on the Taliban and alQaida (and by the way, those are two different organizations in different countries) as more like declaring war on groups like the Masons and the Chamber of Commerce (organization-wise) than like declaring war on a country. Unless you can identify and kill every member, you aren't going to "win". And it's impossible to identify every member.

Yeah, it's not even a war you can win as it is defined. All you can do is "improve Afghanistan" and I haven't seen a serious study of metrics for that. So what has been done? Well our soldiers do stuff here and there in the country but no one is willing to provide actual numbers, nor have any actual plan for what they should be doing.

They just randomly go "Yay we built a highway". Which is quite useful and good for trade, but was that our goal? No, but we did it. Okay that's great, so what's next? No idea.

^^ Mad hit the nail on the head.

edited 23rd Jun '11 5:58:36 PM by Pentadragon

It's not hard to make a plan to kill all hostiles within a given area. Adding various constraints is what makes it hard.

Hey, why don't you give this informative presentation a read?

[1]

Here are the more interesting slides:

edited 23rd Jun '11 9:42:48 PM by Breakerchase

You wanna nuke? Firebomb? Install a puppet regime?

It's harder than you think it is to deal with something like this. Blaming it on some kind of sinister purpose is just silly.

Clearly losing the Vietnam war was part of some deeper game as well.

According to some...maybe.

Consuming the USSR's industrial production for years was considered a desirable outcome.

edited 23rd Jun '11 10:52:51 PM by blueharp

Whoever came to this conclusion is a fucking moron. In Afghanistan we had a period that until recently we were extremely conservative in the use of close air support. All that resulted in was higher US/NATO casualties and a perception we weren't doing enough.

Somehow, I don't think that there were all that many people who were in danger of mistaking you for one even without the disclaimer.

Cheap shot aside, ultimately the only way a purely military campaign (that is, the traditional purpose of militaries, "blow shit up and kill people") is going to completely eliminate aQ et al is taking actions similar to why there were only three Punic Wars, [edit]anywhere that one of their cells is known to have popped up. Call it the Ripley Option. [/edit] That, however, runs into the problem that much of what was considered acceptable many centuries ago is often considered unacceptable nowadays, from a sociopolitical viewpoint (or at least that of "western" nations, but that's even further off-topic).

While the phrase "violence never solves anything" is terminally stupid and ignorant of history, it can't solve everything either, especially if limited by the proscription of using certain methods (see above).

edited 24th Jun '11 6:51:42 AM by Nohbody

@ Major Tom: Watch yourself, Tom. That "fucking moron" is Lieutenant Colonel (Ret) Lester W. Grau. Why don't you head on over to Fort Leavenworth to tell this Vietnam veteran turned well-regarded Soviet Foreign Area Officer and FMSO military analyst he's a "fucking moron"?

edited 24th Jun '11 11:19:09 AM by Breakerchase

Yeah, 'cause hunting down local fundies in the mountains on the middle'o'the'desert is child's play.

Them jihadis've got a massive head start in knowing the terrain. They appear, engage in their mischiefs, and then go straight back to hiding. Insurgencies have the habit of pretty much lasting pretty much forever if the terrain permits. And in Afghanistan, it does.

Folks also seem to forget their history. Afghanistan is the rock on which empires break their sharpest teeth. The only way to win in Afghanistan is to wipe out the population.

I believe the Mongols did that to an extent.

Problem is, the way to fix Afghanistan would be quite damn expensive: In short, bribe the Hell out of them.

Build good roads. Food their market with cheap cars. Give pharma a chance to buy as much opium as they need, no questions asked. Help them fund hospitals. Make sure those guys have jobs, schools, hospitals and can buy stuff. Get'em on the dole, and they will stop throwing temper tantrums.

Fudge things so the most secular and forward-thinking hajis get to lead the country. Spin PR about your favored dudes being competent'n'all and going to fight poverty. Then help them do so.

Keep them that way for a while, and you've got yourself another Turkey in the middle of nowhere.

edited 24th Jun '11 11:19:49 AM by SavageHeathen

Or just ignore Afghanistan, and if you're concerned about somebody in particular, put a big bounty on their head.

Somebody will take it.

Well, they sure did a shoddy job, as the Afghani sure ain't speaking Mongolese.

edited 24th Jun '11 11:20:14 AM by Kayeka

Nuking Afghanistan...hmm

Let's count how many billion people that'd piss off...1, 2, 3?

I think it's more accurate to state that if the United States as a whole had a government that could implement competent policy, Al Quaeda would never have been an issue because on the whole of it, they're not really a big threat at all. As much as people like to talk about the 9/11 attacks, it happened exactly once in history and was a fluke. It doesn't demand the responses we've made that grossly disproportionate. I don't even care about the morality of it all, you don't blow trillions over chasing what are essentially international criminals with fighterjets and tanks then expect to recoup anything more than 0.000000000001% of the cost you spent.

It doesn't even make sense if you said it was to save American lives. How many flag draped coffins have we received back from the wars started under Bush? Those are American lives.

edited 24th Jun '11 11:23:23 AM by breadloaf