WTH is going on here? “President Bush shouldn’t have started this war”? “The country would have been better off if President Bush would have done nothing after 9-11”?
Anybody here at FR remember exactly who started this war? IIRC WE WERE ATTACKED. So now you all think we should have just sat on our asses and not “waste precious blood”.
As a retired soldier and current government contractor I can fully appreciate and agree with condeming the PC Bullshit that has corrupted our mission and conduct of operations. I can and will call out the current POSHMFIC and the limp-wristed Pentagon Rump Rangers who care more about world opinion than accomplishing the mission.
But I’ll be Goddamned if I’m going to sit idly by and listen to a bunch of handwringers whine about why we’re there! We need to rain such hell on the terrorists in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and anywhere else they hide that they beg for mercy. We need to cut all ties with any country that aids and abets such vermin. But we do not need to ever question why we are there.
Don’t bother trying to speak intelligently about it.
A lot of people here think we should have nuked the place, even though the vast majority of Afghans or Iraqis had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11.
It isn’t like our efforts to destroy the industrial base of Japan prior to WWII, who created the capability for the military which was a deliberate instrument of the government to attack America.
I am sympathetic to the argument that we should have gotten in, done the job toppled the governement and got out, but what, leave a vacuum there for another person to just jump in and restart the process?
We did the right thing by going in, we did the right thing by trying to get them on their feet. I believe criticism of when we should leave or have already left is justified and has merit.
I watched “Saving Private Ryan” recently, and had a thought as I watched the scene where the guy enters the cemetery in Normandy where the Americans lay under all those white crosses in meticulously manicured fields of grass.
That those countries over there treat our cemeteries with such deference and respect, even today, is remarkable. They do so because we had values and stood by them for the most part while executing the war. We tried our best to avoid civilian casualties in areas captured by the Germans and Japan, but carrying the war to its fullest on their own soil.
If we had carpet bombed France or Belgium the way we did Germany and Japan, I doubt our servicemen would be so venerated today.
I like the fact that we were willing to do what was right, that we didn’t treat Afghanistan or Iraq the same way the Soviet Union treated Afghanistan while they were there.
Thing is, many of these people screaming longly and loudly about us being there at all are the same people who would have screamed longly and loudly had we done nothing.
I respect and value what our military have done and have tried to do over there. What they have done is right, and it reflects well on us that we have tried. We haven’t done it well in some cases, and we have done it poorly in some cases.
But I don’t, and never have subscribed to turning the place into glass. As an American, I can be proud to say who I am and where I am from.
As you said, if it weren’t for 9/11, we wouldn’t have been there in the first place. I understand and appreciate your sentiments, though it seems few others do.
Thank you. I figured someone would get it right and I could just agree. Iraq was directly funding terrorism in a public manner, and Afghanistan was protecting the terrorist camps at which the 19 9/11 terrorists trained with the knowledge and support of the Afghan government. One can reasonably question the strategy selected, but we had every right to invade both countries, and in fact a duty to do so. When we invaded Baghdad, we captured and killed wanted terrorists who had murdered Americans. When we invaded Afghanistan, we captured and killed terrorists who personally participated in training and supporting the 9/11 hijackers.
WTH is going on here? “President Bush shouldn’t have started this war”? “The country would have been better off if President Bush would have done nothing after 9-11”?
Anybody here at FR remember exactly who started this war? IIRC WE WERE ATTACKED. So now you all think we should have just sat on our asses and not “waste precious blood”.
As I understand Laz's comment, he is saying that the USA would be better off even if we did nothing at all in response to those attacks - and the comparison is based on the wealth and security and stability of the country. Do not forget that these wars cleaned up the treasury and put the national debt sky high. The USA lost the AAA rating for the same reason. This is another part of the price of war. There are other consequences too.
It is natural, when attacked, to strike back. However you do not want to strike back if that leaves you worse off. You perhaps want to use other means. If a banker wronged a man that man has a range of possibilities. He can stop using that bank; he can start a PR campaign against the bank; he can rob that bank; he can hurt the banker personally or his entire family. We all can agree that if you are denied a loan that you so desperately need, going out and setting fire to the bank's building is a wrong thing to do - it will hurt you more than the bank, and you will be worse off.
I do not think that "doing nothing" would be a good option. However it's just a single point along the curve, on its far left end. On the right end we have "nuke Afghanistan back into the days when the planet was new and shiny." You can select any point on that curve as your response. You could, for example, destroy Taliban, arrest OBL and get out, all within months. The active part of rounding up the jihadis ended after the failure at Tora Bora. The following years netted very little. When was the last report from Afghanistan about an arrest of an important terrorist on a battlefield?
We need to rain such hell on the terrorists in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and anywhere else they hide that they beg for mercy.
Not doing that is a big part of the problem. Soldiers are not police. Soldiers need to be given a target, then they destroy it. Soldiers should not be sent into alleys lined with IEDs, day after day after day. If an IED exploded in a town you respond with a larger IED, one that levels the whole town. This will put popular pressure on Taliban because now 10,000 Afghans have no homes. Right now it is completely safe for Afghans to support Taliban; it is even beneficial, considering that Taliban will regain the control over the country pretty soon (already happened in some provinces.)
And, of course, one has to always keep strategic goals in mind. Those goals are different from the motive of revenge. Those goals deal exactly with profit and loss statements on the level of countries. What is it exactly that USA was trying to do in first days of the armed response? Was it done? How much did that cost, in blood and in treasure? What was the next step? What did it buy us? And so on. Every war has to have specific, attainable goals. But the war in Afghanistan lost its goals after Tora Bora; US soldiers are now doing nation-building, training of Afghan army (with bloody results because of traitors,) patrolling dark alleys and roads infested with IEDs. Whenever soldiers shoot at the enemy they, instead of being simply asked how much new ammo they need, are being grilled about political correctness of the armed response. We are risking creating a new rite of passage in Afghanistan, where a boy has to go out and kill a NATO soldier to become a man. We are making IED experts just because there is demand for so many IEDs - someone is bound to survive long enough to learn the trade.
WTH is going on here? “President Bush shouldn’t have started this war”? “The country would have been better off if President Bush would have done nothing after 9-11”?
Anybody here at FR remember exactly who started this war? IIRC WE WERE ATTACKED. So now you all think we should have just sat on our asses and not “waste precious blood”.
As a retired soldier and current government contractor I can fully appreciate and agree with condeming the PC Bullshit that has corrupted our mission and conduct of operations. I can and will call out the current POSHMFIC and the limp-wristed Pentagon Rump Rangers who care more about world opinion than accomplishing the mission.
But I’ll be Goddamned if I’m going to sit idly by and listen to a bunch of handwringers whine about why we’re there! We need to rain such hell on the terrorists in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and anywhere else they hide that they beg for mercy. We need to cut all ties with any country that aids and abets such vermin. But we do not need to ever question why we are there.””
Thank you. I don’t need to add anything, but ditto for me.
Can’t agree. Bush blew an irreplaceable opportunity in his failed response to 9/11. The Taliban didn’t provide financial support, but merely allowed them to operate in some relatively isolated areas. Following 9/11 the entire leadership and the vast majority of the alQ fighters were located within those camps.
Our response should have been simple and succinct: “You have 12 hours to turn them over, or we go get them”.
When the 12 hours expired, our actions should have been quick and deliberate. The public wouldn’t have tolerated a nuclear strike, but our buffs could have carpetbombed those remote camps into dust. We didn’t need to invade, we just needed to exterminate. We didn’t need to deal with all of Afghanistan, but just incinerate the relatively small areas containing the group that actually attacked us. A few bombing runs over Kabul would have reminded the Taliban that you don’t f*** with the United States, but the Tali’s shouldn’t have ever been anything more than secondary targets. This “nation building” and “driving out the opressors to bring liberty” crap just sacrificed the lives of thousands of our best and brightest. And for what? So a bunch of dirty goatherders can continue to stone women and spread Sharia?
No, it wasn’t worth it.
If we were there to do the things you’ve said I don’t think anybody here would be questioning why we’re there. And under Bush it might have been more like that - considering that Rumsfeld told Karzai that they could either help in the war on terror or could become a glass parking lot...
But it seems like under Obama we’re just there to drain our supply of money, ammunition, and patriotic and brave soldiers - who are ordered to be sitting targets for crazy people who will never accept the idea of letting diverse people live in peace and minding their own business.
The ones who WOULD side with us have quickly learned that the USA can’t be trusted to protect their allies. I watched the OPSEC Youtube video “Dishonorable Disclosure” today, and it mentions that when the administration leaked the details so that the Pakistani doctor who helped them locate Bin Laden, it destroyed any chance to get help from people who would otherwise consider helping us. Siding with the US when our Usurper-in-Chief (my words, not theirs) can’t be trusted means certain death for these people.
I agree that we had to go after those who perpetrated 9-11, and after all those who are planning acts of war against America. Unfortunately, Obama himself is an act of war against America, and everything he touches will ultimately be used to destroy what we have. The enemy has infiltrated our White House and by controlling our military has sabotaged what was otherwise an important and worthy mission.
What you said!!!
Well said. America would not have sat by while the President did nothing in response to 9-11. I was overseas when it happened, and have been back several times. I know intellectually and emotionally that the only language folks in that part of the world understand is OVERWHELMING POWER! If a portion of the population doesn’t want to concede to what circumstances are communicating to him, you inflict more damage and pain until he does. Ive been thinking to myself...”there has got to be a reason that Sun Tzu is still on my recommended reading list????” “Thus the expert in battle moves the enemy, and is not moved by him.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War,