boobies

Mother Jones? What's next, quoting from Utne Reader?

They were probably stoned.

Afghan army being incompetent, disloyal, and just don't give a shiat: NOT news.

Something is missing here, what could it be...



Ah, much better!

Afghanis hate each other and want to fight amongst them selves.

/nothing to see here
//not the droids youre looking for
///now move along

The victim died of a warning shot....to the head.

That's a damn fine warning. I bet the guy doesn't do whatever he was doing again.

Can't wait to see Mother Jones fail in a few years.

FlyingPenguini: Afghanis hate each other and want to fight amongst them selves.

/nothing to see here
//not the droids youre looking for
///now move along

You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

We must arm both sides and let them beat each other down to the point where walking in and taking over would be much easier.

/Divide and conquer
//See "British empire 1583-1980's"

this is the war we need to fight. There's probably money involved.

i'd puch out a few motherfarkers too if i was stuck in some ass backwards shiathole like afganistan. they probly dont have any maps or such things.

some_beer_drinker: i'd puch out a few motherfarkers too if i was stuck in some ass backwards shiathole like afganistan. they probly dont have any maps or such things.

there's always American dollars.

I have a solution

vabeard: some_beer_drinker: i'd puch out a few motherfarkers too if i was stuck in some ass backwards shiathole like afganistan. they probly dont have any maps or such things.

there's always American dollars.

which we could use to hire cartographers to draw maps on the back's of your family members

Norad: The war in Afghanistan is not winnable. What a waste of humanity & resources.

Much like your quest for 3000 approved links? No. Probably not so steep a climb.

The best result from the document leak would be war crimes trials lavishly documented therein.

lovely to see all the right wing trolls out so early this mornin.

The British and the Soviets couldn't conquer Afghanistan. I think the only person who did, briefly, was Genghis Khan, and he only did it by slaughtering anyone who got in his way. I don't see how we possibly could.

NephilimNexus: Army versus Police... wait, wasn't that part of the plot of "Appleseed?"

I think there might be a Ghost in the Shell joke in there too.

/first season. with the geisha robots

electronicmaji: lovely to see all the right wing trolls out so early this mornin.

LOL. This is America's war, and politics stops at the water's edge for some of us. Obama is fulfilling his promise approximately by trying to win a very tough but justified war.

Of course there are going to be problems.

This leak didn't show us anything we didn't know. It's tough. afghanistan has been through hell for ages and a lot of those who are left do not behave well. We're working on it.

It's amusing that Mother Jones thought this was newsworthy, I guess. Sick and ignorant Mother Jones, always on the bandwagon.

Norad: The war in Afghanistan is not winnable. What a waste of humanity & resources.

Heard the same idiotic crap about Iraq.

Afghanistan wasn't always like this. It could be one of the nicest places on earth. It was always going to be a tough war. Like Vietnam, winning would save a lot of lives and do a lot of good.

Sad to see this propaganda working on people. I guess mostly the already convinced, though. War is the answer in this case.

TheShavingofOccam123: Afghans helped Bin Laden escape. I don't know why people would think the Afghans would do anything other than shoot each other when they aren't busy shooting whomever the infidel of the day is.

"What are you rebelling against, Jahandar?"

"Whaddya got?"

You're racist. You're probably also thinking of yourself as a progressive.

Maybe we should just evacuate all the women and children from Afghanistan as we leave and let all the farking idiots that are left kill themselves or die.

really really proud you chose the obvious tag...you farkers are smart

Clearly a quaint little democracy we can pat our selves on the back about is just over the horizon. Let's hurry up and do this with the rest of the world before China stops loaning us money.

Norad: Arcanum: Afghanistan wasn't always like this. It could be one of the nicest places on earth. It was always going to be a tough war. Like Vietnam, winning would save a lot of lives and do a lot of good.

Sad to see this propaganda working on people. I guess mostly the already convinced, though. War is the answer in this case.

Yeesh, talk about propaganda 'working' on someone.

"It could be one of the nicest places on Earth"?

PAAAAAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH! Are you serious?

"Like Vietnam, winning would save a lot of lives and do a lot of good."

Yes. We all know how well THAT worked out, right?


I've been to afghanistan and it is far from nice. Before I went there I thought that the wars we fought was the good fight, but after coming back my views have changed. Fark them and fark the middle east. It is a waste of time fighting over there and we should focus on fixing our issues at home. We build new schools in afghan, but we have states in despret need of more education funding, we feed thousands over there, but have homeless starving here, and It all makes me sick. Nothing changes, nothing gets fixed, and it is all a waste.

The comedian from The Watchman put it best "This is a joke. This is all a joke."

Deacon Blue:
If we wanted to, we could turn Afghanistan into a graveyard and settle it ourselves. But we don't want to do that.

Yeah, the only way to 'win' over there is to turn it into a parking lot.

And it doesn't help that one of our allies in the region funds the Taliban because they want them to fight against the Indians.

when i think about winning a war...
i ask myself, what would the romans do?



until they submit

Norad: The war in Afghanistan is not winable.

Translation: I don't want us to win the war in Afghanistan.

If you had said something along the lines of "The war isn't worth the effort," or "We don't have the political will to wage a nastier war, nor should we," I probably would have given you the benefit of the doubt, but declaring it impossible for the world's sole remaining superpower to defeat a bunch of third-world insurgents smacks of wishful thinking.

One of my buddies that had served in Afghanistan told me that something's going around the ANA which is derisively called "Man-Love Thursdays."

Apparently Afghan men hate pussy so much, they corner a younger Afghani male and take turns raping the bejeezus out of him, as their interpretation of the Qu'ran says that forced buttsex on a guy "doesn't count" as homosexuality, or adultery if the rapists are married. My buddy's unit's 20-yr old interpreter had to be transferred to some FOB on top of a mountain way up north because his unwilling participation of Man-Love Thursdays was too much of a distraction.

So yeah, bunch of backwards-ass misogynistic-to-the-extreme tribal opium farmers beat each other up? Not surprising in the least.

give all soldiers over there an 8 ball of badass crystal meth today...it would be done by monday

Um, Norad, that is precisely what you said, minus my typo in "winnable." How exactly is quoting you putting words in your mouth?

After that, I gave my opinion of your intent, and briefly described why I had that opinion. The fact that you had high hopes for the war in the beginning is irrelevant, since the post I quoted said nothing of this. There was one sentence in your post I didn't quote, where you said it was a waste of humanity and resources. But then given my screen name I guess I should have known you initially supported the war from that statement.

Since you see fit to call me retard, I've got to ask how retarded a statement about a superpower getting their asses kicked in Afghanistan is. I assume you are referring to the Soviet Union. (Sorry, I'm not on a real computer at the moment and can't click on the link without losing what I've already typed.) There are several major flaws in this statement. First, the Soviet military, even in the 1980s before the fall, can hardly be compared to the United States military of 2010. Second, even with its many flaws, the Soviet military was beating the Mujahadein pretty well until the US started supplying arms to the Mujahadein. (That sort of came back to bite us in the butt, but that's not germaine to the issue). Even then, the Afghan war was hardly "unwinnable" for the USSR. It just became too costly for them, militarily and politically.

As far as what I propose to win the war, I can't give a detailed plan off the top of my head right now, especially to a military genius who can unilaterally declare a war unwinnable, but I suppose I could quickly come up with a few broad off the cuff suggestions. First, I'd play to win. When the theater commander requests 40,000 troops, I wouldn't hem and haw for several months and then grudgingly send 30,000. (Again, this is off the top of my head and I can't check the figures right now without losing what I've already typed, but they should be in the ball park.)

Second, I wouldn't pussyfoot around so much with the Afghan government. Their corruption is getting in our way, so I'd exert a lot more pressure on them to clean up their act. Third, ditto on Pakistan. The days when we give them aid while they are actively working against us would have to end. Beyond that, I'd probably stick with a basic counterinsurgency strategy, but devote more resources and political will to the effort.

As far as US military members dying, I never want that. Having served for 21 years myself, each death hurts me personally. ( I was going to hold back that little fact hoping you'd add "chickenhawk" to "moran", "retard", and "skippy" in your ad hominem attacks, but that would just be too easy.) However, since we are in fact in a war, losses are inevitable, but doing things half-assed only ensures that the casualties will mount. Increased manpower, materiel and more reasonable rules of engagement would decrease the loss of life. And, yes, could even result in victory. If you'll remember, things were going pretty well in Afghanistan for quite some time, until we got complacent and allowed the enemy to regroup. That was a mistake that cost us dearly, but the solution is not to throw up our hands and either continue doing things halfway or cut and run. You do remember why we went to Afghanistan, don't you? Backing out now without achieving victory only guarantees eventual repeat attempts. And continuing with no intention of winning only results in the quagmire of meaningless US casualties.

Anyway, that's all I have to say on that. It's late and I choose not to stay up any longer arguing with someone who clearly has such a great understanding of military affairs and history that he can declare a war unwinnable without any facts to back up that claim.

psychicdeath99: Um, Norad, that is precisely what you said, minus my typo in "winnable." How exactly is quoting you putting words in your mouth?

After that, I gave my opinion of your intent, and briefly described why I had that opinion. The fact that you had high hopes for the war in the beginning is irrelevant, since the post I quoted said nothing of this. There was one sentence in your post I didn't quote, where you said it was a waste of humanity and resources. But then given my screen name I guess I should have known you initially supported the war from that statement.

Since you see fit to call me retard, I've got to ask how retarded a statement about a superpower getting their asses kicked in Afghanistan is. I assume you are referring to the Soviet Union. (Sorry, I'm not on a real computer at the moment and can't click on the link without losing what I've already typed.) There are several major flaws in this statement. First, the Soviet military, even in the 1980s before the fall, can hardly be compared to the United States military of 2010. Second, even with its many flaws, the Soviet military was beating the Mujahadein pretty well until the US started supplying arms to the Mujahadein. (That sort of came back to bite us in the butt, but that's not germaine to the issue). Even then, the Afghan war was hardly "unwinnable" for the USSR. It just became too costly for them, militarily and politically.

As far as what I propose to win the war, I can't give a detailed plan off the top of my head right now, especially to a military genius who can unilaterally declare a war unwinnable, but I suppose I could quickly come up with a few broad off the cuff suggestions. First, I'd play to win. When the theater commander requests 40,000 troops, I wouldn't hem and haw for several months and then grudgingly send 30,000. (Again, this is off the top of my head and I can't check the figures right now without losing what I've already typed, but they should be in the ball park.)

Second, I wouldn't pussyfoot around so much with the Afghan government. Their corruption is getting in our way, so I'd exert a lot more pressure on them to clean up their act. Third, ditto on Pakistan. The days when we give them aid while they are actively working against us would have to end. Beyond that, I'd probably stick with a basic counterinsurgency strategy, but devote more resources and political will to the effort.

As far as US military members dying, I never want that. Having served for 21 years myself, each death hurts me personally. ( I was going to hold back that little fact hoping you'd add "chickenhawk" to "moran", "retard", and "skippy" in your ad hominem attacks, but that would just be too easy.) However, since we are in fact in a war, losses are inevitable, but doing things half-assed only ensures that the casualties will mount. Increased manpower, materiel and more reasonable rules of engagement would decrease the loss of life. And, yes, could even result in victory. If you'll remember, things were going pretty well in Afghanistan for quite some time, until we got complacent and allowed the enemy to regroup. That was a mistake that cost us dearly, but the solution is not to throw up our hands and either continue doing things halfway or cut and run. You do remember why we went to Afghanistan, don't you? Backing out now without achieving victory only guarantees eventual repeat attempts. And continuing with no intention of winning only results in the quagmire of meaningless US casualties.

Anyway, that's all I have to say on that. It's late and I choose not to stay up any longer arguing with someone who clearly has such a great understanding of military affairs and history that he can declare a war unwinnable without any facts to back up that claim.

Hear, hear. Well said.

bossuniversalAA: give all soldiers over there an 8 ball of badass crystal meth today...it would be done by monday

No no no. You must stagger the release of the badass crystal meth so you don't have the whole army crashing all at once. Think it out man.

Gee, you train and equip an entire generation to be guerrilla fighters and you're surprised when they grow up their way of handling disputes is to shoot at each other? At least they're smart enough not to gun for the US troops... oh wait.

Why is it up to the US to fix the world's problems when the rest of the world sees no reason to bother or care? We need to fix the US first, then maybe we can worry about someplace else.

Befuddled: Why is it up to the US to fix the world's problems when the rest of the world sees no reason to bother or care? We need to fix the US first, then maybe we can worry about someplace else.

Um, the last time we left Afghanistan alone, we got the Taliban.

An entire generation has grown up in a failed state, and guerrilla warfare is the only life many of these people have ever known; the CIA taught them well. Can't expect them to change their way of life just because the leaders have changed; didn't work the last couple of times. Had we intervened to help establish a stable government after the communist one collapsed, the Taliban would not have taken power in the aftermath of the mujahideen in-fighting and bin Laden wouldn't have had such a great place to build al Qaeda.

Frog and the scorpion, my man. This is how they roll in Kabul, and no matter what we do it isn't ever going to look like Des Moines. At least not in my lifetime.