Time to pull out of Afghanistan????

[gsvol]

I smell another Vietnam.

New rules of engagement suck audibly!!

Sound familiar??

That utter POS McChrystal once criticized Bush policy as being “ preoccupied with protection of our own forces."

Looks like we have another POS like Wesley Clark in charge.
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Of anybody, John Bernard has well EARNED an ear of those making decisions on our Troops ROE's.
Lance Cpl. Bernard was the Marine that some dip____ cold-hearted photographer took a picture of right after being hit by a Talabani rocket propelled grenade. It is a bloody and terribly graphic picture of Lance Cpl. Bernard, 21, as he lay dying, an appendage blown off, while two of his Brother Marines rushed to his side to try to aide him.

September 7th, 2009 "...The U.S. defense secretary, Robert Gates, condemned the decision by the news agency Associated Press to publish the graphic photograph after Bernard was killed in Afghanistan.

In a scathing letter to Tom Curley, president and chief executive of the AP, Gates said the decision was 'appalling', saying it was a matter of 'judgment and common decency' not to publish the photo.

Gates wrote in the letter: 'I cannot imagine the pain and suffering Lance Corporal Bernard's death has caused his family.

'Why your organization would purposely defy the family's wishes knowing full well that will lead to yet more anguish is beyond me.

'Your lack of compassion and common sense in choosing to put this image of the maimed and stricken child on the front page o multiple newspapers is appalling.'

...Finally, after the pics had been distributed by the AP but before they were published. Gates made a phone call to Tom Curley and said 'I am begging you to defer to the wishes of the family."" (NOT TO PUBLISH THE PICTURE!)

The flippin AP went ahead and did it anyway!!!!!

HOWEVER, here is a pic of the Perpetrator, posing and smiling coyly with a couple of Afghan Army soldiers.:

Associated Press photographer Julie Jacobson with Afghan National Army.


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There aren't words to describe how much I hate and despise the whole of the AP ministry of propaganda and it didn't start yesterday, I'm talking about from the early '60s.

They are perhaps the worst enemy of the good people of United States on planet Earth.

Good thing I'm not in that theater, if so miss Jacobson
could count the remaining days of her life on the fingers of one hand. gs
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Lance Corporal Joshua 'Bernie' Bernard

Rules of engagement condemned them to die because they couldn’t get air cover.

According to McClatchy: “U.S. commanders, citing new rules to avoid civilian casualties, rejected repeated calls to unleash artillery rounds at attackers dug into the slopes and tree lines — despite being told repeatedly that they weren’t near the village.”

We now have a UN lawyer looking for NATO (particularly American) troops to prosecute for killing civilians.
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Rules of Engagement Revisited

Active duty military personnel, veterans and retirees alike all expressed their outrage and distain for the reported Rules of Engagement (ROE) that resulted in loss of life to four United States Marines and nine of their Afghan army allies.

In a Taliban initiated ambush the insurgents out-gunned the joint military unit and pinned it to indefensible ground. The NATO advised Afghan force was denied artillery support and did not receive close air support for more than one hour after coming under attack. By that time 13 lives had been forfeited because of a politically motivated ROE that always favors the insurgents.
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While all the political indecision continues, the ROE remains in force. More soldiers and Marines will be sent into impossible situations and asked to win without the tools of combat needed to complete their tasks. More calls for artillery will be made and denied. More calls for air support will be made and delayed. More Americans will die because of indecision and political cowardice at home.

What we actually is a CIC guilty of treason.

This note from another veteran;

Zero’s hero, Jimmie Carter, established really stupid rules of engagement for our Navy in the Med—our pilots could not return fire on aircraft that fired on them. Libyan MIG pilots made great sport of coming up and taking a shots at US Navy fighters, then turning tail and heading back into Libyan territory, knowing that the US Navy pilots were prohibited from firing back.

Fortunately, the election of Ronald Reagan brought common sense back into play and he immediately threw out the coward Carter’s rules of engagement. Much to the surprise of the Libyans, their first encounter with the USN after January 20, 1981, resulted in 5 or 6 Libyan jets being splashed. Not surprisingly, the Libyan harassment immediately stopped.

I never thought I would say

but it's time to bring our troops home from Afghanistan before the job was done. But with President Barack Obama as commander in chief snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, I must say it's time.

As a retired Army officer who did two tours in Vietnam, I know the futility of trying to win a war when the soldiers' hands are tied by ineffective rules of engagement.

Obama has decided that the new rules of engagement require our troops not to engage the enemy or return fire unless they can guarantee that no civilians will be hurt or killed and that they must withdraw (retreat) when they are attacked.
Our troops are now sitting ducks who cannot fight back. This is unconscionable and either must be reversed or we must abandon Afghanistan to the Taliban and al-Qaida.

I'll stop for now but as soon as I can find it again I won't as many people as would like to read it.

It is written by the father (himself a veteran) of a Marine killed in Afghanistan. His stance is that we should change the ROE or ELSE.

That's exactly how I feel about it.

 

[OrangeEmpire]

Really, Vietnam?

Is Obama really going to call in air strikes on out houses like LBJ did?

 

[J-P]

This hits too close to home for me. I've posted my feelings about this previously.

 

[gsvol]

Really, Vietnam?

Is Obama really going to call in air strikes on out houses like LBJ did?

Warfare and the Will to Win

(a short article well worth reading for any American, as are another half dozen articles underneath that article.)

From this vantage point we cannot hope to match the military expertise of a weekend warrior and rear echelon hero such as John Murtha with his paper-cut Purple Heart, or the fine tuned insight of a three month, medal winning veteran such as John Kerry, who was so valorous in the waters off Vietnam.

Nobody outside of Washington has the knowledge of those great military minds that fill the halls of Congress and the Executive Office. They know just how to come up with a winning hand.

After all they have a blueprint right in front of them that dates back all the way to 1951.

 

[jackaro]

Anytime our military is instructed to conduct a "limited war", it is time to pull out. War should be avoided if at all possible, but if it is necessary all available force should to used to obliterate the enemy.

Civilian casualties are an unfortunate consequence of a just war. I believe the problem is allowing reporters and cameras into the action. War is ugly, brutal, and not something that needs to seen on the evening news.

War is so ugly, and brutal, that the consequences for both sides should be considered at great length before entering into it. But if the decision is made to go to war, hold nothing back.

 

[gsvol]

:yes:

What I don't dig is that we are merely fighting a war to promote a country that enshrines evil islamic sharia law in it's constitution.

Let them fight it out amonst themselves.

They can't even think about defeating us on the field of battle, they wouldn't last two days.

When a country such as Iran has a national holiday titled; "death to America", I think it's high time we had a new American holiday called; "Kicking Iran's Ass Day!!"

And make it so they won't forget about it for about three hundred years.

In the last fourteen hundred years that has been the only thing they understand.

Presently they think of us as vulnerable, weak, naive and ripe for the picking.

 

[shootermcgavin7]

We should have split it into four countries (based on ethnic groups, Tajiks/Uzbeks/Pashtuns/everyone else) in 2001 and left it the hell alone.

The anyone under the age of 40 there has no concept of "Afghanistan", it is retarded to attempt to forge a national identity.

 

[gsvol]

We should have split it into four countries (based on ethnic groups, Tajiks/Uzbeks/Pashtuns/everyone else) in 2001 and left it the hell alone.

The anyone under the age of 40 there has no concept of "Afghanistan", it is retarded to attempt to forge a national identity.

Like Yugoslavia??

I read a book back around 1960 authored by an American career state department foreign officer who had spent thirty years in Africa and southeast Asia.

He made two main points, 1, DO NOT become involved in Vietnam without Ho Chi Mihn as an ally. The people of Vietnam worshipped him like a god and would follow his lead completely.

2. When the European powers pull out of Africa, DO NOT form countries' borders along colonial lines but along traditional tribal lines, otherwise there would be violent unending struggle between the tribes for political power.

He was right on both counts, it is as if the powers that be wanted that to be the future.

BTW, Ho Chi Mihn practically begged Woodrow Wilson to help him throw of the yoke of French colonialism at the end of WWI but was given the brush off.

At that time Ho wanted to be our close ally and have a constitution like the US Constitution.

 

[shootermcgavin7]

Like Yugoslavia??

Not exactly the same. But the retarded mismatch of groups is not un-similar.
The difference is that Europe had an incentive to help out because the mess was taking place in their backyard(s).

 

[gsvol]

Not exactly the same. But the retarded mismatch of groups is not un-similar.
The difference is that Europe had an incentive to help out because the mess was taking place in their backyard(s).

The mess they ended up with was worse that what they started with and they were the ones who formed the country at the end of WWI and saw to it that Tito the communist was in control after WWII.

 

[shootermcgavin7]

The mess they ended up with was worse that what they started with and they were the ones who formed the country at the end of WWI and saw to it that Tito the communist was in control after WWII.

The Balkans are a lot less f*ed up as multiple countries than when we tried to make them act as one.

There, I think, we can find a direct parallel in Afghanistan. In fact, you could make a direct parallel to a lot more Middle East & Asian nations where the borders were carved up by Western nations.

 

[gsvol]

The Balkans are a lot less f*ed up as multiple countries than when we tried to make them act as one.

There, I think, we can find a direct parallel in Afghanistan. In fact, you could make a direct parallel to a lot more Middle East & Asian nations where the borders were carved up by Western nations.

Africa is the worst in that regard, and more to the point to say European rather than western.

So what then do you think of the radical muslim state of Kosovo?