President: Afghanistan War Strategy On Track

[Marauder06]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40695712/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama said Thursday that the United States is "on track to achieve its goals in Afghanistan" but that the gains in many areas are fragile and reversible.
Obama said the United States is on course to begin withdrawing some

U.S. troops​

next July, as he introduced a new, classified assessment of the Afghanistan war.
"I want to be clear: this continues to be a very difficult endeavor. But I can report that thanks to the extraordinary service of our troops and civilians on the ground, we are on track to achieve our goals," he said.

Meanwhile, in Iraq...?

 

[pardus]

Increasing enemy capability is on track with withdrawing? Nice!

Yeah, I've been hearing nothing but bad things coming from Iraq lately, we are going to walk out and 10 min later Iraq will just as productive and prosperous and trouble free as Somalia is.

Then what are we going to do?

We should have sucked Iraq dry of oil while we had the chance.

 

[AWP]

I can't wait until we declare "victory" in both countries only to watch them devolve into brutal civil wars while we sit in the states and say "We won the wars, it isn't our fault." "No, no, no, w gave them democracy, they weren't committed to the freedom and rights that should be afforded to every man." or some such nonsense.

 

[racing_kitty]

Meanwhile, in an effort to try to pacify Karzai, the rules for nighttime raids have been modified a bit. Here's the link to the story on WSJ's site.

A senior military official in Afghanistan said the changes were mostly administrative and would have no impact on operations.

According to the article, some changes were made so that the people in the villages would see that the SOF guys are held to some means of accountability when executing the operations.

Having no deployed time in that theater, I can't really offer an in-depth opinion, pro or con, about the changes. However, I am waiting with a sense of amusement to see how long before the bipolar junkie that the Afghanis call their President starts screaming that the Afghanis are still being left out, since another one of the changes reflects increased cooperation with senior Afghani leadership on this.

 

[DA SWO]

I agree with the declare victory and come home strategy.
Fuck Iraq, if they can't rise above tribal/religious divisions then they deserve what they get. They want us out, so give them an early Ramadan Present. Adios maggots.
Give iraqi Christians and other non-muslim xenophobes the opportunity to emigrate here. Fuck up, we send you back. You will be model citizens or else (your kid fucks up he/she can go home with/without you too).
Somalia was jacked up before we got there, so I don't see that as an accurate comparison.
Afghanistain-Declare victory, yank most of the conventional guys/gals. Spend another year or so playing whack-a-mole, then come home. We had a clear victory there, and the previous team squandered it. Sadly, we have to watch as AQ/TB retake the nation, and launch another attack on us. That will give us the reason to justify another all-out eradication program, only this time we just kill all the leaders 91st, 2nd,3rd tier), period. Let the tribes rebuild/kill each other. I don't care as this is another place where living in poverty is a badge of honer, let'em wear it.

 

[pardus]

Can we afford to let Iraq disintegrate and loose access to the oil? Can we afford to allow Iran take control overtly or covertly (which is my guess) of Iraq?

 

[Dame]

 

[SpitfireV]

Can we afford to let Iraq disintegrate and loose access to the oil? Can we afford to allow Iran take control overtly or covertly (which is my guess) of Iraq?

Iran already have mega influence. I don't think they would ever take total control since that would make the neighbours even more jittery towards them than they are now but I could see them keeping the strings taut.

 

[pardus]

Iran already have mega influence. I don't think they would ever take total control since that would make the neighbours even more jittery towards them than they are now but I could see them keeping the strings taut.

And can we allow that?

Maybe the rest of the Rag states will step up the the plate and sort it out but I doubt it.

Rags are like Africans, they stick together, right or wrong.

We have two hopes for Iran, Israel/USA kicking the shit out of them or "we" sponsor an Iranian revolution (my preferred option).

 

[SpitfireV]

That would be my preferred option too but look at what happened the last time the West sponsored a coup.

 

[pardus]

That would be my preferred option too but look at what happened the last time the West sponsored a coup.

? Explain? A coup is a lot different to a revolution BTW.

 

[SpitfireV]

I mean the Shah coup of the 50s. 20+ years of resentment later it came back to bite the arse...and still has nibbles now and again.

You're right a revolution is much different but I don't see a US/UK backed revolt succeeding. The population might not like the theocracy but they don't like the US and UK to a much greater extent. Obviously it would have to be disguised but what happens when the new leaders start sidling up to the West again?

 

[pardus]

You'd be surprised, there is a lot of pro western thought in Iran.
A revolution (properly conducted) could be very successful and yield incredible results/rewards.

The west would just have to be smart about it, lots of support, supplies and encouragement but little overt control.
Win an ally don't make a dodgy one.

 

[AWP]

You have to make them accept the better of two bad choices, put cheese on a cat turd.

 

[Mac_NZ]

There is scope for a withdrawal. We only have a small contingent there and we could afford to trim some fat, if we sent home all the assistant S's from the S club and all the assistants to the assistants of the S's then we could probably trim about an 8th of our size. Of course the S's would then have to work and wouldn't be able to swan around Kiwi Base complaining about the food/mail/NAAFI/how none of the grunts understand how hard it really is and they might have to actually earn those allowances they get paid. Even better we could replace the shaved fat with more grunts and step up a few more patrols so guys weren't burning out from all the night drives in shit terrain. Then maybe some people in remote areas in Bamian might see someone other than the Taliban or the HIG in the year 2011. We may have to get rid of the lazy 4 field rank officers you apparently now need to run a Coy group but hey, a Maj managed fine on his own before in oh what were those places called...

Free will be along soon to tell us exactly how much they could trim from BAF which I believe would be staggering. If you got rid of those sorts then the war could go on and BarryO can say he has met his goals of a partial withdrawal.

There is another possibility which allows for a big withdrawal but you tried it at the start of the war and it worked but no-one was going to get extra stars from that approach so it had to get all conventional.

 

[Chopstick]

Biden: U.S. Out of Afghanistan by 2014 'Come Hell or High Water'

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/12/20/biden-come-hell-high-water/

How does he know..wont he be out of office by then?:confused:

Despite uneven progress in Afghanistan, Vice President Joe Biden said next summer's planned withdrawal would be more than a token reduction and that the U.S. would be out of the country by 2014 "come hell or high water."

 

[AWP]

Someone let Biden off of his leash? Besides, "combat operations" are over in Iraq if you believe the adminstration and CNN....

 

[Marauder06]

The "hell or high water" comment attributed to the Vice President seems fundamentally at odds with the President's plan. No wonder no one trusts us to be there for them in the long run, too many conflicting messages.

 

[Scotth]

We have two hopes for Iran, Israel/USA kicking the shit out of them or "we" sponsor an Iranian revolution (my preferred option).

I don't think a revolution is coming to Iran but I think there is generational change coming. I think Iran will be a very different country in 20 years. The hard-liners are loosing there grip on power and we saw them having to put down protest with violence this year. It took decades of dissatisfaction with the Shah before they had a revolution. I think the same resentment is building today but the actual revolution is probably a decade or more away.

Military attacks from the US or Isreal could reverse those changing attitudes though.

 

[AWP]

I don't think a revolution is coming to Iran but I think there is generational change coming. I think Iran will be a very different country in 20 years. The hard-liners are loosing there grip on power and we saw them having to put down protest with violence this year. It took decades of dissatisfaction with the Shah before they had a revolution. I think the same resentment is building today but the actual revolution is probably a decade or more away.

Military attacks from the US or Isreal could reverse those changing attitudes though.

While I agree with you, how much longer can we wait? At what point is the Rubicon crossed?