Afghanistan.

[Rex Kickass]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100219/ap_on_.../as_afghanistan

 

MARJAH, Afghanistan – After a fierce gunfight, U.S. Marines seized a strongly defended compound Friday that appears to have been a Taliban headquarters — complete with photos of fighters posing with their weapons, dozens of Taliban-issued ID cards and graduation diplomas from a training camp in Pakistan.

Insurgents who had been using the field office just south of Marjah's town center abandoned it by the end of the day's fighting, as Marines converged on them from all sides, escalating operations to break resistance in this Taliban stronghold in southern Helmand province.

Marines from Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines fought their way south from the town center Friday after residents told them that several dozen insurgent fighters had regrouped in the area.

Throughout the day, small groups of Taliban marksmen tried to slow the advance with rifle fire as they slowly fell back in face of the Marine assault.

"They know that they are outnumbered ... and that in the end they don't have the firepower to compete with us conventionally," said Capt. Joshua Winfrey of Tulsa, Okla., commander of Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines.

 

Earlier this week, a lot of the talking heads with bad mustaches who tell us what to think about politics were telling us that our hands are being tied and are ineffective in this Afghanistan assault.

 

I'm glad to say that it appears that we've captured more Taliban leaders in the last month than we have in the last six years. It's good to see positive signs of success in this mission.

 

[jasonxctf]

funny you posted that. I was just saying to a co-worker today, that the Marines are really kicking butt recently in Afghanistan. Didn't they just capture #2 Al Qaeda in Pakistan too?

[bmags]

Bravo, marines.

[StrangeSox]

Obama is weak on terrah.

[bmags]

that said...our military is amazing. Give them any military objective and they can achieve. But not everything we need is a military objective. I see no political solutions that will occur in afghanistan anytime soon.

[GoSox05]

Yep, things are going great. Winning hearts and minds by killing their children. Oh, wait sorry it's just “collateral damage.”

 

Six children were among those killed when two US missiles struck a house on the outskirts of Marjah on Sunday.

 

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8518885.stm

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Texsox]

Yep, things are going great. Winning hearts and minds by killing their children. Oh, wait sorry it's just "collateral damage."

 

 

 

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8518885.stm

 

War is hell. Which is why I cringe when athletes use that analogy.

[Balta1701]

funny you posted that. I was just saying to a co-worker today, that the Marines are really kicking butt recently in Afghanistan. Didn't they just capture #2 Al Qaeda in Pakistan too?

If by they you mean "A combination of U.S. and Pakistani intelligence services", you're correct. There were other, possibly related captures of what have been described as Taliban-state-governors in Pakistan last week as well.

[Balta1701]

Yowza.

Pakistan has arrested nearly half of the Afghanistan Taliban’s leadership in recent days, Pakistani officials told the Monitor Wednesday, dealing what could be a crucial blow to the insurgent movement.

 

In total, seven of the insurgent group’s 15-member leadership council, thought to be based in Quetta, Pakistan, including the head of military operations, have been apprehended in the past week, according to Pakistani intelligence officials.

 

Western and Pakistani media had previously reported the arrest of three of the 15, but this is the first confirmation of the wider scale of the Pakistan crackdown on the Taliban leadership, something the US has sought.

 

“This really hurts the Taliban in the short run,” says Wahid Muzjda, a former Taliban official turned political analyst, based in Kabul. Whether it will have an effect in the long run will depend on what kind of new leaders take the reins, he says.

 

News of the sweep emerged over the past week, with reports that Pakistani authorities had netted Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the movement’s second in command, as well as Maulavi Abdul Kabir, a prominent commander in charge of insurgent operations in eastern Afghanistan, and Mullah Muhammad Younis.

 

Pakistan has also captured several other Afghan members of the leadership council, called the Quetta Shura, two officials with the Pakistani Intelligence Bureau, and a United Nations official in Kabul told the Monitor.

[DukeNukeEm]

They're applying the same strategy in Afghanistan as they did in Iraq. Good to see its working.

[NorthSideSox72]

They're applying the same strategy in Afghanistan as they did in Iraq. Good to see its working.

Not at all. The Iraq "surge" was multiple parts community policing, working with religious sects and local groups, getting out of the compounds, and getting cooperation from the right factions. This current wave in Afghanistan is about isolating baddies to certain areas, trying to empty out civilians, and then crushing the area militarily, while working with neighboring countries like Pakistan. The strategies really aren't anything alike.

 

[DukeNukeEm]

Not at all. The Iraq "surge" was multiple parts community policing, working with religious sects and local groups, getting out of the compounds, and getting cooperation from the right factions. This current wave in Afghanistan is about isolating baddies to certain areas, trying to empty out civilians, and then crushing the area militarily, while working with neighboring countries like Pakistan. The strategies really aren't anything alike.

Everything I've read/heard/gathered/watched says they ditched the law enforcement strategy in Iraq in favor of individually clearing out towns and cities of insurgents, bringing in and training Iraqi police forces to keep them clear then moving on to the next place. Afghanistan is pretty similar except were trying to get civilians out of the areas were fighting in.

 

edit- by "everything I've read/heared/gathered/watched" I mean Petraeus actually saying it. They whole idea was the buy time for the crazy ethnofederalist government we set up there to actually get rooted.

Edited February 25, 2010 by DukeNukeEm

[NorthSideSox72]

Everything I've read/heard/gathered/watched says they ditched the law enforcement strategy in Iraq in favor of individually clearing out towns and cities of insurgents, bringing in and training Iraqi police forces to keep them clear then moving on to the next place. Afghanistan is pretty similar except were trying to get civilians out of the areas were fighting in.

 

edit- by "everything I've read/heared/gathered/watched" I mean Petraeus actually saying it. They whole idea was the buy time for the crazy ethnofederalist government we set up there to actually get rooted.

Not really. I did misspeak when I said "policing" though, I meant the biggest shift they made was to get out of the centralized military compounds, and get down to the community level. That, in addition to the fortunate outcomes in working with certain religious factions and organizations, allowed them to root out the remaining trouble-makers. There was very little of getting civilians out of areas, in fact, they wanted them to stay in their communities, to provide information locally.

 

Afghanistan's "surge" is not like that.

 

Don't take it from me though. Talk to your buddy LF. Or, do what I did, and talk to some people who spent time on the ground during that period in Iraq - military or journalist or whatever.

 

[lostfan]

Well there's some truth in what you're both saying, but they're 2 totally different countries. Yes on a broad, macro type level, they're doing the same thing and changing to a counterinsurgency-based strategy, but in execution there's not really that much the two countries have in common so the ways they go about it are different. There are people in Congress who really do think one is just like the other and all wars are the same (i.e. John McCain) and frankly don't know what they're talking about.

[kapkomet]

Well there's some truth in what you're both saying, but they're 2 totally different countries. Yes on a broad, macro type level, they're doing the same thing and changing to a counterinsurgency-based strategy, but in execution there's not really that much the two countries have in common so the ways they go about it are different. There are people in Congress who really do think one is just like the other and all wars are the same (i.e. John McCain) and frankly don't know what they're talking about.

 

 

Kind of like Barackus the Great and Harry "the war is lost" Reid?

 

Meh.

[lostfan]

Kind of like Barackus the Great and Harry "the war is lost" Reid?

 

Meh.

Harry Reid is... umm yeah

 

Obama's pretty much doing everything he said he was going to do in Afghanistan since he started campaigning.

 

There's a pretty convincing case that the U.S. lost the strategic war in Iraq in terms of the war on terror the moment the first vehicle crossed the berm and everything after that is just reconfiguring the crash site, but I don't feel like making a long post about it and defending the points in it right now.

Edited February 26, 2010 by lostfan

[DukeNukeEm]

In terms of a broad strategy the approach in Afghanistan and Iraq has been nearly identical. Instead of reacting to insurgent flare-ups weve started to fight an offense war, which plays a lot more to our strengths.

[NorthSideSox72]

In terms of a broad strategy the approach in Afghanistan and Iraq has been nearly identical. Instead of reacting to insurgent flare-ups weve started to fight an offense war, which plays a lot more to our strengths.

The people I've spoken with who have been on the ground in Iraq, their descriptions just don't at all jive with what is going on in Afghanistan. I suppose in an extremely broad sense - that the US shifted their tactics locally - sure, they're alike. But the actual execution - the tactics being used - are nothing alike at all. Afghanistan and Iraq just don't have the same problems (or same politics or same religious situation or same educations or same economy...), other than having the US military there.

 

 

[bmags]

Um, we really won't know s*** about whether the Iraq war was won or lost until the March 7th elections or even until we leave.

[NorthSideSox72]

Um, we really won't know s*** about whether the Iraq war was won or lost until the March 7th elections or even until we leave.

Who said it was won or lost?

 

[bmags]

kap making fun of harry reid.

[BigSqwert]

http://www.costofwar.com/

[Cknolls]

This is f***ing awesome:

 

 

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/revealed-...is-own-camp.htm

 

 

 

 

 

This is f***ing disgraceful:

 

 

 

 

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/of-concern.htm

 

 

 

 

[lostfan]

This is f***ing disgraceful:

 

 

 

 

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/of-concern.htm

Wow... he's gonna send that directly to Secretary Gates? I guess Michael Yon (don't know who he is) has some kind of journalistic access?

 

If it's something the local Spanish base commander is responsible for that's jumping way over the chain, because it's something that can be handled via normal military channels - if it's something about the Spanish military in general, yeah, that's gonna require Gates and other diplomats get involved, tear a couple of new assholes.

Edited March 8, 2010 by lostfan

[jasonxctf]

http://www.costofwar.com/

 

$710 billion wasted on Iraq. Makes me sick to my stomach.