Thursday, October 29, 2009

"Blood for Nothing": Ralph Peters on Afghanistan

Go here: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/blood_for_nothing_jHmHEXtE3bMu6q0jTeBIkK

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Another MSM KoolAid-drinking the-surge-won't-work ComLib "journalist".

But, like every blind squirrel, he found his one nut:

"From line doggies up to bird colonels (and even a few junior generals), there's a powerful sense that we're throwing away soldiers' lives for theories that just don't work. We enforce rules of engagement that kill our own troops to avoid alienating villagers who actively support the Taliban and celebrate our deaths."

Yes, that's right, the ROE's that the non-military politicians are enforcing on our military, are getting them killed.

Memories of VietNam! And we all remember (or learned) how THAT came out. Only within the past few years has it come out, that if the politicians had let the military do their proper job, just when we were withdrawing (surrendering), the Viet Cong were about ready to do some surrendering of their own. But they read the signs in America correctly, and outwaited us.

Shakesphere's play, Julius Caeser, had it right:
"Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war;"

B Woodman
III-per

rexxhead said...

He hit that nail on its head: In Afghanistan, -we're- the Redcoats.

tjbbpgobIII said...

B Woodmen III Per, your so called koolaid drinking the surge won't work ComLib "journalist" knows quit a lot about war. He served in
Vietnam as an infantry officer. He probably knows more about it than all of us wannabees put together, unless of course you were a general officer, which I doubt. He definately has the grunt at heart because he was one.

Anonymous said...

THIS is what we should be doing:
http://blog.stevenpressfield.com/2009/10/one-tribe-at-a-time-4-the-full-document-at-last/

This is the only option I've seen with potential to work.

Instead, Dear Reader will cut a deal with the taliban that will make him look - to the kool-aid drinkers - like he "made peace."

God help us...

Anonymous said...

The Taliban are different. Within the dominant Pashtun population, the Taliban are homegrown heroes. We rationalize away the evidence. --Ralph Peters

The Taliban are not heroes to the Northern Alliance, who represent about half of Afghanistan's population. South of the Hindu Kush, among the Pashtun, things are different, but it is not going well anywhere for the Taliban these days, not even in their Kandahar stronghold.

This is a recent report by Max Boot:

“The U.S. soldiers are firing mortar rounds to keep the Taliban off balance and discourage them from planting IEDs. And yet, incongruously enough, before long the talk here turns from combat to economics.
“Lieutenant Colonel Tom Gukeisen, the hulking commander of the 3-71 Cavalry Squadron (equivalent to a battalion), explains that the worst fighting is over here. His troops cleared out the Taliban this summer and established a "security bubble" around Baraki Barak. Now they are implementing what they call an 'Extreme Makeover,' using CERP dollars (Commander's Emergency Response Program) to build projects requested by local villagers. All such projects are designed to provide employment for young men so that they will not be tempted to accept the Taliban's money to plant IEDs. At the same time, Gukeisen is running his own radio station and handing out hand-cranked radios to get out the message that the Americans are here to help and the Taliban aren't. He is publicizing statistics showing that more Afghans than Americans have been wounded in Taliban attacks.
“The results have been dramatic. Attacks are down 62 percent and intelligence tips are up 80 percent since August, Gukeisen tells me, adding, 'We're not just baking cookies. We're regularly shwacking bad guys based on good intel.' But Gukeisen is part of a new breed of Army commanders who know that you can't kill your way out of an insurgency.”

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/017/113dkdjw.asp

MALTHUS

Happy D said...

First let us remember the U.S. is there to first keep Al-Qaeda from having a safe training/planning area.

The Taliban is a major supporter of Al-Qaeda so must be kept from control of the country.

The penalty for failure may be a 9/11 or worse.
Not a big problem for me little I care about is in or near the major probable targets.

What the Propagandist knows about war I will leave to others to debate.
What he knows about the Pakistan Afghanistan region and its inhabitants is little to nothing.

I have the good fortune to have a few friends and their families that live in this region. And by friends I do not mean people that I know only through a computer. I mean friends that I talk face to face with now and again.
I also have a few associates that work in the region.

This Redcoat bull is nothing but leftist propaganda meant to provoke a conflicting chain of thought in historically educated patriotic Americans.

A more apt comparison would be the way the police are viewed in gang territory in L.A.
They don't want the cops but the gang is often worse.

The gang (Taliban/Al-Qaeda) is mostly from around there some are related to the locals.
The police (U.S.and Allies) most likely are not from around There.

Given a choice the most common order of preferred company is 1.None 2.U.S. 3.Taliban.

Taliban/Al-Qaeda terrorize you for Taliban/Al-Qaeda reasons. You can Google for yourselves what the Taliban/Al-Qaeda crowd does to their subjects.