BF2S Forums 10 years in Afghanistan

Shocking wrote:

FEOS wrote:

That is as likely as anything. Just as likely is that we didn't have enough SOF to handle the load,

That still is a problem

Also one that can't be solved overnight. You don't just crap out SOF troops. They take years to train and get proficient, and generally come from the existing troop strength to begin with. You see at best a very gradual increase in SOF endstrength.

FEOS wrote:

eleven bravo wrote:

i really disagree.  gates is known for his stance on a greater use of special forces.  i mean rumsfled had the war for 5 years

I think this is more accurate. Gates' Pentagon fought against the troop surges.

pretty much everything ive written about in college was about the GWOT. Lots of research.

Last edited by eleven bravo (2012-01-08 12:46:57)

Makes perfect sense, though without more 'door kickers' I reckon theories such as the lily pad doctrine can't be seriously considered in conflicts spanning large areas. Can't have it all I guess.

rdx-fx wrote:

Macbeth wrote:

Maybe it's just me but it also seems a tad bit racist to say that the entire middle east needs to separate itself into different ethic groups.

"Those Muzzies need to seperate themselves into different ethnic groups BECAUSE THEY CAN'T HANDLE OUR MULTICULTURAL CIVILIZATION. WE KNOW WHAT IS BEST FOR THOSE SIMPLE LITTLE PEOPLES."

Could just be me.

You've completely missed my point.

They need to be the ones to determine their direction, their borders, their politics.

There are religious and ethnic divisions within the middle east, where killing each other is the first option.
These are, often enough, the countries with artificial, Western determined borders.
(Iraq - Al Anfal chemical warfare genocide of the Kurds, for one)
Forcing those groups to live within the same borders is just asking for continuing conflict.

It isn't racist to recognize that a culture has different priorities and values.
It is racist to think that our Western values are universal, and that with enough understanding and force, "Those Muzzies" (as you put it) will come around to our values and perceptions.
Multiculturalism (in the Western sense), tolerance of homosexuality, tolerance of different religions, and the Democratic process are not values that directly translate to the middle eastern mindset.

Edit: To be fair to "Those Muzzies", they can be some of the most hospitable, generous people you'll ever meet - as long as they don't feel their religion is insulted, their pride injured, or their beliefs denigrated. Then again, if they have it in their head that it's a matter of pride, religion, or honor - some of them will resort to "dirka dirka jihad" as a first option too. The former being mostly the older adults, the latter being the younger low-income males.

Exactly.  The "borders" as they stand today were mostly written by Europeans.  Not just in the Middle East.  Also in some areas of Asia.  French Indo-China (we fought a war against their nationalists, too) and a large portion of Africa.  The British pulled the Shia region into Iraq to fuck with the Iranians.  Look it up.

"Pakistan" didnt exist until the British left India.  Hows that for a relevant argument. 

MacBeth, I thought you said somewhere you were not a big believer in multiculturalism?

Last edited by Spearhead (2012-01-08 15:16:04)

Macbeth wrote:

MacBeth, I thought you said somewhere you were not a big believer in multiculturalism?

Different people living together = | = multiculturalism in the philosophical sense


http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/multiculturalism/


I'll respond back to the rest later or not.

So you believe that multicultural state should be imposed by foreign powers on people with little to no national identity or faith/tolerance to multicultural political principle?

It is not racist at all, to say that the middle east should be broken up (when we occupy their countries).  It should not be the ends, but as the means.  Of course it'd be impossible politically to do it with foreign influence (derp we invaded Iraq and then gave it to other terrorists?  derp, we invaded Afghanistan and let the Iranians/Pakistanis duke it out?).  It must come from within.  Let Iran take over the entire middle east, so what, their nukes in 10 years still couldnt remotely compete with ours.  In almost every state, from Africa all the way over to Asia, the political status quo is being held together by dictatorship/military rule.  Is it is a coincidence that these areas were the ones exploited by European colonialists?  No.  After they left in the latter half of the 20th century, the military was the only domestic institution with any power.  The Europeans sure as hell didnt invest in educational or criminal justice systems.  They just wanted influence over their economies.  Hence the military dictatorships. 

I think it is more racist to say, we should fight wars/influence their internal politics for the sole purpose of maintaining political borders, imposed by the West (mostly BRITISH) a long time ago.  As if you are saying their borders and countries are the ones they fought for.  As if MULTICULTURALISM/CIVILIZATION are the same thing.  Civilization existed LONG before the concept of "multiculturalism".  So, in your view, multiculturalism=civilization?  That might be the most racist thing I've read when it comes to sophisticated geopolitical... uh theory.  Whatever it is we're talking about now.

Last edited by Spearhead (2012-01-08 21:04:17)

FEOS wrote:

Shocking wrote:

Well yes, you're absolutely right, which is why I think that you won't ever get enough of them unless you were to lower the standards. There's only so much that can be done with aggressive recruitment campaigning and improving training procedures without impacting the quality, the vast majority will just never make the cut. The amount of SOF operators the US has is already quite impressive and I doubt you're going to get many more (which is the target).

Wouldn't it be a much better idea to just add irregular warfare training to the courses 'normal' infantry has to complete? I don't see why it would be absolutely necessary to make the extreme physical demands put on SOF troops part of the criteria to receive training and conduct missions within that spectrum. I imagine that in many cases you could do with less, easing the workload on the SOF would be both cheaper and easier.

Just got done reading several articles on SOF and interagency coordination (thrilling, I know). It seems that Afghanistan started to unravel after Khalilzad and LTG Barno rotated out. Those two had a tightly integrated civil-military command structure that was pretty effective in working on building Afghanistan's governance early on. Their replacements started running the civilian and military operations independently--a lot more conventional/kinetic operations (Eikenberry, I believe), which increased civilian casualties and started the downward spiral, with no complementary civil operations to shore it up or check the military ops. By the time McChrystal got there and put a more integrated structure in place with the ambassador, it was too little, too late.

At least, that's how I summarized the ~8 disparate articles I read.

As for SOF, there should be more IW training (language, culture, etc) in the conventional forces, in order to allow the SOF to focus more on the mission sets we need them for today and going forward: CT, HR, etc.

There was a book I read that touched on that topic, FEOS. 
Will try to figure out which one(s) when I get home later.
May have been by Bing West.

Who the fuck is this guy?

Turq is back? wtf.

After a 3 month hiatus

Last edited by Trotskygrad (2012-01-11 09:29:13)

Trotskygrad wrote:

Turq is back? wtf.

After a 3 month hiatus

9 months 

rdx-fx wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

In hindsight, the whole invasion was just a bad idea in general.  We just need to get out ASAP.

The invasion wasn't so much the problem - when there was still a clear mission objective
Would've had Saddam and Osama relatively quickly, if the White House hadn't fucked up Tora Bora ("let the locals capture Osama.. oops, they let him escape into Pakistan? My bad!")

Hanging around for the next 10 years, using Western forces to try and solve 1300 years of accumulated Middle Eastern problems - not such a good idea.

President & Congress set policy, Joint Chiefs and the Generals set strategy, Field Commanders set tactics.
When the policy makers start setting strategy, things get difficult.
When the policy makers start setting tactics, you've already lost (Above mentioned "let the locals capture Osama" screwup)

Good points...  still, I don't know.  Maybe we should have taken the Taliban up on their original offer of handing Osama over to a third country during an arbitration period.

Dilbert_X wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

Maybe we should have taken the Taliban up on their original offer of handing Osama over to a third country during an arbitration period.

Well duh.

It's rather naïve to believe that they would've actually handed over OBL on request to a 3rd party. They were just stalling for time.

I'm not that outraged by a bunch of marines pissing on some taliban, infact I don't even give a shit, but all things considered these guys fucked up...why video tape it, these are the same retards that video tape themselves doing stupid illegal shit in america and then somehow they got into the marines

Mekstizzle wrote:

I'm not that outraged by a bunch of marines pissing on some taliban, infact I don't even give a shit, but all things considered these guys fucked up...why video tape it, these are the same retards that video tape themselves doing stupid illegal shit in america and then somehow they got into the marines

I've seen worse.

damn mooslims