Losing the psy-ops war in Afghanistan
The Taliban is ready to take back Afghanistan after the US withdraws, says Reuters in a link sent to us by Tman;
“The classified document in question is a compilation of Taliban detainee opinions,” he said. “It’s not an analysis, nor is it meant to be considered an analysis.”
Nevertheless, it could be interpreted as a damning assessment of the war, dragging into its 11th year and aimed at blocking a Taliban return to power.
The Associated Press reports that interviews with Taliban POWs shows broadly that they’re convinced that all they have to do is wait out the US withdrawal in order to declare victory;
“Obviously they are telling us what their idea is about the goings on of their campaign,” said Brig. Gen. Carsten Jacobson, a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF. “It is what they either do believe or what they want us to believe.”
He said most of the captured fighters think that “they are still having a successful role” on the ground but that perception was wrong and NATO was not planning to change its strategy because of it in any way.
“The insurgency is clearly on the back foot. We have been pressurizing them over the summer, we have taken vast amounts of land out of their hands and we have detained a high number” of militants, Jacobson said.
Yeah, well, it looks like no one has told the Taliban that they’re losing.
USAToday reports that BBC has uncovered a secret document that admits what we all have known – that the Pakistani ISI knows where the top leaders of the Taliban and al Qaeda are stashed;
The report is based on 27,000 interrogations with more than 4,000 captured Taliban, al-Qaeda and other foreign fighters and civilians.
Though it has not yet officially commented, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency has denied previous allegations that it supports or is linked to the Taliban.
The BBC’s Kabul correspondent said the report “fully exposes for the first time” the relationship between the Taliban and the ISI.
The Pentagon has not seen the NATO report, a spokesman told the BBC.
That’s probably because no one takes us seriously anymore. Our “surges” are drips and drabs of manpower increases and we celebrate the pin point attacks with drones instead of forcing our enemies into dramatic conflagrations of massive firepower and commitment of forces.
The only real battles are being fought at the enemies’ times and places of their choosing. NATO can claim to control large areas of actual geography, but they don’t control the battlefield.
Category: Terror War
Your last paragraph sounds an awfully lot like another counterinsurgency fought on the other side of Asia about 40 years ago. What happened to lessons learned?
Well, TopGoz, when the administration’s main goal in this war has been withdrawal instead of breaking the will of our enemies, what is the Taliban’s motivation for stopping the fight? The last ten years obviously haven’t taught the Taliban anything except that all they have to do is wait and hide from our firepower and outlast public opinion. At this point, I really don’t see the point of remaining in Afghanistan past the end of this month if we’re going to continue putt-putting along like we’ve been doing for a decade.
And talking about lessons learned from Vietnam, we let al-Sadr hide out safely in Iran, and we’re allowing the Taliban and their leaders to hide out in Pakistan. Our enemies learned that they can use amorphic geographic boundaries as safe areas from our treatment of the NVA. We should be surprising the living shit out of them. But we’re too scared of world opinion to fight the war to win it.
Funny, working directly in the human terrain for the last 9 1/2 (June will make 10) years, with two deployments, having spoken directly to the people there and elsewhere, could’ve had me fooled. The Afghan’s I talked to all HATE the Talibs, say they will do anything to keep them out, and the hearts and minds are ours and GIROA’s, as long as we stop collateral damage. To me, this just means grasping at straws on a slow news day.
Lucky; What is the motivation of Afghans to support us in public when they know we’re only preparing to leave them to the Taliban’s devices. Our own public opinion hasn’t been exactly supportive of the Afghans since the very beginning. There was a protest against the war in Afghanistan in DC before the we planted the first boot there.
“as long as we stop collateral damage”
There’s always collateral damage in war. Nothing you can do, short of just not fighting at all, will stop that fact.
Uh…..of course they’ll wait it out….they f’n LIVE there……
that’s why you don’t telegraph plays…..
Like the old saying goes, “Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it”. Since the Pussies on the Potomac live in a perpetual state of “Ground Hog Day” and are more interested in appeasing and winning elections than winnning a war for our safety and security. They’re too busy on their knees to every filthy hippy and other low life dwellers at the bottom of the gene pool both here and abroad.
Fuck’em and let’em eat fish heads.
Jonn, I was in Afghanistan when the Iraq Surge was going on, in my humble opinion, Rumsfeld BOHICA’d us when he chose to ignore Afghanistan and focus on the Iraq war, taking resources and Soldiers that could have been used to shore up OEF. As you point out, what is the motivation? The Afghans WANT a brighter future for their children, they want them educated, they WANT them to have a country to inherit. Sadly, I do not think certain people in certain big mono-colored houses in DC understand that, or even give a shit. They don’t care, because they are too focused on killing our budget instead of Taliban, and too focused on staying for four more years. Its a shame really, the Carter era seems to be back….
To All: We lost the war in A-stan the second we weren’t determined to win it. I mean think about it, from about 2003-2008 all the entire country gave a shit about was Iraq. During that time a host of really bad descisions were made in A-stan. We could easily have recovered, and indeed have to *some* degree. But rather than show the raw determination to win, we have said: “hey we actually didn’t lose in Iraq? How can that be? We had to lose somewhere. . .OH THAT’s right, we’re still in Afghanistan.”
We could in theory still win in A-stan. But it would require for us to double down (AGAIN!!!) and go with the sense that not only are we going to kill our enemy, but we are going to leave our allies in such a strong position that they need not fear.
As an aside 80% of the worlds Heroin comes from A-stan. I think its something like 30% of the Pot. Imagine if they were no longer growing those particular crops, how much better our country would be
We have been in Afghanistan for more than nine years now. Obama has been president for three of those. What would you suggest to do differently? Should we put 600,000 troops there for the next 30 years? Even after that the Afghan people still will not love Israel, sing our praises, end radical Islam, or band together as one big happy family. We can spend trillions of dollars building hospitals for them, roads, schools, government buildings, and shoring up their housing, health care, and general welfare. I don’t see that working out for us.
@#3 Lucky, I agree with you that they are telling our people that they agree with us and want the Taliban out, there is a good possibility that they tell the Taliban that they agree with them and want the US out. They just want to get through the week alive. Until we go back to treating it like a real war, ‘katie Bar The door’ so to say, we will still have the enemy choosing when and where to fight. If we are not willing to take the gloves off then bring then bring the troops home. The troops are doing everything asked of them and willing to do what ever it takes to win this war, problem is those in DC don’t want to win it.
RLTW
Lucky, I know you work in CA and have infintely more time interacting with the afghan populace than my infantry ass but from my experience of 38 months slugging it out with these fucks, they are all filthy liars and they only tell us what we want to hear. They are going to tell you they want schools and brighter futures and blah blah blah so they can keep Uncle Sam’s money spigot pouring out taxpayer dollars into their infrastructure and their pockets . The minute we leave Karzai is going to show his true colors (he is Pashtun so he naturally hates everyone else that isn’t) and roll over to Haqqani, the ISI, and the Taliban and everyone else that he secretly works for. Poor farmer Mohammed who told us he wanted a brighter future for his kids is going to go back to his mud hut and suck up to whatever local warlord runs the joint and figure out how he is going to make money now that we left and can’t sell his HME to blow us up anymore. Fuck the afghans.
#13 Ne Desit Virtus
Exactly. Thank you.
Guys, I am and hopefully forever will be an optimist, so I agree that the war is still winnable, and I hope the Afghans still have good intentions, but I do not see DC as having the testicular fortitude to do what has to be done. They want to cut and run, and when in history has that ever been a good idea? Its the only strategy they know, run, bury head in sand, hope problem goes away, repeat….
Honestly, I think we lost the war the first time someone decided that we were going to fight a war that the media could film instead of the war that would be rated R for most audiences. We let the media tell us to stop following Hussein’s columns back to Baghdad in 1991 and we had to go back in 2003 to finish the job.
Those people over there don’t understand how civilized we are, they think it’s a weakness to exploit.
We made the Afghans “partners” in the beginning and they screwed us, and we kept smiling and shaking hands with them. War is total and the politicians aren’t prepared to accept that. And my criticism is nonpartisan.
I just don’t see a “winnable” outcome. If we commit 5 million troops for the next 400 years, at the end what have we accomplished? They will all still be followers of Islam. They will still have a deep hatred for Israel. They will still do terrible bad things to children.
And they will still have a hand out asking for more American money.
@#13 and #16–Spot on, and well said.
My ideal scenario would have been this…
A Punitive Campaign from D+1. Go in with SOF and Lt Infantry (USSOCOM is the Supported Command, CENTCOM the Supporting Command)…heavy CAS capability, both fixed and rotary wing. As for NATO…fuck that…WE were attacked, and other than a couple of staunch allies who know how to fight and who did fight, the rest were about as useful as teats on a boar hog. We fight it out alone.
Pound the shit out of the Talibs, AQ, foreign fighters, and anyone else who supports them.
After about 12-18 months, call a shura in Kabul (or what is left of it) and let them know that we’re leaving…BUT, we will be watching and listening (technical means), and that if whoever is “in charge” of Afghanistan allows any fundamentalist Islamic organization to set up there and directly or indirectly attack US vital interests or citizens in CONUS or OCONUS, then we will come back and make the past year/year and a half seem like a Wednesday night Southern Baptist prayer meeting in comparison.
Then, we withdraw and don’t spend one cent on rebuilding that or any other shithole.
I agree Jonn, but the concept of total war died with a whimper when the chinese hordes came screaming across the Yalu and Truman shit canned Macarthur. Since then the politicians and the media have taken the wheel of every war and conflict since then. The slow liberal drift to the left has ensured that we will be enslaved to political correctness so we don’t hurt anyone’s feelings. The difficult thing about these wars are that in order to wage total war in Afghanistan it would almost have to be a de facto war against islam itself. Political and ideological opponents can be defeated in due time when war is waged with sufficient intensity and determination. But we aren’t fighting for regime change or to stop the spread of fascism or communism. We are fighting an opponent who is motivated by religion and believes they have a divine right to rule the world and exists all over the world and even in our own country. In the end the we are just a finely honed military that can accomplish the impossible and kept on a very short leash by slimy politicians and lawyers and sadly I don’t see that coming to an end anytime soon
@#4 Heck Jonn, we are about to release some high value Taliban detainees. Besides if we are negotiating privately with them now, then the writing is on the wall. The sad thing is I bet we went to them to have the meetings, which suggest, whether its true or not, that they are the ones negociating from a position of strength.
Turn off the lights and don’t even worry about locking the doors folks!
RLTW
@ #19 NDV, I think the 1st gulf war showed we knew how to still fight a total war. Even in the war in Iraq, we did a great job, heck we were a division short then thanks to Turkey. Now did we handle the aftermath correct is up to debate.
RLTW
Looking at the long game, there was a two-part decision made under then-President Bush to confine the campaign to Afghanistan’s borders; and to trust Pakistan to fight the war on terror within its own borders. Saying Rumsfeld erred by focusing on Iraq vice A-stan is to overlook that he could not do otherwise, by order of the President.
Twin mistakes, yes. Is the war winnable? Only by throwing off the shackles of borders and the fine tradition of fighting with both hands tied behind our back. Didn’t work in Korea. Didn’t work in Viet Nam. Won’t work in Afghanistan.
Would be nice to see if the Afghans kick the Arab Taliban’s ass. Not holding my breath.
I have no doubt whatsoever that we “know” how to wage total war. Whether the gubbermint is willing to release the hounds is a whole other story. I disagree with the 1st gulf war being total war. We smashed their army of cannon fodder and brushed them aside with ease as we should but Bush stopped them short for political reasons. To leave Hussein in power was nothing short of a monumental fuck up. We should have wiped out their military and their ability to wage war completely and popped smoke. Now I know some folks may get into the semantics of geopolotics and how there would have been a power vaccuum in the middle east and all that but I’m not that smart. It was a brilliant war against a paper tiger and our boys kicked ass but far from total war in my opinion. As Spigot says in #18, this whole policy of cleaning up and rebuilding for these festering shitholes is retarded. Its not our fault you were a dumbass, you clean up the mess. The aftermath of OIF was another colossal fuck up. Bremer and his cronies disbanding the Iraqi military after the initial invasion was incredibly myopic and short sighted and I would say the prime reason why the insurgency was so strong.
Got back from my last OEF tour and my great uncle, Marine old salt, BAR gunner, Iwo Jima Vet, asked me how many tours I have had, I tell him, he goes “why the hell so many, why not just one and win”.
I cannot tell you how embarassed I was.
Thanks for the basic report and all the comments.
My concern is that the US now espouses a position of retreat. That will not work. Our enemies gloat and will not negotiate in good faith. They simply wait us out.
Our friends–and we do have friends in Afghanistan–lose heart. They do not want to see their families killed off. They do not want the extreme harshness that seems to be today’s Sharia. So they back away also from the struggle. Can you blame them for searching for other living places outside Afghanistan?
Whether for good or bad, the USA is the main leading nation in the world. Leaders must show courage and determination while also insuring that our goals and activities come from the highest moral standards. We wish well to our friends and even to our enemies. For our friends, we must never desert them. For our enemies, we are always willing to talk and even reach agreements (“Trust but verify” were the watchwords of one Great President”).
Enough for now. Keep up the good work. I list “Viet Nam Veteran and soldier” as my main achievements. I am in Viet Nam currently on the Cambodian border. People can always email me at meissnerjoseph@yahoo.com
The US is getting its assed kicked in psy ops not only because the tactics that the US uses to advanace the interets of its Capitalist ruling elite are so counterproductive to the stated goals of the US but becasue it is so obvious to so many people aroung the world that the stated goals and the real goals of US Policies are so divergent. Take Lybia as a recent example. We were aledgedly supporting freedom fighters agianst a brutal dictatorship. Yet one of the first things that the new ruler in Libya spoke about was a return to poligamy. People often say that poligamy is an anti feminist policy. Damn people are stupid. Poligamy is equally an anti male. If some men have four wives many men will have NONE AT ALL. It really means that RICH MEN will have four wives and those who are not so rich have to suffer. It is just another example of CLASS WAREFARE. If Libyans are so stunted that they wish to return to this tradition for the sake of nostolgia We suppose we should pity them. We certianly did not have to help people who hold such views to take power. WAY TO GO NATO!!! Yes the US is the world’s most powerful nation. It in no way shape or form should be. The leadership of the US is no more deserving of their power than Pol Pot. Yet because the American people are either blind to the faults of their leaders or, because they think that despite our own collective barbaric behavior that we are somehow worthy of declaring ourselves supirior to other barbarians, we are like the Green Bay Packers. We have to fight for the championship even when we are not Scheduled to play in the game. Our leaders convince us to suit up travel a great distance and march on to the field becasue we can not accept the fact that we are no longer the world champions. The leadership then charges us for the plane tickets with a huge markup. When the leaders tell us it… Read more »
From the Reuters article- “The report’s findings – including assertions that the Taliban had not formally split from international extremists – could also reinforce the view of Taliban hard-liners that they should not negotiate with the United States and President Hamid Karzai’s unpopular government while in a position of strength.” There is a certain somebody here(he knows who he is), I have been making this very point to. From S&S-“Over the past two years the militants have taken a pounding in their southern heartland, and foreign troops have escalated a campaign against them in eastern Afghanistan. Hundreds of their low- and mid-level Taliban commanders have also been picked up in night raids carried out by Afghan and coalition forces.” Yes, but almost all that success has been done in the South and there are still a few pockets we haven’t gotten to yet down there. The South should be moving to an advisory role, and the manpower rolled to the East and North. That will not happen because of the drawdown. Nuristan and large parts of Kunar are under near full enemy control. Nevermind the two Pak provinces that the Haqqanis are mostly in. From Jonn-“Our “surges” are drips and drabs of manpower increases and we celebrate the pin point attacks with drones instead of forcing our enemies into dramatic conflagrations of massive firepower and commitment of forces.” First half of sentence is correct but then second not so much. If we can force the enemy to large scale battles where we can use our firepower advantage and better personal, thats great. Our emphasis should be securing the population, culling their shadow apparatus’, and draining the swamp in which they operate. That would take two birds out with one stone, we would elimante the local guerrillas upon who they depend on for governance, supply, and intel. Second it would make it that much harder for them to use/hide/conceal/send large “regular” formations without our notice and counteraction. Their asses would be ours. That is almost exactly what happened down South. #10 Doc-“We could in theory still win in A-stan. But it… Read more »
Linus and Lucy and whatever the hell your name is. Your posts make my head hurt. Your ability to string together a coherent thought is non-existent. After 9-11 I’m pretty sure the well being of afghan women and the production of opium were just about the last fucking thing any of us gave a rat’s ass about. The only ones that might have cared are the same bleeding heart altruists that don’t have the nut sack to join up because it would ruin their comfy lives of protesting and dope smoking. Green Bay Packer complex? I want some of whatever it is your on.
@#27…I don’t understand your question “…how the hell do you get access to the country?”
How do you think we got access in the first place? By air…
When you own the sky…and the APOD/Es, and the MSRs, and it’s a light campaign…the fact that it is landlocked is really immaterial.
The reason we have to bring so much in via Pakistan is because we allowed NATO to become involved and we brought in too many heavy units.
We’re fighting insurgents…not the 3rd Guards Tank Army.
28# “Linus and Lucy and whatever the hell your name is.” Just scroll up numbnuts. easy. “Your posts make my head hurt.” Thinking might do that to you. “Your ability to string together a coherent thought is non-existent.” Kind of like you and reading comprehension. “I want some of whatever it is your on.” Bud, I’m not on anything, you I’m not so sure about, since you can’t seem to actually challenge anything I have said. You respond with ambigious insults to mask your own ignorance moron. #29 Air is not practical, for a variety of reason, especially over the amount of time it would take to gather intell and the sheer number of troops needed to hunt down said people. “When you own the sky…and the APOD/Es, and the MSRs, and it’s a light campaign…the fact that it is landlocked is really immaterial.” No it is not and that was apparent before we even had special ops boys in the country in 01′. We stil had to deal for basing rights not just in Pakistan but also in the former Soviets republics to the north. The campaign was light until about 08′ and even then we still didn’t have anywhere near the manpower or aviation assets to even do just a theoretical counterterrorism mission. “The reason we have to bring so much in via Pakistan is because we allowed NATO to become involved and we brought in too many heavy units.” We simply didn’t have a choice, your solution failed for most of the war. Also all of our formations are still pretty light, even our Mech formations have left their APC/Armor behind. This is a manpower intensive war no matter what. Your advocating a special ops led mission that has already failed for half the war. They simply can’t gather enough intel or eliminate enough HVT bad apples to even make a CT mission possible. While their doing that the other entities will gain strength and make te SF mission untenable, thats exactly what happend down south. “We’re fighting insurgents…not the 3rd Guards Tank Army. Maybe so but… Read more »
@30, Cedro—good points, but we’ll just have to “agree to disagree”.
We both see it differently…