Taliban declares victory in Afghanistan
The Taliban decided that since the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) rolled up their Operation Enduring Freedom flag the other day, they’ve won in Afghanistan, according to Reuters;
“ISAF rolled up its flag in an atmosphere of failure and disappointment without having achieved anything substantial or tangible,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in an statement emailed on Monday.
About 13,000 foreign troops, mostly Americans, will remain in the country under a new, two-year mission named “Resolute Support” that will continue the coalition’s training of Afghan security forces to fight the insurgents, who have killed record numbers of Afghans this year.
Really, it’s like dealing with the Lemon Party Triad. We beat the snot out of them in court and they act like they’re winning.
But, in Afghanistan it might seem true to more than the Taliban. Refugees are fleeing to Kabul to escape the Taliban in the vacuum left by NATO troops, according to Christian Science Monitor;
Thousands of Afghans are pouring into makeshift camps in the capital where they face a harsh winter as the Taliban return to areas once cleared by foreign forces, who this week are marking the end of their combat mission.
[…]
This has been the bloodiest year of the war for civilians, with the toll of dead and wounded expected to hit 10,000 for the first time since the U.N. began keeping records in 2008.
Has anyone seen Hamid Karzai lately?
Category: Terror War
Yeah,
I’d say it’s pretty much like this….
1. Can the ANA read a grid yet?
2. Does the ANA have their own SHARP program?
Most likely the answer to both of the above is “no”, in which case we still have work to do.
I think it will be a bloody spring. The Pashtuns aren’t ones to rest while they celebrate victory.
I hope our egress does not include a march from Kabul to Jbad.
Which doctor do you think would make it out? Someone be sure to give him a horse.
That’s like Moms Demand Bloomberg drone Shannon Watts declaring that the NRA is “scared” of her, because they finally blocked her drivel on Twitter. (While at the same time blocking every single Second Amendment advocate she can find)
Exactly. Leftists don’t like debate because facts and science are not on their side. They rely on feelings and personal attacks. To paraphrase Debbie Wasserman Schultzs’ favorite line: “We’re moving this country forward away from the failed policies of the past.” Brilliant DWS.
According to a ABC article (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-29/nato-formally-ends-afghan-mission-after-13-years/5990788) the ceremony for the casing of the ISAF colors was held in secret for fear of Taliban Attacks
Pretty much sums up the war to me as an OEF vet
‘Resolute Support’? What in the blue-eyed world is that supposed to mean?
Must everything we do in foreign countries have a clever but asinine title so that the news media can latch onto it while they prep for the grins and sound bites on camera?
When are these ‘titles’ going to mean something, like Operation Kill Those Assholes? That quickly becomes Operation Katy Alpha and the real meaning behind it is not lost in confused rhetoric on the evening news.
You know, there was a time when operations received code names and were intended to actually accomplish something. Operation Torch secured northwest Africa and made sure the French authorities there wouldn’t continue their not-particularly-secret collaboration with the nazis (the only time in the whole war that my Grandpa ever came under fire from a battleship was off Morocco, that battleship being French). Operation Husky wrested Sicily from the Axis, and caused Mussolini’s downfall. Operation Market Garden was supposed to open a corridor into Germany and end the war by Christmas 1944. The only problem was that it was planned by Montgomery after he started believing his own bullshit. Hell, Vietnam had Operation Linebacker (1 and 2).
Of course, Churchill did start the trend of operations having to have “grand” names, though he pitched it as a morale builder. Thus Operation Soapsuds, the B-24 strike against Ploesti, became Operation Tidal Wave. And the Normandy landings were named Operation Overlord. And the planned invasion of Japan was going to be called Operation Downfall.
Then somewhere along the way somebody decided that combat operations had to have “marketable” names, because God forbid they put winning a conflict ahead of advertizing. And just look how well that’s worked out since 1993.
Operation names are more meant for our benefit more than the enemy’s, to be honest. However, they show also what you’re trying to do, what kind of energy you want to bring to this fight.
Operation Barbarossa [German invasion of Russia, 22 June 1941], for instance, harkened back to a German king renowned for being a conquerer. It showed that they were going for all-or-nothing; they wouldn’t stop until all of Russia was in their possession. They got pretty bloody close to getting it.
While an operation may not strike fear in the heart of your enemy, it will at least give yourself something to think about. I’m sure when Allied forces boarded their transports, airborne and naval, to strike the coasts and crossroads of Normandy, they must have thought about what they were going to do, and that they were fighting the Overlords who had conquered France, and that they would be the new Overlords sent to free a conquered people.
So, yeah. A softer name for a softer mission is all well and good, but it’s not going to have the same effect as something that says that we’re here to *win*.
Don’t worry, gentlemen. It won’t be long before you get to go back over there and continue where you left off.
/sarc
Wonder if the Taliban are interested in buying a banner to demonstrate their victory. I think the Navy may still have one they would pay them to take.
Oh snap. You mean it’s not already at the GWB Presidential Library and Museum in Texas?
http://meetthematts.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/g-cvr-080501-mission-10a.grid-6×2.jpg
I’ve always believed that as long as even one of those goat fuckers was still alive and could crawl out of his cave, he would stand up and declare victory over America and somebody would believe him.
Bastards.
One day, buddy, one day… One day you Taliban bastards aren’t going to be running Afghanistan anymore, and maybe, *just maybe*, the people that you oppress will be able to understand what freedom is.
But until then, enjoy your victory.
We’ll be back.
And we won’t pull punches.
The people that they oppress are too fucking lazy to do anything about it…. they and their attitude are the problem. They have a fucked up system over there, from our perspective, but it has been working for them for thousands of years. I used to ask the terps about “The Taliban” and they would always say “ah the fucking Pakistanis”. So then I asked them if the Tangi Valley was full of Pakistanis, or perhaps the Ankai Valley. They would say “no, the Tangi Valley is Tangi Valley people, not Pakistanis.” Yeah well, NEWS FLASH, The Tangi Valley was hard core Taliban. So was the Ankai Valley with all the non-Pakistani Ankai people. (Insert Korengal, Pech, etc. here.) All the younger Afghans that I could converse with wanted to come to the USA but they didn’t want to fight to make Afghanistan approximate the USA. I’d talk to them about representative government and they would be all for it, until I’d ask if they someday might have a female president. I don’t recall how “FUCK NO” translates from Pashto. Hundreds of Billions of Dollars and thousands of lives later and they still don’t get it.
Countdown to that crooked bastard Kharzai asking us to come back begins now…