Ghani outlines Afghan strategy
Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani had an interview with NPR during which he outlined the new strategy for the war in Afghanistan, according to Foreign Policy Magazine;
The plan has a four-year time frame which “involves the goal of really bringing 80 percent of the territory of the country under control,” Ghani said. The Taliban currently hold sway over about 50 percent of the country, making the taking and holding of that much ground difficult, and likely costly.
Ghani also said plans call for doubling the country’s special forces from 12,000 to over 20,000, increasing the number of U.S.supplied aircraft and helicopters, and installing American advisors “at the division level to make sure that the systems processes are there.”
Defense Secretary Mattis said earlier this week that about 3,000 U.S. troops will head for Afghanistan in the near future, bolstering the U.S. force there to about 14,000, the highest level since 2014. About 2,000 troops from the 82nd Airborne Division have already started shipping out, Stars and Stripes reports.
Stars & Stripes reports that a Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction filed a report which criticized US trainers for the Afghan National Police;
“One U.S. officer watched TV shows like ‘Cops’ and ‘NCIS’ to learn what he should teach,” SIGAR director John F. Sopko said, while speaking at a gathering in Washington on Thursday.
The report said the U.S. training effort was ill-prepared from the outset, failing “to understand the complexities of the mission,” and highlighted early U.S. partnerships with independent militias and politically constrained deadlines by Washington as undermining factors.
“Ultimately, the United States designed a force that was not able to provide nationwide security, especially as that force faced a larger threat than anticipated after the drawdown of coalition military forces,” the 283-page SIGAR report said.
Yeah, if no one saw the possibility of “a larger threat than anticipated after the drawdown of coalition military forces” we need to clean out the officers corps. The Taliban was just biding their time waiting for the timetable to run out and it has paid off for them.
Category: Terror War
Let’s not forget that the previous Administration gave the Taliban a timeline for when they could start retaking territory when President Trump’s predecessor announced a withdrawal timetable. That and most Afghans will switch sides and alliances at the drop of a hat, they were that way not just with the Red Army, the same with the British and everyone else that wasted their time trying to teach them about being civilized.
In their defense, API, survival in a volatile and hostile environment leads them to very “iffy” alliances.
Not that this makes their “culture” any less barbaric and despicable.
Is that a polite way to say “untrustworthy backstabbing bastards”?
They play a highly successful survival strategy, that is optimized for their local conditions, that they have been playing for over three millennia.
Was anyone expecting them to change for our convenience?
Pick one bunch that least annoys us. Support their depredations against the others, just enough to keep the place inwardly-focused, at as much distance as works. As needed, keep them busy annoying each other. Get as far away from there as we can, before the “resemble your enemy” contagion becomes too entrenched in -us-.
Otherwise, genocide would probably be required to make a dent in that mess.
They’re that way to each other as well, I remember seeing the ANA (Afghan national Army) and the ANP (Afghan National Police) fight each other tooth and nail like Tomcats with their tails tied together!
Ghengis Kahn unified Afghanistan, it’s a damn shame we can’t use his methods.
“The plan has a four-year time frame”
My plan has a 90 day time frame.
With lots and lots of bombs.
Multiple MOABs making many mighty manipulations?
It’s no hidden fact we sent Private Joe Schmuckatelli in to train police forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan then were surprised at the results
Hell as an Artilleryman I got tasked with establishing a sanitation department
Since Desert Storm the US people and Government think we (the Military) can do ANYTHING
The bad part is we tend to believe it
Because more often than not, we manage to succeed thanks to the ingenuity of the American G.I. We’ve started to believe our own hype.
Yep. I suspect once the Afghani Special Forces are trained up, a good number of the 12K to 20K will cross-deck over to the Taliban.
I hope the ROE has changed because I’m certain the Blue on Green killings will start again.
My plan has a one-week timeframe.
1 – Clear the troops out.
2 – Blow the bases to rubble.
3 – Spatter bomb the entire area twice, and once more for good measure.
4 – Drone the poppy fields with a non-reproducing GMO component that will keep the poppies from setting seed heads.
4 – Go home.
I used some weedkiller earlier this year that was supposed to ONLY kill weeds and not St. Augustine… 2/3 of my yard ended up looking like it had been hit with Agent Orange. Stuff killed the weeds, the grass, plant based fabrics, landing interstellar aliens, anything downwind, and probably is STILL killing plants downstream of the Harvey flooding for all I know. Use that on the poppies…their economy will revert to its normal GDP of $27.67 annually.
OR just tag the poppy fields with some 2,4D and they can still grow corn or wheat afterwards.
Burn it all to the ground…
Firebomb the poppy fields. Keep firebombing them until they get the idea that they can make more money from growing potatoes and tomatoes (just like Mexico Lindo) than they can from growing opium fields.
I’m trying to remember if it was Sulla who plowed the fields and then salted them, so that they’d grow nothing, or someone else.
If you really want to put a stop to that unadulterated crap, you have to be as brutal as they are, or worse. And I don’t think WE have anyone who is like that now.
“The Taliban was just biding their time waiting for the timetable to run out”
From what I have read the Taliban did not “bide their time”. If there is documentation of such a decrease in Taliban activity due to their waiting for US troops to leave I would love to see it.
I don’t think there was a break in what the Taliban were doing. Last spring, they invaded a hospital by helicopter, killed off patients and staff and held people hostage, but I do not recall if they made any demands or were just being assholes.
The “plan” summed up:
“In 4 years I will leave Afghanistan with billions of US dollars in my secret accounts and live very well in Europe”
There, FIFY
Why not, it worked for Kharzi.
Stop giving them money. Use it at hope. Our troops need better training.
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I wonder what is in this new “Four Year Plan” that wasn’t in the 16-yr. plan that just finished.