An honest assessment of our chances in Afghanistan

[0tt]

So I was hanging out with Daniel Ellsberg the other day and naturally questions regarding current leaks of military intelligence came up. He threw out the Eikenberry cables, a brutally honest assessment of our standing in Afghanistan by the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry, who has served in multiple tours of Afghanistan before this position as well as a Chief of the Strategy, Plans and Policy Directorate of the United States Department of the Army blah blah blah so on and so forth.

Anyways, http://documents.nytimes.com/eikenberry ... fghanistan

We're fucked, trying to occupy a country that has prided itself on repelling every invader for over 2000 years. We lack the troops and we will never have anything close tot he troops needed without a draft and we'll loose the US all together if we even try that. We're on our second puppet government which is even more corrupt than the first and responsible for about %70 of the opium trade coming from that country (Taliban is in the 4-7 percentile) and we have a President cowtowing to commanders out of fear of political defection and just like Nam not wanting to have the stigma of war end badly during his administration so just running out a bloody engagement in perpetuity till he can get out of there.

But don't take my word for it.

[cr4shb0t]

Shoot, they even let old guys like me back in. Draft is right around the corner.

I'll see it first hand in June.

[PlagueDog]

I hate you Crash. It's not fair, goddamn it.

How much you want for "accidentally" stuffing me into your seabag before you deploy?

[cr4shb0t]

Sure, but you can't bring that funny hat.

[Soldier Of Misfortune]

Try April.

See you there.

[Slide Rail]

I hate you Crash. It's not fair, goddamn it.

How much you want for "accidentally" stuffing me into your seabag before you deploy?

You coulda been a trigger puller, PD but you had to go for that graphic design job. I dunno. It's crazy, I'm out of the army after eight years and I have a beard. Which is awesome. To enlistees, re-enlistees and one marine looking to get his feet wet, I wish you the best of luck.

On a more sober note, I am not optimistic. I'm just sitting here trying to figure out how we lost the war that we won. I pray that things improve, that we can fight off the taliban (the one good side of this is that the afghan people know who and what they are, though they rule by the gun which has a habit of invalidating opinion polls) but at the same time, the taliban functions as a sort of permanent insurgency and insurgencies are rarely successful. That being said, I'm not holding out much hope for this one.

[Soldier Of Misfortune]

Thanks for the Luck slide.

From all the seemingly endless briefs on cultural awareness and history we get, it seems the problem has, does, and will lie in 'Pashtunistan' that is the tribal areas and southern Afghanistan along the border of Pakistan that most Pashtuns (who have and still controll and make up majority of the countries population) there don't really recognize because most of the people on either side of this border are or where afghans. Its complicated but basically the Taliban are the sons of displaced afghan refugees from previous wars who where taught and raised by our infamous enemy and now cross freely into Pakistan and back to fight us. Kind of a Cambodian border syndrome if you will.

From the countless speakers and briefs, we've been told we're going to loose unless we can get Pakistan on board. Not to mention some are pointing fingers at Pakistanini secret service still funding Taliban, great.

[PlagueDog]

I hate you Crash. It's not fair, goddamn it.

How much you want for "accidentally" stuffing me into your seabag before you deploy?

You coulda been a trigger puller, PD but you had to go for that graphic design job. I dunno. It's crazy, I'm out of the army after eight years and I have a beard. Which is awesome. To enlistees, re-enlistees and one marine looking to get his feet wet, I wish you the best of luck.

The thing is, my MOS field normally is one of the most deployed non-Infantry jobs in the entire Marine Corps; if I wanted to just do my 4 years and get out with little hustle I'd have gone with an admin job. I can't speak for the Army, but in the Marine Corps, Combat Camera is pretty much exactly what it sounds like; half the people I went to MOS school with are in Afghanistan now, or are about to be... I was just one of the poor bastards that had to fill in the numbers at Quantico. Whatever, 1-2 more years and I can put in for orders to PCS to the next deploying unit.

[Soldier Of Misfortune]

That sucks man. You must be super frustrated, i'd be. They almost pulled me off deployment to make room for a mechanic simply cause I don't have as much T.I. as the other guys in Battalion. When I say I went into the black I mean it, like that'd had been 2 years, and literally 2 months away from finally being at the pinnacle of what I trained for and have it taken away for some bureaucratic B.S.

[Slide Rail]

Eyup. Well, PD look at this time as a gift. Use it to help get your family situated and yourself trained up. Read your field manuals and throw some infantry doctrine in their once in a while so you know what the grunts are talking about and how to better mesh with them. Make sure your weapons knowledge is spot on and if you still want to deploy in a couple of years, do it right.

[faktory_reject242]

I wish I could go to Afghanistan. I hear you can rape any woman you want and kill any man you want as long as you put a gun in their dead hands and say they shot first. Isn't that awesome? Rape and murder, and be a hero when you return? Sign me up!

[0tt]

Please, the rape, sometimes used as "Harsh Interrogation Techniques" went out with Rumsfeld.

The only perk now is getting to dig your bullets out of dead pregnant teenagers to cover up your tracks. I mean if thats your bag.

[faktory_reject242]

According to someone I know that served over there recently, the rape thing is a common occurance and isnt JUST an interrogation "technique". The worst thing really is that these scumbags are never held responsible for anything they do, obviously. I mean, I'm not saying EVERY soldier is doing it of course, but the military certainly attracts a shit-ton of people of varying degrees of questionable morality.

Even the ones with the best intentions in the world are still being duped into dying for something that only benefits a select few. I'm sure you army guys will throw something in my face like "we fight for your rights" and of course the classic "you have no idea how good you have it" To which I reply, "You don't know how good it should be" and if you want to fight for people's rights start here in fucking America and Europe where the real threat to freedom is. Don't tell me you beleive in the Bill of Rights if you support the Patriot Act.

Yeah, we're pretty free compared to China and places with VERY totalitarian governments, but we're not as free as some people here make us out to be. The sad thing is we're controlled by choice, really, since no one knows any better.

[Slide Rail]

Here we go again...

Hey Factory, I don't suppose that it'd be too much to ask for you to supply some supporting documentation seeing as you've never been there, would never go there and only provide a second-hand anecdote to back things up. Especially when you cast a really wide net like that.

[cr4shb0t]

Thats why I re enlisted, so i can rape and murder civilians. Shit, it was even in the new enlistment contract and you get a bonus if you wave the flag and shout "I'm fighting for your rights" while you are doing it!

Fucking toolbag.