"How Did We Turn Success In Afghanistan Into Defeat?" Topic

"Another year, another spring offensive. The massive truck bomb that detonated in Tuesday's morning rush hour followed by gunfire, killing 28 and wounding hundreds more, was sadly nothing new for the Afghan capital. More than 15 years after Western leaders declared victory over the Taliban in Afghanistan, the insurgents now control more territory than at any time since.

In Britain, the attack did not even make the lunchtime news. Western leaders want to pretend the war is over and the media has been falling in line, even though 12,000 NATO troops are still there, including 9,800 Americans and 500 Brits. The wife of one deployed British soldier told me the Post Office refused to take her care package, assuring her "all the troops left long ago."

Instead the focus is on ISIS and Syria and dealing with the wave of refugees overwhelming Europe…"
Full article here
link

Amicalement
Armand

Kyoteblue, seconded.

"We" didn't do it……

Mako, you're right as well, we just took our eye off the ball and allowed things to happen.

No, "we" didn't do that either.

One person did though.

Any successes we've had in Afghanistan were only temporary. Everyone knew that once we leave, Afghanistan will revert back to its natural wild state.

Everyone knew that once we leave, Afghanistan will revert back to its natural wild state.

Add Iraq to that … At this point, after all the US/NATO blood & treasure expended on both countries. They have no one to blame but themselves for their failure to evolve and move into modernity, etc. … Primarily IMO, because they don't want to. They like where they are … for many, many reasons.

Stayed too long…

Didn't stay long enough. History has shown that it takes time to turn dictatorships into functioning democracies. From the end of WWII until the fall of the Soviet Union was almost 50 years. Most of Central/South America and the Pacific countries were in terrible shape. We supported them all the way to keep the Commies out and win the Cold War.

All had issues and we were pilloried for supporting them, but when we did they turned out okay long term. When we didn't we got Vietnam, Cuba, etc. Some of those are still basket cases, e.g. most of Africa.

We cut and ran because it was politically popular to do so. One side ran on a policy of surrender and withdrew totally from Iraq and mostly from Afghanistan in order to get in power and try and stay there. A decent sized force in Iraq would have stopped ISIS before it got 20 miles in the border.

We've seen this over and over again, people just can't look long term at things like this, everyone wants short term answers to major problems that grew over decades.

In Afghanistan you don't 'win', you get to stop them being annoying. The British worked this out in the 1800's, you go in, knock everything flat, tell them to behave nicely and then get out. Paying their neighbours to keep an eye one them and 'fix' anyone getting out of line also helps extend the periods of 'peace' but you do have to keep repeating the exercise every generation or so.

The Afghans are nice welcoming people, they welcome you into the tribal back stabbing morass that has been Afghanistan since before Alexander, and treat you like a local – they smile nicely, had tea with you and then try to kill you and steal everything you have because you are not an immediate blood relative – easy.

Iraq is just the product of trying to dismember the Ottoman Empire as punishment for WW1 – Iraq is made up of all the bits that none of the victorious powers and their supporters wanted, with half the Kurds, various Arab ethnicities – all of who were happily fighting each other when the Turks were not looking – and jamming them all together & hoping they would get on – not happening.

Same thing happened in most of Africa, but for slightly different reasons – trying to shove a bunch of traditional enemies into one small box then running away before it exploded.

The important lesson is to not repeat past mistakes. Learn from the failures and avoid them if at all possible in the future. Oh, and the Coalition was never going to win in Afghanistan. It was doomed from the start because Afghanistan cannot be ruled by anyone. That is the Afghans strength and has been since time immemorial.
Cheers.
Rod Robertson.

One word…

Never going to win in Afghanistan. No-one ever has. How do you defeat a place where the name for enemy and name for someone from the next village is the same? And you will never bring peace to a country where the national pastime is shooting at each other. There's a classic story from the 1920s when a British patrol got ambushed in the Khyber Pass area. After an exchange of fire the British stopped, but were clearly still alive. Puzzled their ambushes called down to find out what was wrong. An apologetic voice came back saying that they had run out of ammo. There was a pause, then the banging of a large wooden box being lowered on a rope. It was a case of .303 ammo. There you are, came the voice from above. Now we can carry on!

The Afghan people know two things. First, is how to grow poppy seeds. Second, how to fight. That is it. If they are not farmers then they fall into the second group. Watch the Taliban and do daily bombings of their training camps. Pull all troops out.

>All had issues and we were pilloried for supporting them, but when we did they turned out okay long term.

You were pilloried because plenty of them were brutal dictatorships.

They turned out okay once they kicked out their dictators and were able to select a path that doesn't involve secret police and people being "disappeared". Same as in plenty of other places around the world in the 90s

We should have done nothing and let the USSR and Muj fight it out. Maybe those like UBL and his minions would have died at the hands of the Russians. Of course hindsight is 20/20 …

"Ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant." The Romans knew how to do it.

Many of us thought it doomed from start:
History of the place
Lessons from the past:
Yet another one with a border untouchable sanctuary ( ok a few drones)
The root of money, training, recruits unharmed.
Too many constraints on fighting, not enough on having to be nice with corrupt allies, drug dealers etc.

A huge waste. Of all the good people who died for this and even more for the thousands maimed who will carry on suffering for years.

I agree with several of the posters. We were never going to win in Afghanistan. No one has in history. This is a case of US ignorance of history, much like in Vietnam, that has led to a failing situation.

Let's start a pool. Once US soldiers pull out how many months will pass before the Taliban is back in power? I am saying 10 months.

so, are there not enough folks in the doghouse or what?

What defeat? We won its the Afgans who can't seem to hold on to the country. Afganistan is not the kind of place we want to stay in very long. It's up to the natives to hold on to it. We won!!

1) A badly planned "political adventure" dictated how the US would deal with the post 9/11 world.
2) Invading Afghanistan was not some amazing achievement only the US could pull off, everyone and their grandmother had done it before, it's holding on to it that's the nasty bit, Someone once said that holding onto Afghanistan was like riding a mad bull, except that the bull has the tail of a scorpion and the head of a cobra …
3) Just like the US funnelled money into opposition groups to get the Soviets, the money machines behind islamic fascism started to pour money into the various groups, cranked up the propaganda and opportunists of various kinds rose up to fill the vacuum or take advantage of the weakness of the central government.

In Afghanistan you don't 'win', you get to stop them being annoying. The British worked this out in the 1800's, you go in, knock everything flat, tell them to behave nicely and then get out. Paying their neighbours to keep an eye one them and 'fix' anyone getting out of line also helps extend the periods of 'peace' but you do have to keep repeating the exercise every generation or so.

Nice to see this, instead of the usual "we've always lost…" bullcrap.

As I have said, my alternate war scenario is : let the Muj & USSR fight it out without US support. UBL and his kind die at Soviet hand. 9/11 probably does not happen … We'll never really know …

That being said …

Let's start a pool. Once US soldiers pull out how many months will pass before the Taliban is back in power? I am saying 10 months.

Yep 6-10 months …

Captain of the Gate:
Quoting Tacitus! Well said, sir!
Cheers.
Rod Robertson.

I bid two months.

"You were pilloried because plenty of them were brutal dictatorships.

They turned out okay once they kicked out their dictators and were able to select a path that doesn't involve secret police and people being "disappeared". "

No offense Weasel, but you missed the point of my post. The reason these countries were able to kick out the dictators and become functioning democracies was because we supported them. You can see it over and over again when you look around the world. Those countries we supported, even when run by horrific dictatorships, are turning out well; the Phillipines, Argentina, El Salvador, Nicuaragua, etc. those where we lost, Cuba, China, Vietnam, are still horrific dictatorships.

It takes, and took, time. People want a quick fix and realistically that won't work. Those countries took decades and people now want it done in months.

Agree with you Dn Jackson …

Amicalement
Armand

Agree …