Michael's Dispatches

Mike, you know that over 75% of the locals are illiterate and that they do not have a "World View" of matters. They respond to what the local religious leaders tell them. The Imams do not speak out as forcefully for Taliban attacks because they want a theocratic state where they will have power. Every outrage by us is amplified because it fits their ulterior motive. Ridiculing the Taliban does not help their cause so they pretty much don’t comment on these outrages.

Glad to see someone understands what's going on. Now if that would only trickle up...

Afghanistan was invaded by the USA,Great Britain and others in reply to 911 which had nothing to do with this country. The 911 attackers were all from Saudi Arabia, as was Bin Laden. Eleven years later you got BL but you are still there.The US has no respect for anyone with a brown skin,,, time we all left the Afghans to their way of life

Great imagery, Tim.
I think that, by now, most literate people see the comparisons between our current war in Afghanistan and that of the Vietnam war from say, 1970 forward. The troops are disgusted and wonder what we are doing in the war. No one wants to be the last to die. The government is corrupt and is getting rich while it can.
But drawing the comparisons is not enough. "History is prologue." Learn the lessons from history and get the hell out of Afghanistan....today, by the end of the month, or within sixty days. But GET OUT before more of our precious blood is spilled on that cursed land.
We aim to screw the Afghans who have been loyal to us in any event. We might as well do it now and, at least, save some American blood.
Semper fidelis,
Snakey Tricker Charlie

Robin, They were born in Saudi Arabia but were trained and supported from Afghanistan. If we leave Afghanistan we basically abandon 16 million women to 15th century living conditions.

Gee how come a grunt gets it but this dam Administration doesn't? We plan to stay the course until 2014. Voters wake-up! This war is draining us and the Afganistan people could care less about American lives being lost. Micheal, Mexico!!

snakeytrickersharlie Yes we said that during Vietnam and we walked away. We threw the South under the bus and basically said Amerian Lives are more important than little yellow people so goodbye. Then the Killing Fields happened and we sat home and felt all superior because we "Ended the War"

LTC (Ret.), are you referring to Afghans or Americans with this statement:

"...you know that over 75% of the locals are illiterate and that they do not have a "World View" of matters."

I think your comment could easily apply to both. The level of ignorance among most Americans is hard to comprehend.

Get out. Bomb until pacification. Disallow all immigration out forever. Allow in one shipment of supplies, especially seeds. Disallow any further shipments. Resume bombing for any misbehavior. One way or another, the problem will solve itself. We are not dealing with reasoning beings, it's time to stop acting like it.

Nitpick, but let's keep the records straight. The Killing Fields were in Cambodia, following their civil war.That's where we were never there [?]

Think Elphinstone 1842! :sad:

We are in Afghanistan, because our illustrious leader Obama said it was "A War of Need", while Iraq was a "War of choice".
In reality, moving that war against radical Islam into Iraq was a stroke of pure genius, because we could have never killed as many in that mountainous country of Afghanistan.
Obama turned out to be a military idiot, just as in economics.
But the LSM will never report it as such

Another blunder: Moving the guy to Kuwait. Will they never learn???? Afghanistan IS a country. You commit a crime there. You get tried there, military or civilian. Americans were tried in Iraq What's the difference?
I'm a westerner and I spent time in Afghanistan wearing local dreas. Being pushed aside by American service personnel on the sidewalk is the norm! I witneessed APCs being driven down the center of the highway in Kabul the driver montioning everybody to get out the way. It's thanks to America's naivity sending NG to countries they've never heard of that all foreigners working in Afghanistan become targets.

It's what happened in the autumn of 1842 that I would be concerned about repeating itself. Apparently, the Taliban still talk about that thrashing.

The failures in Afghanistan are due to poor civilian leadership. The military is only doing what the civilian knuckleheads allows them to do. Whether or not we should be there now is a moot point. We are there and we need to finish the mission(whatever the hell it is)and get our our troops out and let the locals figure out whose side they want to be on. Poor leadership from above has been our undoing in Afghanistan despite the best efforts of our military. What a fricken mess....

Mike Andrews the difference is this soldier may actually be sick from the head injury he received. Lets have the the US Army Medical evaluate him first. He probably has a stellar record and he snapped from head trauma or way too many combat missions. We like to think our Government takes care of their own. But time has proven they do not. Nam comes to mind for some reason..

I saw UNICEF schoold in places you would never believe and those facilities filled with students who WANTED to learn. A whole generation that wanted to go forward and not back to the 15th century.

Craig, I wish that I could believe in the things that you describe.

Best regards,

Heywood

I deeply respect Mr. Lynch - however, I have grown tired of the "look at how bad the Taliban are compared to us and nobody says anything about that" line of thinking.

Of course the Taliban are evil incarnate - thats why we are in AFPAK displacing them from power and ensuring they do not have a safe haven from which to strike us again with their Al Qaeda cohorts. They are unjust and brutal in their treatment of anyone not like minded and whether they are a woman or child makes no difference to them.

What makes us different from them is that we are not that way - we represent the fairest system of government and society known to man kind. We are not the Taliban, so everyone stop comparing our atrocities to theirs. Two wrongs do not make a right!

What this soldier allegedly did is horrific and he should be held to the full extent of the law and the same goes for anyone who may have been a part of it as well. This soldier's alleged actions are not who we are and every one of us has an obligation to make that as clear as we can at every opportunity - and that is not accomplished by pointing to the Taliban's actions and saying they are just as bad or worse so say something to them. That is a 6 year olds way of thinking when they are in trouble - and should not be America's way of thinking or communicating.

We must regain the moral high ground (if possible at this point) or this COIN fight is lost and I remain convinced we cannot afford to lose this fight.

Re: "Afghanistan was invaded by the USA,Great Britain and others in reply to 911 which had nothing to do with this country. The 911 attackers were all from Saudi Arabia, as was Bin Laden. Eleven years later you got BL but you are still there.time we all left the Afghans to their way of life"

Robin, wake up and smell the coffee... and consider being a bit less of a useful idiot for our enemies. Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda were based in the frontier region between Afghanistan and Pakistan, even though they were Saudis. Terrorist networks are mobile, get it?
So drop the barvo sierra that 9-11 had "nothing to do" with Afghanistan. If the Afghans don't want us to invade, maybe they ought to think about keeping terrorists from their midst.

Re: "The US has no respect for anyone with a brown skin..." Oh, the race card... isn't that lovely.... the last resort of the fool who's run out of arguments. Sod off.

Looks like that COIN thing isn't working out as planned. Teaching opium growers to grow vegetables and brush their teeth doesn't seem productive. Green on blue murders at 200(+-) may only be the start. What about the possibility of green on blue military operations. Suppose the Afghans would rather kill us than permit our orderly departure. Not a pretty picture. 2000 dead, $ billions wasted and the Afghans don't like us and refuse to be saved. I am shocked. Time to leave - sooner is better, now would be best.

"..... but that's all cool here because they're the Taliban and we're the big fat retarded kid on the block who gets bullied everyday but still shows up to fork over even more lunch money while assuming at some point everyone will like us because we're so xxxxx generous."' Interesting spin on the situation. Tim should know, unless that he IS the big fat retarded kid that he is on the wrong block and that he is the cause of the fighting on "the block". All deaths are blamed on coalition forces because its only because of coalition forces that the Taliban have to fight. Urzugan province was firmly in the hands of the Taliban pre 9-11. The famous 'wedding bombing' of 2002 happened in this province and afghan memory is long.

My goodness, TURE, and very well said.

Folks,

Back in 2004 in a letter to USNI Proceedings I sadly predicted all this when a lot of retired Marines were saying the same method used in South Vietnam with small unit of Marines embedded with SV self defense forces was the solution in Afghanistan. I wrote a letter to the editor personally not thinking it would be printed. It was and I think every Marine on earth was mad at me. I made clear that RELIGION (what they call 'DEEM') was all important and unless those Marines were willing to convert all we would be doing is making them targets. Also I stated the US/NATO military think that #1 is weapons, tactics and combat training trumped all. That learning the Afghans and there culture was not even the top ten. And as some Marine commandants have stated book learning is almost impossible to get done unless it is forced with threats.

Now to some comments made about the massacre and the Taliban behavior. This was the same exact excuses given by the American militia men after Gnadenhutten. And I think many American captives at the burning thought about that. It was also the knee jerk reaction of many American veterans organizations like the VFW and AL. But as one member of Calley's court martial board stated to a question about how we have to take into consideration the type of warfare the VC waged: "How many grenades was that baby hiding when it was flung down that well."

For those wanting to prevent the type of murder that happened in Afghanistan read "The Dark and Bloody River" by A. Eckert and look in the index for GNADENHUTTEN. Then re-read some of the comments made on this forum and else where. If US commissioned officers had been forced to study what happened in March 1782 maybe My Lai and what recently happened would not have happened. War in Afghanistan or any Muslim nation still in the 8th century is more than weapons, combat training and combat tactics.

Jack E. Hammond

Learn from the past? Whatever
We have screwed this up from the get go
1)our Generals are too political, and kiss the ass of the politicians
2)We negotiating with the Taliban?
3)We left Karzai in power, this guy is a as crooked as Obama
4)We allow Iran to make IED's
5)We put bullshit ROE on our own troops
6)We allow the Afghans to produce drugs
7)We dont fight hard and fierce, kill and destroy and leave, we pussy foot around, spend billions, loose lives and respect

Roe example -new rules from interviews with U.S. forces. Among them:

• No night or surprise searches.

• Villagers have to be warned prior to searches.

• ANA or ANP must accompany U.S. units on searches.

• U.S. soldiers may not fire at the enemy unless the enemy is preparing to fire first.

• U.S. forces cannot engage the enemy if civilians are present.

• Only women can search women.

• Troops can fire at an insurgent if they catch him placing an IED but not if insurgents are walking away from an area where explosives have been laid.


Commanders have reportedly ordered a U.S. military unit in Afghanistan to patrol in a manner that could handicap them.
Some soldiers are being ordered to conduct patrols without a round chambered in their weapons, The US Report has learned from an anonymous source at a forward operating base in Afghanistan. Our source was unsure if the order came from his unit or if it affected other units.

On war correspondent Michael Yon's Facebook page, commenters stated that this is a common practice in Iraq, while others said that it is occurring in Afghanistan as well. According to military protocol, "Amber" status requires weapons to have a loaded magazine, but the safety on and no round chambered.

"The idea that any combat unit would conduct any operation, including patrolling and even manning a security post -- in which direct action may-or-may not take place -- and not having weapons loaded, borders on being criminally negligent in my opinion," says Lt. Col. W. Thomas Smith Jr., a recognized expert on terrorism and military/national defense issues. "This is nothing more than infusing politically correct restrictions into already overly restrictive rules of engagement. And this PC nonsense is going to get people killed."

Hi Michael, this goes back to my original point with the tablian in the soccer stadiums. If they are going to do that then Tommorrow what are they going to do ? Ban deaf people from schools & not permitted to drive etc. We the deaf community keep a closer eye on the situation and urge our politicians and our military to carry out justice for the tablian & al Qaeda etc. We will continue to pressure Obama & the politicians in Washington DC and " Never Again like the 1940's ".