Yup. Taking weather and moonlight into their planning, the NVA and VC would try to quickly attack all over at the same time, then back off, disappear, and regroup for a while, so we had fewer reserve troops and transportation to maneuver with. As a result the American casualty lists would spike one week, then be lower for a while. The names on the "weekly" casualty list were spaced out over time and released so as to smooth out the bad news.
Trust me. A live-action horrorshow loses a lot of "reality" when scaled down and edited into a 6 minute TV episode. Uncle Walter was spoon-feeding a sheltered public all the well-filtered, sanitized, bad news it could handle, but the reality was a whole different level of "bad".
Holy shit folks. Duh. We did not need the Post to tell us this. But good for them for reporting it. No matter how good reports said things were going it was clear for every gain there was a set back. Did people really think otherwise? If we had not diverted energy to Iraq we could have slammed the Taliban early on to a point where Pakistan and China could have dealt with the dregs, (yeah China has been there during our war). If the Taliban was to make a come back then the Bush team could still say we retaliated against them for an act of war and we might have made it a bit easier for those oppressed by the Taliban to some chance of self defense. But Bush the Dickhead had to go and ruin it by invading the wrong country. Then the Obama did not know what to do so they pulled a surge. At least he got rid of Bin-Laden and by 2014 had most of the Troops withdrawn. Now Trump is still waiting for orders from Putin or something. Who knows with that guy. Perhaps he's waiting for them to let him build a Tower in Kabul. I remember clearly what a friend who worked his way up to Colonel after 8 deployments said during a visit in 2012, "We got our guy. Now we need to get out of there. There is nothing else we can do". Everyone present knew then he was right. But we are still there.
Here's what the rail yard looked like near where I live in 1945. Zoom in, each one of those pock marks is a 500lb bomb crater, the black smudges are the ones that were just dropped. Pretty difficult to maintain an industrialized nation under those conditions, and way too late to change the nature of their military. IMO. https://uploads.disquscdn.c...
When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains, And the women come out to cut up what remains, Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains An' go to your Gawd like a soldier--Rudyard Kipling
Also too, you say "violent upheavals" when you mean "uprising against dictatorships". That's exactly the sick lie that China peddles in Hong Kong, that the people in struggle are CIA psyops. The idea that MidEastern people would live docilely under their dictatorships if not stirred into "violent upheavals" because "pipelines" is frankly a racist one.
Anyone who doesn't think you can support all people's struggles against dictatorship while still being skeptical about US/NATO interventions is a clown at best and a Russian/Chinese spook at worst.
This is a simplistic take on a complicated problem. We historically screw up transitions. Obama’s problem wasn’t indifference. It was indecision.
Course, he had a few other fires going on but we hired him to fix all the problems by himself exactly the way we wanted them fixed in spite of Congress and people who hated him for being Black. That’s the mark of a good president, by golly.
Remember that Daddy Bush and Colin Powell were business partners in an arms selling operation just after they left office. They were selling everything up to and including Russian SS-5 missiles to the highest bidders.
When it was announced that we were going into Afganistan way back in '03 I had the same uncomfortable testicle twitch I had in the late '60s early '70s when the media were showing body bags and doing body counts of VC dead to show how we were winning. My teenage self knew this was a shitty plan and so did my almost 50yr old self.
thank you. it's basically all of classical philosophy.
Yup. Taking weather and moonlight into their planning, the NVA and VC would try to quickly attack all over at the same time, then back off, disappear, and regroup for a while, so we had fewer reserve troops and transportation to maneuver with. As a result the American casualty lists would spike one week, then be lower for a while. The names on the "weekly" casualty list were spaced out over time and released so as to smooth out the bad news.
Trust me. A live-action horrorshow loses a lot of "reality" when scaled down and edited into a 6 minute TV episode. Uncle Walter was spoon-feeding a sheltered public all the well-filtered, sanitized, bad news it could handle, but the reality was a whole different level of "bad".
Holy shit folks. Duh. We did not need the Post to tell us this. But good for them for reporting it. No matter how good reports said things were going it was clear for every gain there was a set back. Did people really think otherwise? If we had not diverted energy to Iraq we could have slammed the Taliban early on to a point where Pakistan and China could have dealt with the dregs, (yeah China has been there during our war). If the Taliban was to make a come back then the Bush team could still say we retaliated against them for an act of war and we might have made it a bit easier for those oppressed by the Taliban to some chance of self defense. But Bush the Dickhead had to go and ruin it by invading the wrong country. Then the Obama did not know what to do so they pulled a surge. At least he got rid of Bin-Laden and by 2014 had most of the Troops withdrawn. Now Trump is still waiting for orders from Putin or something. Who knows with that guy. Perhaps he's waiting for them to let him build a Tower in Kabul. I remember clearly what a friend who worked his way up to Colonel after 8 deployments said during a visit in 2012, "We got our guy. Now we need to get out of there. There is nothing else we can do". Everyone present knew then he was right. But we are still there.
Here's what the rail yard looked like near where I live in 1945. Zoom in, each one of those pock marks is a 500lb bomb crater, the black smudges are the ones that were just dropped. Pretty difficult to maintain an industrialized nation under those conditions, and way too late to change the nature of their military. IMO. https://uploads.disquscdn.c...
Like the Confederate soldier replied when asked why he fought to support the right of the rich people to own slaves: "Because you're here."
What, and let the Military Industrial Complex go to waste?
When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains, And the women come out to cut up what remains, Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains An' go to your Gawd like a soldier--Rudyard Kipling
Yes -- the legislative process is FUBAR. One bill, one subject maybe?
https://www.livescience.com...
"Control of the Greenstream pipeline was one of the unstated objectives."
No it wasn't. I keep saying it elsewhere, this mania of the Left to find "pipelines" at the basis of every intervention is ridiculous.
https://www.middleeasteye.n...
Also too, you say "violent upheavals" when you mean "uprising against dictatorships". That's exactly the sick lie that China peddles in Hong Kong, that the people in struggle are CIA psyops. The idea that MidEastern people would live docilely under their dictatorships if not stirred into "violent upheavals" because "pipelines" is frankly a racist one.
Anyone who doesn't think you can support all people's struggles against dictatorship while still being skeptical about US/NATO interventions is a clown at best and a Russian/Chinese spook at worst.
This is a simplistic take on a complicated problem. We historically screw up transitions. Obama’s problem wasn’t indifference. It was indecision.
Course, he had a few other fires going on but we hired him to fix all the problems by himself exactly the way we wanted them fixed in spite of Congress and people who hated him for being Black. That’s the mark of a good president, by golly.
Remember that Daddy Bush and Colin Powell were business partners in an arms selling operation just after they left office. They were selling everything up to and including Russian SS-5 missiles to the highest bidders.
The best way to support the troops is to overthrow the government.
Bringing the war back home, where it ought to have been before.
And those were low, rigged counts. I know, I was involved in rigging them.
When it was announced that we were going into Afganistan way back in '03 I had the same uncomfortable testicle twitch I had in the late '60s early '70s when the media were showing body bags and doing body counts of VC dead to show how we were winning. My teenage self knew this was a shitty plan and so did my almost 50yr old self.