I say we won the war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mr Anon

Magn:
Hmm..
Your comment was interesting, and on a different day I'd probably enjoy arguing about the philosphy of the thing. Can anyone win a war when so many are killed and maimed? Tough philisophical question.

Today though, I'm not talking philosophy, in which case there is nothing ambiguous. America won WWI and WWII. We did not win Vietname. We won Iraq. We won Iraq because we invaded they're country, killed their leader, removed his government and put one in place that then invited us to stay. Ditto for Afghanistan. By the most basic definition of war, once the enemy we fight is dead, we win. Our enemies weren't the people of the countries, but the governments of those countries. Those governments are dead, thus, we won! (Start the parade!)

---

My comment is about the crux of the matter.

Wars are bloody and costly in the one thing that you can't readily replace: human lives (you can rebuild houses, tanks, etc, but you can't resurrect the dead). A life is the one thing we cannot rebuild.

I don't think you are thinking about this hard enough.

They are sending your coworkers, neighbors, friends, children, siblings, spouses to danger and a significant number will get slaughtered, often in an horrible violent way (and a fair number of them will live, but get maimed pretty badly). Think of it as if they were sending people related to you in the above manner away to danger (heck, think of it as if they are sending you away to danger).

You better think long and hard about what you are trying to achieve, because this ain't no video game (its the real thing... people dying out there don't get a 're-load last savegame' button).

You need to go into a war with a clear objective, the objective must be important enough for a bucketload of people to give up their life for often in a pretty horrible way (because they will) and you need to determine how much you are willing to sacrifice for your objective (1k soldiers? 10k soldiers? 10% of the country's population?).

From there, you can make an estimate of the expected losses and determine if the war is worth it.

This was not done properly with the Iraq war and I think the cost of the war far outweighed the benefits that were reaped from it (so how can you really think about this in terms of winning?).

Its should never be about something as stupid as pride or refusing to 'lose' or showing people out there who is 'tough'.

"Think of it as if they were sending people related to you in the above manner away to danger"
Check. Younger brother. His name is William and I want to get him and his friends the hell out of that country.

"You need to go into a war with a clear objective,"
Agreed. Kill the enemy. The enemy is dead. Get them home.

"so how can you really think about this in terms of winning"
How can you not? I'm not saying war is fun or good or that we had a blast and should do it more often. I said our military won their fight. They killed those who needed killing, and now they get to come home.

How can we as a nation send our families to war, and then after they win the war, pull the rug out from under them and say "oh, um, yeah, I know you think you've done your job, but um, now you have to build a fully functioning democracy in the asshole of the world with a population that is 90% illiterate, a government that is corrupt, a legislature that legalizes rape and a people that think America is Satan. So um, good luck coming home before that 100 year mark McCain warned us about."

You win a war when you beat down all oppostion, and secure all the booty.

You have not beaten down all the opposition, and your former president's stupid decision to center the whole thing around a 'war on terror' means you cannot plunder and loot all the booty, or the international community will look down even more on you - you have to loot and plunder the booty in a slow, controlled, ineffective fashion.
We all know you wanted their shinies, and we'd all have been okay with you declaring a real war, in the name of getting shinies, but now you've screwed yourself, and you keep pouring resources, time, and manpower into a war you will never gain from.

Following the 'war on terror,' you proceeded to destroy your own economy, bumped China up the charts, and now you've declared yet another crusade on another sand nation.

"You win a war when you beat down all oppostion, and secure all the booty."

The word opposition is far too broad to be used in terms of war. If the word you use is opposition, then we haven't yet won the civil war because there are still groups that oppose the Federal Government getting involved in "states rights"

If you use the word opposition then the cold war ain't over because Russia still oppose us.

People still wear swatzikas, does that mean WWII is still ongoing? I assure you, there are all kinds of people who oppose America protecting the jews.

Hell, Brittain's Prime Minister was still opposing us on Climate Change and International law issues last month. Does that mean we haven't won the Revolutionary war yet?

People will always oppose us. There will never be a point in time that the US can invade a country, stay for 8 years, torture their people, and have no one oppose us. That doesn't mean we can't win a war and come home.

It'd be nice if we were fighting a civilized people that would say "gee, we surrender", we aren't. We are fightng religious extremists. These aren't politicians. Or reasonable sane people who care about farms and families and rebuilding. These are people who think they'll go to hell if they don't fight us to the death and die in the attempt. The question then is who opposes us.

1. The government of Iraq no longer opposes us, thus, we won the war against Iraq.
2. The government of Afghanistan no longer opposes us, thus, we won the war against Afghanistan
3. We have not won the war against Al Queda and similar groups. But they aren't in Afghanistan, they're in Pakistan.

Let's get after them. That's who we're at war with.

"The word opposition is far too broad to be used in terms of war."

No.
No, not really.

Do you still have people who resist your 'win,' and bomb your units, themselves, and your allies?
If 'yes,' you have not beat down the opposition.

"It'd be nice if we were fighting a civilized people that would say "gee, we surrender", we aren't." You've invaded their tents, killed their soldiers, destroyed their old leadership, and now you're trying to take their stuff. Have you ever even heard of a country that surrendered when people did that to them?

"We are fightng religious extremists." You're fighting people over control of their country. If I were to invade your precious America, and you refused to give in to my silly demands, would that be because you're a religious extremist, or because I have - indeed- invaded your country, and am dictating the rules?

no research was done in this. Al Queda has been surging again in afgahnistan.

America set out to capture osama not chase him into pakistan. so no the war is not over, seeing as Osama and Al Queda the enemies america is targeting with the wars are weakened but not defeated.

You know, last I checked, a group of angry, women-hating, ancient, old men, living in tents in the middle of the desert, wielding guns and hardware from the second world war, did not equal a serious threat to anyone - flying planes through your non-existent security at the time be damned.

That whole deal about how you needed to capture their leader, and how Saddam had 'weapons of mass destruction?'
Just lame excuses to capture resources, and ending stuff the current president's daddy started.

Obama's daddy started something?

And, yes we still need to capture their leader- Osama

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by bigDizzy

Obama's daddy started something?

---

He was referering to Bush Jr and Bush Senior.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mr Anon

1. The government of Iraq no longer opposes us, thus, we won the war against Iraq.
2. The government of Afghanistan no longer opposes us, thus, we won the war against Afghanistan
3. We have not won the war against Al Queda and similar groups. But they aren't in Afghanistan, they're in Pakistan.

---

The US might have won the one battle of removing Saddam from power in Iraq. Not that he was any big threat to the US or the world to begin with. There is still sectarian violence in Iraq. Thanks to the democratic elections in Iraq there are now a large group of Islamists in the Iraqi government, Islamists who wants Sharia-laws, and when/if Iraq splits or turn into an Islamic regime will you still say that the US won?

Saddam Hussein was secular and used to keep these religious fanatics on a leash. I'm not saying that all Islamists in the Iraq government are fanatics or fundamentalists though. Also, by removing Saddam the US (the neo-conservatives) helped to strengthen Iran's influence over Iraq and the entire Middle-East.

Keep that in mind and let's move on to talk about Afghanistan.

Of course the US puppet regime in Afghanistan does not oppose the US. But I don't think that the US has won anything in Afghanistan. What have they won? Sure, the US military forces wins a few battles here and there. One day they kill a dozen of armed Talibans, or Pashtuns. The next day they "win against Afghanistan" by killing a dozen of civilian women and children.

Meanwhile, eight years after 9/11 the Talibans now has a permanent presence in 80% of Afghanistan.

http://www.icosgroup.net/modules/pre...ears_after_911


...and NATO's top commander said in august/september 2009 that the US/NATO is risking to lose the war.


Have this in mind and let's move on to talk about Al-Qaida. Here you say that the US has not yet won against them. And you are correct. But I think that you are wrong when you say that Al-Qaida isn't in Afghanistan but in Pakistan. Last time I checked they were in Somalia, Nigeria (and lots of other hell holes in Africa), Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, etc. They are operating from many different places. They are basically everywhere. Because it seems that a lot of people wants to join them nowadays. Because these people see the US aggression as a Crusade against their way of life, against their religion, against their culture and against their very lives.

So, with the situation in Iraq not looking all too good, and with Taliban permanent presence in 80% of Afghanistan, and Al-Qaida has spread all over the world, and NATO's top commander says that the USA/NATO risk losing - how is the US winning in Iraq and in Afghanistan again?

Report: U.S. spy effort in Afghanistan ‘clueless’
Military intelligence chief says agencies out of touch with people

WASHINGTON - The U.S. military's intelligence chief in Afghanistan sharply criticized the work of U.S. spy agencies there on Monday, calling them ignorant and out of touch with the Afghan people.

In a report issued by the Center for New American Security think tank, Major General Michael Flynn, deputy chief of staff for intelligence in Afghanistan for the U.S. military and its NATO allies, offered a bleak assessment of the intelligence community's role in the 8-year-old war.

He described U.S. intelligence officials there as "ignorant of local economics and landowners, hazy about who the powerbrokers are and how they might be influenced ... and disengaged from people in the best position to find answers."

An operations officer was quoted in the report as calling the United States "clueless" because of a lack of needed intelligence about the country.

Grassroots effort urged
The report, which highlighted tensions between military and intelligence agencies, urged changes such as a focus on gathering more information on a wider range of issues at a grassroots level.

Release of the report came less than a week after a suicide bomber killed seven CIA officers at a U.S. base in eastern Afghanistan, the second-most deadly attack in agency history. NBC News reported on Monday the bomber was an al Qaida double-agent from Jordan, citing unnamed Western intelligence officials.

The security breach was a major blow to the CIA, which has expanded operations hunting down and killing Taliban and al Qaida militants in Afghanistan and tribal areas in neighboring Pakistan, partly through the use of unmanned drone aircraft.

The drone strikes have fueled public anger and have been sharply criticized by human rights groups.

"Eight years into the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. intelligence community is only marginally relevant to the overall strategy," Flynn wrote in the report with his chief adviser, Captain Matt Pottinger.

Excessive focus on insurgents
The report said U.S. intelligence had focused too much on gathering information on insurgent groups and was "unable to answer fundamental questions about the environment in which U.S. and allied forces operate and the people they seek to persuade," the report said.

A revised war strategy unveiled last month by U.S. President Barack Obama calls for sending 30,000 more American troops to Afghanistan and for expanding a counterinsurgency campaign aimed at garnering Afghan public support and sidelining a resurgent Taliban.

Instead of mounting a counterinsurgency, Flynn asserted that the intelligence community had "fallen into the trap" of waging an "anti-insurgency campaign" aimed at capturing or killing mid-to-high level militants.

An intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, defended the focus of U.S. spy agencies on insurgents, saying: "You can't be successful at counterinsurgency without a profound understanding of the enemy."

Flynn's report said the intelligence community had enough analysts in Afghanistan but "too many are simply in the wrong places and assigned to the wrong jobs."

The report described the main problems as "attitudinal, cultural, and human," saying U.S. intelligence community had "a culture that is strangely oblivious of how little its analytical products, as they now exist, actually influence commanders."

An operations officer at one U.S. task force was quoted in the report as questioning why the intelligence community was unable to produce more information about the Afghan population. "I don't want to say we're clueless, but we are. We're no more than fingernail deep in our understanding of the environment," the officer said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34694618..._central_asia/

america also won the vietnam war dont forget, they never lose or fail

lol, you know once we leave afghanistan they'll go back to afghanistan, rebuild, and al qaeda will be back in the bizz.

You can't have 'won' something that hasn't ended. In your opinion you might be 'winning', but you haven't 'won' anything.

You may think that the war has ended because you achieved your goal, but it hasn't. A war ends when the fighting stops. All though you've established a Democracy, you haven't yet obtained Peace. You may have achieved your goal, but the war is not over.

America pulling out now is the equivalent of a Basketball team quitting the game in 3rd quarter because their 'goal' was simply to get to 100 points. Yes, they achieved their goal and yes from a certain point of view they 'won' something. In the end, they lost the game.

You guys know squat. The Yakuza gains the most from the war. The Afghan and Iraq hotties practically show up at their doorsteps in boats and currently, under the protectorate of Yakuza Moms, selling their booty to Japanese lechers. The biggest porn producer in the world is changing the lead actress of "Interracial IV" from a japanese lady to an arab hoe. And here you're bickering about politics and what not, and missing all the action.