Post: #1

Quote:An Afghan soldier opened fire at an Afghan training base Tuesday, killing an American two-star general and wounding more than a dozen coalition forces.

The officer, identified by the Pentagon as Maj. Gen. Harold Greene, is the highest ranking American officer to be killed in the Afghanistan war.

Greene was among a group of coalition troops assembled at the base for a presentation and it was not clear whether he was specifically targeted.

The assailant was killed in the attack, according to Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary. Fifteen coalition forces were injured in the attack, including eight Americans. A German general officer was also injured.

Before Tuesday, the most recent U.S. general officers to die in war was a brigadier general who died in Vietnam in 1972, Pentagon records show.

The attack appears to be the latest incident of a so-called "insider attack," in which Afghan soldiers turn on American and coalition troops.

The insider attacks had increased over the years and emerged as a major threat to the mission by 2012. Attackers that year killed 62 coalition troops. At the time most of the attacks were blamed on personal grievances and there were few cases of Taliban infiltration of influence.

The top commander at the time, Marine Gen. John Allen, instituted a number of changes to reduce the threat, including the use of "guardian angels," requiring troops to operate in pairs or groups and keep an eye out for potential attackers.

Coalition and Afghan officials also enhanced screening of police and army recruits, requiring, for instance, biometric screening and letters vouching for their loyalty by village and tribal elders. Recently, insider attacks have declined dramatically.

"It's impossible to ... completely eliminate that threat," Kirby said. "But you can work hard to mitigate it and minimize it, and ISAF has done that," he said referring to the coalition command.

The shooting took place at the Marshal Fahim National Defense University in Kabul, an officer training facility that was created under coalition supervision.

President Obama has been briefed on the attack, spokesman Josh Earnest said.

The shooting is "a painful reminder" of the sacrifices that Americans have made in Afghanistan, and they are still facing risks, Earnest said.

Earnest did not provide names or details of the shooting, saying an investigation is ongoing.

It's astounding that someone as high up in rank as a General would be killed in Afghanistan. Unbelievable.

Post: #2

Not when the entire Afghan army is infiltrated by the Taliban and US troops of all ranks work with them.

Post: #3

Huge win for the Taliban. Sadly this will spur them on for a long time. There's little defense from this kind of infiltration lest you completely isolate your upper echelon from everything but your own troops, which would include allies.

Post: #4

Of course these wars are completely unsustainable. Historically when empires begin to die, the losses start at the periphery and territory is slowly sceded until all that is left is the original home territory.

As America goes broke I expect to see American military slowly removed from the Middle East, then Europe, then Asia. Asia probably being the most important to US interests because of possible Chinese aggression. If America still needs oil it will just tap its own reserves.

Post: #5

So the Afghan adventure is turning out more or less exactly like it did when the British Empire occupied the place in the 19th century, and the Soviets in 1979.

Except the British and the Soviets weren't so deluded as to think they could turn one of the most backward peoples on Earth into a liberal democracy.

USAID even thought - still thinks - it could export feminism to the Afghans. Feminism in Afghanistan would just mean women start shooting at you as well as the men.

Post: #6

(08-06-2014 04:09 AM)SteveMcMahon Wrote:  So the Afghan adventure is turning out more or less exactly like it did when the British Empire occupied the place in the 19th century, and the Soviets in 1979.

Except the British and the Soviets weren't so deluded as to think they could turn one of the most backward peoples on Earth into a liberal democracy.

USAID even thought - still thinks - it could export feminism to the Afghans. Feminism in Afghanistan would just mean women start shooting at you as well as the men.

Afghanistan is and always will be a total clusterfuck of a country.

And people will always forget history or mistakenly believe it doesn't apply to them.

I've never really understood the point of the Afghan war; the Americans aren't stupid and neither are we…it's just inexplicable.

RIP to the General.

Post: #7

(08-06-2014 04:15 AM)CrashBangWallop Wrote:  

(08-06-2014 04:09 AM)SteveMcMahon Wrote:  So the Afghan adventure is turning out more or less exactly like it did when the British Empire occupied the place in the 19th century, and the Soviets in 1979.

Except the British and the Soviets weren't so deluded as to think they could turn one of the most backward peoples on Earth into a liberal democracy.

USAID even thought - still thinks - it could export feminism to the Afghans. Feminism in Afghanistan would just mean women start shooting at you as well as the men.

Afghanistan is and always will be a total clusterfuck of a country.

And people will always forget history or mistakenly believe it doesn't apply to them.

I've never really understood the point of the Afghan war; the Americans aren't stupid and neither are we…it's just inexplicable.

RIP to the General.

Just another time our govt. lied to us.

After 9/11 we wanted to go bomb the assholes responsible. We could have bombed them into submission, without more than a handful of special forces on the ground, and gotten out in 6 months. And this is what the people wanted.

Had out govt. been honest and said we were going to waste trillions of tax payer dollars to rebuild a nation that has never had organization to start with, and take 13 years doing it. The people would have been strongly opposed to it.

We played right into their hands. I just don't know if it was the terrorists hands, or if they are but the boogie man and we played into the federal banker elite hands by making them billions.

And yet people still buy into more govt. and putting more trust in govt.

Post: #8

(08-06-2014 04:20 AM)It_is_my_time Wrote:  

(08-06-2014 04:15 AM)CrashBangWallop Wrote:  

(08-06-2014 04:09 AM)SteveMcMahon Wrote:  So the Afghan adventure is turning out more or less exactly like it did when the British Empire occupied the place in the 19th century, and the Soviets in 1979.

Except the British and the Soviets weren't so deluded as to think they could turn one of the most backward peoples on Earth into a liberal democracy.

USAID even thought - still thinks - it could export feminism to the Afghans. Feminism in Afghanistan would just mean women start shooting at you as well as the men.

Afghanistan is and always will be a total clusterfuck of a country.

And people will always forget history or mistakenly believe it doesn't apply to them.

I've never really understood the point of the Afghan war; the Americans aren't stupid and neither are we…it's just inexplicable.

RIP to the General.

Just another time our govt. lied to us.

After 9/11 we wanted to go bomb the assholes responsible. We could have bombed them into submission, without more than a handful of special forces on the ground, and gotten out in 6 months. And this is what the people wanted.

Had out govt. been honest and said we were going to waste trillions of tax payer dollars to rebuild a nation that has never had organization to start with, and take 13 years doing it. The people would have been strongly opposed to it.

We played right into their hands. I just don't know if it was the terrorists hands, or if they are but the boogie man and we played into the federal banker elite hands by making them billions.

And yet people still buy into more govt. and putting more trust in govt.

Yeah I agree entirely.

What's odd to me is that as a layman I knew what would happen; hell everyone with a smattering of general knowledge knew.

I just refuse to believe that our governments are that irrational…they MUST have known.

So what was the real aim?

Post: #9

(08-05-2014 07:37 PM)cowboy Wrote:  Not when the entire Afghan army is infiltrated by the Taliban and US troops of all ranks work with them.

Then I guess that the entire Afghan war was a waste. We've spent 13 years trying to pacify the country and have nothing to show for it.

Quote:Huge win for the Taliban. Sadly this will spur them on for a long time. There's little defense from this kind of infiltration lest you completely isolate your upper echelon from everything but your own troops, which would include allies.

I agree this is huge. A General in the military being assassinated is a major loss for America.

Quote:Of course these wars are completely unsustainable. Historically when empires begin to die, the losses start at the periphery and territory is slowly sceded until all that is left is the original home territory.

As America goes broke I expect to see American military slowly removed from the Middle East, then Europe, then Asia. Asia probably being the most important to US interests because of possible Chinese aggression. If America still needs oil it will just tap its own reserves.

Unfortunately you may be right. America's total national debt (state, local, and federal) is $21 trillion. I don't know how we can continue to pay for this.

Quote:I've never really understood the point of the Afghan war; the Americans aren't stupid and neither are we…it's just inexplicable.

This war is enriching military contractors and empowering our military-industrial-political-bureaucratic complex. These politicians in Washington DC vote for continued defense appropriations for the "War on Terror", then retire and become well paid lobbyists for the defense contractors.

It's a racket.

Quote:We played right into their hands. I just don't know if it was the terrorists hands, or if they are but the boogie man and we played into the federal banker elite hands by making them billions.

Where was Bin Laden hiding? In a large mansion near a military base in Pakistan. We spent years fighting a bloody war in Afghanistan when the Pakistani military was holding him near their military base. That's just ridiculous, especially when you consider that Pakistan is our supposed ally in the "War on Terror."

Interestingly after Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan, the govt refused to show us his body.

I wonder why.

Post: #10

(08-06-2014 04:15 AM)CrashBangWallop Wrote:  I've never really understood the point of the Afghan war; the Americans aren't stupid and neither are we…it's just inexplicable.

I don't think anybody really understands it, i.e. there was never any master plan. It has been an unmitigated strategic disaster for America and her allies.

My tuppence worth is that it's all down to mission creep. After 9/11, the US government had to "do something". Attacking Afghanistan was something, so they did it.

Then it turned out just bombing the Taliban wouldn't remove them from power, so they had to invade. Then they couldn't simply declare victory and leave, because the bad guys would just stroll back into power, so they had to occupy the place. Then they felt obligated to spend trillions of dollars supplying the military, training Afghans, bribing local warlords, holding elections, etc. The sunk costs fallacy bit hard - every dead soldier and billion spent made it harder to admit the whole thing was misconceived from the start.

All along the way you had politicians eager to be seen as "tough", defence contractors eager to sell hardware, civil servants and NGO's eager to find a reason to expand their prestige and funding by getting in on the Afghan adventure.

Pet agendas were serviced such as Western governments paying feminists to fly out there to teach Afghan women to resist Patriarchy. The Neocons hoped a permanent US commitment to policing the Middle East would tame Islam and protect Israel. The British government was keen, as always, to play up to the Special Relationship it thinks it has with Washington.

Basically the whole thing was a perfect storm of hubris. At no point did anybody in a position of high office stop and ask what was in it for America, or Britain, or any of the other coalition nations. They assumed we could a) turn one of the most primitive societies on earth into a democracy and b) this would justify the expenditure of money and blood.

Post: #11

It's been so long now I can't even remember why this war started. It was supposedly a pipeline play from Turkmenistan/Caspian Sea enroute to Pakistan. Oil companies paid off the Taliban almost 30 years ago to ensure "stability" so the pipeline could get built. Taliban stole the money by not holding up their end of the deal and told the oil corps to go fuck themselves, USA rains them down with bombs and troops not far after.

Post: #12

Easy now, the war in Afghanistan was entirely justified.

The Taliban were in the early 00's effectively practicing genocide on many non-islamic tribes. The destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan became the wake up call to the rest of the world on their fanaticism.

Post: #13

(08-06-2014 07:58 AM)Vicious Wrote:  Easy now, the war in Afghanistan was entirely justified.

The Taliban were in the early 00's effectively practicing genocide on many non-islamic tribes. The destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan became the wake up call to the rest of the world on their fanaticism.

We didn't invade Afghanistan to defend minorities there.

Post: #14

(08-06-2014 08:03 AM)SteveMcMahon Wrote:  

(08-06-2014 07:58 AM)Vicious Wrote:  Easy now, the war in Afghanistan was entirely justified.

The Taliban were in the early 00's effectively practicing genocide on many non-islamic tribes. The destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan became the wake up call to the rest of the world on their fanaticism.

We didn't invade Afghanistan to defend minorities there.

Why did we invade Afghanistan?

Green on Blue incidents are beyond terrible. They also show exactly why there isn't much point in continuing the military education of the Afghani military. We have given them enough training to do what they need to do if they choose to do it. The problem is they aren't going to.

Post: #15

(08-06-2014 04:15 AM)CrashBangWallop Wrote:  

(08-06-2014 04:09 AM)SteveMcMahon Wrote:  So the Afghan adventure is turning out more or less exactly like it did when the British Empire occupied the place in the 19th century, and the Soviets in 1979.

Except the British and the Soviets weren't so deluded as to think they could turn one of the most backward peoples on Earth into a liberal democracy.

Afghanistan is and always will be a total clusterfuck of a country.

And people will always forget history or mistakenly believe it doesn't apply to them.

They should have listened to Vizzini:

Quote:You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia"

Post: #16

War is lucrative. War is good politics. War expands the power of bureaucrats, the military, and politicians.

The country's leaders have every reason to want war. The post-9/11 hysteria gave them the opportunity to do that.

The country's leaders also have every reason to want to expand the national security surveillance state. 9/11 gave them an excuse to do that too.

There are plenty of smart people who know this is all bullshit. Those people tend to not get promoted. A lot of them even got fired, like anti-war MSNBC host Phil Donahue
and General Shinseki. If you know what's good for you, you kiss your employer's ass. Even if your boss is a retard.

Post: #17

Quote:WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

-- Maj. General Smedley Butler, USMC

Post: #18

(08-06-2014 08:03 AM)SteveMcMahon Wrote:  

(08-06-2014 07:58 AM)Vicious Wrote:  Easy now, the war in Afghanistan was entirely justified.

The Taliban were in the early 00's effectively practicing genocide on many non-islamic tribes. The destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan became the wake up call to the rest of the world on their fanaticism.

We didn't invade Afghanistan to defend minorities there.

If it was a byproduct it was still justifiable.

Post: #19

Fucking waste, soldiers lost, my friends with ptsd, tax dollars gone, we should've never gone in there or Iraq.

Post: #20

The only thing certain in all of this is the out-right slaughter which awaits those who got cozy with the NATO forces.

I remember watching a documentary on the Western Alliance in Afghanistan who were fighting to exist against the Taliban. I wonder where they are now.

Post: #21

(08-06-2014 07:58 AM)Vicious Wrote:  Easy now, the war in Afghanistan was entirely justified.

The Taliban were in the early 00's effectively practicing genocide on many non-islamic tribes. The destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan became the wake up call to the rest of the world on their fanaticism.

That's none of our business. The United States of America is not a buddhist theocracy, and only a handful of hippies or ethnic minorities in this country could care less about buddhist this or that. If the world's buddhists want to protect their relics, that's on them. No American blood and treasure for buddha relics of Afghanistan is my stance, and I'm sure the vast majority of Americans would agree with me.

The same goes for "bringing democracy and human rights." Listen, no true American really cares if Afghan woman get to vote or not, let alone is willing to sacrifice his son's life for the same. Whether of not the goal of transforming Afghanistan into a modern #girlpowr feminazi globalist bazaar is even achievable or not is besides the point. The point is, Americans don't CARE and they definitely don't want to sacrifice thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars to achieve this utterly irrelevant goal.

Then again, Americans also don't want immigration, unfettered free trade, or "gay rights" yet this apparently means nothing. Maybe before we bring "democracy" to far-off mountain tribesmen we should first work to secure it here in the good ol' USA.

Post: #22

It's kind of hard to feel sorry for the Americans in this. They funded, trained and supported the Taliban. Then they invaded Afghamistan and tried to turn it into some lbieral democracy, practicing cultural imperialism (basically trying to spread feminism).

Trying to change afghans is retarded and will never happen. The Americans are out of their depth if they think they can change their culture that easily.

Post: #23

(08-06-2014 02:54 PM)rekruler Wrote:  

(08-06-2014 07:58 AM)Vicious Wrote:  Easy now, the war in Afghanistan was entirely justified.

The Taliban were in the early 00's effectively practicing genocide on many non-islamic tribes. The destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan became the wake up call to the rest of the world on their fanaticism.

That's none of our business. The United States of America is not a buddhist theocracy, and only a handful of hippies or ethnic minorities in this country could care less about buddhist this or that. If the world's buddhists want to protect their relics, that's on them. No American blood and treasure for buddha relics of Afghanistan is my stance, and I'm sure the vast majority of Americans would agree with me.

What are you talking about? The fact that you seriously think that this was about the Buddhas makes me question whether you are at all familiar with the cause and build up to the conflict.

How old were you at the time of the invasion.

Post: #24

(08-06-2014 03:10 PM)Vicious Wrote:  

(08-06-2014 02:54 PM)rekruler Wrote:  

(08-06-2014 07:58 AM)Vicious Wrote:  Easy now, the war in Afghanistan was entirely justified.

The Taliban were in the early 00's effectively practicing genocide on many non-islamic tribes. The destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan became the wake up call to the rest of the world on their fanaticism.

That's none of our business. The United States of America is not a buddhist theocracy, and only a handful of hippies or ethnic minorities in this country could care less about buddhist this or that. If the world's buddhists want to protect their relics, that's on them. No American blood and treasure for buddha relics of Afghanistan is my stance, and I'm sure the vast majority of Americans would agree with me.

What are you talking about? The fact that you seriously think that this was about the Buddhas makes me question whether you are at all familiar with the cause and build up to the conflict.

How old were you at the time of the invasion.

My bad, I should have nuanced my response more. Of course the invasion of Afghanistan was not carried out due to the Buddhas, it was ostensibly done because of the talibs harboring Al-Queda during their planning of 9/11. As to the real reason for the invasion and subsequent long-term occupation, that is anyone's guess.

My rant about the Buddhas was a direct response to your assertion that America's invasion and ongoing presence in Afghanistan is justified because of the Taliban's depradations INSIDE of Afghanistan. My opinion, and what I feel is the opinion of the "silent majority" as well, is that the US should not interfere in other nations' internal affairs so long as those affairs do not impinge upon the US national interest. The fact that the Taliban kept womyn in the home and tried to enforce a theocracy inside Afghan borders is thus not a valid reason to invade and is not worth lives and treasure.

Protecting the homeland and acquiring strategic resources or otherwise growing the national power have always been valid reasons for military action. Americans spend their lives and money and get tangible benefits in return. To spend lives and money and for the "benefits"to accrue to Afghan women and the world's buddhists? Now that math doesn't make sense, from a realpolitik perspective.

Post: #25

The real problem is that America is only going halfway on this. Had their original goal been to transform Afghanistan, it would have taken 10x as much man power as they currently have.

America's predicament in 2001 was that if it didn't defend itself, then it would appear weak and be the target of more attacks. Either it could invade another country or defend its walls better. Instead of focusing on one to do well, America choose to do both and have done both poorly.

If the original goal had been to transform the culture of Afghanistan, they should have gone in the way the old European powers, or old Roman powers used to colonize things. Brute force, followed by mass destruction of all villages and executing of men and raping of the women. The soldiers who then invade are then paid to live there with their war brides as they rebuild the country. Spain transformed an entire continent, as did Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan using these methods. Every great military success has been done this way.

The alternative to invading and raping Afghanistan would have been to simply build the walls higher at home, such as with the TSA at airports, heavily securing all borders, and intense monitoring of communications at home to spot terrorism.

These defensive measures were mostly unconstitutional, so instead the plan was to invade. But after the invasion, Americans believed they could "reason" and "spread democracy" to a backwards Islamic culture rooted in violence and barbarism. You cannot peacefully transform such animals. It would take generations, at a bare minimum, to do it peacefully. Thus if America was serious about transforming Afghanistan they should have just gone in with a full scale conquest, but of course they would be detested by the international community for doing so.

So ultimately there was no good way for America to answer this, and Bin Laden knew this when he was devising 9/11. Bin Laden's stated purpose of 9/11 was to make America go bankrupt. Now, it appears that with the NSA becoming omnipotent but with open borders, it seems that America is transforming into a dystopian police state where native citizens are viewed as more dangerous than illegal immigrants.

To me, more than anything, these events demonstrate how incapable democracy is of handling external threats. This is why, historically, most democracies have barley lasted more than a few hundred years. And it is during wartime that democracies are the most useless, as there is no time for hesitation when battling a dangerous enemy. Consider Ancient Greece that fell apart during the Peloponnesian war, or how the Ancient Romans would institute a Dictator during periods of great wars, such as against Hannibal.

If America was truly serious about handling this Islamic threat they would have needed to install a lot more power into the president's wartime powers against Islam. But because it's a democracy that cannot settle matters quickly or efficiently, we got this half-assed shit we currently have in Afghanistan. Democracy is great for handling day to day affairs of the city, but it's worthless for maintaining empires.