Post: #1

Today is 14th anniversary of 9/11...

I think that the 2003 invasion of Iraq is one of the biggest fuckups of all time. It destabilised the middle east, got the US involved militarily in the middle east and cost billions of dollars. Some say that the destabilising eventually led to the situation where ISIS could appear.

Paul Bremer also fucked up big time too. As the Administrator of Iraq after the invasion, he fired the Iraqi army and many of those guys are allegedly now involved with ISIS.

Quote:On May 23, 2003, Bremer issued Order Number 2, in effect dissolving the entire former Iraqi army and putting 400,000 former Iraqi soldiers out of work.

The move was widely criticized for creating a large pool of armed and disgruntled youths for the insurgency. Former soldiers took to the streets in mass protests to demand back pay. Many of them threatened violence if their demands were not met.

How do you feel about this? What would you have done?

Post: #2

Complex topic. First, the situation did not arise in a vacuum. Lots of history brought the world to that point. If you choose the starting point as 9/11/2001, I think the following is about the best option that could have been pursued.

You had to hit Afghanistan. There was no political alternative. However, you did not have to occupy. Early conflict was supporting the Northern Alliance against the Taliban. Taliban was driven out. Should have handed the NA the keys at that point and said not to screw it up or we would be back. No other nation in the world had success there. We would have left as winners.

GWB ran on a humble foreign policy. He could have still pulled it off. Massive draw downs in the overseas posture would have headed off the backbreaking expense and defused some situations. Politically you get that through by asking Senators whether they want the military bodies in their state or in Germany etc. We were still in the BRAC process. There was leverage.

Iraq should have been avoided. Hussein could have been brought back. Slow relaxation of sanctions. No invasion. Generate up some press for Saddam working against Al Quida.

Look to the immigration situation. Go after visa overstays. Control of the southern border by simple relationship of terrorists and narco orgs. Head off the demographic destruction of the GOP.

Back off on hostility with Russia. No war guarantees to its near abroad. Withdraw from NATO. Have separate deal with UK. Withdraw from ROK. Reduce presence in Japan.

Build ties with Russia as a hedge against China. We did the reverse during the Cold War.

Use CIA for anti Al Quaida efforts, but do not work so hard to generate new organizations or pick fights with organizations we have no issues with outside of methods.

Post: #3

I agree with j that this really depends at what point you intervened.

Probably the ideal point to intervene would have been in 1917, when the Balfour Declaration was being drawn up. This strikes me as the biggest, recent fracture point that has most left the Middle East the way it is. But at the same time it doesn't matter how fair you are to all parties trying to play societal Tetris in the Middle East: some motherfucker who once grazed his goats on a shitpile piece of desert over there would be pissed off he didn't get said shitpile back and use that as an excuse for endless war.

One aside here, to disclose my conflict of interest: I do think Israel and the Jews deserve a place that is theirs in Palestine. The war on the United States by the Middle East at large if not Islam at large started in 1968, with RFK's assassination, which was carried solely because of the US's support for Israel. I won't elaborate further on that since I don't want to start race trolling here, but please feel free to take my views with that shading in mind.

Anyway, and more relevantly, post 9/11 I think the appropriate response should have been to bomb the fuck out of that area of Afghanistan which could be said to be linked to Al-Qaeda. And to do it again, and again, and again, for as long as the attacks came from there. There was no earthly or strategic reason to put boots on the ground in Afghanistan and their anti-aircraft ordnance basically came down to a bunch of yokels with RPG launchers whose range is massively less than the effective bombing altitude of even a B-52. Would it have created more recruits for Al-Qaeda? Sure. But would it have created less recruits for Al-Qaeda than 10 years in there? Again, yes.

If forced to go into Iraq and given carte blanche power over the terms of engagement and resources put into it, I would have started from the point of view of Nicias going to Sicily: from the point of view that I was going to found a city among strangers and enemies, and therefore that I had to either control the entire country from the day I set foot in it, or else come prepared to find everything opposed to me.

I would have returned to World War 2 terms of engagement: give notice I'm coming, and after that point, deem anyone standing in my way as an enemy combatant unless proven otherwise, whether wearing a military uniform or not. This would have created big refugee columns, but c'est la guerre and those refugee columns would invariably have been out and away from the war zone. I would have explicitly told my troops to shoot through human shields, on the basis that human shields are fundamentally the same tactic as ransoms: the moment you stop giving into that tactic is the moment they're no longer used - and therefore the risk to said human shields disappears.

I would have played to the West's advantages in combat: superior ordnance, superior technology, and superior range in particular. I would not have ordered Marines to participate in house-by-house clearing; I would rather have levelled the city block, with tanks and/or artillery, standing off outside the effective range of a RPG launcher. I would not have allowed US Special Forces teams and/or their commanders desperate to punch combat tickets or act as glory hounds to do stupid things like engage in pickup or dropoff of a team within range of a RPG launcher (as they foolishly did in Lone Survivor and got another 17 men killed for nothing). I would not have allowed my patrols to take precisely the same route more than once, thus eliminating the effectiveness of IEDs.

I would have, in short, been as ruthless as necessary to achieve the objectives. Those objectives I would spell out quite clearly: the complete destruction of Iraq's military and civilian capacity to resist, using whatever superior tactics I had and without regard for much more than the absolute minima of Geneva Convention strictures. I would not have accepted less than unequivocal surrender from all of Iraq's districts before military operations ended.

I would have been clear with Congress and with the President that this objective could not be carried out with anything short of the complete commitment of the entire US war machine to that objective. Certainly the commitment of three or possibly four times the troop commitment which was used in Iraq. If need be, I would have demanded the reintroduction of conscription to get the job done, because I would remember from my history that the US basically refuses to popularly support a war if it's forced to commit there for more than two years, and the quickest way to win a war is to put more men into it than the opponent does.

I would have secured Iraq's oil fields above all and started extracting oil from them as advance reparations for Iraq forcing me to come over there and clean out their country for them. And lastly I would have committed to Iraq being the major garrison point for the US in the Middle East, as a country whose entire legal and legislative system had to be rebuilt from the ground up. As with Japan, this would include the wholesale rewriting of its constitution and forcing its leaders to publicly admit to the error of any ideology which had led it to war.

I would, in short, raze the country to the ground, secure its borders, and start over again. Because, simply put, there is no other way for an invading force to make its conquest stick where the cultures are completely disparate, as is the case between the West and any nation you pick in the Middle East.

This will sound relentlessly chilling. I know. But war is in our DNA, and if the objective is to win with minimal casualties on our side, you have to be ruthless. I am less concerned about minimal casualties on the other side: as MacArthur said on his farewell address, your job as a soldier is not to die for your country, but to make the other poor bastard die for his. If there is anything contributing to the bloodletting in Iraq and the Middle East, it is the view that you can fight a war half-assed. ISIS is proving the contrary, and the refugee flow from the Middle East is only a symptom, not the cause.

Post: #4

Post: #5

The real fault lies in the Sykes-Picot agreement and the Balfour declaration. The USA only picked up where France and Britain left off, and that naturally led to 9/11.

Post: #6

Delete

Post: #7

Had the US held up their end of the deals with Hussein from the 80s, Iraq would have been in our pocket, and have been an example of a proper secular middle eastern state. Instead, we chose to fuck them over after coercing them to wage a bankrupting war with Iran. Then we fucked them over when Kuwait was stealing oil from them. Then we continued to fuck them over with sanctions.

As for Afghanistan. Initially the US failure was in not dedicating enough manpower to from the onset. They have relied to heavily on this surgical strike tactic, when there is greater psychological benefit to laying waste to square miles of land. They fucked up by relying too heavily on untrustworthy Afghans for assistance during those early days. US special forces literally had Bin Laden cornered in Tora Bora in December 2001. I remember sitting in the airport in Myrtle Beach waiting to pick up one of my buddies and the constant news feeds saying they expected to get him any minute. Then they started talking about needing to wait for the right team to pull the trigger. And then...nothing. If you were listening to the news as many people were back then, you knew the fucker had gotten away.

For those that remember, Bush's presidency up until 9/11 was not without controversy. The supreme court getting involved in the election process left a bad taste in the mouths of a lot of people. His close ties to Enron. His "send everyone a check" plan to buy some popularity was a waste of money, and was done to get people to forget the mysterious supreme court election. When 9/11 happened, I wasn't ready to kiss the guy's ass, but I was willing to give him a chance. When Bin Laden escaped at Tora Bora, I didn't know the exact reasons why, but I knew it had to do with meddling from above.

Years later, we learned the rest of the story on 60 Minutes. US special forces literally were within shooting distance of Bin Laden. But because they were grossly outnumbered, and because their Afghan helpers essentially betrayed them. They had no choice but to abort the mission. I am fully convinced that Bush/Cheney/etc planned for the mission to happen that way. They ordered the military to operate with a skeleton crew during those early days. They claim they did it to "keep an Afghan face on the war." In reality, if we had killed him that night, we would have then sent in a clean up crew and have withdrawn from Afghanistan within months. We also would have sent a rather powerful message to terrorist groups that they will be found no matter what, and they will be found quickly. Instead, the administration used the momentum of Afghanistan as an excuse to invade Iraq.

Post: #8

You need to read Steve Coll's Ghost Wars. Roosh recommends it too: http://www.rooshv.com/ghost-wars

It documents how the US govt lost control in Afghanistan, and made serious errors of judgement.

Also, the Northern Alliance were the most 'Western friendly' of the Afghan warlords. Massoud predicted 9/11, and was assassinated the day before it happened. He was the West's connect in a region that has proved impossible to control.

Sorry if it appears that I am assuming some lack of knowledge on your parts, but Ghost Wars is a really important piece of literature.

Post: #9

The key issue with that concept is 'create a stable Afghanistan'. That was never going to happen. We were never going to win the hearts and minds. The most successful counterinsurgencies are waged by a government/nation against an insurgency in its own borders. There was no faction in Afghanistan or the muslim world that was going to benefit from long association with us.

Post: #10

(09-12-2015 04:46 AM)Vanguard Wrote:  Unlike, what Paracelsius suggested, you can't win a counter-insurgency war by "bombing the f*ck out of Afghanistan". The only way to defeat insurgency is to win the hearts and minds of the populace. In order to win the hearts and minds of the populace, you have to build rapport and train the indigenous population to fight for themselves. The Army Special Forces (Green Berets) are best equipped at doing this.

I would like to agree with this, but the reality is that the winning of hearts and minds doesn't work. When you hire proxies to do your dirty work, you destabilize things, and your enemy will not respect you, or fear you. In fact, they will resent you. Even the proxies you hired will resent you. This is what happened in Afghanistan. A prime example is what I mentioned before about the betrayal of those Green Berets and Delta operatives in Tora Bora. When you give up control of the fighting, you give up control of the outcome.

Post: #11

(09-12-2015 04:46 AM)Vanguard Wrote:  Unlike, what Paracelsius suggested, you can't win a counter-insurgency war by "bombing the f*ck out of Afghanistan". The only way to defeat insurgency is to win the hearts and minds of the populace.

(a) I didn't say bomb the f*ck out of Afghanistan. I said bomb the fuck.

(b) I didn't say bomb the fuck out of Afghanistan. I said "bomb the fuck out of that area of Afghanistan which could be said to be linked to Al-Qaeda. And to do it again, and again, and again, for as long as the attacks came from there."

By definition, you only have to fight an insurgency if you're occupying the same geographical area as that insurgency to begin with. If you're not occupying said territory, then you don't have an insurgency, you have instead popcorn to sell while watching a bunch of idiots shoot each other with AK-47s in a rough approximation of a civil war.

As I said before, there was no earthly reason for boots on the ground there. It's a goatherding rock, it adjoins nothing strategically significant, and has no air force or weapons with which to be a conventional threat to the US. The US's mission in Afghanistan should have taken all of 20 minutes or so and the only military presence there conducted from about 30,000 feet up.

Post: #12

(09-12-2015 05:05 AM)Lizard King Wrote:  You need to read Steve Coll's Ghost Wars. Roosh recommends it too: http://www.rooshv.com/ghost-wars

It documents how the US govt lost control in Afghanistan, and made serious errors of judgement.

Also, the Northern Alliance were the most 'Western friendly' of the Afghan warlords. Massoud predicted 9/11, and was assassinated the day before it happened. He was the West's connect in a region that has proved impossible to control.

Sorry if it appears that I am assuming some lack of knowledge on your parts, but Ghost Wars is a really important piece of literature.

My brother had me reading ghost wars several years ago.

I you want to a more detailed account on the ethno-political contentions fueling the war alone, I recommend "Decent into Chaos" by Ahmed Rashid.

Those two books go hand in hand like a collection.

Post: #13

I would have signed long term, 50 years plus, treaties with Afghanistan and Iraq, the same as we did with Germany, Japan, and Korea, and require US company contracts for reconstruction and oil.

I would provide bonuses to troops that took country specific brides and started families in occupied territories. I would also dismiss all women from the U.S. Military who didn't accept transfers to women only nursing and admin units.

Mainly I would focus on winning, not losing in isolation and retreat, and the ignorance of the current military demographic cluster.

Post: #14

While I agree that Afghanistan had to be attacked, I think that Paracelsus' Iraqi strategy should have been implemented there instead of the support brought to the NA. There was no central authority in Afghanistan, and none could emerge as long as Talibans weren't physically wiped out.
Paradoxically, there was a strong central authority in Irak. I'm not a fan of Saddam, but religious extremists were swiftly dealt with in his time. The Iraqi invasion was as short sighted a decision as possible, and it was not long before Iraq became a 2nd Afghanistan. From hell on Earth for them, it became the safest of all havens for global terrorists.
Wherever he is, Saddam must be delighted by the current situation.
In both these countries, the only acceptable solution for the West would be an authoritarian regime (locals would not accept a partition of these countries, even along tribal lines, as some ethnic groups would gain sole control over strategically important regions, while others would be left to rule over resourceless land. It would lead to another series of wars).

With regards to China : Putin can't be trusted. When dealing with the West, Soviets/Russians have proven to be recurrent two-timers. While it would be clever to relax relations with Russia, it would be a mistake to imagine that they would side with the West against China (anyone remembers how the Korean war started? ) It's highly unlikely that Russia declares war to any EU nation, or to the US, but the probability of China engaging in military conflict with its Asian neighbors is much higher. Have you seen the map the Chinese drew of South China Sea ? How they shamelessly told SEA nations that they viewed it as nothing less than their "Mare Nostrum" ?
If the US forces leave the area (I'm talking about bases in Japan, South Korea, the Phils), it won't be long before the PRC's project becomes real. Chinese are bullies. The only thing a bully understands is the use of force. If the US leave the area, the Chinese WILL move forward – starting with Taiwan.

LaPD

Post: #15

This is what most people don't understand about the Afghanistan situation that Lizard King pointed out:

Afghanistan is one of the few nations in the world that literally had no intermediate power structures. It was village elders at the top of the bottom and people like Ahmad Massoud and Hamid Karzi rising up by going all in with their political ties, wealth or fighting prowess.

Foreign nations continued the power vacuum with constant reescalation when they would either fund proxy fighters or carry out assassinations. Karzi was almost killed in his cannonball run to power while trekking to Kabul. Massoud was killed by al Qaeda whom actually had no direct combatant concerns with the Northern alliance until US powers were inserted. Pakistan is a Pashtun nation. In desperation to gain neighboring allies and not be enemy locked on its east and west borders, it funds any Pashtun element that looks able to take power. That's a large part of how the Taliban initially gained power when it was a mockery during the first years of the American-Afghan war. Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan all support their own rebel fighters due to ethnic ties.

Post: #16

Afghanistan is a Pashtun-dominated country.
Pakistan is not. Punjabis form the bulk of Pakistan's ethnic makeup.
North West Pakistan (areas bordering Afgh.) is definitely Pashtun-majority land though.

LaPD

Post: #17

(09-12-2015 07:17 AM)TonySandos Wrote:  

(09-12-2015 05:05 AM)Lizard King Wrote:  You need to read Steve Coll's Ghost Wars. Roosh recommends it too: http://www.rooshv.com/ghost-wars

It documents how the US govt lost control in Afghanistan, and made serious errors of judgement.

Also, the Northern Alliance were the most 'Western friendly' of the Afghan warlords. Massoud predicted 9/11, and was assassinated the day before it happened. He was the West's connect in a region that has proved impossible to control.

Sorry if it appears that I am assuming some lack of knowledge on your parts, but Ghost Wars is a really important piece of literature.

My brother had me reading ghost wars several years ago.

I you want to a more detailed account on the ethno-political contentions fueling the war alone, I recommend "Decent into Chaos" by Ahmed Rashid.

Those two books go hand in hand like a collection.

Just what I've been looking for. Thanks very much indeed.

(09-12-2015 09:12 AM)TonySandos Wrote:  This is what most people don't understand about the Afghanistan situation that Lizard King pointed out:

Afghanistan is one of the few nations in the world that literally had no intermediate power structures. It was village elders at the top of the bottom and people like Ahmad Massoud and Hamid Karzi rising up by going all in with their political ties, wealth or fighting prowess.

Foreign nations continued the power vacuum with constant reescalation when they would either fund proxy fighters or carry out assassinations. Karzi was almost killed in his cannonball run to power while trekking to Kabul. Massoud was killed by al Qaeda whom actually had no direct combatant concerns with the Northern alliance until US powers were inserted. Pakistan is a Pashtun nation. In desperation to gain neighboring allies and not be enemy locked on its east and west borders, it funds any Pashtun element that looks able to take power. That's a large part of how the Taliban initially gained power when it was a mockery during the first years of the American-Afghan war. Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan all support their own rebel fighters due to ethnic ties.

If Walter Black's OP was a question for an history essay, then what you've posted is the historical context, or part of it at least, that would form the basis of the answer.

It isn't so much what USA did wrong after 9/11, but what they did wrong leading up to it. That's where you'll find the events that will highlight the path that led to 9/11.

Post: #18

(09-12-2015 09:50 AM)La Palta Divina Wrote:  Afghanistan is a Pashtun-dominated country.
Pakistan is not. Punjabis form the bulk of Pakistan's ethnic makeup.
North West Pakistan (areas bordering Afgh.) is definitely Pashtun-majority land though.

LaPD

Let me clarify; Pakistan is a Pashtun led military government with an intelligence agency highly populated by Pashtuns. Geo-politically that intelligence agency was highly invested in Afghanistan coming out with Pashtun nationalism was in their interest.

Post: #19

(09-12-2015 09:54 AM)TonySandos Wrote:  

(09-12-2015 09:50 AM)La Palta Divina Wrote:  Afghanistan is a Pashtun-dominated country.
Pakistan is not. Punjabis form the bulk of Pakistan's ethnic makeup.
North West Pakistan (areas bordering Afgh.) is definitely Pashtun-majority land though.

LaPD

Let me clarify; Pakistan is a Pashtun led military government with an intelligence agency highly populated by Pashtuns. Geo-politically that intelligence agency was highly invested in Afghanistan coming out with Pashtun nationalism was in their interest.

Clarified.
And that's precisely why the US "forgot" to tell their Pakistani allies that some guys were coming to get OBL's ass.

LaPD

Post: #20

Other than invading Afghanistan, which at a time was an official and well-established enemy similar to North Korea, USA screwed up practically everything that was possible to screw up:

- wasted enormous goodwill and sympathy generated by 9/11 first by invading Iraq for no reason, then bombing Libya and finally financing Syrian rebels and antagonizing Russia
- broke all possible international laws with Guantanamo prison and the concept of indefinite detention without a trial there
- firmly established its lack of concern for international boundaries and sovereignty through its drone bombing campaign in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia
- introduced warrantless spying programs of colossal proportions, aimed more at its own population and allied countries than the actual terrorists
- wasted the temporary economic stimulus of starting a war by funneling that money to ultra-rich contractors, mercenaries and banks

In short, USA is now hated and despised almost all over the world, has hollowed out its economic and military capabilities, and has actually increased the possibility of future terrorist attacks on its soil.

Overall: 1/10, WNBO (would not bet on)

Post: #21

Just wondering, regarding all you who are heavily red pilled regarding your political belief systems, do you guys actually believe 9/11 was 1:1 like it is described in the mainstream media?

Post: #22

(09-12-2015 11:08 AM)DeeDee Wrote:  Just wondering, regarding all you who are heavily red pilled regarding your political belief systems, do you guys actually believe 9/11 was 1:1 like it is described in the mainstream media?

Could you clarify this question?

Post: #23

Delete

Post: #24

(09-12-2015 03:18 PM)Vanguard Wrote:  Now why do I mention this? Because it proves that even if you know the exact location of your enemy, it doesn't mean you can beat them with only air offensives like you contend. And even if everything happened to fall in place and you could, it still wouldn't eliminate the root of the problem. As soon as you kill one jihadist another will emerge. The only way to end this vicious cycle is by winning over their hearts and minds and then teaching them to resist radical Islam by themselves.

Does it? Saddam seemed to do rather well at keeping radical Islamists out of his country and was nothing short of a brutal dictator. No heart-and-mind-winning was necessary there. That indeed was a potent pragmatic reason for the US staying out of Iraq -- and staying out of Libya. Neither of those countries gave a fuck about the US until the US invaded in a half-assed fashion and decided to try and "win the hearts and minds" of the people.

At this point literally every Islamic nation on the Earth is a breeding ground for radical Islam. As Afghanistan has shown us, if you kill it in one place, it merely moves elsewhere; therefore there was nothing to be done in Afghanistan but bomb those bases which had supported Al-Qaeda to reduce their resources. Strength is about the only thing radical Islam understands and it's been about the only thing demonstrated as keeping it down.

Quote:If we were to sit back and watch a "bunch of idiots shoot each other AK-47's", the Taliban would remain firmly in control of the nation. Why? Because like I said in my earlier post the Northern Alliance caused many Pashtuns in the south to take up arms with the Taliban. Clearly, if we learned anything from 9/11 it's that we can't let a Taliban regime control Afghanistan.

And this is a problem why? There's plenty of regimes around the world where Osama could have set up camp. Nothing special about Afghanistan at all.

You seem to be forgetting there wasn't a single Afghan involved on 9/11. There were many, many more Saudis on those planes than Afghans. The training camps were in Afghanistan, certainly, but Afghanistan posed no threat at all to the US, and by invading it, the US played into Al-Qaeda's hands: it turned the whole country into a breeding ground for Wahhabist Islam, instead of the equivalent of a few Islamic frat boys tired of shitting on whores in Dubai.

Post: #25

Kill UBL, then Bomb the fudge out of Saudi and throw their monarchy out.