America came in with a bang , going out with a whimper ?

[AUz]

You are correct. So who wants to challenge this loser ?

View attachment 179306

I remember this scene from Troy!! Epic movie

 

[gambit]

I remember this scene from Troy!! Epic movie

Personally -- blah. Alexander -- really really blah. There are still some more 'swords and sandals' movies in the pipeline.

 

[PakGuns]

You just talked over the heads of most here, buddy.

lol

Exactly, I couldn't understand what' you are trying to say..I ended up with you might be trying to communicate?

 

[SipahSalar]

If the majority of the population isn't supporting things...there is no win unless we want to run a police state perpetually...which is not what we want to do.

What else can be done. We leave and back to chaos until some dictator takes over.

USA made some strategic and arrogant mistakes. Afghanistan has more than 50% pakhtun population, yet after "elections" they brought in a non-pakhtoon govt. If the elected govt fairly represented the afghan population, i can say with confidence that things would have looked much different today.

You are correct. So who wants to challenge this loser ?

I do hope you remember that this guy was taken out by a regular joe at the end.

 

[jhungary]

Exactly, I couldn't understand what' you are trying to say..I ended up with you might be trying to communicate?

lol he was saying I waste my breath trying to explain the situation, and I laugh......

 

[PakGuns]

lol he was saying I waste my breath trying to explain the situation, and I laugh......

I read that all,

 

[gambit]

Exactly, I couldn't understand what' you are trying to say..I ended up with you might be trying to communicate?

There are many aspects of a war. Did you know that technically speaking, North and South Koreas are still 'at war' ? Just no shooting -- at this time.

Any war will have two main components: political and military.

Simply put...The political component wants victory over the enemy. The military component designs the methods how to achieve battles in order to make progress towards victory.

In Afghanistan, the US military won all the battles. Then it was up to the politicians on what they want to do with the country. The politicians could have said: 'Come home.' and the military would pack up and leave. In other words, the criteria for victory was simple: win all the battles.

But if the politicians want all the battles, introduce democracy, widen capitalism, introduce Western concepts of freedoms and rights, and conduct Miss Afghanistan pageants, in other words, the criteria for victory is now much grander in scope, but if all we have are winning battles and we failed at everything else, then you could say we 'lost' in Afghanistan.

So the context of win/lose a war depends on the political goals for the war.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

USA made some strategic and arrogant mistakes. Afghanistan has more than 50% pakhtun population, yet after "elections" they brought in a non-pakhtoon govt. If the elected govt fairly represented the afghan population, i can say with confidence that things would have looked much different today.

I don't think anybody believes the elections were 100% legit. Afghanistan is #1 on that most corrupt country list. Unfortunately this is a poor country where day to day survival is far more important than ethics.

 

[SipahSalar]

I don't think anybody believes the elections were 100% legit. Afghanistan is #1 on that most corrupt country list. Unfortunately this is a poor country where day to day survival is far more important than ethics.

There is the problem right there. You think other people want the same thing people in the west do. Afghanistan is very poor that's true, but tribes and ethnicity play a very very big part there. It's a very tribal society before anything else. They would never have accepted a non-pakhtun government. Refusing to understand the inner workings of afghanistan is what led to this, USA is leaving and taliban is no longer the enemy.

 

[Sine Nomine]

@gambit you should always read and understand carefully what really a statement means any ways its a trolling statement in reply to thread which says USA lost it's comparison of Victory and lose....grow up man

 

[EagleEyes]

War on terror made Pakistan realize that it cannot hold unregulated territory. It also cost $$, lives and situation is worst than pre 2002.

But all for the better i guess?

 

[gambit]

There is the problem right there. You think other people want the same thing people in the west do. Afghanistan is very poor that's true, but tribes and ethnicity play a very very big part there. It's a very tribal society before anything else. They would never have accepted a non-pakhtun government. Refusing to understand the inner workings of afghanistan is what led to this, USA is leaving and taliban is no longer the enemy.

The problem here is that you did not define what we want. Or what you think we want. Usually, the hostility and ignorance in the criticism are evident when the commentator accuses US of 'stealing' resources, of engaging in colonialism, of trying for global hegemony, and assorted hyperbole.

We militarily defeated Iraq and Afghanistan. Then in both countries we give or at least make available what we think are universal desires: democracy, capitalism, and basic human rights we so often expressed as foundation of Western societies. These are not selfish desires. If we are wrong, you can criticize US, but the fact that those things are so often expressed as desirable by non-Americans as well make it difficult for anyone to defend the Taliban or the Saddam Husseins of the world. We removed the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. Now what are we going to put in their place ? More despots ?

Lesson learned: That despite our best intentions, some societies are simply not ready for values like democracy and basic human rights.

The next US President will be more pragmatic in that regard. Americans will be more cynical about the potentiality of progress in a society where people believes it is acceptable to forcibly enshroud their women out of some misguided sense of 'honor' for women.

 

[jhungary]

I read that all,

lol, that's ok

War on terror made Pakistan realize that it cannot hold unregulated territory. It also cost $$, lives and situation is worst than pre 2002.

But all for the better i guess?

Many people ask me the same question when I briefing move back to the US in 2010.

"did we won in Afghanistan"

I always say "from what view? from the view of politician? from the view of military requirement? or from the view of normal citizens?"

Winning and losing in a war like that is very hard to define, as you do not have just a single motive, in WW1 or WW2, our objective is clear, we need to go to Germany, and we need to kick the Nazi out. We did that, and we won the war.

However, in Afghanistan. we do not have such a goal, not even a clear objective, yes, today we may conduct some ops to target some sector and we may win those battle or lose it, but at the end of the day, the Taliban would always come back when we left.

The concept of leaving is imprinted to the US and NATO troop, for each of us, what we are doing over there is simply serve a tour, then we can go back home, or not. But one way or another , we are not gonna stay in Afghanistan forever. Simply my home is in Kansas, USA, not in Kabul or Kandahar.

We can keep rotate the troop, til the end of the world, but it won't change a bit on a grand scheme of things. That we do not live there, we don't even live in the same continent.

So, what we can only do is to push the local government to carry on after we left, teach them what we do, tell them how we do and then push them a little. It is not up to us, those who just spend 1 year over there to say what we want, to do what we want, not to establish what we want, they have to want all those as much as we do, otherwise we would have destine to fail.

So, it came back to the same question, did we won?

I don't know, you tell me, we kick and drive the Taliban out, we try and succeed to establish a new government, however, the big question is whether or not if the Afghan and Pakistani still wanted to live with Taliban? That answer is THE ANSWER. if Pakistani and Afghani don't mind living with Taliban, then I don't see anyway we can win from the beginning, but if you do, then it would be up to you for us to call it a success, we did what we can to give you a chance, we had taught you what we knew, we have done what we possible can do with the time frame to do it, we can't be of anything anymore, it's all now up to the local population.

 

[KalaGhoda]

13 years ago america came into Afghanistan with a bang with news all over the place , today as they silently retreat , its almost like going out with a whimper as no media outlet is giving it coverage

What do you think ?

America came, conquered everything, now they're leaving cause they did what they wanted to do.

 

[PakGuns]

lol, that's ok



Many people ask me the same question when I briefing move back to the US in 2010.

"did we won in Afghanistan"

I always say "from what view? from the view of politician? from the view of military requirement? or from the view of normal citizens?"

Winning and losing in a war like that is very hard to define, as you do not have just a single motive, in WW1 or WW2, our objective is clear, we need to go to Germany, and we need to kick the Nazi out. We did that, and we won the war.

However, in Afghanistan. we do not have such a goal, not even a clear objective, yes, today we may conduct some ops to target some sector and we may win those battle or lose it, but at the end of the day, the Taliban would always come back when we left.

The concept of leaving is imprinted to the US and NATO troop, for each of us, what we are doing over there is simply serve a tour, then we can go back home, or not. But one way or another , we are not gonna stay in Afghanistan forever. Simply my home is in Kansas, USA, not in Kabul or Kandahar.

We can keep rotate the troop, til the end of the world, but it won't change a bit on a grand scheme of things. That we do not live there, we don't even live in the same continent.

So, what we can only do is to push the local government to carry on after we left, teach them what we do, tell them how we do and then push them a little. It is not up to us, those who just spend 1 year over there to say what we want, to do what we want, not to establish what we want, they have to want all those as much as we do, otherwise we would have destine to fail.

So, it came back to the same question, did we won?

I don't know, you tell me, we kick and drive the Taliban out, we try and succeed to establish a new government, however, the big question is whether or not if the Afghan and Pakistani still wanted to live with Taliban? That answer is THE ANSWER. if Pakistani and Afghani don't mind living with Taliban, then I don't see anyway we can win from the beginning, but if you do, then it would be up to you for us to call it a success, we did what we can to give you a chance, we had taught you what we knew, we have done what we possible can do with the time frame to do it, we can't be of anything anymore, it's all now up to the local population.

Exactly,sir but as far as ANA is concerned they ate working hard to make people realize that talibans are not good for them and their future.. I have seen a lot of documentaries in which ANA werr talking to civilians to give them hand in fighting this war....we on the other hand just fight and aren't working to bring down this ideology in our society...sadly.. even media we have don't do anything and there's a channel named MADNI where they brainwash on air with anti education khatbas...we are kind of dead FB society...