Is Afghanistan Really Another Vietnam for America

[Yongpeng Sun-Tastaufen]

The short answer is no. Read the Qs below. Which is more?

1. Number of Americans get killed in combat in Afghanistan?
2. Number of Americans get killed while climbing up steps?

True. But people killed in war have political effect. Lose election. People killed climbing in stairs have no political effect.

 

[Indus Pakistan]

True. But people killed in war have political effect. Lose election. People killed climbing in stairs have no political effect.

Agreed. But point I was making. The combat losses US is suffering in Afghanistan are minuscle. Even the number of troops they have in Afghanistan is tiny. Compare that to Vietnam. Nearly half a million soldiers posted in Vietnam with daily bodycount running into 100s and yearly body count running into 10s of thousands. To keep this effort going draft was employed. A entire generation of Americans were scarred by Vietnam war. Vietnam was a meat grinder. Afghanistan is computer game.

Thus to hyphenate Vietnam with Afghanistan is simply distorting the truth.

 

[Khanate]

When will Uncle Scam drop a trillion dollar on Somalia?

That homegrown terrorism is fostered by elements from Islamic nations like Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc.
And it's not nearly as dangerous as terrorists trained in a region like Afghanistan or Syria.

If its homegrown then its obviously fostered by you.

 

[Yongpeng Sun-Tastaufen]

The combat losses US is suffering in Afghanistan are minuscle.

True, and they are mostly illegals who join army to get citizenship.

In WW2 half a million American soldiers were killed and US population increased all the while. Ditto with American civil war. People killed in war does not even slow down population growth. Soon Earth will run out of natural resources and die off.

 

[Indus Pakistan]

That homegrown terrorism is fostered by elements from Islamic nations like Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc.
And it's not nearly as dangerous as terrorists trained in a region like Afghanistan or Syria.

It's not quite what you say and neither is it quite what your detractors say. The west is not exactly virgin innocent and neither is the Muslim countries like Pakistan. Both have either vicarious or direct responsibility. I find it quite amazing how short human memory or functional memory is.

Let me explain. When I was a teenager growing up in UK the big, bad bogeyman was Soviet Union. The colour red was the enemy. Hollywood poured out movies like Rambo, Red Dawn capture the mood of the time.

What we [the West and their client states in Muslim world like Pakistan] did was incubate a strain of Islamic warriors on industrial scale - to be sure that strain already existed like in USA we have the extemist hill billy rednecks who train up for incoming war against ZOG but these were fringe groups. The fringe was incibated and mass manufactured into huge wave. This involved the investment of billions of dollars in extremist madaris, in sponsoring exteemist mullahs all intended to fight the red threat of Soviet Union. It worked. In fact it worked spectaularly.

But while USA could pack bag and move out it left behind that infrastructure of global jihad which soon morphed like a Frankenstien monster on it's former masters. First the client states and then the west. CIA call this phenomnon "Blowback". Was this worth it. I let this American [Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser] who was the principal architect of this policy of jihad answer this question.


Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic [integrisme], having given arms and advice to future terrorists?


Brzezinski: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

https://zbigbrzezinski.livejournal.com/901.html

Sometimes when you throw a boomerang it can come back and slap your own face. Don't then cry over it. Accept the bitter reality that you had a hand in chucking it in the first place. Law of unintended consequences. So don't pleae act all uppity, innocent and all clean today.

Today the colour red is feint distant memory. But the colour green is the evil. History repeats. Cycles continue.

 

[PeaceGen]

Russia and China had and have expansionist ideas.
We had to combat the spread of communism, or we would have ended up with a world dominated by communist countries.

Then some muslims chose to fight us, to bite the hand that fed them.

So now we're fighting that, and communism, at the same time.
We're even getting smarter at it.

And eh, i'd still rather see the West win, than any other ideology.

Here, journalists don't get killed by their own government when they criticize that government. Not even when they expose government secrets. Not so in Russia or China.

And i probably don't have to mention why i like democracy and capitalism better than islamic governance.

I saw Afghani tribesmen walking down Unter den Linden and Champs Élysées sporting guns and shooting around.

Oh, what a fucking moron calling himself peacefan.

who is the moron here? me, or you? you're the one basking in freedom thanks to efforts of guys who share my opinions.
so i say it's you, not me.

and yes, for instance the Hebdo Paris attacks, and the Nice car attack, and the London and Madrid attacks, all flow directly from the kind of islamic teaching that is prevalent among the Afghan and Pakistani taliban, and groups like alQuada and ISIS.

it's clear these ideologies are still actively taught in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and that the local moderate governments have not got the will or ability to end that practice.

so if we in the West let it fester *anywhere*, it'll result in the kind of training camps that produce the likes of ISIS or the 9/11 attackers, or the Hebdo attackers, or the Nice attacker, right where we let it fester.

muslim extremists respect only one thing : demonstrated superior strength.

and we're happy to provide those demonstrations. hell, even i, as a true fan of peace, don't mind these demonstrations being given and money being made off that. it ensures i retain the level of freedom with which i can even speak my mind.

 

[Menace2Society]

Afghanistan should have been nuked. Pakistan economy wouldn't have suffered and wouldn't have to deal with 15 years of war.

 

[WarKa DaNG]

Lollllzzz you are realizing the things which are already being done

 

[maximuswarrior]

Russia and China had and have expansionist ideas.
We had to combat the spread of communism, or we would have ended up with a world dominated by communist countries.

Then some muslims chose to fight us, to bite the hand that fed them.

So now we're fighting that, and communism, at the same time.
We're even getting smarter at it.

And eh, i'd still rather see the West win, than any other ideology.

Here, journalists don't get killed by their own government when they criticize that government. Not even when they expose government secrets. Not so in Russia or China.

And i probably don't have to mention why i like democracy and capitalism better than islamic governance.



who is the moron here? me, or you? you're the one basking in freedom thanks to efforts of guys who share my opinions.
so i say it's you, not me.

and yes, for instance the Hebdo Paris attacks, and the Nice car attack, and the London and Madrid attacks, all flow directly from the kind of islamic teaching that is prevalent among the Afghan and Pakistani taliban, and groups like alQuada and ISIS.

it's clear these ideologies are still actively taught in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and that the local moderate governments have not got the will or ability to end that practice.

so if we in the West let it fester *anywhere*, it'll result in the kind of training camps that produce the likes of ISIS or the 9/11 attackers, or the Hebdo attackers, or the Nice attacker, right where we let it fester.

muslim extremists respect only one thing : demonstrated superior strength.

and we're happy to provide those demonstrations. hell, even i, as a true fan of peace, don't mind these demonstrations being given and money being made off that. it ensures i retain the level of freedom with which i can even speak my mind.

The Western civilization will be creating many more enemies for itself. Muslims and Communists are the least of Western concern. The truth is that the Western civilization has been slaughtering itself and that day isn't far when we will witness the same. The West always needs enemies to maintain peace at home, but the question is for how long. The polarization between right and left in the Western world is nothing short of a hydrogen device waiting to implode. Just wait for the silent majority skinheads to come out in the open and unleash their venom. Trump is just a tiny glimpse of the gory manifastion waiting to happen across the Western world. This hatred has existed for a long time in the Western civilization and is now making a rapid comeback in the political scene. Just give it another 5 to 10 years. People will be eating each other.

Western superiority has failed in every war. From Afghanistan to Iraq. Today terrorism has risen. The attacks you mentioned were mostly homegrown. Your arguments of superiority are a complete fallacy. Your track record of defeating terror has backfired and all you can do is play the blame game.

 

[LeGenD]

No, Afghanistan is not another Vietnam for US in the aspect of battlefield-related challenges:

Not even close.

US military see in Afghanistan an ideal testing ground for new weapons and battlefield doctrines. And it is undeniably the most dominant force in the region.

However, Taliban has resurged because it is a religiopolitical force and alive in the hearts and minds of Southern Afghans.

Taliban does not offer much challenge to US in the battlefield but it can frustrate American nation-building efforts with its asymmetric tactics, and it already have.

Nevertheless, war in Afghanistan have not met its closure yet.

Read full article, here is the hints


“There are three major reasons that contributed to the US failure in Vietnam. First, the high morale and courage of the resistance forces in Vietnam against foreign intervention. Although it was asymmetrical warfare in which the US had a clear military edge vis-à-vis the Viet Cong and North Vietnam, it was nationalistic zeal and patriotism that enabled anti-American forces to launch an effective national liberation movement by inflicting maximum damage on American troops and their South Vietnamese allies in active guerrilla warfare”

This is theoretical nonsense.

US failed in Afghanistan because this war was not popular back home. Secondly, US was experiencing racial tensions which had a trickle-down effect on cohesion of US forces stationed in Vietnam. Third, much of Vietnamese territory encompass mountains, jungles and marshes, and these features stood in the way of massive armored thrusts. Fourth, US did not had precision munition back then, and many other crucial technologies that we get to see today. Last, Vietcong received sophisticated weapons from USSR and China to negate American technological advantage.

Conversely, Vietnam War was a fantastic teacher in all fronts. Relevant experiences enabled US to develop and field technologies [and tactics] which proved invaluable in the Persian Gulf War (1991) against then formidable Iraq.

Thanks to battlefield experiences in Vietnam, US have pioneered technologies and methods of warfare which minimize its casualties in any theatre today.

 

[khanmubashir]

While in Vietnam the guerrilla warfare led by the Viet Cong was quite effective, this is not the case in Afghanistan. Although the Taliban — the main resistance group against the US military’s presence in Afghanistan — claim to have gained control over half of Afghanistan, they have not been able tocause significant losses to the US forcesor to the US-backed regime in Kabul.

Is it really so ??

 

[cloud4000]

US policy in Afghanistan has been a strategic defeat and there are no signs of it turning around. US has been through three presidents and countless military commanders promising victory, but none of them have defined what victory is supposed to look like.

The key problem is not even Pakistan, but the Afghans themselves. They are just incapable of governance. They are both corrupt and incompetent. US has only two options in front of it:

1) Unilateral withdrawal and let the chip fall where they may.
2) Work with various stakeholders -- Afghan government, Taliban, Pakistan, China, and Russia -- and come up with a viable solution for peace in the region.

 

[maximuswarrior]

While in Vietnam the guerrilla warfare led by the Viet Cong was quite effective, this is not the case in Afghanistan. Although the Taliban — the main resistance group against the US military’s presence in Afghanistan — claim to have gained control over half of Afghanistan, they have not been able tocause significant losses to the US forcesor to the US-backed regime in Kabul.

Is it really so ??

All the Taliban need to do is sit back and play the waiting game. It is their terrain. They know it best and control much of it. Besides, it is not the Taliban which is spending trillions.

 

[Khanate]

While in Vietnam the guerrilla warfare led by the Viet Cong was quite effective, this is not the case in Afghanistan. Although the Taliban — the main resistance group against the US military’s presence in Afghanistan — claim to have gained control over half of Afghanistan, they have not been able tocause significant losses to the US forcesor to the US-backed regime in Kabul.

Is it really so ??

Taliban's strategy: "You have watches. We have time."

This equation won't change regardless of how long U.S. stays in Afghanistan.

 

[A.P. Richelieu]

World sole super power with budget of 716 billion dollars for defense failing to defeat few thousand militants is your idea of victory that yes sure USA won.

By the way they lost 3 soldiers today in Afghanistan

The Coalition has lost about 3400 killed in 17 years or about 200 per year.
In the US, about 700-800are killed in bicycle accidents each year.
In Vietnam, the US lost about 50,000 killed in less than 10 years.
That 3 dead soldiers is news, shows that it is not serious, and not a repetition of Vietnam.

Those ”few thousands” are continuously defeated, at a rate of 5,000 killed per year or so.
Since the Taliban can recruit the same number they can go on fighting.