A depressing thread

[C0ckney]

External strikes are the only way to carry out a counter-insurgency action.

...

Drone attacks are our way of striking at terrorist basis outside of our legal area of authority. Better yet, they never involve any American casualties.

these incredibly intelligent tactics must be why the war is afghanistan is going so fantastically well for the western powers.

oh, wait a minute...

[C0ckney]

it is incredible, after 11 years of miserable failure, that there are still people who defend the occupation of afghanistan and the conduct of the war.

[regexcellent]

it is incredible, after 11 years of miserable failure, that there are still people who defend the occupation of afghanistan and the conduct of the war.

I defend those aspects of the war which are being conducted properly.

By the way, is your shift key broken?

[C0ckney]

which parts of the war do you think have been conducted properly?

do you defend the war as a whole?

what do you think is going to be achieved by continuing the occupation?

what would count as success in the war in afghanistan in your eyes?

(these are open to all supporters of the war, i'm genuinely curious)

By the way, is your shift key broken?

only on this forum...

[giblets]

In my view, civilian casualties are totally the fault of the Taliban the terrorists that hide out among civilians. They're the ones putting civilians at risk by using them as human shields, just like Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Therefore, not our fault.

The terrorists were forced to take those desperate measures by the USA's support for Israel and refusal to convert to Islam and use of overwhelming firepower, duh Therefore, not their fault.

[regexcellent]

What does support for Israel have to do with anything?

And our superior firepower does not make them not at fault for hiding among civilians. There is no moral equality between us and the Taliban.

[Dinner]

Another good quote from the previously linked article about why the OP is such a dog turd.

But there is a simpler explanation: Perhaps drones are not as scary as opponents claim. A February investigation by the Associated Press -- which, unlike the Living Under Drones study, interviewed Pakistanis inside the FATA -- reported that civilian casualties from drones are far lower than Pakistan civil society figures, journalists, and party officials assert publicly. This calls into question the wisdom of relying on such interested parties to build a picture of the utility and morality of targeted killings in Pakistan. Furthermore, the Community Appraisal and Motivation Programme (CAMP), a Pakistan-based research group, consistently finds in its surveys within the FATA that the most pressing security fear among residents is bomb blasts by terror groups, followed closely by the Pakistani military. When asked open-ended questions about their greatest fears, very few ever mention drones.

[Dinner]

Also none of the investigators actually went to the FATA areas as under Pakistani law it is illegal for foreigners to do travel there so they just relied on official stats which not even Pakistanis trust and believe have been doctored for political reasons.

[Al B. Sure!]

In my view, civilian casualties are totally the fault of the Taliban the terrorists that hide out among civilians. They're the ones putting civilians at risk by using them as human shields, just like Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Therefore, not our fault.

And you want to be an officer? **** no.

We had a pool event last week and the Major spoke to us, including NROTC and newly commissioned Lieutenants, about the importance of winning hearts and minds, about disconnecting the civilian population from combatants, and understanding that even the civilian population opposes us because they are misled and they don't understand our mission. He mentioned how when he was in Iraq, his company made their way through a school and they noticed an American flag on the floor of the doorway to a classroom. Every day, the students would step on the flag.

Among the books he suggested we read was Counterinsurgency by David Kilcullen. Kilcullen writes:

The second is to act with respect for local people, putting the well-being of noncombatant civilians ahead of any other consideration, even - in fact, especially - ahead of killing the enemy. Convincing threatened populations that we are the winning side, developing genuine partnerships with them, demonstrating that we can protect them from the guerillas and that their best interests are served by cooperating with us is the critical path in counterinsurgency, because insurgents cannot operate without the support - active, passive, or enforced - of the local population.

Even if we are killing the insurgents effectively, if our approach also frightens and harms the local population, or makes people feel unsafe, then there is next to no chance that we will gain their support. If we want people to partner with us, put their weapons down, and return to unarmed political dialogue rather than work out their issues through violence, then we must make them feel safe enough to do so, and we must convince them they have more to gain by talking than by fighting. Consequently, violence against noncombatant civilians by security forces, whether intentional or accidental, is almost always entirely counterproductive. Besides being simply the right thing to do, protecting and defending local noncombatant civilians is a critical component of making them feel safe, and is thus one of the keys to operational success.

[Dinner]

The hard truth is there just isn't a better option than drone strikes so for now drone strikes will be the policy.

[giblets]

If we know where the terrorists are why can't we send soldiers to get them? That seems like it would be more precise. It worked with Osama.

[regexcellent]

And you want to be an officer? **** no.

Oh my god are you seriously going to do this dickwaving thing about whether you deserve to be an officer more than I do? 90% of the reason I'm doing ROTC is because the PT is getting me in shape. I'm not even ****ing contracted. But as for your rebuttal, I'm not really denying that they don't like it when we kill civilians. I'm saying that morally it's not our fault, as the enemy is doing everything he can to cause us to harm civilians for propaganda purposes.

Among the books he suggested we read was Counterinsurgency by David Kilcullen.

Here's my suggested reading, from someone who actually prosecuted a successful counter-insurgency campaigns (yes I've read this book, yes it's very good):

http://www.amazon.com/At-Front-Generals-Account-Africa/dp/186842331X

He's not really a politically correct source, having been a general officer in the SADF during the apartheid era, but he staked out an anti-apartheid position in the book so I dunno. In any case it's really worthwhile because he accumulated over a decade of experience in counter-insurgency and it's also got a really interesting insight into the different manner in which a Soviet-system army (i.e. the Cuban one) operates and how a Western-system army (i.e. the SADF) operates. He also does a significant amount of comparison between Vietnam, Rhodesia, the South African Border War, and other similar conflicts. He describes how the South Africans managed to turn support for the Communist factions in South-West Africa and Angola into a quagmire for the Soviets like Vietnam was for us.

Unfortunately to my knowledge there are not books written by the other side. I would very much like to read one.

Anyway my opinions on counter-insurgency come from Gen. Geldenhuys.

[DinoDoc]

words

Or we might simply realize the folly of building a nation that never really existed in the first place and that the occupation of Afghanistan was a mistake? Did any American before 9/11 truly give a **** about the plight of the Afghan people? If not, then why did we allow concern for them to get in the way of a just punitive action?

[regexcellent]

If we know where the terrorists are why can't we send soldiers to get them? That seems like it would be more precise. It worked with Osama.

Way too risky, and it's not really possible to repeat what we did with Osama a whole lot. A lot of training went into that. And what I mean by that is, we built a precise mock-up of the entire compound he was holed up in, and the Navy SEALs and Army Night Stalker pilots that carried it out practiced the exact mission day-in, day out, doing repeated dress rehearsals for 7 whole months before they actually went in and killed him. We can't do that for most targets, most of whom are also not in one place long enough to try.

[Uncle Sparky]

It's easily defensible. Almost 3000 civilians died on 9/11, which awards us nearly 3000 morality-bucks to spend. Meanwhile, according to the report linked to by your article, less than a third of that number of Pakistani civilians has died from drone strikes between 2004 and Sep 2012, so we're allowed to kill at least another 2000 civilians before we start accruing a morality debt (in the unlikely case that our dead people aren't worth more than their dead people). At the same time, approximately 2000 combatants have been killed by the drone strikes, and this has saved over five trillion innocent (American) lives by preventing all of the terrorist activity the combatants were planning.

If you include all the civilians killed in Afghanistan, Iraq and Packistan in America's quest for revenge, you will need to have at least 1 more "9/11" event per week in the US until Christmas to even things out.