Afghanistan 2011

[Beefitarian]

I don't want to upset anyone but I am starting to think it's time to bring back our ground guys. It just seems too complicated.

Maybe it would be better if we could magically evac the regular folks and carpet bomb the place.

Time to "re-pat"? Stay safe guys.

[Expat]

It is getting worse...
Do not believe any thing about a success story there.

From today's Icasualty site:


http://icasualties.org/OEF/Index.aspx


Coalition
Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Total
2001 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 5 4 12
2002 10 13 15 10 1 3 0 3 1 5 1 8 70
2003 4 7 12 2 3 7 2 4 2 6 8 1 58
2004 11 2 3 3 9 5 2 4 4 8 7 2 60
2005 2 3 6 19 4 29 2 33 12 10 7 4 131
2006 1 17 13 5 17 22 19 29 38 17 9 4 191
2007 2 18 10 20 25 24 29 34 24 15 22 9 232
2008 14 7 20 14 23 46 30 46 37 19 12 27 295
2009 25 25 28 14 27 38 76 77 70 74 32 35 521
2010 43 53 39 34 51 103 88 79 57 65 58 41 711
2011 32 38 39 51 54 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 214

US
Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Total
2001 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 5 4 12
2002 10 12 9 5 1 3 0 1 1 5 1 1 49
2003 4 7 12 2 1 3 2 4 2 4 6 1 48
2004 9 2 3 3 8 5 2 3 4 5 7 1 52
2005 2 1 6 18 4 27 2 15 11 7 3 3 99
2006 1 17 7 1 11 18 9 10 6 10 7 1 98
2007 0 14 5 8 11 12 14 18 8 10 11 6 117
2008 7 1 8 5 17 28 20 22 27 16 1 3 155
2009 15 15 13 6 12 25 45 51 40 59 18 18 317
2010 30 31 26 20 34 60 65 55 42 50 53 33 499
2011 25 20 31 46 30 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 152

[Expat]

And if you add these numbers, it gets even worse:

May 30, 2011
This Memorial Day, we remember our fallen soldiers. Many have died in combat, but increasingly, for off-duty members of the National Guard and Army Reserves, soldiers are dying by their own hands. Nationally, the number of those who've committed suicide has nearly doubled from 80 in 2009 to 145 last year.

http://www.npr.org/2011/05/30/136692959 ... -back-home

...and that is the reserves only...

[winds_in_flight_wtf]

Oh yea ? Do you by any chance have the numbers stating how many civilians have been massacred by extremist groups over there? Have you been keeping track of the number of suicide related attacks? If Canada was not involved, people would be bitching about "why" we are not there!!!! Why have we not taken part in this almighty humanitarian mission!

If Canada had intel that genocide or what have you was imminent, and would cleanse oh lets say 800,000 people (doesn't sound familiar I hope) , and we had the opportunity to send troops in.... (casualty rates est 150-200) , would you send them? Yes or no ..... ?

[bizjets101]

If Canada was not involved, people would be bitching about "why" we are not there!!!!

I find it hard to believe any Canadian Citizen would have questioned "why" we had not gone into Afghanistan had we not gone. I've never heard one person bitch and cry that we didn't go into Iraq - or for that matter Vietnam!!

Personally I think your way off base with reality on this one.

As for your Genocide 'What if' question - so your asking about a fictitious genocide - where we get to know the end result before we decide if we are 'Yes or No'.

Would I support Canadian Peace Keepers attempting to prevent a genocide to the likes of Rwanda - of course - would i want to lose 150 Canadian Peace Keepers - of course not.

But the losses would be for a far greater cause than invading Afghanistan on shoestring reasons, under pressure from America - that's for sure.

[winds_in_flight_wtf]

If Canada was not involved, people would be bitching about "why" we are not there!!!!

I find it hard to believe any Canadian Citizen would have questioned "why" we had not gone into Afghanistan had we not gone. I've never heard one person bitch and cry that we didn't go into Iraq - or for that matter Vietnam!!

Personally I think your way off base with reality on this one.

As for your Genocide 'What if' question - so your asking about a fictitious genocide - where we get to know the end result before we decide if we are 'Yes or No'.

Would I support Canadian Peace Keepers attempting to prevent a genocide to the likes of Rwanda - of course - would i want to lose 150 Canadian Peace Keepers - of course not.

But the losses would be for a far greater cause than invading Afghanistan on shoestring reasons, under pressure from America - that's for sure.

My fictitious example was not really fictitious as you solved the riddle. I would disagree with you, and I would doubt that you could state the above to Romeo Dallaire himself. The fact is , we knew what the end result was going to be in Rwanda. Who wants to lose Canadian "Soldiers" ? Not peace keepers, but soldiers. We are not social workers. A military is used to fight a war, and somewhere in the last 50 years this has been forgotten. To answer your question, do we want to lose soldiers? No, sadly that is the reality we face in this "perfect" world many like to fantasize about. Pacifist or not, a military is designed for one purpose. The rebuilding and humanitarian effort in Afghanistan is the first of its kind for Canada, and never in history have we experienced a zone similar.

How do you evaluate the worth of a Canadian Soldiers life? How do you come to conclusions that we were coerced into the Afghanistan theater? Does it matter if a young boy of Rwandan decent is massacred in his own village or does an Afghan boy hold even less worth?

I think the end game is pretty simple right now : We cannot play the "lets go back to 2003" game, meaning > we know for 100% certainty what might have been had we not gone to Afghanistan. We really do not know. What do we know? That the country was plagued with issues leftover from centuries of War. Whether or not you want to believe the pretense of the Afghan invasion, I think the country is better off today than it was 9 years ago. This is from my personal experience.

On a side note : Can you believe it has been 10 years this upcoming September ? Who remembers life before then! ?

[Expat]

A few years ago, people started comparing the west's presence here, to Viet-Nam. Well, if you look at the figures, and the reality on the ground, this comparison makes more sense now.
The Chinese and Indians are getting the resources, now, Russia, the oil and uranium. Russia is even selling weapons to the new Afghan Airforce...
Talibs are getting the control of the country back slowly...
Where is the good outcome?
The regime in place here is so corrupt that it cannot be relied on for any long term support...
The population now say that the situation is now worse than it ever was, and want the foreigners out...so that they can go back and live like before...

[azimuthaviation]

Where is the good outcome?

Well you seem to be making a decent living, on the backs of our tax payers and the blood of our soldiers, not to mention at the expense of your people.

[bizjets101]

As America Observes Memorial Day, U.S. Casualties in Afghanistan Top 1,500

CBS News

[winds_in_flight_wtf]

Where is the good outcome?

Well you seem to be making a decent living, on the backs of our tax payers and the blood of our soldiers, not to mention at the expense of your peopl e.

[Expat]

Where is the good outcome?

Well you seem to be making a decent living, on the backs of our tax payers and the blood of our soldiers, not to mention at the expense of your people.

Experience, competency, intelligence, tolerance, and humility has a price, right?

[Expat]

On a serious note, I read a lot about the economic fallout of these wars. Our country, and our big neighbor, are already suffering from its cost. This affects us now, and will affect our children as well, while our countries try to pay back the huge deficit caused by the war.

A country is at some point like an individual. It may borrow, but to a point. At a certain point, the cost of servicing the debt becomes enormous, and takes too much of the budget. The US is nearing that point, having spent the lion's share, in these wars. They were not forced to. They were driven there, by those who benefited.

One problem with wars, is that accounts are not audited. For security reasons, cash outlays are not divulged...

This is a heaven for those who stand to make a real buck. We are here talking about contractors, middlemen, security companies...

War has become so expensive, that it may bankrupt, even the richest, and more powerful countries.
For exemple, this piece of news, about specific expenses:

Military and civilian officials agree that the cost of the Afghan mission is staggering. The amount per deployed service member in Afghanistan, which the administration estimates at $1 million per year, is significantly higher than it was in Iraq because fuel and other supplies must be trucked into the landlocked nation, often through circuitous routes. Bases, meanwhile, have to be built from scratch.

Last year, the United States spent nearly $1.3 billion on military and civilian reconstruction operations in one district of Helmand province — home to 80,000 people who live mostly in mud-brick compounds — about as much as it provided to Egypt in military assistance.

This district is the equivalent to a county in Canada!!!

Source:

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/05/31-5

I have witnessed enough waste and fraud here to write a book.

Little girls going to school? I want my grand daughter to go to school!

[Expat]

Today's thoughts...

http://www.thestar.com/article/1000853- ... fghanistan

[bizjets101]

Montreal Gazette June 4/2011 Mahtthew Fisher, Postmedia News

But Gauthier added one of the reasons Canada ended up playing a major role in Afghanistan for so long was because the Chretien government decided it wanted to have nothing to do with U.S. president George W. Bush’s war in Iraq.

“It was as much about not going to Iraq as it was about going to Afghanistan,” the former commander of Canadian Forces Expeditionary Command said. “You can take a glass half-empty or a glass half-full view of that. The half-full view was that the government wanted to be seen to be contributing to international security and stability, and the best way was to contribute more militarily in Afghanistan. That was extremely important to a U.S. government seized at the time by Iraq.”

[Shiny Side Up]

The half-full view was that the government wanted to be seen to be contributing to international security and stability, and the best way was to contribute more militarily in Afghanistan. That was extremely important to a U.S. government seized at the time by Iraq

Not only the Americans, but I seem to remember some of the other members of NATO being particularly vocal about Canada making more of a contribution. The Germans especially, were on about how we weren't pulling our share.

[2R]

Canada has had a free ride from NATO for a very long time.The lack of equipment,assets and manpower will bite Canada in the arse when it attempts to defend the Artic or defend our huge undefended borders and shorelines.

[iflyforpie]

Canada has had a free ride from NATO for a very long time.The lack of equipment,assets and manpower will bite Canada in the arse when it attempts to defend the Artic or defend our huge undefended borders and shorelines.

I still have trouble connecting the dots as to how Afghanistan is applicable to an organisation who's purpose was to forestall and provide mutual security against Eastern Bloc aggression in the North Atlantic and European theatres during the Cold War.

I say we just promise to start the mother of all insurgencies to anyone who challenges our sovereignty. Just get a bunch of low-time pilots together, promise them a turbine job at the end of their tour, and you'd have the most ideologically motivated insurgents on the planet.

[Expat]

Canada has had a free ride from NATO for a very long time.The lack of equipment,assets and manpower will bite Canada in the arse when it attempts to defend the Artic or defend our huge undefended borders and shorelines.

NATO is going to the point, where it will be not relevant. Canada will have to rely on itself to defend its resources. As always...
If we are so blind as to think that NATO has Canadian interests at heart, then we are blind...
NATO is a joke, always has been, will always be...

[Moose47]

Expat -"NATO is a joke, always has been, will always be..."

I would agree that today N.A.T.O. is rather dysfunctional. But to say that about its entire history is just plain wrong. At one time NATO was the only thing keeping Russia from acquring new real estate in Wetern Europe. Pilots of the Royal Canadian Air Force flying the Canadair Sabre Mk. 5's and 6's were the masters of the skies over France and Germany.

Today, I think it is time to let the mainland Europeans defend themselves and disolve N.A.T.O.

Let the U.K., U.S. and Canada form a new military alliance.

I have to ask myself sometimes Expat if you are and I were in the same military!

[Spokes]

...


I still have trouble connecting the dots as to how Afghanistan is applicable to an organisation who's purpose was to forestall and provide mutual security against Eastern Bloc aggression in the North Atlantic and European theatres during the Cold War.

...

The concept of an attack on one is an attack on all. As absurd as it sounds, A terrorist organization backed by the Afghan Talbian government attacked the USA- a NATO member. As such we too were attacked also being a NATO member. Simple as that.

[azimuthaviation]

Not quite that simple. Turkey has been fighting Kurdish terrorists for 30 years, I dont see Canadian troops fighting there.

[iflyforpie]

Nor have we seen Canadian troops in Spain fighting Basques or in the UK fighting the IRA....

[Expat]

Expat -"NATO is a joke, always has been, will always be..."

I would agree that today N.A.T.O. is rather dysfunctional. But to say that about its entire history is just plain wrong. At one time NATO was the only thing keeping Russia from acquring new real estate in Wetern Europe. Pilots of the Royal Canadian Air Force flying the Canadair Sabre Mk. 5's and 6's were the masters of the skies over France and Germany.

Today, I think it is time to let the mainland Europeans defend themselves and disolve N.A.T.O.

Let the U.K., U.S. and Canada form a new military alliance.

I have to ask myself sometimes Expat if you are and I were in the same military!

When I was in the military, we had NATO to defend against specific threats, and NORAD to defend against specific threats. These two were different, but both were aimed at protecting our collective sovereignty, somehow.
Now, we are in Af, as an occupying force, in a country that has done us no harm, based on false information, and coercion.
It doesn't take a PHD to figure out that NATO here is being used as justification, as a tool to occupy a country that had been selected for invasion before 9/11.
And...the natural leader of Af, who would have opposed this occupation, was killed 2 days before 9/11. Go figure...

[Moose47]

Expat - "When I was in the military, we had NATO to defend against specific threats, and NORAD to defend against specific threats. These two were different, but both were aimed at protecting our collective sovereignty, somehow."

I was there too but the reason I responded was that I take issue with your statement about N.A.T.O. always having been a joke. By making such a blanket statement you are in effect saying that the Canadian military was and is a joke by association.

[. ._]

I'm pretty sure he didn't mean to go THAT far.

I'd infer he was talking about the B.S. politics that go on everywhere- whether it's NATO, the U.S. president twisting arms, etc.

But then again. I'm an optimist. I'd think a cigar smoking monkey is exercising his democratic rights to express himself all the while protesting his domination by a fellow primate.

I'm a little fucked up.

Gimme another beer, it was a hot day at work.

(I still think we should get out of Afghanistan sooner than later, tho.)