Afghanistan "Graveyard of Empires"-America is next.

check this out-

Because no occupying power has ever won Afghanistan. The British tried, the Russians tried.

The greatest massacre of British soldiers in the history of the British empire happened in Afghanistan.

"Slaughter in the Mountain Passes

A magazine based in Boston, the North American Review, published a remarkably extensive and timely account titled “The English in Afghanistan” six months later, in July 1842. It contained this vivid description (some antiquated spellings have been left intact):

On the 6th of January, 1842, the Caboul forces commenced their retreat through the dismal pass, destined to be their grave. On the third day they were attacked by the mountaineers from all points, and a fearful slaughter ensued…

The troops kept on, and awful scenes ensued. Without food, mangled and cut to pieces, each one caring only for himself, all subordination had fled; and the soldiers of the forty-fourth English regiment are reported to have knocked down their officers with the butts of their muskets.

On the 13th of January, just seven days after the retreat commenced, one man, bloody and torn, mounted on a miserable pony, and pursued by horsemen, was seen riding furiously across the plains to Jellalabad. That was Dr. Brydon, the sole person to tell the tale of the passage of Khourd Caboul.

More than 16,000 people had set out on the retreat from Kabul, and in the end only one man, Dr. William Brydon, a British Army surgeon, had made it alive to Jalalabad. The garrison there lit signal fires and sounded bugles to guide other British survivors to safety, but after several days they realized that Brydon would be the only one. It was believed the Afghans let him live so he could tell the grisly story. "

Obama's making a strategical mistake by sending 30,000 troops to Afghanistan.

answers.yahoo.com...

Afghanistan has been the graveyard of empires ever since Alexander the Great had trouble crossing the Khyber Pass in 326 B.C. He wisely decided to pretty much leave the tribesmen alone and moved south to India. From the Middle Ages on, waves of invading Mongols, Moghul rulers of India, and Persians have swept through the area, but the Afghan tribes have always proved fractious and hard to rule.

Foreign domination ended in 1747 when the Persians were expelled from the western part of the country and a local dynasty was established that survived into the 20th century. For the following two centuries Britain and Russia vied to control the area because of its vital trade routes across Asia but found it largely indigestible. An entire British army was annihilated in the First Afghan War of 1839-1842. Britain did not trouble the Afghans again until 1878, when a modern army advancing on Kabul was ambushed and nearly overwhelmed at Ahmed Khel before British firepower gave the advantage to the invaders. The British chose to leave the Afghans alone, paying a large subsidy in gold to the country's rulers while only stipulating that a British minister would have veto authority over Afghan foreign policy, a move designed to keep the Russians out. In 1919, the Afghans rose up, invading India before being driven back and defeated inside Afghanistan by an expeditionary force armed with field artillery and machine guns. The British wisely withdrew and, by the Treaty of Rawalpindi in 1919, the British Empire accepted complete Afghan independence.

The next great power that tried to occupy Afghanistan was the Soviet Union from 1979 to 1992. Moscow eventually sent 110,000 soldiers supported by tanks and helicopters to Afghanistan before withdrawing in failure with at least 10,000 dead. A Soviet-backed puppet regime survived for a short time before being replaced by the Taliban. Now there is a U.S.-backed puppet regime in Kabul headed by Hamid Karzai, sometimes referred to as the "Mayor of Kabul" because of the limits of his authority, who reportedly became president in the first place because he spoke good English. His government is largely ineffective and is extremely corrupt, with much of the corruption coming from drug money, which makes up the bulk of the country's economy. There have been numerous attempts to kill Karzai, who is protected from assassination by a praetorian guard from Blackwater International.

www.antiwar.com...

why? does anyone even have a clue, the mountains?

more links:
www.foreignaffairs.org... comment5771/milton-bearden/afghanistan-graveyard-of-empires.html

www.khyber.org...

Video:www.metacafe.com...

[edit on 30-1-2009 by UnitedSatesofFreemasons]

Yea, attacking mountainous peoples is hard. American Indians held out for years in the mountains. We got the great equalizer though...as much as I am loath to say it, we could nuke em and not worry about it anymore.

So how does anyone explain US SOF pretty much taking control of the country in a matter of weeks with a handful of men in 2001/2002?

[edit on 30-1-2009 by jerico65]

One of the basic tenets of warfare is that you never, ever design to hold territory with your military.

It's impossible. It's manpower intensive, and it violates another principle of warfare that requires freedom of movement.

You can control a territory without holding it with manpower. This is the part that few have figured out yet, and all the while, the wisdom of the millennia is there for the taking.

A grand total of 25,000 hand selected men could dominate Afghanistan. I mean DOMINATE.

Many regions would rapidly become "forbidden territory." Because everyone and everything that went in would disappear.

Our Special Forces, TACP's, Company Branch Operatives, and other Special Ops forces dominated by using rapid movement, rapid traverse, and not having any damned Generals fouling up their operations.

Afghanistan is no different from any place else.

The proper personnel mix, proper support, blindingly fast movements, along unanticipated lines of movement, and the Taliban would hang their retirement shingles out in Pakistan, never to return to Afghanistan.

Our generals are our worst enemies.

reply to post by jerico65

Agreed totally. People also tend to forget that most of the fighting is limited to a few of the more desolate provinces ex. Helmand Province. We also have the support of a significant amount of the population if not the majority - unlike both the British and the Russians and their Communist puppet regime.

Because no occupying power has ever won Afghanistan.

That is 100% right the Taliban were kicked right out and now are hiding in the mountains of Pakistan. I believe it.

reply to post by UnitedSatesofFreemasons

Because no occupying power has ever won Afghanistan.

Let's not forget that we are not there to occupy in the first place,

They can have the StoneAge to themselves soon enough.

reply to post by jam321


You know what they say.
Sick minds think alike

If you ignore the past of afghanistan, and then look at it, i see i comparison with Viet Nam. Both have there rules of engagment that will insure the ongoing dispute untill either the rules are lifted, or we leave.

And yes i agree, Marines are not an occupational force, come in, kick ass, break out. A friend of mine who is over there has been preaching that story since his first tour, haha here we are 3 later you think we would listen to his own advice.

I just think it is almost mystical that no one as ever even come close to winning. alexander the great lost, that is some divine other.

reply to post by UnitedSatesofFreemasons

i see i comparison with Viet Nam

There are similarities. I don't deny that. We will truly know more once Obama sends in more troops. If the Afghans begin to see us as an occupying force, we could be in for a long fight.

Originally posted by UnitedSatesofFreemasons
i see i comparison with Viet Nam.

There is no comparison!
Vietnam had triple canopy jungle with millions on the move and they had the support of not one but two other Super powers. When the Taliban fought the Russians they had the US supporting them. We are not a occupying force that is bent on changing Afghanistan like the Soviets were. We and the Coalition forces are fighting in the mountains and country side.

Apples and Oranges.

Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq aren't meant to be won or lost, just like Vietnam.

They all serve their purposes towards a project.

reply to post by SLAYER69


no my friend, i am not talking about the visual setting of the wars, i am considering the limitations that enable the war to continue. Like Nam, they shoot and then run over the boarder where we can not chase due to rules of engagment. It is the old funding a war from all angles, and make sure it never ends.

reply to post by jerico65


ahem,

putting sof into cities does not mean you control the country.
It just means you control the building and immediate area around where your soliders are stationed.

outside that building, the US are targets, in such crowded cities they are at the mercy of the people, likewise in the mountains.

Just because the US bombed the crap out of the mountains, and put thousands of troops into barracks around the city, doesnt mean they control it.

Originally posted by dooper
One of the basic tenets of warfare is that you never, ever design to hold territory with your military.

It's impossible. It's manpower intensive, and it violates another principle of warfare that requires freedom of movement.

You can control a territory without holding it with manpower. This is the part that few have figured out yet, and all the while, the wisdom of the millennia is there for the taking.

A grand total of 25,000 hand selected men could dominate Afghanistan. I mean DOMINATE.

Many regions would rapidly become "forbidden territory." Because everyone and everything that went in would disappear.

Our Special Forces, TACP's, Company Branch Operatives, and other Special Ops forces dominated by using rapid movement, rapid traverse, and not having any damned Generals fouling up their operations.

Afghanistan is no different from any place else.

The proper personnel mix, proper support, blindingly fast movements, along unanticipated lines of movement, and the Taliban would hang their retirement shingles out in Pakistan, never to return to Afghanistan.

Our generals are our worst enemies.

I think you fail to recognize that these people live to fight. Plus it is their home turf which make filling the ranks not to difficult. Not to mention the edge fighting for your home give you.

I suppose you could create no mans land, but that would appear like a FASCIST takeover.

I mean what are the objectives????

No my friend they will follow them and bomb them where they hide even Obama has already fired off a few missiles they wont be able to hide.

Originally posted by SLAYER69
No my friend they will follow them and bomb them where they hide even Obama has already fired off a few missiles they wont be able to hide.

Ya but do you consider that these people live there... They can hide in plain sight firemen, hearders, teachers etc.
Hell they could wait it out and remerge in ten years.

The villages there are large families that look out for eachother. Just holdup in the village and come out when it is safe. Whos gonna rat um out?

reply to post by The Bald Champion


True that.

I'm not saying that we should even be there or that it will be a cake walk and they are not good fighters.

I'm saying is that we are not the Soviets and we are not going to play that game is all.

Our objectives? Well. That's the real question, isn't it?

That's apparently our problem. Our leaders can't seem to separate military from civic virtues and goals.

One can never, ever, hang civic or political considerations on a military, or you will continue without any resolution. This is a known fact through the millennia.

In Afghanistan, Phase 1, it was a purely military effort, and was most successful.

In Afghanistan, Phase 2, it's a political effort. Rather than use police and political solutions, we've confused the mission beyond comprehension by hanging political and civic virtues on our military, which should have been long gone!

Soldiers are not policemen. Not politicians. Not nation-builders. Not ambassadors of good will!

The military is supposed to be a war machine, and that's a full plate. If someone needs their asses kicked, you turn the military loose with no rules of engagement, and you do not call them off until they have destroyed those enemies that have been defined.

Then you pull them back, let them roam in a vast territory, until such time as the political solutions can now be enabled and put in place.

New enemies come back, you destroy them. Each time they must be killed, destroyed, and completely. It doesn't take too many times, and contentious folks decide to migrate to easier pickings.

This half-assed thing we're doing in Afghanistan is the equivalent of a mass duck-drowning. Not going to work.

Our strategy?

Who in hell knows?

Originally posted by Agit8dChop
ahem,

putting sof into cities does not mean you control the country.
It just means you control the building and immediate area around where your soliders are stationed.

ahem,

SOF weren't in the cities. They were in the countryside. Remember that picture of the AFSOC guy on horseback? That wasn't downtown Kabal.