Why can't the US defeat a rag tag lightly armed resistence force ??

I Just got to wondering why it has taken the U.S. and its allies 10 years, or what ever it is, to defeat a rag tag lightly armed resistance movement in Afghanistan. These people are armed with not much else than small arms and rely on motorbikes to get around.

They are up against the most powerful military force the world has ever seen with tanks, truck, aeroplanes and aerial battle ships and the rest of the most sophisticated military hardware and communications.

There is only reason I can think of and that the U.S does not want its invasion to be a military success for reasons best known to them. Any other reasons I think off only stem from this one reason.

What do you think?

reply to post by learnatic


It's really hard to defeat an enemy when they will use bow's and arrows against Apache Helicopters with hellfire missiles and .50 cal machine guns.

The mind of a human is the most powerful weapon ever created. If you can control what a person thinks then you can control what that person does.

Also don't forget they think blowing themselves up and taking a bunch of people with them is the way to heaven and 72 virgins.

reply to post by learnatic


have you seen the mount of opium coming out of there lately

Afghanistan's poppy farmers plant record opium crop, UN report says
Despite 10 years of western efforts to curb production, a combination of economics and political instability means farmers in the world's largest heroin-producing country are as enthusiastic as ever for the poppy

www.theguardian.com...

they can't stop it...right..the taliban had it stopped
when russia asked the US to stop the heroin the US said no

oh BTW
US banks, if i understand correctly, can launder foreign money, just not US money

reply to post by learnatic


Take a time machine and go back into history and ask them how they couldn't do it.

Woodrow Wilson tried to let us be isolated.

^^ Ruminate that.

reply to post by learnatic


I think men were sitting around tables in Saigon asking much the same thing at the end when a certain song came on the radio to indicate it was time to pack their trash and haul tail for the last flights out. Those were rice farmers and peasants with weapons to match.

It's never the tech that wins a war and our gizmo crazy fools of the modern age cannot get that lesson, no matter how many times we get our butts kicked to learn it. You cannot beat a man who considers death preferable to life under your rule. However, or why that comes about to be their attitude, once taken? It's kill them, die by their hand or leave them the hell alone.

We're facing a nation half full of them...and a nation to the East, and a piece of one to the North and a whole nation with a different flavor of the same thinking on the other border.

This would be why Afghanistan is where empires go to die, and have been well before the 20th century.

dbl post. Oops!

Hearts and minds. The full might of the US military is a lot more capable than we know.

reply to post by Timing


i suppose if you wouldnt put your life on the line to save the ones you love
it means you really don't love them

So non muslims must work cheap, because they go to heaven when they die in war, and they don't even get any virgins in heaven;
whats that really say about non muslims?

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


the next /last empire killer would be russia
eta dblstr for the occasional post i should have starred at the time and didn't

reply to post by dfens


Ummm... I type fast and have ATS's updating live topic views on my left monitor pretty much as background when I'm home, day and night..so I see most of what comes up to offer my two cents on when it looks interesting. That would be why I sometimes seem to reply like I was waiting for it to come...because, in a way, with that view sitting in line of sight when I'm doing other things on my other screens? I kinda am.

reply to post by Danbones


Or maybe you're just trying to deviate from the topic at hand and trying spin it like I'm bashing Muslims when it's the Jihadist that are crazy and it's the Jihadist that we are fighting in that area.

The Indians of North America was the same way and it was a near genocide for us to fully conquer from west to east coasts.

Also, see the above example about the Vietnam war.

Timing
reply to post by learnatic

 

The mind of a human is the most powerful weapon ever created. If you can control what a person thinks then you can control what that person does.

Excellent observation and I'll keep that as a quote

Also don't forget they think blowing themselves up and taking a bunch of people with them is the way to heaven and 72 virgins.

I don't think that many blow themselves up because they never seem to run out of fighters either. I wonder if a reason the US hasn't defeated them is because they get tip offs all the time but that is the case its just a subsidiary reason from my first reason.

Simple....$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. Why would we stop when $$$$$$$$ Is involved. Why do we have these unnecessary
Wars? Easy to explain, $$$$$$$$.

reply to post by learnatic


They have estimated that there are something like 350 million Islamic radicals.

Is under-estimate the power of lies my friend.

Edit to add:

The total population of people that follow the Islamic religion is somewhere around 1 billion people and it's neck and neck between being more popular than Christianity.

Because all good Muslims go to Afghanistan to fight the enemy that is the west, lead by the USA.
A never ending stream of radicals who want to prove they are the holiest.

Dont forget the money channelled into Afghanistan by Muslims
moneyjihad.wordpress.com...

You are not just fighting a bunch of farmers and shepherds

I wouldnt be suprised if there was Chinese or Russian coin behind the Jihadists either

The US did well ending communism by funding the Afghan war against the USSR

Danbones
reply to post by Timing

 

i suppose if you wouldnt put your life on the line to save the ones you love
it means you really don't love them

So non muslims must work cheap, because they go to heaven when they die in war, and they don't even get any virgins in heaven;
whats that really say about non muslims?

It becomes a may might more if you want to think of any kind of religious aspect. If you had the choice: send someone else or send yourself to die... Who do you choose? God, heaven, hell, leave that all aside. Me or you? I want to survive or I will die trying?

My point is who wants to survive more and why. Any person who talks about war should have a good perspective instead of trying to remanufacture a culture that never asked for it. Natural resources. Human resources.

Men behind tanks couldn't win that war. Men with swords and horses and cannons couldn't win that war. Men behind screens cannot win until we glass it over. Rambo can't even beat them outright.

Hamid fights for opium and the tali wants to stay relevant by having a say in oil and minerals. Amazing that a highly positioned Pakistani runs Afghanistan.

If it were me and I figured that I could sell everyone out eventually, I might do it, because it's me and not you and it's a very good chance no one ever finds out. Politics. Let's blame someone.

People don't actually want to die. That's what makes a war so bloody.

Just try and walk up to anyone and ask if they want to die today.... Ask anywhere else... See what response you receive

Nobody wants war or struggle. Unfortunately...

borntowatch
I wouldnt be suprised if there was Chinese or Russian coin behind the Jihadists either

The US did well ending communism by funding the Afghan war against the USSR

So when China or Russia uses another country as a pawn in their own political/economic games it's bad, but when the US does the same thing... it's ok?

If I was Afghani, I'd be pissed that my country has been treated like a BDSM whore by imperial powers since the dawn of time.

Maybe that's why they fight the way they do. It's called "effective motivation".

reply to post by NthOther


Exactly! Would you not fight for your own sense of self satisfaction? It's their's, why we gotta f wit it? WE are supposed to do it at home if any foreign power were to do that to us, right?

Why can't they win? its simple the stuff they have is not suited to the task, theres no way lets say 50,000 Afghan tribesmen ae going to send a letter to the pentagon saying lets rumble at some place in a nice set piece battle as they know the moment they got together and fired up the kettles for a pre battle brew the sky would darken with the missiles raining down on them

How can you tell a peaceful native from a foaming at the mouth guy when they wear the same clothes, speak the same language. fighting a guerrilla war requires a different battle methodology than what the US wants as theres no winner and at best a draw with an understanding on both sides.