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

The simple truth is that they are not allowed to win. When a sniper is in a building, eliminate the building. When bad guys are hiding somewhere on a city block, eliminate the block. There will be civilian deaths. Do that a few times and the civilians will not let the bad guys hide among them. I realize that is a brutal way to do things but you don't kill hornets one at a time.

reply to post by Hoosierdaddy71


But when the snipers move into an orphanage and to get at 1 guy you have to kill 300 children, i doubt public opinion back at home will be for soldiers affixing bayonets and spearing babies in their cots just so some politician can claim a victory...but if its any cost just pull out the troops and glass everything with a few dozen nukes and job done and everyones back in time for a nice victory parade

learnatic
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?

Oh my...

The most powerful army in the world can't defeat a "rag tag lightly armed resistance movement?"

Where did I hear that before? Maybe the American Revolution? Vietnam war? The Russians in Afghanistan?

War is not always straight forward. Guerilla warfare, or asymmetrical warfare is hard to combat.

Imagine if you will, someone that is so dedicated to their cause that they live a life they despise for months, years even just to wait for the right time to deliver a killing blow, or to deliver key intelligence or disrupt information flow, or reroute a message to the wrong person/entity, or disable a system that allows infiltration into a key area.

Going further, the terrain in Afghanistan is not exactly hospitable nor easy terrain, and there is no centralized government. There are a great deal of smaller family, tribal, or village governments. So there is no "Central command and signal" apparatus to disable. Even if you are able to disrupt the command and signal of the leadership, another branch will appear.

On a side note, have you ever attempted and failed to keep mosquitos from biting you? Even when you can hear them buzzing around in the night?

Timing
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.

jihadists? like the ones the US is funding in all these tribal countries it has then used as an excuse to invade?
wow..that is a lol
see john McCains actions re AlciaDUH!

Timing
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.

Except they find out it's 72 MALE computer nerd virgins. I saw that in a editorial cartoon once, pretty funny.

If terrorism was defeated what excuse would the world have for never ending globalist land grabs?
9/11/01 has turned into the perfect excuse to "fight" forever IMO.

Resistance movements are an oddity. They are not strong enough to present a real threat. At the same time unless you are willing to take extreme measures to exterminate them then become hard to get rid of. If let loose with no rules and with a mission to end the resistance at any cost then yes the US military could end it rather quickly. It would result in the extermination of most of the population but, it could be done. However modern western morales do not allow such measure to be take.

reply to post by learnatic


Because the rag tag army force is trained and supplied by the CIA double agents. They need war for profit.

A war begun for no wise purpose, carried on with a strange mixture of rashness and timidity, brought to a close after suffering and disaster, without much glory attached either to the government, which directed, or the great body of troops, which waged it. ‘Not one benefit, political or military, has Britain acquired with this war. Our eventual evacuation of the country resembled the retreat of an army defeated.

Army chaplain, Reverend G. R. Gleig, Afghanistan, 1843

Sound familiar, Reverend Cleig said that in 1843 after the British were defeated after a 3 year war With Afghanistan in the first Anglo-Afghan war, Then there was the second Anglo-Afghan war of 1878-1880, which the British kind of won by gaining some control over Afghanistan however then in the third Anglo-Afghan war of 1919 which lead to full Afghan Independence. Now its rather more complicated but when you look at the history of Afghanistan even as far back as the Hotaki Empire right up to the Soviet invasion and even the NATO invasion something becomes quite clear....

.... DONT MESS WITH THE AFGHANS.

Just dont do it, they are cut of a different cloth these guys are die hard warriors who are very smart, and very deadly.

What we are seeing in Afghanistan today is the 21st century technology clashing with the warrior spirit of the 18th century. These guys are driven by tribal and religious traditions that we in the West simply cannot comprehend, that has been a huge factor in our "defeat" and thats what history will call this a "defeat". The NATO forces wade in to some guys village, make him look like a total idiot in front of all his family and village people, the NATO guys might even see fit to arrest on of his villagers on suspicion of being a "talib" or worse yet they might end up shooting the poor old guy. Next thing you know, NATO now has a whole village that has turned against them and is planting IED's.

Why is this?

Probably for the exact same reason any of us would do the exact same thing if we ended up with a army of Russians wanting to enforces there belief systems on us.

The only way for NATO to have "won" in Afghanistan would have been to have gone in quick, killed OBL then the Al-Qa'ida and Taliban leadership, paved the way for the Northern Alliance to have taken power then left. whole thing should have been over in 3 months max.

But no they had to drag it out and its turned into a living hell in some pursuit to bring "democracy" to Afghanistan.

they might as well just have brought them all big tubs of ben and jerry's ice cream for all the good their "democracy" will do Afghanistan.

At least that way our troops wouldn't be coming back in body bags.

You cannot beat a man who considers death preferable to life under your rule.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


As far as I'm concerned this is pretty much all that needs to be said.

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

From Alexander the Great to the Soviet Union....and eventually the US...not one of them has been able to subjugate Afghanistans people. You have to admire that.

DONT MESS WITH THE AFGHANS.

Just dont do it, they are cut of a different cloth these guys are die hard warriors who are very smart, and very deadly.

reply to post by OtherSideOfTheCoin


Excellent post...enjoyed it.

You got me thinking about the British debacle in Aghanistan....all 3 of them actually. Do you know what the Afghan women used to do after the battle was over and the field was littered with dead and dying British soldiers? They would go out and stake them to the ground....squat over them one by one...and drown them in urine.

This story should illustrate the commitment of the Afghan people to victory if ever there was a doubt. These people are capable of unbeliveable savagery.

They do not take kindly to foreign invaders and occupiers....no matter how good their intentions are/were.

Ummm its basicaly so they can guarantee near permanent rotation of standing combat veterans, much like the Russian do in Chechnya. Not much point in maintaining an army if it cant fight worth ****, just makes sense because one day someone like him might show up again.

reply to post by deadcalm

From Alexander the Great to the Soviet Union....and eventually the US...not one of them has been able to subjugate Afghanistans people. You have to admire that.

Yeah, I really do in a way. It's a bit hard right this minute with them actively trying to kill people I know over there as we speak...but then, it isn't the whole country doing it and I had rather good feelings toward the Northern Alliance people. Still do, for what I know of what became of them after the Marines rolled in and made a war of it all.

The Afghans (as opposed to Arab fighters even the locals have never much cared for having around) are really a people out of time and another era of our history. Uniquely so for their geography in that being possible to happen in such a 'modern' world. It's something to see how they live compared to our perceptions of minimums. Talk about totally different world views and priorities in life.

To each their own though, and I wish 'em all the best...AFTER our people are out and we don't even leave en Embassy behind to get overrun and destroyed. Then...whatever floats their boat and we never should have tried to nation build them.

Heck... We're American though. We never listen when someone says 'That stove top is hot, buddy! You're gonna get burned!'. We're sure we always have a clever new way to bend physics just a hair and touch it without the 'OWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!'

The world really hasn't seen an unconditional strike from American forces.What you HAVE seen are minimal efforts,not an all out strike.
We do show GREAT humane restraint sometimes at the cost of our lives to rescue parts of the civilian populace,which of course is regarded as a weakness of the western people by those who are our enemies.