Britain Plans to Send 500 More Soldiers to Afghanistan

Well we have an answer.
Maybe...

US sending up to 45,000 more troops to afghanistan

[edit on 14-10-2009 by SLAYER69]

reply to post by SLAYER69

"President Barack Obama's administration is understood to have told the British government that it could announce, as early as next week, the substantial increase to its 65,000 troops already serving there"

Good news!

Now if Barack will sit back and let his generals set rules of engagement, the officers decide the tactics to use in the field and generally not repeat the mistakes of NAM, there is hope on the horizon!

But it is hard to imagine that he will resist the temptation to medle!

Originally posted by SLAYER69
Well we have an answer.
Maybe...

US sending up to 45,000 more troops to afghanistan

[edit on 14-10-2009 by SLAYER69]

The BBC is also breaking the story. Would it be a good idea to put the Afghan Surge story in the Breaking News forum?

So let me get this right, after 8 years they are now sending 45k more troops, what's that now about 100k? Why on Earth would that make any difference? Why don't they send 10million troops, it won't make ANY difference.

What's happens in another 8 years? Will democracy prevail and Afghans will be able to buy a Big Mac from their local mall?

They are fighting an invisible enemy...an ideology. The 'enemy' hides without a uniform. They want to win hearts and minds by patrolling foreign soil with humvee's, tanks and brigades dressed like storm troopers...yeah right.

As has been said before, Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires. No one wins in Afghanistan, it's littered with the bleached white bones of every foreign invader of many nationalities that entered its wild territory!

reply to post by PrisonerOfSociety


This is the mall in Kabul

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/2cfd9f40828c.jpg[/atsimg]

There is a McDonald's already in Kabul. As a far as I know it either opened last year or this year.

[edit on 14/10/09 by MikeboydUS]

reply to post by MikeboydUS


Just 250,000 sq.miles left to 'democratise'.

reply to post by PrisonerOfSociety

As has been said before, Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires. No one wins in Afghanistan, it's littered with the bleached white bones of every foreign invader of many nationalities that entered its wild territory!

Although what you state puts the odds against us, even you must admit that there is always a first time.

Time will tell.

No one wins in Afghanistan, it's littered with the bleached white bones of every foreign invader of many nationalities that entered its wild territory!

Wait a minute. Alexander the Great. Genghis Khan and The Taliban have, all are foreigners to Afghanistan.

reply to post by PrisonerOfSociety

The person who stated that Afghanistan is the graveyard of Empires was completely ignorant of history.

Afghanistan was completely defeated twice.

Alexander defeated Afghanistan first, and his armies, already faster than any others, reconfigured for even more speed and mobility.

It took him three years, but he was relentless and ruthless. He literally ran them into the ground and killed them where he found them.

Ghengis Khan also defeated Afghanistan, and those who tried to fight, he too ran them down and killed them where he found them.

Khan's forces were a superb light cavalry, super fast in their time, and they too, were relentless.

The key seems to be that in troublesome areas, depopulation is sometimes necessary. Not politically correct, but effective.

The US and NATO (British) forces can win here too. We have speed, intelligence, and mobility that Alexander or Ghehgis would have died for.

All we have to do is get some combat commanders in there and get it done.

reply to post by PrisonerOfSociety


You don't get it. The North has never wanted the Taliban. The Taliban came out of Pakistan, riling up the Pashtuns in the south and pushed north. They took Kabul in 1996, pushing out the legitimate government which created the Northern Alliance to resist the Taliban.

Dec 2001, the Northern Alliance retakes Kabul with help from US airpower. Thus the legitimate government has been restored to the capital.

Its not an issue of democracy. Its an issue of who the real invaders are and who the legitimate government is.

reply to post by jam321

Although what you state puts the odds against us, even you must admit that there is always a first time. Time will tell.

Why, Oh why do they want to win the war? They HAVE to stay there for decades to protect the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline. It really is that simple.

Again, soldiers die for the black gold and to protect at all costs a pithy 56-inch diameter pipe.

You can sugar-coat it with all the pretty rhetoric you want, but wars are for profit and a few getting blown up by IED's is an expectable level of attrition, in the eyes of TPTB.

Soldiers are dispensable, oil fields to control economies for the next 30 years aren't.

We live in a sad World.

reply to post by PrisonerOfSociety


Black Gold?

Its a Natural Gas line. The only countries that will benefit from that are India and Turkemenistan.

By the way UNOCAL went out of business in 2005.

Anyway, we have a perfectly good Crude Oil pipeline in the Republic of Georgia, the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline.

[edit on 14/10/09 by MikeboydUS]

reply to post by PrisonerOfSociety


Yes, people profit from wars. People profit from peace as well. There is probably no single issue in the world that doesn't have a money factor to it.

As far as the article you gave me, it mentioned nothing about extending the pipeline toward the US.

Originally posted by jam321
reply to post by PrisonerOfSociety

 

Yes, people profit from wars. People profit from peace as well.

Yeah right, peace is sooooo profitable compared to the Haliburton's of this World.

As far as the article you gave me, it mentioned nothing about extending the pipeline toward the US.

Perhaps they have a secret pipe going through the Earth pumped by goblins, or perhaps they'll use tankers!

Sea-faring oil/gas trade will increase massively in the next 10 years, which makes you question just what technology they now have for naval defence to protect these flotillas travelling greater distances, between OPEC sea ports and end customers, since disbanding the missile defence program.

Mr Obama said there would be a "proven, cost-effective" system using land- and sea-based interceptors

BBC

You do realise, cheap oil will be a distant memory in the next 10 years. They are tightening their iron fist grip on foreign land acquisition in preparation for the ravaging that will begin in earnest, between the superpowers, especially US/UK and China, who's suckling of the tit of Iran.

You mentioned the BTC; that's one vein bleeding the blood dry from the Caspian Sea in the west, but they want to flank the most precious piece of resource left on Earth from all sides, hence going through Turmenistan from the East, where Unocal (a major U.S. oil company), was in negotiations with the nation of Turkmenistan and Taliban leaders as early as 1995.

They have to secure the land, especially Helmand province, so the pipeline build can begin. From the topography, it's flatland so this is where the pipe is easiest to lay. Perhaps in an ironic twist, they'll end up paying the taliban to police the pipeline, much like the CIA paid the taliban to fight the Russians.

I'm afraid i see the terrorists as the invading force, all in the name of oil & gas. Sending more troops is just fuelling the fire of Islamic fundamentalism towards the West.

This map, on page 5 sums it up!

Pipeline schedule on page 11.

reply to post by SLAYER69


Ive known about this for quite some time, my friend is one of the soldiers.

Hope he will be ok as this will be his first posting.

reply to post by XXXN3O


Good luck to your freind.
Thank him for his service for me.

reply to post by SLAYER69


Im saving that for when he gets back.

Another guy I know quite well was lucky to come back as some of his squad was killed in an ambush. Afghanistan does not sound like the best place to be from the stories I have been told.

reply to post by XXXN3O

XXX, none of the battlefields in any war are good.

Not even "some are better than others."

They all suck.

So rather than endure without ceasing, let's start getting these things over with, and quickly.

Luck to your friend.

Originally posted by dooper
I saw our general's plan to pull back from the more remote areas to concentrate on protecting the more populated areas, and hope the Brits jump in there to fight this dumbass strategy.

If you're going on a bug hunt, you gotta go where the bugs are.

If you let them come to you, you already lost.

You have just accorded them freedom of movement while sacrificing your own.

If you do not know when or where the battles are going to be fought, then how can you hope to win?

His "winning hearts and minds" only work when you have them by the testes.

Alesia. The Alamo.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Some folks just NEVER are able to learn, are they? That's EXACTLY what the Soviets did in the 80's. Pulled back to the bases and the populated areas, gave the muj free run of the rest.

That didn't work out so well for them. A token patrol here and there, was all the regular russian grunts did. If that's all they were there for, they should have gone home earlier and saved more lives. In the end, because of that strategy, the russian public turned against the government with enough force to create mayhem at home. Too many casualties, not enough results.

Spetnaz teams were send out on LRPs, and had air support to back them, and put a hurting on the muj.

There wasn't enough of that to win. Meanwhile, back at the base, the regular Ivan was ducking rockets and mortars, when he should have been allowed to hunt and close if they had intentions of winning.

If that's McChrystal's plan, he sure as hell ain't the MacArthur everyone has been crowing about.

Maybe he ought to have a cup of coffee with some of the folks that were there the last time. Better hurry, winter's coming on in Moscow.