Petraeus - Re-visiting NATO ROE in Afghanistan

[Big Red]

Kiwi we're not going to loose the war. It's not a win/loose ww2 kind of senario where our enemies will put their guns down and their hands up.
Are we going to drive the Taliban out of Afghanistan? No way. The west doesn't have the resolve for that (yet). 

We are leaving. The enemy's power and influence grow by the day. I don't know how you can honestly put a positive spin on that and declare it something other than a loss.

We're  "winning" because Taliban bombs aren't ripping through bus's in downtown Toronto or Taliban suicide bombers aren't lighting themselves up in the Market in Ottawa.    Left to their own it's only a matter of time before they do.

The Taliban are not an international terrorist organization*. Pashtu farmers aren't going to be piloting planes into skyscrapers or blowing up buses in Toronto whether NATO is in Afghanistan or not.

*outside of Afghanistan/Pakistan.

 

[vonGarvin]

We are leaving. The enemy's power and influence grow by the day. I don't know how you can honestly put a positive spin on that and declare it something other than a loss.

We (Canada) are leaving, but we (NATO) are staying.  Think about it.  In 2006, 1 PPCLI did a relief-in-place with a US Arty Battalion for all of Kandahar, and more.  Now there's how many battalions there?  That's no spin: those are facts.

 

[KevinB]

Don't expect US combat power to stay for long, our President has no stomach for a fight.

 

[Infanteer]

We're  "winning" because Taliban bombs aren't ripping through bus's in downtown Toronto or Taliban suicide bombers aren't lighting themselves up in the Market in Ottawa.    Left to their own it's only a matter of time before they do.

You think the Taliban will start attacking Western cities?

 

[Kiwi99]

Even if the taliban attacked canadian cities, unfortunatley the current political correctness/human rights identidy crisis that most Canadians are going through would result in them being given citizenship and honoured.  Well, thats a possibility.  However, Al Quaeda may attack using Taliban, but a taliban planned and carried out attack in Canada is just not going to happen.  That being said, in this world you never really can tell whats going to happen in the next minute.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Remember the Toronto 18 and, just weeks ago, the anarchist bombing in Ottawa?

We should not get hung up on labels like Taliban, al Qaeda or home grown anarchist; there is more that unites a Taliban 'fighter' in Kandahar or Pakistan and an anarchist bomber in Ottawa than divides them. They have a single aim: to overthrow the civilized, sophisticated, capitalist, liberal-democratic society we have built and replace t with something else. And that's where they are divided: I suspect those middle aged Ottawa anarchists would be horrified at the prospect of living in an Islamist theocracy just the Talibn or al Qaeda adherents would refuse to accept an anarchist system of government. But that does not stop them from making common cause to destroy what we have, now.

 

[GAP]

Even if the taliban attacked canadian cities, unfortunatley the current political correctness/human rights identidy crisis that most Canadians are going through would result in them being given citizenship and honoured.  Well, thats a possibility.  However, Al Quaeda may attack using Taliban, but a taliban planned and carried out attack in Canada is just not going to happen.  That being said, in this world you never really can tell whats going to happen in the next minute.

As in actual persons...probably not, but as has already been proven there are any number of homegrown wannabe, sympathizers who would love to wage jihad in the Al Quaeda, Taliban, (pick your label) name....as seen in the Toronto 18, and others....these were inept...others may not be.

 

[Kiwi99]

Again the problem lies within both the Federal/Provincial Governments and Joe public.  Anythign CSIS releases to the public is automatically taken as a joke.  Why?  Because 1-2 announcements ahve not been backed up. IE, MPs under foreign influence.  The RCMP has been treated a s a joke since the death of the Polish guy at the airport.  Both of these agencies could announce a threat warning for an imminent attack, but would be laughed at.  Until said attack actually took place that is.

The Canadian public, at least a large majority, have grown skeptical and already have become relaxed about the threat of either international or home grown terrorsim.  No major attack on Nth America since 9/11 has allowed this to happen. Throw in Canadians fear of Americanisation and we further distance ourselves from believing that the threat still exists.

Unfortunatley, and it is very unfortunate, 99% of Canadian would be shocked at a terror attack on our soil.  And the same 99% that laughed at Govt agencies and accused them of fear mongering, will be the first to attack these agencies for not preventing the attack.

 

[Good2Golf]

...Unfortunatley, and it is very unfortunate, 99% of Canadian would be shocked at a terror attack on our soil.  And the same 99% that laughed at Govt agencies and accused them of fear mongering, will be the first to attack these agencies for not preventing the attack.

I'd wager that a great many (perhaps not 99%) Canadians would believe that Steven Harper and his crew were behind a conspiracy to gain further power if there were ever an attack on Canadian soil...

 

[Kiwi99]

I agree.  The names I have heard to describe him....

 

[tomahawk6]

I think the last portion of this thread needs to be seperated from the main topic which is" Petraeus To Review ROE."
To help get things back on the topic here is an anecdote.

From McChrystals ROE directive.

“If you are in a situation where you are under fire from the enemy… if there is any chance of creating civilian casualties or if you don’t know whether you will create civilian casualties, if you can withdraw from that situation without firing, then you must do so.” 

CBS News:

To the U.S. soldiers getting pounded with thunderous mortar rounds in their combat outpost near Kandahar, it seemed like a legitimate request: allow them to launch retaliatory mortar shells or summon an airstrike against their attackers. The incoming fire was landing perilously close to a guard station, and the soldiers, using a high-powered camera, could clearly see the insurgents shooting.

The response from headquarters — more than 20 miles away — was terse. Permission denied. Battalion-level officers deemed the insurgents too close to a cluster of mud-brick houses, perhaps with civilians inside.

Although the insurgents stopped firing before anybody was wounded, the troops were left seething.

“This is not how you fight a war, at least not in Kandahar,” said a soldier at the outpost who described the incident, which occurred last month, on the condition of anonymity. “We’ve been handcuffed by our chain of command.”

 

[Infanteer]

We should not get hung up on labels like Taliban, al Qaeda or home grown anarchist; there is more that unites a Taliban 'fighter' in Kandahar or Pakistan and an anarchist bomber in Ottawa than divides them. They have a single aim: to overthrow the civilized, sophisticated, capitalist, liberal-democratic society we have built and replace t with something else.

I'm sorry, but I don't agree with this in the slightest.  In my dozens of shuras and other sorts of meetings (including some with people who, for all intents and purposes, could be labelled Taliban) I rarely ever heard the term "Arab", "Al Qa'ida" or "Caliphate".  I heard "Pakistan" mentioned alot, but I think terms like "Pakistan" and "Afghanistan" have loose meaning for the Pashtun.  From the interactions I had with the society they're drawn from, I'd venture that most Pashtun insurgents don't really know much or care about "civilization", "capitalism", and "liberal democracy" and they sure as hell aren't on a crusade to destroy it - they're more concerned about the strange armed men driving through their streets and fields and generally pissing them off.

The average Pashtun irregular, doing the Pasthun thing and fighting the foreigner, has little in common with the middle-class young man wearing GAP clothes and sitting in McDonalds contemplating an identity crisis and a desire to be a "martyr".

Arguments like this only serve to muddy the understanding on who it is we are actually fighting.

 

[Jarnhamar]

You think the Taliban will start attacking Western cities?

Left unchecked? Without a doubt. 
I'm not suggesting Taliban fighters are going to spill out of a giant horse and start shooting up the place but left to their own I can see
groups in Afghanistan getting bolder and bolder to the point where we see terrorist attacks on our soil (again).  Right now their too busy
trying to deal with us over there.  If NATO were to be pulled out and they swept in and took power would they be happy and content?
Personally I don't think so. 

It wouldn't take much to paralyze the US/North America. Look at what happened with the washington DC shootings.



I wish I had taped Dave Grossman's speech he gave at the 1RCR lines a few years ago.  I don't want to butcher any quotes; he was basically
saying we've already won the war because to loose means the end of the western way of life- and we'll use nukes before that happens.  I'll see
if I can find any references to it or recordings and do it justice.

 

[Infanteer]

I think you are confusing Arab Zealots and Afghan Hillbillies and drawing links where none exist.  Even the Quetta Shura has limited aims and operational capabilities and I don't think orchestrating global terrorism is one of them.

Grossman had a few good points but other than that his books proselytizied, expounded on junk theories (using Marshall as your data?!?) and were over the top.  He's got a following in the cheerleading section and that's about it.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Left unchecked? Without a doubt. 
I'm not suggesting Taliban fighters are going to spill out of a giant horse and start shooting up the place but left to their own I can see
groups in Afghanistan getting bolder and bolder to the point where we see terrorist attacks on our soil (again).  Right now their too busy
trying to deal with us over there.  If NATO were to be pulled out and they swept in and took power would they be happy and content?
Personally I don't think so. 

Of course: the Domino theory. It's been in limbo since the end of the Vietnam War... time to drag it out and dust it off again to justify any investment of 'blood and treasure' in the present conflict in Central Asia.  First Afghanistan, then the rest of the Stans, then the whole of Asia, then Saskatchewan, right? :

 

[zipperhead_cop]

Unfortunatley, and it is very unfortunate, 99% of Canadian would be shocked at a terror attack on our soil.  And the same 99% that laughed at Govt agencies and accused them of fear mongering, will be the first to attack these agencies for not preventing the attack.

We can all rest a little more comfortable with the idea that we'll get attacked on Canadian soil.  By and large, Canada is safe. 
Not because we have a great security structure or means to investigate/stem terrorism.  Quite the contrary, our borders are sieves and our white collar privacy laws are so hilarious that we should just be paying money straight to Hezbollah or whoever asks for it. 
Canada is a major facilitator of terrorism.  We house, clothe, feed, educate, medicate and pay terrorists.  We catch them doing things, we keep them because to send them back to their poopy country would be just terrible and mean.  We let them abuse welfare, health care, refugee assistance and pursue thoroughly false claims and pay them to stay.  We catch them sneaking into our country by all manner of illicit means, then when they say the magic "refugee" we let them stay for at least a year unless there is some stunningly provable history with them.  Oh, that's right.  They don't have to have ID.  They can just give any old name and date of birth and won't be held until it is verified.  When they commit criminal acts and are pending charges, we don't send them back even if there is a deportation order in effect because they are pending charges.  We award landed status to the most repugnant people because they managed to get someone to allow them to have a child they couldn't possibly support.  I really can blather on quite a bit more, but I think the point is made. 

So why would some idiot want to blow up a tower and wreck the good thing they have going here?  Consider the Toronto 18 a forward recce probe. 

Clue in Canada.  Sooner would be better than later. 

 

[George Wallace]

The Canadian Public in general is very naive and has a short memory.  Look at who they keep reelecting.  We have had, and still do have, terrorists in this country.  Everyone seems to have forgotten all about the Millennium Bomber.  Sure, he was caught at the border.  A good thing, and he never had a chance to carry out his act of terrorism.  What about the people who set him up for his mission?  Where are they?  Where are all the American and Canadian Somalis who have left to fight in Somali in the name of Islam?  Have any come back with "Lessons Learned"?  We have tracked down former "War Lords" from Africa and the Middle East who have taken refuge in our country.  Did they have any subversive plans or were they really only trying to "hid in the crowd"?  The Toronto 18, the Kahdr family, various anarchist groups, the twits who firebombed the bank in Ottawa, the guy who hijacked the bus on Parliament Hill; these are all examples that these people do exist now, and in the past, in Canada.  It is not fiction.  It is fact.

 

[MarkOttawa]

The real worry, if NATO withdraws and the Talibs take over in at least substantial parts of Afstan, is not that the Talibs will be emboldened to start attacking targets in the West.  Rather it the great encouragement that will be given to Islamist/Jihadist types generally.

OBL spoke of people preferring strong horses to weak horses.  With the Muslim fighters having won three times, as they see it (defeating the two greatest military powers, plus other locals (94-96 on), who do you think will look like the strong horse to impressionable types world-wide?

And of course there is the potentially more immediate effect in Pakistan.  With all the nasty implications for what India might be tempted to do.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Infanteer]

The real worry, if NATO withdraws and the Talibs take over in at least substantial parts of Afstan, is not that the Talibs will be emboldened to start attacking targets in the West.  Rather it the great encouragement that will be given to Islamist/Jihadist types generally.

Ok - to an extent; I'd argue that they already have enough encouragment and that our presence, as much as our withdrawl, fuels it.  Read the stuff all these guys spit out.

And of course there is the potentially more immediate effect in Pakistan.  With all the nasty implications for what India might be tempted to do.

Most articles I've read on Pakistan suggest that this fear is unfounded.  It's not like hordes are going to decend on Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi from the North-West Frontier Provinces to seize the bomb(TM) - they didn't do it after the Soviets pulled out, did they?    The Army, a very secular, stable and wealthy organization, still has the reigns to the place.

 

[Jarnhamar]

I think you are confusing Arab Zealots and Afghan Hillbillies and drawing links where none exist.  Even the Quetta Shura has limited aims and operational capabilities and I don't think orchestrating global terrorism is one of them. 

Grossman had a few good points but other than that his books proselytizied, expounded on junk theories (using Marshall as your data?!?) and were over the top.  He's got a following in the cheerleading section and that's about it.

I'm not talking about  Afghan Hillbillies attacking the ol US but Afghanistan being used as a staging ground, training camp, recruiting shop.  With no NATO presence there it would be like wonderland for terrorists of all shapes sizes and capabilities.  Hope I'm wrong, figure we'll see in a few years.

Grossman's speech was very inspiring and he made what seemed like a lot of good points. (only leadership was invited to go but it would have been more productive to have troops there as most of the material seemed aimed at the soldier pulling the trigger.)
I agree with you about his books though. I liked some of it, didn't like other parts.  His crusade against violent video games while interesting seemed beaten to death and made me loose interest.

Of course: the Domino theory. It's been in limbo since the end of the Vietnam War... time to drag it out and dust it off again to justify any investment of 'blood and treasure' in the present conflict in Central Asia.  First Afghanistan, then the rest of the Stans, then the whole of Asia, then Saskatchewan, right? :

I like where you're going with that!  Where's Saskatchewan though?