How NATO-ISAF and the Afghans should defend our supply routes

[Republicanguy]

Peter Dow that rather arrogant Scottish republican socialist. Yes...

Peter there is no need for you to worry about Afghan women's rights, only Scotland. Stop the posturing for war.

 

[Republicanguy]

I can not believe that people are responding to this warmongering troll.


There is NO good reason to be there at all.
We need to get out, not waste more men and resources of this stupidity.

Certainly not taking advice from a warmongering socialist.

There are plenty of American women who have given their service, don't forget them. They had it very bad with the attitude's of the male members of the military.

 

[Professor8000]

I'm only going to say this once before I go and ask a friend to close the thread... We, for the most part, disagree with the very premise of our involvement in Afghanistan and therefore will universally tell you to take your idiotic war strategies elsewhere. We should have never invaded Afghanistan, and we should leave immediately. A great many of us couldn't give a rats ass about the situation in Afghanistan/Pakistan or who is funding who over there.

 

[Demigod]

Setting aside the whole point of "Who to fuck gives a shit about Afghanistan" the strategy you just wrote is completely ridiculous.NATO can't even hold Kabul and half the basses in the south are being bombarded every day but the Afghani will organize an army and defend hundreds of miles of railroad which can be easily damaged and if so leave the entire force out of supplies. YEAH RIGHT

 

[Republicanguy]

Problem is, that part of the world is a concern for us all, because we need crude oil, and the access to it. Even though, the Chinese have done well to invest in the region and not start a war just yet, and going over to Africa for resources.

This is problem that we all face, and while localised farming and economics will have to be the future, globalisation will end. Another problem is, nothing is being done about this radically except for a war in that part of the world, which has further distablised Pakistan, in the West, there is even Baloistan province which seeks independence from the Pakistani state with which the government refuses.

The confict was unnecessary, but as the Republican congressman from Texas had said in a documentary film, Roscoe said if people don't see a threat to their lives and then when you have a big military you can commandeer resources by other means.

 

[Peter Dow]

Setting aside the whole point of "Who to fuck gives a shit about Afghanistan" the strategy you just wrote is completely ridiculous.NATO can't even hold Kabul

We have permanent bases in Kabul. The enemy has none. Kabul is held though security is not perfect. Generally speaking cities are best policed by the local authorities rather than by a foreign army. Kabul is an Afghan problem though clearly we should be sure to defend any of our own bases there very well indeed.

and half the basses in the south are being bombarded every day

We should redeploy our forces along our critical supply lines - between our air bases and to friendly territory - and withdraw our forces from outlying bases such as along the Afghan / Pakistan border and use those released forces to organise the defence of our bases and to secure the critical supply routes in the fashion I have described.

but the Afghani will organize an army

No, I am proposing that we, NATO-ISAF, will organise the Afghans into an auxiliary force to defend our supply routes. This is a topical question which I will address next post. Thanks for bringing it up.

and defend hundreds of miles of railroad which can be easily damaged and if so leave the entire force out of supplies. YEAH RIGHT

The secure supply route should be defended so securely that even a railway is safe but of course road is the first thing to build and use for supplies in any war zone. Extending the railway network in due course is an objective to pursue when conditions allow which is beneficial for the efficiency of the civilian economy. I have not suggested putting all our war-zone supply eggs in a railway basket.

 

[Peter Dow]

Afghan forces. Green-on-blue attacks. The solution

Afghan forces. Green-on-blue attacks. The solution

The Afghan National Army, the "green" force is rotten, if not to its core then to much of the periphery. Some of the green is more like gangrene (gan-green, get it! )

The problem I see is in the disconnect between the political control (Karzai) and the funding (mostly from the USA but anyway internationally funded).

Wikipedia: Afghan National Army
The new Afghan National Army was founded with the issue of a decree by President Hamid Karzai on December 1, 2002

Karzai as the "duly" (ahem) elected president of Afghanistan is perfectly entitled to run an Afghan national army but Afghans should pay for that themselves.

Afghanistan is a poor nation and could not afford that much of an army but if they paid for it themselves, at least the Afghan national army would likely be honest, accountable to Afghans and take on limited tasks - secure the presidential palace, military headquarters and might be up to defending the capital Kabul and surrounding land, maybe.

Now the issue is this - to secure all of Afghanistan, even to secure our supply routes, we need lots of troops and it makes sense to have some kind of Afghan force to help us - but we need a bigger and better green force than the Afghans can afford to pay for. (Also why would a national Afghan force want to prioritise defending our supply routes? They wouldn't want to.)

So the West, NATO needs to pay for some green Afghan forces - that's a good idea, if, if, if, if and only if, those green forces we are paying for are auxiliary to NATO-ISAF - run by NATO-ISAF - under the control of a NATO general, maybe an American general if you could find a good one to do it.

That way we would only recruit capable Afghans into the green force we pay for and interact with daily. We'd be sure our green troops were loyal - wouldn't shoot our blue troops.

No way would we have any incentive to spend our own money on disloyal incapable Afghans in green uniform so we would not do it, if we had political and military control over our green forces, which we would have if they were called "The NATO-ISAF Afghan auxiliary force" - with no pretence of them being an Afghan national force under Karzai.

However, some idiot has come up with the idea of paying Afghans to have an army funded by us but controlled by Karzai so there is no accountability. The people in charge, deciding who to recruit, can recruit bad soldiers because they get paid more by the US for soldiers, whether they be bad soldiers or not.

Why wouldn't Karzai and this guy

Lt. Gen. Sher Mohammad Karim, Commander of the Afghan National Army

recruit junkies, thieves, murderers and agents for the Taliban into the Afghan National Army?

Why wouldn't they recruit anybody they can find into the Afghan national army if, for every soldier they can name, they get paid more US dollars?

Where's the incentive for Karzai and Karim to recruit only good soldiers? There isn't any incentive at all.

Again the US ends up funding corruption.

If a green soldier kills a blue then who gets held responsible in the chain of command?

Nobody gets held responsible.

Who should get held responsible? The US and NATO should. We should blame ourselves for paying anything for an army which we do not have any political control over.

What on earth does Panetta (and what did Gates before him) think he is (was) doing trusting this guy Karzai and his general Karim with billions of US tax-payer dollars to pay for a green army?

Why are NATO defence ministers happy with the poor leadership from NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and the NATO Supreme Allied Commander Admiral James Stavridis? Shouldn't the NATO leaders have spotted this fatal flaw in green troop organisation and tried to re-organise green forces as I suggest here, if they know what they are doing (which they don't)?

The competent answer to green on blue attacks is to split up the Afghan army into two distinct forces -

• a national Afghan army which Afghans pay for and is commanded by the Afghan president and whichever general he/she wants to appoint. ("dark green")
  
  
• a NATO-ISAF auxiliary force of Afghans, funded by the US and other NATO counties and international donors. This would be commanded by our generals. ("light green")

So there should be two green armies - each of a different shade of green so to speak. Karzai's dark green he would use to defend himself and his capital. Our light green we would use to defend our supply routes and to support our operations in Afghanistan generally.

Only when the Afghan economy had grown to the point that they could afford to pay for a big enough army to defend the whole country would we transfer our light green army over to Afghan national control and then we could leave Afghanistan in the hands of Afghans.

So long as we are paying for an Afghan force we must retain political control over it otherwise it fuels corruption and does little or nothing to help to fight the enemy we are trying to defeat and the green-on-blue attacks simply undermine political support for the whole Afghanistan / Pakistan mission.

 

[Pericles]

Perhaps the UK should work out how it is going to defend the UK from invasion .....

Overt western military force is not going to work. To quote Ted Heath in 1980 - "We British have fought 3 wars in Afghanistan and lost each of them. I would be disappointed to think that the Soviets will win on their first attempt."

Same thing is going to happen on the US first attempt and the British fourth.

 

[Peter Dow]

Perhaps the UK should work out how it is going to defend the UK from invasion .....

The UK has more prospect of regime change from the people already living in Britain than from any invaders.

Some Scots want an independent Scotland, some Britons are republicans who would like to abolish the monarchy and the kingdom.

I would not say the chances of regime change any time soon are better than 50-50 but internally driven revolution is more likely than any regime-change attempted by invasion, I think.

Unless you know something I don't? Are Americans offering to send an army to invade us - say the 101st and/or 82nd Airborne Divisions?

If so then I for one would not be intending to defend the UK but would be welcoming Americans back over here and hoping you'd fancy a little regime change while you were here. It was kind of disappointing that you all went home after WW2 and the Cold War and left us with those idiot royalists still in charge.

Overt western military force is not going to work. To quote Ted Heath in 1980 - "We British have fought 3 wars in Afghanistan and lost each of them. I would be disappointed to think that the Soviets will win on their first attempt."

Same thing is going to happen on the US first attempt and the British fourth.

You think so? Well we British are hampered by the kingdom. It is harder to win a war when the kingdom puts donkey generals in charge of our lion soldiers. I can see why the kingdom would turn a deaf ear to my strategic advice.

I would have thought that Americans would be more confident that they could win, if they put their minds to it. I mean it is kind of a half-hearted American attempt to win this war, right?

I don't mean those who have gone to Afghanistan and sacrificed - they have been courageous and awesome and did their best - 100% effort and full marks to those Americans but they were a small minority of Americans.

I mean it is a half-hearted war effort from those Americans who didn't really care about winning the war one way or another - they just thought - "oh, it's Obama's war now" and washed their hands of it. The Afghan war hasn't really seen America putting its full weight behind it. Is that a fair comment?

Right now - what's the US presidential debate about - how to win in Afghanistan, or what should be the definition of "rape"? Do you see my point? If the USA loses the Afghan war it will be by default, not because it couldn't win, if it put its national mind to it.

 

[Peter Dow]

My 4-point plan to beat the Taliban and win the war on terror

My 4-point plan to beat the Taliban and win the war on terror

Point 1

* The US and Western allies ought to name Pakistan and Saudi Arabia as "state sponsors of terrorism". We ought to name in addition, the other oil-rich Arab kingdoms who are also financial state sponsors of terrorism. This has implications such as ending bribes and deals with back-stabbing hostile countries and instead waging war against our enemies with the aim of regime change or incapacitating the enemy so that they can do us little more harm. The war could be of varying intensity depending on the enemy concerned and how they respond to our initial attacks, whether they wish to escalate the war or surrender to our reasonable demands.

Point 2

* There ought to be drone strikes on the University of Jihad. (Darul Uloom Haqqania, Akora Khattak, Pakistan) In addition, we ought to employ aerial bombing of all other bases for the Taliban in Pakistan. This may have to be extended to include certain Pakistani state bases which are supporting the Taliban - such as the Pakistani ISI headquarters mentioned a lot in the BBC documentary "SECRET PAKISTAN". If this is not handled very carefully, it could escalate into open war with the Pakistani military. I have explained how to manage Pakistan in post #40.

Point 3

* We ought to seize control of Pakistani and Saudi TV satellites and use them to broadcast propaganda calling for the arrest of all involved in waging terrorist war against the West. These satellites are made, launched and maintained by Western companies and should be easy to take over. Other satellites provided to the enemy by non-Western countries could be jammed or destroyed. Air strikes against the enemy's main terrestrial TV transmitter aerials is another option to silence enemy propaganda.

Point 4

* When occupying territory, always ensure secure supply routes from one strong point to another. I have provided a lot of details about how this can be done militarily in posts #1, #2 & #39.

 

[pcosmar]

 

[presence]

thank you.

I don't think anyone here at RPF gives two shits about Afghan supply routes. We have no business being there.

Bring the troops home until Congress declares war.

Lets talk about the logistics of that supply route.

 

[awake]

This is the funniest thread I have read in a while...Its obvious he's looking for the Mitt Rmoney forums.

 

[Republicanguy]

Peter Dow, you really need a dose of non-intervention, put the war mentality away. Men like you are what make the world worst off for weak men and women, and some strong men, thuggish or hard.

You are Scottish, talk about Scotland only, don't imply those living in Wales or England are just British, I was born in Greater London county, commonly known as the capital of England as London. I'm English, and only know of that, I have lived in London all my life. I send an email every April to pursuade the Council leader in the borough of London I live in to keep the English flag up for more than one day, I have yet to this day to succeed. Some day, though, some day.

Just on the 50th anniversary of Jamaica's independence, their flag was flown for one day, or the Rainbow flag was flown for most of Feburary 2012 to stand up for gay people's equality, while the state flag only got a day on one of the three flag poles at the town hall building. What a joke, I emailed the leader expressing my dislike of another nation's flag on the authority building of a borough of london. I received a reply of typical left wing propaganda, I despise the Labour party. But it's really the only vehicle I have for my views.