Foreign troops aiding USA have 'conditions' on how they fight ?

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Modelworks

Lifer
Feb 22, 2007
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I was watching a news item about how troops from other countries in Afghanistan have conditions for how they will fight . Things like German troops will not fight at night, so the enemy just waits till after dark to move in areas with German troops. French troops are served whine with every meal , I'm sure that aids in firing accuracy. Some troops are not even required to leave the bases they are assigned to so they just sit there. The general they interviewed said to not even count most of the troops supplied by other countries because they add nothing to the fighting ability and that most are there for show.

They used another word for conditions the troops participate under and I would love to know more about those conditions. If this is true then why bother to even ask them to participate.
 

sandorski

No Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
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Having Wine with a Meal is not much of a "condition", but not leaving a Base or not fighting at night renders Troops quite useless. It is unfortunate that most of the European Nations Troops are just there for show rather than action.
 

CanOWorms

Lifer
Jul 3, 2001
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Yet even with these sham shows of obligation of support, people continue to claim that these countries are our allies.
 

yllus

Elite Member & Lifer
Aug 20, 2000
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Well, the Germans not fighting at night could simply be an issue of equipment. Generally speaking, though, it seems like Germany hasn't been especially effective in Afghanistan to date.

Target Germany: A Second Front in Afghanistan?

Since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, Kunduz province and the region around it had stayed relatively quiet. A German Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) based just outside the eponymous provincial capital coordinated development efforts, building roads and bridges to upgrade infrastructure shattered by the war. The nature of their mission was reflected in rules of engagement: German troops were prohibited from shooting first.

But a surge of roadside bombings and rocket attacks over the past year have taken the lives of several soldiers and shut down projects. Many aid workers have fled. According to one Western diplomat, construction is increasingly going to unsupervised Afghan contractors who are often forced to pay-off militants not to attack them in the districts they now control or contest. More ominously, police in the area say that among the militant ranks are groups of foreign fighters — mostly from Uzbekistan — seeking to open another front against the coalition and the Kabul government, drawing forces away from fighting the Taliban in southern Afghanistan.

Now permitted to initiate the fight, German forces in July launched their biggest operation since World War II to clear Chahar Dara district, a Pashtun insurgent stronghold west of Kunduz city where hundreds of fighters travel openly in pickup trucks and demand money and food villagers. But, says local resident Abdul Matin, 28, the militants simply filtered back into the area when the Germans returned to base and police are nowhere in sight.

The insurgent efforts accelerated ahead of the Aug. 20 presidential elections, which the Taliban had vowed to disrupt. President Hamid Karzai's running mate, Mohammad Qasim Fahim, was nearly assassinated in late July while traveling through Kunduz province. Rockets were fired into the city of Kunduz on the day of the vote, though no one was killed. Less than a week later, the head of the provincial justice department died in a bomb attack.

U.S. officials have grumbled about the restrictions observed by Germany and other nations who have contributed troops to the Afghan operation, saying they have not done enough of the fighting. One senior U.S. military officer who has commanded forces in Afghanistan notes the Germans "have not had to fight insurgency or even study it, so [I'm] not sure how culturally ingrained the concept of protecting civilians is to them." With thousands more American troops expected to be deployed once McChrysal makes a formal request to President Obama, the officer indicated that military planners at the Pentagon are "definitely" looking to send reinforcements to help shore up the north.
 

Number1

Diamond Member
Feb 24, 2006
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Yet even with these sham shows of obligation of support, people continue to claim that these countries are our allies.

They would have been much keener to help had you not sent all your troops to Iraq.
As a Canadian I am proud of the work Canadian troops have done in Afghanistan but we are pulling out in 2011.
My son is going over next year as a private infantry man assigned to guarding the generals.
I hope to God he makes it OK but that's what he wants to do.
 

Modelworks

Lifer
Feb 22, 2007
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They would have been much keener to help had you not sent all your troops to Iraq.
As a Canadian I am proud of the work Canadian troops have done in Afghanistan but we are pulling out in 2011.
My son is going over next year as a private infantry man assigned to guarding the generals.
I hope to God he makes it OK but that's what he wants to do.

Canada and England were the troops he did say were doing their part, but the majority are not.
 

CanOWorms

Lifer
Jul 3, 2001
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They would have been much keener to help had you not sent all your troops to Iraq.
As a Canadian I am proud of the work Canadian troops have done in Afghanistan but we are pulling out in 2011.
My son is going over next year as a private infantry man assigned to guarding the generals.
I hope to God he makes it OK but that's what he wants to do.

That's an irrelevant issue. There is no obligation for Iraq, but there was obligation for Afghanistan. What happened in Iraq does not absolve the obligation.
 
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