so we've opened "negotiations" with the Taliban.. and the afghans have cut ties with

[zanejohnson]

us...

wonderful.


this can only help.

 

[zanejohnson]

i think that makes it

US: 0
Vietnam: 1
Muslim Extremists:1

 

[Oric]

cutting the losses is a win too IMHO

 

[Jaskalas]

cutting the losses is a win too IMHO

It's a loss that we even thought to nation build and expend the money and lives in the decade long attempt. Doesn't take a decade to invade, crush your enemy, and leave.

 

[Attic]

Taliban just claimed credit for an explosion that killed 4 US troops.

 

[Genx87]

You cant kill an idea with bombs and bullets.

 

[KMFJD]

You cant kill an idea with bombs and bullets.

Sure you can, we just don't have the stomach for full scale slaughter anymore.

 

[Genx87]

Sure you can, we just don't have the stomach for full scale slaughter anymore.

No we cant. Even today Nazi's could win elections in Austria if it werent a banned party.
Even though the millions of people killed by the communists to purge the ideologically unsound from the populace. What took them down was the idea of more liberty and less statism. And even after all the killing we did in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The idea continues to survive and looks to be taking control. Certainly in Afghanistan as instead of eradicating them we are negotiating for a peaceful exit.

 

[Nebor]

No we cant. Even today Nazi's could win elections in Austria if it werent a banned party.
Even though the millions of people killed by the communists to purge the ideologically unsound from the populace. What took them down was the idea of more liberty and less statism. And even after all the killing we did in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The idea continues to survive and looks to be taking control. Certainly in Afghanistan as instead of eradicating them we are negotiating for a peaceful exit.

Considering modern technology and the relatively small population of Afghanistan, I think you could get it done. The Soviets would have if we hadn't armed the muj with modern weapons. The Soviets never sent in troops without a wall of artillery advancing in front of them, they mined all key terrain and they eradicated villages with helicopters. We have better equipment and tacticians than them, and no one to oppose us.

But back to reality, this situation is ridiculous. Karzai is a grand-standing joke. Meanwhile 4 American servicemembers are killed at Bagram by a rocket attack. Get our people out of that shithole!

 

[Kadarin]

You cant kill an idea with bombs and bullets.

Sure you can, hypothetically... Just kill everyone who has the idea.

Unfortunately, we can't kill every Taliban Muslim, so that's an idea that's going to be around for a while.

 

[werepossum]

Considering modern technology and the relatively small population of Afghanistan, I think you could get it done. The Soviets would have if we hadn't armed the muj with modern weapons. The Soviets never sent in troops without a wall of artillery advancing in front of them, they mined all key terrain and they eradicated villages with helicopters. We have better equipment and tacticians than them, and no one to oppose us.

But back to reality, this situation is ridiculous. Karzai is a grand-standing joke. Meanwhile 4 American servicemembers are killed at Bagram by a rocket attack. Get our people out of that shithole!

This. Get our troops out now.

Hopefully we'll learn a lesson from this and the next time a nation sponsors terrorists who strike us, we'll just completely destroy their infrastructure and leave them in the ruins. Good luck exporting terrorism with no airports, sea ports, trains or electricity.

 

[lagokc]

This. Get our troops out now.

Hopefully we'll learn a lesson from this and the next time a nation sponsors terrorists who strike us, we'll just completely destroy their infrastructure and leave them in the ruins. Good luck exporting terrorism with no airports, sea ports, trains or electricity.

Most terrorists are Saudi supported. Good luck getting the US to destroy Saudi infrastructure...

 

[woolfe9998]

This. Get our troops out now.

Hopefully we'll learn a lesson from this and the next time a nation sponsors terrorists who strike us, we'll just completely destroy their infrastructure and leave them in the ruins. Good luck exporting terrorism with no airports, sea ports, trains or electricity.

I'm not sure if the infrastructure we could destroy would preclude terrorism on our soil. I do, however, think that the correct approach is to make it a search and destroy mission rather than one of nation building. Our approach of helping the northern alliance and playing a support role, then stepping in to nation build was totally wrong IMO. We should have gone in with overwhelming force and killed all the Taliban and AQ. We got about 2/3's of them as it was, but that wasn't enough. They were able to rebuild from what remained. We should have cast a wider net for our ordnance, then gotten out no more than a few months later.

That approach would have killed more Afghani civilians at first, but likely far fewer total when you count all those who have died in the subsequent occupation.

 

[Nebor]

I'm not sure if the infrastructure we could destroy would preclude terrorism on our soil. I do, however, think that the correct approach is to make it a search and destroy mission rather than one of nation building. Our approach of helping the northern alliance and playing a support role, then stepping in to nation build was totally wrong IMO. We should have gone in with overwhelming force and killed all the Taliban and AQ. We got about 2/3's of them as it was, but that wasn't enough. They were able to rebuild from what remained. We should have cast a wider net for our ordnance, then gotten out no more than a few months later.

That approach would have killed more Afghani civilians at first, but likely far fewer total when you count all those who have died in the subsequent occupation.

I think what you're thinking of is known as "warfare." There's not a lot of stomach for that these days. Also, while profitable, it's not nearly as profitable as nation building.

 

[woolfe9998]

I think what you're thinking of is known as "warfare." There's not a lot of stomach for that these days. Also, while profitable, it's not nearly as profitable as nation building.

In a way, I'm glad we don't have the stomach for it. Yet, in a situation where we've sustained an attack like 9/11, we have the moral justification to search and destroy, even if it means a sizeable number of civilian deaths. Sure, we'd take heat for it. We can explain that it's either this or we go in lighter but have to occupy for who knows how long while we fight a slow war with the remnants that we didn't kill because we exercised restraint. Better that we kill 30K or 50K civilians in a week's time, then get out, than stay for 10 years and 100K die. Even if people do not accept the logic, well too bad. We had a certain amount of moral capital at our disposal in those days after 9/11 and I see no reason we would have suffered for it in the long run. We have suffered much worse with the approach we took instead.

 

[KMFJD]

No we cant. Even today Nazi's could win elections in Austria if it werent a banned party.
Even though the millions of people killed by the communists to purge the ideologically unsound from the populace. What took them down was the idea of more liberty and less statism. And even after all the killing we did in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The idea continues to survive and looks to be taking control. Certainly in Afghanistan as instead of eradicating them we are negotiating for a peaceful exit.

Oh yes we can, very easily, just kill everyone opposing you, the USA could kill everyone opposed 5x over probably if they did not care about the consequences, slaughter every village and they will eventually stop, not saying it is the right thing to do obviously. In Vietnam etc they just got tired of killing people and were somewhat concerned of civilian casualties, could you imagine how ww2 would have turned out if we were afraid to bomb major civilian population centers?

 

[KMFJD]

I'm not sure if the infrastructure we could destroy would preclude terrorism on our soil. I do, however, think that the correct approach is to make it a search and destroy mission rather than one of nation building. Our approach of helping the northern alliance and playing a support role, then stepping in to nation build was totally wrong IMO. We should have gone in with overwhelming force and killed all the Taliban and AQ. We got about 2/3's of them as it was, but that wasn't enough. They were able to rebuild from what remained. We should have cast a wider net for our ordnance, then gotten out no more than a few months later.

That approach would have killed more Afghani civilians at first, but likely far fewer total when you count all those who have died in the subsequent occupation.

Destroying Afghanistan's infrastructure was akin to telling a serial killer to have a time out in the kindergarten corner. They don't care about that stuff, they don't care about most of the civilians.

 

[werepossum]

Most terrorists are Saudi supported. Good luck getting the US to destroy Saudi infrastructure...

I don't think we have moral justification to destroy a nation's infrastructure simply because they are funding terrorism - which incidentally is something all the Muslim Middle Eastern and most other Muslim nations do to an extent. When it shifts to openly supporting and protecting the terrorists, openly giving them shelter and places to train, then I think at that point we do have moral justification to attack.

I'm not sure if the infrastructure we could destroy would preclude terrorism on our soil. I do, however, think that the correct approach is to make it a search and destroy mission rather than one of nation building. Our approach of helping the northern alliance and playing a support role, then stepping in to nation build was totally wrong IMO. We should have gone in with overwhelming force and killed all the Taliban and AQ. We got about 2/3's of them as it was, but that wasn't enough. They were able to rebuild from what remained. We should have cast a wider net for our ordnance, then gotten out no more than a few months later.

That approach would have killed more Afghani civilians at first, but likely far fewer total when you count all those who have died in the subsequent occupation.

Absolutely preclude it, no. However, exporting terrorism would become very difficult indeed if a nation has no functioning sea ports, air ports, trains, electricity, etc. Difficult to exercise command and control if it must be done by satellite phone or foot-mobile messengers. Difficult to commit terrorist acts and skip back over the border to sanctuary if you must go on foot or by horse or camel. Not impossible, of course, but much more difficult.

I think morally we almost had to try to remake and rebuild Afghanistan. But we've obviously failed, and hopefully we'll use that failure as justification to radically change our strategy if forced to react again.

 

[Genx87]

Oh yes we can, very easily, just kill everyone opposing you, the USA could kill everyone opposed 5x over probably if they did not care about the consequences, slaughter every village and they will eventually stop, not saying it is the right thing to do obviously. In Vietnam etc they just got tired of killing people and were somewhat concerned of civilian casualties, could you imagine how ww2 would have turned out if we were afraid to bomb major civilian population centers?

You are being silly if you think we could "easily" do such a thing. Communists killed tens of millions and couldnt kill the idea. There is no way we could do the same. Even if we razed every village in the ME. The idea will survive.

I mean if we think the idea can be killed. Why are we negotiating with the Taliban at all?

We were afraid to bomb civilian population centers until after the raid on Berlin Feb 3rd 1945. Then, once the cat was out of the bag it made it easier to bomb Dresden, Tokyo and eventually drop pair of big ones on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

 

[Sonikku]

You cant kill an idea with bombs and bullets.

Of course you can. You just need bigger (hydrogen) bombs. With no life, there is no conflict. It's just that when we have presidents that say we will crush our enemies at any cost, they don't really know what that entails.

 

[Genx87]

Of course you can. You just need bigger (hydrogen) bombs. With no life, there is no conflict. It's just that when we have presidents that say we will crush our enemies at any cost, they don't really know what that entails.

Did the idea of japanese nationalism die after we dropped two nuclear weapons?
This is fascinating to hear people really believe an idea can be killed with a weapon considering such a long and storied history proving otherwise.

 

[Nebor]

Did the idea of japanese nationalism die after we dropped two nuclear weapons?
This is fascinating to hear people really believe an idea can be killed with a weapon considering such a long and storied history proving otherwise.

As technology improves, our ability to kill gets better and better. So the ability to kill an idea by killing everyone who knows of it or believes in it becomes reality. Depending on the population involved it's possible now, but it will certainly become possible with larger populations in the future.

Do you know anyone that still believes David Koresh is the final prophet before the return of Jesus Christ? I'm gonna guess no, because we killed everyone that believed that.

 

[K1052]

Did the idea of japanese nationalism die after we dropped two nuclear weapons?
This is fascinating to hear people really believe an idea can be killed with a weapon considering such a long and storied history proving otherwise.

It is entirely possible to wipe out a religion, civilization, or way of life. See pre-Columbian American civilizations for some relevant examples. Given the general bent of western morality it isn't a realistic option though.

 

[nextJin]

lol at people thinking we can kill an idea by using the only thing Americans are good at anymore (war).

We would have to use genocide and kill every Muslim on the planet including in our own borders. We would go bankrupt just trying to do that in the Middle East, not to mention a unified religion actively targeting our country. Nevermind radicals, if our intent is genocide theirs would be too. Tens (hundreds?) of millions of American civilians would die.

I've been saying this since 2007, you can't win a war on terrorism and that is exactly what the MIP wanted. It's a means to have a prolonged war that never ends, and Nebor wtf I thought you wanted to kill beloved patriot? We gotta go get'em, can't have them hatin them thar freedomz!

 

[Whiskey16]

As technology improves, our ability to kill gets better and better. So the ability to kill an idea by killing everyone who knows of it or believes in it becomes reality.

Nebor is among the most criminally inclined and violent militant extremists present at this forum.

These are his expressions of the advocating extent for whom to kill:

They're smart enough not to be shamed into silence by political correctness and multiculturalism in the face of an insidious threat to their way of life.

It's tolerated because it's the opinion of the vast majority of the West. Is that a surprise? You realize we have entire wars dedicated to killing Muslims right?

Muslims are legion. They don't have the technology or high functioning intelligence of the enemy, but they are cheap, expendable and numerous. Have you ever read the book Starship Troopers? The muslims are the bugs, and Jews are the cap troopers.

If you think most Americans would shed a tear over dead Palestinian kids, you're wrong. One less future terrorist. The sooner all the Palestinians are wiped out, the sooner I don't have to hear about their bullshit in the news.

You and those like you are the enemy of the West and it's way of life. That's why you're ignored, denigrated and laughed at despite what I'm sure is a significant effort to construct eloquent arguments to make us feel bad. But like I said, those of us with more than an academic knowledge of you and your kind wouldn't mind if you filmed us while we put your entire extended family in one mass grave, because we know eventually it'll be you or us. We either fight now, alongside Israel, or wait until you convince enough idiots to let you gain the upper hand.

You say "us all" in an attempt to conceal yourself amongst others (a classic muslim\terrorist tactic.) You're the only one advocating for your viewpoints here, and what I said was directed at you, your family, and those like you. If you're going to quote me all the time, you might as well pay attention to what you're quoting.