Taliban: A threat to Kabul

The Green Bean

Diamond Member
Jul 27, 2003
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Originally posted by: RichardE
Originally posted by: The Green Bean
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WO....html?iref=mpstoryview

I think this is ridiculous. NATO has lost this war. When Kabul is at serious risk of falling to the taliban, they shouldn't be pointing their fingers at Pakistan for not doing enough. The taliban are much stronger in Afghanistan than Pakistan.

Did you read the article?

Yes and if the taliban can operate freely they own the city. This is not 1000AD with city forts.
 

dphantom

Diamond Member
Jan 14, 2005
4,763
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Originally posted by: The Green Bean
Originally posted by: RichardE
Originally posted by: The Green Bean
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WO....html?iref=mpstoryview

I think this is ridiculous. NATO has lost this war. When Kabul is at serious risk of falling to the taliban, they shouldn't be pointing their fingers at Pakistan for not doing enough. The taliban are much stronger in Afghanistan than Pakistan.

Did you read the article?

Yes and if the taliban can operate freely they own the city. This is not 1000AD with city forts.

I think you need to re-read the article. You are missing the fact that in a city with millions of people, 8 terrorists can slip in. That does not make the Taliban "own" the city.
 

RichardE

Banned
Dec 31, 2005
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Originally posted by: The Green Bean
Originally posted by: RichardE
Originally posted by: The Green Bean
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WO....html?iref=mpstoryview

I think this is ridiculous. NATO has lost this war. When Kabul is at serious risk of falling to the taliban, they shouldn't be pointing their fingers at Pakistan for not doing enough. The taliban are much stronger in Afghanistan than Pakistan.

Did you read the article?

Yes and if the taliban can operate freely they own the city. This is not 1000AD with city forts.

Hmm, they didn't say freely. What they said is "it is possible" and that was said by a Taliban commander and a officer of undertimned position besides glorified "top cop".

The article than goes on to point out the efficiency of the police force in stopping a suicide attack. (Which goes against what you are saying.)

All in the all it seems you read the sensationalist article title without reading the equally sensationalist article (which doesn't have anything to do with the title). The article could just as easily been written as "Afghanistan forces stop suicide bombers from detonating vests in attack in Kabul". Sorry, but as I said, I think you just read the title of the article unless you can show me where in the article we are seeing this "immediate fall of Kabul"
 

Lemon law

Lifer
Nov 6, 2005
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Its hardly new news that Kabul is under siege, it was during much of 2008, and the traditional lull of winter fighting is mostly due to the fact that easy movement during the Afghan winter is a result of weather.

Kabul is a very long way from the Afghan Pakistani border, and the argument that if Al-Quida or the Taliban could not shelter in Pakistan, still ignores the fact that both groups can operate freely in much of Afghanistan.

If present trend lines continue, Kabul and the rest of Afghanistan could well be lost cause before the October/09 bad weather again makes movement difficult.

And the 17,000 troops Obama is likely to add may make little difference.
 

RichardE

Banned
Dec 31, 2005
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Originally posted by: Lemon law
Its hardly new news that Kabul is under siege, it was during much of 2008, and the traditional lull of winter fighting is mostly due to the fact that easy movement during the Afghan winter is a result of weather.

Kabul is a very long way from the Afghan Pakistani border, and the argument that if Al-Quida or the Taliban could not shelter in Pakistan, still ignores the fact that both groups can operate freely in much of Afghanistan.

If present trend lines continue, Kabul and the rest of Afghanistan could well be lost cause before the October/09 bad weather again makes movement difficult.

And the 17,000 troops Obama is likely to add may make little difference.

What are you basing these assumptions off?

Also, I can tell you did not read the article either.
 

The Green Bean

Diamond Member
Jul 27, 2003
6,506
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Originally posted by: Lemon law

And the 17,000 troops Obama is likely to add may make little difference.

Hardly. I think the USA needs 250,000 troops in Afghanistan and Pakistan needs to double the size of its army from 600,000 to 1.2million to counter the taliban.
 

RichardE

Banned
Dec 31, 2005
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Originally posted by: The Green Bean
Originally posted by: Lemon law

And the 17,000 troops Obama is likely to add may make little difference.

Hardly. I think the USA needs 250,000 troops in Afghanistan and Pakistan needs to double the size of its army from 600,000 to 1.2million to counter the taliban.

You going to address anything in this thread or ignore it because you were caught?
 

Lemon law

Lifer
Nov 6, 2005
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Originally posted by: RichardE
Originally posted by: The Green Bean
Originally posted by: Lemon law

And the 17,000 troops Obama is likely to add may make little difference.

Hardly. I think the USA needs 250,000 troops in Afghanistan and Pakistan needs to double the size of its army from 600,000 to 1.2million to counter the taliban.

You going to address anything in this thread or ignore it because you were caught?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The only one who is caught here is you RichardE, sorry if many simply do not believe either you or your one sided interpretation of one article out of perhaps million of other news articles on the same basic subject with different conclusions.

You are not the OP on this thread, and even if you were, it gives you no right to define
the scope of the thread.
 

RichardE

Banned
Dec 31, 2005
10,246
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Originally posted by: Lemon law
Originally posted by: RichardE
Originally posted by: The Green Bean
Originally posted by: Lemon law

And the 17,000 troops Obama is likely to add may make little difference.

Hardly. I think the USA needs 250,000 troops in Afghanistan and Pakistan needs to double the size of its army from 600,000 to 1.2million to counter the taliban.

You going to address anything in this thread or ignore it because you were caught?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The only one who is caught here is you RichardE, sorry if many simply do not believe either you or your one sided interpretation of one article out of perhaps million of other news articles on the same basic subject with different conclusions.

You are not the OP on this thread, and even if you were, it gives you no right to define
the scope of the thread.


Soooo you didn't read the article that has nothing to do with the OP...or you have no way to back up your claims as usual. Par for the course with you huh LL?
 

Firebot

Golden Member
Jul 10, 2005
1,476
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Originally posted by: RichardE
Originally posted by: The Green Bean
Originally posted by: Lemon law

And the 17,000 troops Obama is likely to add may make little difference.

Hardly. I think the USA needs 250,000 troops in Afghanistan and Pakistan needs to double the size of its army from 600,000 to 1.2million to counter the taliban.

You going to address anything in this thread or ignore it because you were caught?

+1000
 

Lemon law

Lifer
Nov 6, 2005
20,984
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0
Lets see if I can quite get my arms around the RichardE and now the firebot argument. You are saying that because we did not respond to the narrow link we may or may not have read, just because you may or may not be right on one narrow point, you are correct in all other things????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

How short our memories are. Rumsfeld was roundly criticized for only bringing 140,000 troops to Iraq, maybe enough to win a war against a paper tiger military, but way short of the 500,000 or so needed to run a viable military occupation. Rummy may have fired Shinseki for pointing that fact out, but now we know Shinseki was right, because inside of a few months, the Iraqi insurgencies gained critical mass along with the anarchy we imported. And now GWB tries an even worse stunt out in Afghanistan, with a population 24% larger than Iraq. And only a total of 72,000 Nato troops trying to run a viable military occupation. If anything TheGreen Bean understates it, we need 600,000 troops for Afghanistan alone and much more than that if we widen the war into the Tribal areas of Pakistan.
 

dphantom

Diamond Member
Jan 14, 2005
4,763
327
126
Originally posted by: Lemon law
Its hardly new news that Kabul is under siege, it was during much of 2008, and the traditional lull of winter fighting is mostly due to the fact that easy movement during the Afghan winter is a result of weather.

Kabul is a very long way from the Afghan Pakistani border, and the argument that if Al-Quida or the Taliban could not shelter in Pakistan, still ignores the fact that both groups can operate freely in much of Afghanistan.

If present trend lines continue, Kabul and the rest of Afghanistan could well be lost cause before the October/09 bad weather again makes movement difficult.

And the 17,000 troops Obama is likely to add may make little difference.

Kabul is not even close to being "under siege". And never was at any point in 2008.

I would like to see what data you are using to develop your trend lines and a summary analysis of why Kabul and Afghanistan will be lost by October 2009. I am not seeing it, but perhaps you have better sources both politicaly and militarily.
 

Lemon law

Lifer
Nov 6, 2005
20,984
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Now aphontom wants to see all my sources when I have a long record of posting on this very subject. Maybe if you bother to read some of my back posts, or the back posts of my critics like palehorse and JOS, you might get up to speed on the issues. But I have been posting on this exact subject for years and years, and have been saying unless we have more rational tactics, we are going to be further and further behind.

And if nothing else, I have been right, each and every year we do worse. At least Obama and Petraeus are now saying some of what I have been saying all along.

As for you dphantom, do your own reading and thinking, even if I may be basically right, its still only an opinion, and no ones opinion is ever 100% right.

But we can at least see some of the total hypocrisies posted on this thread by RichardE.
 

dphantom

Diamond Member
Jan 14, 2005
4,763
327
126
Originally posted by: Lemon law
Now aphontom wants to see all my sources when I have a long record of posting on this very subject. Maybe if you bother to read some of my back posts, or the back posts of my critics like palehorse and JOS, you might get up to speed on the issues. But I have been posting on this exact subject for years and years, and have been saying unless we have more rational tactics, we are going to be further and further behind.

And if nothing else, I have been right, each and every year we do worse. At least Obama and Petraeus are now saying some of what I have been saying all along.

As for you dphantom, do your own reading and thinking, even if I may be basically right, its still only an opinion, and no ones opinion is ever 100% right.

But we can at least see some of the total hypocrisies posted on this thread by RichardE.

I've read your posts and see nothing. You cry the need for infrastructure and political reform when that can only happen when the populace is secure. You forget that it was Petraeus under Bush who recommended additional trrops to Afghanistan but that could not be done until Iraq was won.

Iraq would have been lost (first with Rumsfeld's mismanagement) but primarily due to you and your refusal to recognize the need for additional troops to allow the Iraqui's time to build their own security infrastructure. Now that that is done, we have troops for Afghanistan.

You do not know what a seige is, nor do you have any idea why or how many troops are needed in Afghanistan. Your only measuring rod is - if Iraq has a population of X and needs Y troops, then Afghanistan must with a population of A needs B number of troops.

Failing of course to recognize the differences in culture, topography and other necessary data to formulate an effective counter insurgency plan suited to Afghanistan, not Iraq.
And also failing to recognize the safe haven of Pakistan which is the most difficult thorn of all. Solve Pakistan's problem with the Taliban, and Afghanistan is well on its way to a secure future.

The bottom line is no population will ever be able to build or rebuild its country unles and until they know they are safe. That does require more troops, yes; it also requires us to allow the Afghani's to build their own democracy with us providing the security and time they need as we did in Iraq.
 

RichardE

Banned
Dec 31, 2005
10,246
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Originally posted by: Lemon law
Lets see if I can quite get my arms around the RichardE and now the firebot argument. You are saying that because we did not respond to the narrow link we may or may not have read, just because you may or may not be right on one narrow point, you are correct in all other things????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

How short our memories are. Rumsfeld was roundly criticized for only bringing 140,000 troops to Iraq, maybe enough to win a war against a paper tiger military, but way short of the 500,000 or so needed to run a viable military occupation. Rummy may have fired Shinseki for pointing that fact out, but now we know Shinseki was right, because inside of a few months, the Iraqi insurgencies gained critical mass along with the anarchy we imported. And now GWB tries an even worse stunt out in Afghanistan, with a population 24% larger than Iraq. And only a total of 72,000 Nato troops trying to run a viable military occupation. If anything TheGreen Bean understates it, we need 600,000 troops for Afghanistan alone and much more than that if we widen the war into the Tribal areas of Pakistan.

Of course not, I already asked you what you were basing your assumptions off and you went back to the link. Now I asked you about the link and you went off on another tangent. You say alot of grossly inacurate shit Lemon Law, you always have.

I have seen multiple links of around 100k troops will be needed in Afghanistan, this has not changed since 2002. If you have proof to otherwise I would love to see it.

As of right now, you are yet again pulling shit out of your ass to seem somewhat informed about an issue you are ignorant as shit about. Just like Israel threads.
 

palehorse

Lifer
Dec 21, 2005
11,521
0
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Originally posted by: Lemon law
Now aphontom wants to see all my sources when I have a long record of posting on this very subject.
Your only source is, and always has been, Google.

You don't know shit.