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This is What Winning Looks Like (Afghanistan)

As least if we left the stone agers we won't waste any money and lives, now we are wasting both with guilt by association as ammo for the bleeding heart lefties. What a great return of our investment.
 
I was a Seabee there and we did a lot of good...at least it seemed that way. The Marine major in the documentary summed it up perfectly. Even though this infrastructure was provided no one could even possibly begin to use it. It was quickly scrapped or just rotted into an unservicable state.

I'm not going to lie, when you are around these men it's like your walking around a bunch of cave men. They are either high as a kite or just numb to everything around them...like the walking dead.

Everything is a game to them because everything we consider normal they have zero understanding of. I didn't leave all fucked up but I sure have a different view of our world.
 
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OBLAMA2009 said:
vice is a very entertaining website
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What I know of them comes from their YouTube documentaries. I love their work and consider them to be some of the best journalists out there.. like a Hunter Thompson style without fucking everything up and letting the events create the message (Thompson would fuck things up for the purpose of creating the message)
 
Angry Irishman said:
I was a Seabee there and we did a lot of good...at least it seemed that way. The Marine major in the documentary summed it up perfectly. Even though this infrastructure was provided no one could even possibly begin to use it. It was quickly scrapped or just rotted into an unservicable state.

I'm not going to lie, when you are around these men it's like your walking around a bunch of cave men. They are either high as a kite or just numb to everything around them...like the walking dead.

Everything is a game to them because everything we consider normal they have zero understanding of. I didn't leave all fucked up but I sure have a different view of our world.
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What amazes me is that someone like you can look at this and nod in agreement. Not having been there, this appears to be a highly accurate assessment of the situation. Yet as an American this is the first I've heard of it well over 10 years later.

I mean I've seen Afghanistan reporting, documentaries, etc., but nothing showing how things actually worked. I mean 2, 3 years in the boots on the ground should have known it was hopeless. Or rather they should have told their superiors and they realize it is hopeless.
 
Yep, actually watched all 3 parts earlier today. I've known intellectually for some time that they aren't anywhere near ready and Obama's "ending the war" is just another term for "get out and save face", but this documentary puts a brutally honest and visceral face on just how bad things are. Should be a national nightly news special, but fuck that, one of the Kardashians just farted and Kanye made a funny face. 😛
 
Farang said:
What amazes me is that someone like you can look at this and nod in agreement. Not having been there, this appears to be a highly accurate assessment of the situation. Yet as an American this is the first I've heard of it well over 10 years later.

I mean I've seen Afghanistan reporting, documentaries, etc., but nothing showing how things actually worked. I mean 2, 3 years in the boots on the ground should have known it was hopeless. Or rather they should have told their superiors and they realize it is hopeless.
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This was a good documentary. I'm surprised that major was as forthcoming as he was. It was real and objective. The film doesn't lie and the cavemen I'm referring to were there in the film just as in real life. A lot of GIs don't even venture outside of their operating bases anymore or spend weeks in the most isolated shitholes imaginable without ever seeing anyone except the GIs next to them. They take a random mortar or a few rounds just for the Tali to say "hi, we are still here just waiting for you to leave". They let us build roads without too much trouble very rarely taking fire unless it was a road for military use. Then we caught hell.

There are good people there but the very second we leave all together it's going back to complete and utter tribal rule. These people don't care about the next village over as it's barely part of their world. We need to realize that democracy is so foreign a concept to them that we might as well be Martians. They don't live by governments, they live day to day with goats and poverty....just trying to eat and stay warm. It really is medieval in some places.

We had our civic action teams (not really called that anymore) question through our interpreters what country the locals belonged to and they couldn't tell you beyond what their village was. Hell, some didn't even know that. Most don't want to fight, they just want their kids to be safe and to live a very meager life. We'll leave and it will all be the same. The Taliban are just power hungry warlords and they are evil as fuck as well. They will have it their way in the end.
 
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Farang said:
What amazes me is that someone like you can look at this and nod in agreement. Not having been there, this appears to be a highly accurate assessment of the situation. Yet as an American this is the first I've heard of it well over 10 years later.

I mean I've seen Afghanistan reporting, documentaries, etc., but nothing showing how things actually worked. I mean 2, 3 years in the boots on the ground should have known it was hopeless. Or rather they should have told their superiors and they realize it is hopeless.
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Flag officers work for politicians...politicians work for themselves. The average GI is just doing his tour there and is just as happy to leave knowing it's all BS. For those that return over and over it's not usually a choice but the fact that their units keep getting sent...over and over. Also, there really is a sense of disappointment that you're letting your buddies down if your not there with them. The military machine does have its limits despite the perception that the average American has about all the money spent and about how they think the military is too large. For those that think this: you do a tour in this shithole if you think our military is too large. The fact is there aren't enough troops to go around which causes the average GI to go...over and over.
 
Angry Irishman said:
This was a good documentary. I'm surprised that major was as forthcoming as he was. It was real and objective. The film doesn't lie and the cavemen I'm referring to were there in the film just as in real life. A lot of GIs don't even venture outside of their operating bases anymore or spend weeks in the most isolated shitholes imaginable without ever seeing anyone except the GIs next to them. They take a random mortar or a few rounds just for the Tali to say "hi, we are still here just waiting for you to leave". They let us build roads without too much trouble very rarely taking fire unless it was a road for military use. Then we caught hell.

There are good people there but the very second we leave all together it's going back to complete and utter tribal rule. These people don't care about the next village over as it's barely part of their world. We need to realize that democracy is so foreign a concept to them that we might as well be Martians. They don't live by governments, they live day to day with goats and poverty....just trying to eat and stay warm. It really is medieval in some places.

We had our civic action teams (not really called that anymore) question through our interpreters what country the locals belonged to and they couldn't tell you beyond what their village was. Hell, some didn't even know that. Most don't want to fight, they just want their kids to be safe and to live a very meager life. We'll leave and it will all be the same. The Taliban are just power hungry warlords and they are evil as fuck as well. They will have it their way in the end.
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It appears the U.S. objective is to create a viable alternative to the Taliban, whatever that alternative is. If it means all the horrible shit in that video, for U.S. interests it is still better to have this corrupt national government either in control or at least in a civil war with the Taliban.

So we may have succeeded there, in creating this system where the corrupt have enough interest in working for Kabul than working with the Taliban. If I am an Afghan, unless I'm an ideologue it probably is still in my best interests to work with the national government who maybe can get me a steady job in the police force or civil service.

Maybe why we don't care about the opium industry.. as long as the national government gets money somehow it can remain in power.
 
Farang said:
It appears the U.S. objective is to create a viable alternative to the Taliban, whatever that alternative is. If it means all the horrible shit in that video, for U.S. interests it is still better to have this corrupt national government either in control or at least in a civil war with the Taliban.

So we may have succeeded there, in creating this system where the corrupt have enough interest in working for Kabul than working with the Taliban. If I am an Afghan, unless I'm an ideologue it probably is still in my best interests to work with the national government who maybe can get me a steady job in the police force or civil service.

Maybe why we don't care about the opium industry.. as long as the national government gets money somehow it can remain in power.
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These people are the .05% who can actually read or write and are so active in corruption that is boggles the mind. It's just business as normal there. You like how we are making peace with the Taliban now? Despite what you heard the ambassadors saying this wasn't always the case. It's an exit strategy.

We don't care about the opium because it's the major source of $$ for that economy....period.
 
Angry Irishman said:
Flag officers work for politicians...politicians work for themselves. The average GI is just doing his tour there and is just as happy to leave knowing it's all BS. For those that return over and over it's not usually a choice but the fact that their units keep getting sent...over and over. Also, there really is a sense of disappointment that you're letting your buddies down if your not there with them. The military machine does have its limits despite the perception that the average American has about all the money spent and about how they think the military is too large. For those that think this: you do a tour in this shithole if you think our military is too large. The fact is there aren't enough troops to go around which causes the average GI to go...over and over.
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I agree completely. The scandal of Vietnam was sending the poor to die, the scandal of the War on Terror has been exploiting our professional military class. Multiple tours, multiple places, over and over.. better to heap the burden on the backs of a few to maintain the political goodwill of the many. At least they learned that lesson from Vietnam.
 
Angry Irishman said:
I'll just leave this here....
It pretty much sums up everything about Afghanistan in real life. It's really almost as explanatory as the documentary but much shorter and to the point. These are the assholes who we allow to have weapons and they shoot NATO troops in the back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYFkmAVOeLY
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It's shocking how China has a much cheaper, better and realistic foreign policy with Afghanistan. "You give us access to your natural resources and we pay you X dollars. No, I don't give a shit to the plight of your people no matter how much you cry, that is your own failure and I'm not the world moral police. However if you touch us, you will fvcking die die and die."
 
Too bad it isn't politically viable to just conquer that backwater and colonize it. Would be kinder to the average person there.
 
OBLAMA2009 said:
its weird that nobody in afhgan wants a "chai chick"
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Given the violence against women for just trying to go to school I'd imagine bar whores are tough to find out there.

But yea the idea that you are out of women and now you need a boy's butthole, that is really odd (this was the argument made by one of the commanders--we have no women, we got raped so we can rape children as payback). I mean on the long list of things I would use to get off, a boy's buttlehole is probably deep on the list of things available to me in a war zone.

edit: just to be clear far above it is "not get off and deal with it" 😛
 
Not watched yet, but have you ever put a meth head into an operating room and told him to start practicing surgery? Arghanistan in great part is so backwoods it defies belief. "Lead a horse to water, can't make him drink". They are wildly uneducated and their culture is absolutely shit so it will take decades to stop sucking, at a minimum.
 
Doppel said:
Not watched yet, but have you ever put a meth head into an operating room and told him to start practicing surgery? Arghanistan in great part is so backwoods it defies belief. "Lead a horse to water, can't make him drink". They are wildly uneducated and their culture is absolutely shit so it will take decades to stop sucking, at a minimum.
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Nooooo, it's not the fault of "people" that choose to live and act like cavemen. It's the civilized world's fault because we didn't give enough dignity to them.

Oh wait, that will be an insult to the actual cavemen that once existed since they have the valid excuse of not knowing better.
 
Doppel said:
Not watched yet, but have you ever put a meth head into an operating room and told him to start practicing surgery? Arghanistan in great part is so backwoods it defies belief. "Lead a horse to water, can't make him drink". They are wildly uneducated and their culture is absolutely shit so it will take decades to stop sucking, at a minimum.
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Yeah, there's a freaky quote from the documentary when a US Marine Major is confronting one of the Afghani police commanders about child rape on police bases, specifically after one boy was shot trying to escape.

The commander's response: "If they don't fuck the boys' asses, what are they going to fuck? The pussies of their own grandmothers?" He then goes on to explain "The commanders' asses were used when they were boys, so now they're getting what's owed to them."

So essentially their entire male culture is locked into one big, likely multi-generational, cycle of sexual abuse.

Aside from the occasional drone strike, we need to get out of that pile of rocks.
 
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I hope we can keep this thread to the documentary, and broader issues based off of it. I understand if you don't have the time to watch but please bring your opinions of the war elsewhere.

I just feel it covers the current issue so well that if you haven't seen it you probably don't know what you're talking about, unless you've been there of course
 
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Farang said:
What I know of them comes from their YouTube documentaries. I love their work and consider them to be some of the best journalists out there.. like a Hunter Thompson style without fucking everything up and letting the events create the message (Thompson would fuck things up for the purpose of creating the message)
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I've watched a lot of their documentaries, I like the ones from Africa about the child soldiers and some of the crazy war leaders they had. I forget the name of the documentary.

I watch them as entertainment though, they have such a HUGE bias in every documentary they do that sometimes even on issues I have no knowledge or opinion on previously, it's very off putting.
 
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