Dresden Faces Reality

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Here is a RECENT post Bin Ladin Frontline documentary that pretty much undoes every bit of the supposed accurate, surgical precision that Dresden attributes to elite American forces, or to the ANA:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/kill-capture/

Here are some gems:

1) About 11 minutes in, note that the special elite unit raids the home of a tribal elder and then subsequently confirms he had not a thing to do with the Taliban. Note how he subsequently tells the camera men that they have certainly pissed him off enough now to join. LOL.

2) The second key example is when David Petreus himself claimed actionable intelligence resulted in the targeted killing of the a Taliban supreme commander... the reality... they killed a government affiliated politician... subsequently, a full on investigation by an independent group confirmed that A) The Taliban commander that they thought they killed was still alive and that B) A whole care of civlians was killed and the Americans were arrogant enough to insist they "got their man."

3) They give the example of the taliban defector... note that the defector did not realize he was still wearing a microphone, and when he was instructed to go and flush out some of his former buddies, he lets them get away and indicates his DEEP sympathies and anger at the occupation of Afghanistan

4) The soldiers, like Mr. McGavin discuss how the civilians in the countryside screw with their heads, and not at all out of fear mind you... but rather because they hate the Americans and side with the Talibs.

5) LOL, pay special attention to the final interviews with the midlevel commanders that were promoted to a higher rank... they are vicious and ready to die for their cause or to replace fallen commanders

6) If these examples (many more ) are accurate to their ability of these surgical strikes to actually target their "man" then we can possibly say that a good 1/4 of these strikes (conservative estimate) actually are not surgical at all and piss off folks enough to recruit more Taliban... meaning that the surgical strikes are self defeating... its a positive feed back cycle.


* A special shout out to expatriat and failure extraordinare, as well as puppet to the puppet, Mr Daudzai, depicted in this film. Mr. Daudzai, is basically Karzai's stool pigeon and equivalency of chief of staff. He is another example of an individual that fled during the Russian war, leaving the rugged tribesmen of Afghanistan to fight his war for him. Like the lackey he is, he was secreted right back into Afghanistan from the Western Anus in order to fill a "leadership" role in a government that cannot even nullify air strikes. Note how he laments the airstrikes out of one side of his mouth and then bends over for Gates a few days later. Typical coward that symbolizes those that fled their duty... brothers to Chalabi, Maliki, and Allawi. Yet somehow, it fascinates the Americans that such corruption and such tom foolery and such failures cannot erect a reasonable governing body. I simply tell them: failure in teh west does not translate to success in Eastern matters. Rather, you basically took a bunch of people that think they are elite khans, who could do no better than pumping gas or serving burgers here in the states and put them in power.

[MDresden]

In my mind it's called "gathering the forces." Or, letting others hang themselves by taking up arms.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

In my mind it's called "gathering the forces."

Give me a break. I know you are trying to psychologically give yourself a reason to continue, but in the fight to access information, I plan on trusting Frontline instead of Matt Dresden for my information. You cannot provide a valid, non US military screened source to back up your claims. Until you debunk and provide references against each of the frontline examples, I cannot take your claims seriously. I do agree with you that the US is attempting to stay for the long term... its not going to be a drawdown now or tomorrow or even a year from now. But these folks are going to fight you for the next two decades and, as Dr. Scheuer said, deliver a thousand cuts to hemorrhage you.

[MDresden]

I'd rather it be that way. I'm sort of smiling in my seat because I now realize you can't fathom how well the SF are dug in to afghanistan [not that I can fathom either, just a point of reference] and probably pakistan.

No base no fob is needed by SF. They eat the local food and shop at the local bazaars. Heck, normal military forces see them maybe once a year.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

I'd rather it be that way. I'm sort of smiling in my seat because I now realize you can't fathom how well the SF are dug in to afghanistan [not that I can fathom either, just a point of reference] and probably pakistan.

No base no fob is needed by SF. They eat the local food and shop at the local bazaars. Heck, normal military forces see them maybe once a year.

We cannot fathom, because there is no metric. Even if Mullah Omar himself is killed tomorrow along with the members of the shurah council, it doesnt matter. The Taliban appears to be comprised of a centralized shurah that runs the show, but is also capable of dealing effectively with decapitation attacks by decentralizing when challenged by leadership losses. Its no different than the way that the central American military can decenteralize and in the way that the national gaurd is sort of like a state militia. Were a disaster to occur centrally, the US state/federal designs equips the units dissassemble.

It is even easier for the Taliban because they appear to spend months at a time without contacting their central leadership and they easily become regional and independent fighting units.

It was not so dissimilar from when the Russkies were fighting multiple groups fighting with a common purpose.

So as SF attempts to ascertain the identities of various folks, I am sure they might be able to access folks as they did dadullah, but then these folks are simply replaced.

[ScimitarXEdge]

MDresden; you're essentially a clown on the caliber of Pee Wee Herman.
It's convenient to claim "I meant to do that" after the fact of proclaimed objectives failings to cover up for incompetence.

YouTube - ‪Pee Wee's Big Adventure - Bike Flip‬‏

Just like Pee Wee , you can't fool anyone.


Similar bogus claims of strategic depth have been proclaimed in American Military History

America purposely lost vietnam, so it could ruin the S. East asian economy

America sold arms to Iran so they could drive the Iran-Iraq war further into chaos.

America helped Saddam gas Kurds, so that the Kurds would revolt against Saddam

America invaded Iraq to to defeat the insurgency (that one always perplexes me, since the insurgency was a reaction towards invasion not the cause of invasion)

The South will rise again (lol)

How many masks for reality will one use before one finally has the balls to admit, you failed.

[ScimitarXEdge]

I'd rather it be that way. I'm sort of smiling in my seat because I now realize you can't fathom how well the SF are dug in to afghanistan [not that I can fathom either, just a point of reference] and probably pakistan.

No base no fob is needed by SF. They eat the local food and shop at the local bazaars. Heck, normal military forces see them maybe once a year.

these guys totally blend in, I mean no one can tell a cross eyed steroid monkey who looks like a typical jockish infidel is sitting right next to them sipping chai and eating kulcha.

[faye]

looks like he's living out his rambo fantasy, lol.

[akbarkhan]

In my mind it's called "gathering the forces." Or, letting others hang themselves by taking up arms.

You can seek solace by believing your own spin, in fact one of the reasons why America is going to lose this war is purely because it is becoming detached from reality and believing in its own "positive" talk.

Sure, you can loot Iraq and Libya's natural resources to sustain the occupation of Afghanistan for a while but you can not stop the inevitable, the fall of American empire.