RESPONSE TO THE AFGHAN WAR'S DISMAL END...

Submitted by Ameer Labeeb Hassan (United States), May 29, 2014 at 10:34

You can blame no one but GWB as he and he alone declared the GWOT and sent troops to Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003). President Obama inherited this mess and is trying to clean it up. But it runs alot deeper than what meets the eye, especially if you aren't old enough to remember another U.S. failure known as Vietnam. Same scenario, Troops conduct a "police action" against insurgents; USAID pumps money and material into a country with corrupt leadership and; "boots-on-the-ground" become ineffective in the long run.

Three factors at work here: (1) It is not suitable to fight an UNCONVENTIONAL conflict with CONVENTIONAL forces; (2) Anti- Gov't Insurgents will always use the civilian population for cover & concealment and; (3) Erroneous intel gets the wrong people killed and primes recruits for the insurgency. In order to win this kind of war you practically have to kill the entire civil population off, which isn't feasible. So its a no win situation from a CONVENTIONAL standpoint.

Much in the way of material resources and national treasure was irresponsibly squandered away in Vietnam with that history is repeating itself in Iraq and Afghanistan. And just think, the Army has a "Center For Lessons Learned." But they haven't really learned yet.

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