Finally done in Afghanistan?

[M2]

In Afghanistan, the DoD knew how to kill people and break things; but the US government never had a clue as to how to build a stable government and society.  

Not one fucking clue.  

2459 killed, of which 1922 were in combat.

20,769 wounded in action.

Countless others suffering the psychological impacts.

Afghanistan will never be "done."

[HeloDude]

Let’s be honest, each President since 2005ish (so yes, including Bush) didn’t want Afghanistan to fail under their watch because Afghanistan for the longest time was seen as the legit/supported war.  As public support for more activity decreased, Trump was wanting to wind it down substantially, as was Biden.  In the end, Biden made the call to end it, most likely when his advisors told him that the government/Afghan military could at least hold things together for a while…which obviously didn’t happen.  And anyone who did any sort of close advising in Iraq or Afghanistan knew that this wasn’t going to work out, especially in Afghanistan.  
 

BL:  As M2 states above, we absolutely suck at nation building.  It might sound good on paper, but it’s not worth it. So no, staying in Afghanistan after the first few years was most definitely not worth it.  I’m all for going in and breaking things if we think it will net positive the interests for American citizens, but then that’s where things need to stop.  But hey, the defense contractors made some serious money.

[tac airlifter]

21 hours ago, M2 said:

In Afghanistan, the DoD knew how to kill people and break things; but the US government never had a clue as to how to build a stable government and society.  

Not one fucking clue.  

Countless others suffering the psychological impacts.

Side note on your last sentence- I’m a member of several GWOT groups and I’ve been shocked how many are full are army dudes with serious psychological issues allegedly from their single deployment… whether or not they saw combat.  I say allegedly because I don’t know these people so am taking their comments at face value.  I wonder if the Taliban is full of sad ex-fighters dealing with regrets and nightmares.  I’m sure not the same due to cultural differences but I am curious what lasting effects they’ll have.  Genuinely curious, don’t mean to sound disparaging.

For the first part, I’m not sure we actually do know how to kill people and break things on scale.  Tactically yes or course, but at the operational to strategic level we proved incapable of leveraging violence successfully to achieve desired outcomes.  Yes nation building was a fools errand in AFG, but imagine we didn’t have restrictive ROE and every enemy identified was killed.  We would have “won” by pure attrition; or at least not been driven out in shame.
 

 Our self imposed rules (from 09-21) made killing them in amounts necessary simply impossible; as they advanced using large convoys in the open we were too caught up in “near certainty” and “proportionality” to be decisive and ruthless.  Even the fact we used Type 2 CAS procedures instead of SCAR for interdiction missions with no friendlies present speaks to an obsession with control at the expense of combat effectiveness.  I will continue to blame our generals and be convinced we could have killed our way to victory, and although our captains are great at killing our leaders suck at aligning those actions into a sum greater than its parts.

[brabus]

1 hour ago, tac airlifter said:

Type 2 CAS procedures instead of SCAR for interdiction missions

Flew a couple combat missions that were truly OCA-AI missions in every doctrinal and tactical sense - nope, type 2 control from the AOC. The absolute idiocy of our senior leaders,  mil and civ, is mind blowing. 

Edited Wednesday at 02:06 PM by brabus

[tac airlifter]

17 minutes ago, brabus said:

Flew a couple combat missions that were truly OCA-AI missions in every doctrinal and tactical sense - nope, type 2 control from the AOC. The absolute idiocy of our senior leaders,  mil and civ, is mind blowing. 

Don’t you love lining up a tight shot between clouds chasing squirters while someone shouts like an auctioneer “1-3 N/A, your sensor your sensor, call pushing with time to release, call in, call…. Standby…. You still in position for immediate release?”  😂 Pro tip the answer is always yes, even if the truth is no.  
 

They told me it shows the highest degree of control, making the CG most comfortable.  Nevermind the strikes that were aborted because procedures were incomplete, we can do it another day.  Better to cancel than take a risk, there’s always tomorrow, we’re not really here to win…. The outcome of AFG didn’t surprise anyone who fought it.

[Lawman]

Don’t you love lining up a tight shot between clouds chasing squirters while someone shouts like an auctioneer “1-3 N/A, your sensor your sensor, call pushing with time to release, call in, call…. Standby…. You still in position for immediate release?”   Pro tip the answer is always yes, even if the truth is no.  
 
They told me it shows the highest degree of control, making the CG most comfortable.  Nevermind the strikes that were aborted because procedures were incomplete, we can do it another day.  Better to cancel than take a risk, there’s always tomorrow, we’re not really here to win…. The outcome of AFG didn’t surprise anyone who fought it.

I always enjoyed having a Jag review our tapes post strike to make sure we used the right phrases pre strike.

Gotta justify killing bad guys with words that can be reviewed by some dipshit that just got back from the KAF Chilis who has some innate insight on the PID process.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[SocialD]

2 hours ago, tac airlifter said:

Our self imposed rules (from 09-21) made killing them in amounts necessary simply impossible; as they advanced using large convoys in the open we were too caught up in “near certainty” and “proportionality” to be decisive and ruthless.  Even the fact we used Type 2 CAS procedures instead of SCAR for interdiction missions with no friendlies present speaks to an obsession with control at the expense of combat effectiveness.  I will continue to blame our generals and be convinced we could have killed our way to victory, and although our captains are great at killing our leaders suck at aligning those actions into a sum greater than its parts.

 

 

100% this.  CH fought in a completely different war than many of us.  Toward the end, we couldn't drop unless the GC (a general at AUAB) and his JAG, had continuous, live robot feed on the target and we certainly didn't drop if CDE got above 0.69%.   But I know one thing, we all had the proper uniform on at all times and we were COVID free thanks to a 2 week sit in the mold infested, old coalition compound at AUAB...

Edited Wednesday at 03:52 PM by SocialD

[mp5g]

4 hours ago, tac airlifter said:

Side note on your last sentence- I’m a member of several GWOT groups and I’ve been shocked how many are full are army dudes with serious psychological issues allegedly from their single deployment… whether or not they saw combat.  I say allegedly because I don’t know these people so am taking their comments at face value.  I wonder if the Taliban is full of sad ex-fighters dealing with regrets and nightmares.  I’m sure not the same due to cultural differences but I am curious what lasting effects they’ll have.  Genuinely curious, don’t mean to sound disparaging.

For the first part, I’m not sure we actually do know how to kill people and break things on scale.  Tactically yes or course, but at the operational to strategic level we proved incapable of leveraging violence successfully to achieve desired outcomes.  Yes nation building was a fools errand in AFG, but imagine we didn’t have restrictive ROE and every enemy identified was killed.  We would have “won” by pure attrition; or at least not been driven out in shame.
 

 Our self imposed rules (from 09-21) made killing them in amounts necessary simply impossible; as they advanced using large convoys in the open we were too caught up in “near certainty” and “proportionality” to be decisive and ruthless.  Even the fact we used Type 2 CAS procedures instead of SCAR for interdiction missions with no friendlies present speaks to an obsession with control at the expense of combat effectiveness.  I will continue to blame our generals and be convinced we could have killed our way to victory, and although our captains are great at killing our leaders suck at aligning those actions into a sum greater than its parts.

Makes me remember fondly the one and only time in 2018 when I was given Type 3 control after a dude stepped on an IED and the GFC wanted the city block leveled. It was definitely the unicorn and I couldn’t believe what I was hearing,  but the absolute authority to sling hate for the following 20 minutes was glorious. 

[brabus]

I got lucky with timing and still got a good amount of destruction of the enemy done with good O-6 leadership as top cover. But, even in those “good days” the general dipshitery of how we ran the war was truly astounding. Still had dumbass JAGs and things were only good when O-6s weren’t pussies. Swap out the leadership and the war effort goes to a grinding halt. 

[fire4effect]

On 10/30/2024 at 8:02 AM, tac airlifter said:

Side note on your last sentence- I’m a member of several GWOT groups and I’ve been shocked how many are full are army dudes with serious psychological issues allegedly from their single deployment… whether or not they saw combat.  I say allegedly because I don’t know these people so am taking their comments at face value.  I wonder if the Taliban is full of sad ex-fighters dealing with regrets and nightmares.  I’m sure not the same due to cultural differences but I am curious what lasting effects they’ll have.  Genuinely curious, don’t mean to sound disparaging.

For the first part, I’m not sure we actually do know how to kill people and break things on scale.  Tactically yes or course, but at the operational to strategic level we proved incapable of leveraging violence successfully to achieve desired outcomes.  Yes nation building was a fools errand in AFG, but imagine we didn’t have restrictive ROE and every enemy identified was killed.  We would have “won” by pure attrition; or at least not been driven out in shame.
 

 Our self imposed rules (from 09-21) made killing them in amounts necessary simply impossible; as they advanced using large convoys in the open we were too caught up in “near certainty” and “proportionality” to be decisive and ruthless.  Even the fact we used Type 2 CAS procedures instead of SCAR for interdiction missions with no friendlies present speaks to an obsession with control at the expense of combat effectiveness.  I will continue to blame our generals and be convinced we could have killed our way to victory, and although our captains are great at killing our leaders suck at aligning those actions into a sum greater than its parts.

A lot is the daily grind for a solid year. Riding a dirt road in a Humvee day in day out wondering if the next turn has an IED. Think Bob Woodruff of ABC News north of Baghdad in 2006. He did a special where he returned to the scene of the attack about a year ago. Pretty powerful and its online. IDF can put everyone on the front line or as some would say the enemy is airmailing you the IED. Hell a guy in the gym on the squat rack was killed by a rocket in the Green Zone. I will certainly admit flying an aircraft any aircraft is way more fun. Though Tammy Duckworth and her Blackhawk caught the RPG not far away near a town called Tarmiya in late 2003. The town was a former "resort" on the Tigris River for the Bath Party, so they didn't think much of Americans. One way to look at it is the randomness of it all. You can patrol all day long and nothing happens so nothing memorable. The Humvee 5 minutes behind you gets hit and for them certainly a "significant emotional event" As many of you noted Afghanistan deployments had a wide variety of flavors depending on when you were there and your mission at the time. Same as it was in Iraq. My trip to Afghanistan was for me actually pretty tame by comparison but back to that one word "random"

[08Dawg]

I had a sixteen DPI 9-line in AFG get cancelled because JAG…do you know how much fuckin work it is to program a sixteen DPI 9-line??