Finally done in Afghanistan?

[SocialD]

Is anyone really surprised?  When the people who send us away from our families to endure untold hardships, have absolutely zero accountability, it's amazing that there is still any accountability at the lower levels.  Things like this are why is why I scoffed shit like GTC "misuse" forms, especially when their per-diem more than covered the expense, but the location was "flagged" (not a strip joint).  Apparently someone higher up didn't like my level of sarcasm in my reports...oh well.  Sorry, I have more important things to deal with.  Glad I'm retired and done with that bullshit.  

[RedEye1911]

2 hours ago, SocialD said:

Is anyone really surprised?  When the people who send us away from our families to endure untold hardships, have absolutely zero accountability, it's amazing that there is still any accountability at the lower levels.  Things like this are why is why I scoffed shit like GTC "misuse" forms, especially when their per-diem more than covered the expense, but the location was "flagged" (not a strip joint).  Apparently someone higher up didn't like my level of sarcasm in my reports...oh well.  Sorry, I have more important things to deal with.  Glad I'm retired and done with that bullshit.  

No kidding. Integrity is entirely absent in leadership.

Remember when the current Chief of Staff and Pentagon Spokesman stood in front of the American people and knowingly lied about that drone strike that killed a bunch of kids during the pullout? I remember. They are still there and faced zero consequences.

 

Edited July 20, 2023 by RedEye1911

[dream big]

17 hours ago, gearhog said:

And to think the people that botched Afghanistan and excoriated here are the very same decision makers in the current conflict. 
 

No consequences, no accountability. What could go wrong?

Hopefully not for long, hopefully for only 18 more months! That aside, the rot, corruption, and incompetence in our federal government transcends political parties. 

[JBueno]

This stuff is definitely maddening, but it’s easy to make the big things the boogeyman while ignoring the small issues.

Plenty of local BS at the squadron level that gets ignored by leaders clamoring about how bad CSAF-level decision are. 
 

Control what you can control. For those still in, we aren’t about to fix Pentagon-level crap. Look around your squadron, take a look in the mirror, and go fix some shit. Plenty of people in your charge are depending on it.

[RedEye1911]

On 7/20/2023 at 9:57 PM, JBueno said:

This stuff is definitely maddening, but it’s easy to make the big things the boogeyman while ignoring the small issues.

Plenty of local BS at the squadron level that gets ignored by leaders clamoring about how bad CSAF-level decision are. 
 

Control what you can control. For those still in, we aren’t about to fix Pentagon-level crap. Look around your squadron, take a look in the mirror, and go fix some shit. Plenty of people in your charge are depending on it.

Tell that to everyone that died in Afghanistan for nothing.

[brabus]

1 hour ago, RedEye1911 said:

Tell that to everyone that died in Afghanistan for nothing.

 Everyone who died in AFG (and elsewhere) was not for nothing. I’ll give you that some did, but not all. I hate the waste of mil ops over the last 20 years as much as the next guy, but don’t devalue our bro’s sacrifice so easily. 

[DirkDiggler]

On 7/20/2023 at 8:57 PM, JBueno said:

This stuff is definitely maddening, but it’s easy to make the big things the boogeyman while ignoring the small issues.

Plenty of local BS at the squadron level that gets ignored by leaders clamoring about how bad CSAF-level decision are. 
 

Control what you can control. For those still in, we aren’t about to fix Pentagon-level crap. Look around your squadron, take a look in the mirror, and go fix some shit. Plenty of people in your charge are depending on it.

Good words.

[HeyEng]

I can guarantee you that any grunt you talk to who had to train Afghanistan soldiers would tell you that they would fold up like a cheap chair the minute we pulled out and told someone in his/her chain of command. That message got filtered out before it even got up to corporate.
Big Blue was not any better! Anyone with a brain could see that mandatory deployment as part of your career progression to do make believe jobs and running around ensuring airmen had their PT shirts tucked in and wearing reflective belts was a logistics nightmare!

I ran into so many airmen deployed in Afghanistan and Manas who had no clue what they were doing there other than to do “busy work” and count the days when they returned stateside!

[Biff_T]

4 hours ago, RedEye1911 said:

Tell that to everyone that died in Afghanistan for nothing.

I will add Iraq to this as well.  We had no reason to be in Iraq.  I'd argue we had less of a reason than Russia did to invade Ukraine.  

They died for their bros.  We didn't have a choice where we fought but we had the chance to make sure the grunts had the best shot to make it home.   It took me a while to understand this.  The war was bigger than me.   The government may get us into wars to keep Lockheed and Boeing in business but those who served overthere know it was about seeing one less 20 yo comehome in a metal box.  

Edited July 22, 2023 by Biff_T

[FourFans]

22 hours ago, RedEye1911 said:

Tell that to everyone that died in Afghanistan for nothing.

It wasn't for nothing.  I'll come off the top ropes on anyone who says differently.  For 20 years we kept the wolf on his side of the fence, and he didn't even THINK about making it to our front door.  It was expensive in blood and treasure in modern historical terms, but unprecedently cost effective and unbelievably useful in long view historical terms.  Not only did we secure our own and our allies safety for 20 years, we put the ever living fear of God in anyone who would challenge our military strength.  More importantly, we can back up that fact. Unfortunately it feels like a waste, and I understand that...thoroughly...I was there, but it wasn't wasted.

The mental and emotional health of the men and women who did the heavy lifting hinges on embracing the facts, not the feelings, and is far too important to simply throw out: It was all for nothing.  That's a lie.  Stop propagating it.

Edited July 23, 2023 by FourFans

[SocialD]

LOL what fence did we keep them within?  Looks like all we've done is create more wolves and spread them all over the ME and Africa.  We probably created a few more when we abandoned them like a crazy ex in the middle of the night.  Sure we haven't had another 9/11 or WTC bombing yet...until we do.   At a cost that we have yet to fully understand.  I guess we could have kept them going indefinitely, that seemed to be working swimmingly.  It's an easy argument to make because "nothing happened," but we'll never know if nothing would have happened anyway.  These wars have weakened us big time, both is manpower, money, etc...   We have a service that fewer and fewer want to go into and we have an aged/tired force, and we have less money to sustain it.  I won't get into specifics on here, but there are some major issues that are on our doorstep that are huge deals, with no good/quick fix.  

 

I won't say their sacrifice was for nothing, especially those in the beginning.  I will say shame on our leaders for not letting our military do their thing, quickly and violently and getting out.  Hindering us when we could have had OBL early on and not closing up shop when we did get him.  Both times I was there, we were so fucking hindered by ROE, that I know we got people killed due to our own self imposed handcuffs.  All to avoid "creating more terrorist."  As if what we were doing wasn't already doing that by being there.  When your EA is a star with a team of scared JAGs, that need a feed and get to dictate the weapon used...we're fucked.  

 

I know, I know...I "can't see the big picture."  Funny enough, if you pushed back and asked what that big picture was, or heck, even asked something as simple as what are our objectives, you could never get a clear answer.  

Edited July 23, 2023 by SocialD

[di1630]

We didn’t waste 20 years…probably just a good decade+ or so.

We should have pulled out after we got Bin Laden vs nation building.

That would’ve shown that we stood by our resolve to kill that o and given closure.





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[FourFans]

7 hours ago, SocialD said:

I will say shame on our leaders for not letting our military do their thing, quickly and violently and getting out.  Hindering us when we could have had OBL early on and not closing up shop when we did get him.

This.  In spades.

The work the military did within the absolutely abhorrent constraints our moronic political leadership imposed was as good as it could have been.  It should have ended under GW.  If not, it definitely should have ended under Obama.  I'll not even address the absolute abortion that generates our current military and political 'guidance', as the word "leadership" in no way applies to them.  Backing up even more, the concept of a "war on terror" was doomed from the very beginning, and never should have happened.

Regardless of the idiots in charge, the boots on the ground did an outstanding job to get the job of identifying and suppressing bad actors as best possible within the shitshow that was the ROE.  Amazingly, they were able to keep bad actors on their side of the ocean, even if they spread.  They spread because they had to in order to come close to surviving.  The destruction of ISIS was a fair enough example of having some of the gloves taken off.  In any case, they were definitely kept on their back foot, and rarely had the initiative.  It was not in vain.

What's concerning to me is that we developed an amazing surveillance capacity to develop POL, and I can easily see those capabilities turned on our own citizens by a government that is quickly turning into a ruling class instead of one that derives it's power from the consent of the governed.

Edited July 23, 2023 by FourFans

[Lawman]

We didn’t waste 20 years…probably just a good decade+ or so.

We should have pulled out after we got Bin Laden vs nation building.

That would’ve shown that we stood by our resolve to kill that o and given closure.





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We were still directly actioning on targets from the Neptune Spear intel 4 years after the fact.

That wasn’t just national building, it was dismantling active efforts by AQ and its leadership network.

That’s part of the misunderstand we were there to make a democratic country. That was a secondary goal to all the stuff going on in numbered task forces. If we’d said that publicly it would have been honest, but that’s a harder sell to people.

“Why are we still there?!?!?”
“Well Mr and Mrs Wisconsin suburban voter… there are still a lot of S-heads that need killing.”


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[FourFans]

4 minutes ago, Lawman said:

We were still directly actioning on targets from the Neptune Spear intel 4 years after the fact.

That wasn’t just national building, it was dismantling active efforts by AQ and its leadership network.

That’s part of the misunderstand we were there to make a democratic country. That was a secondary goal to all the stuff going on in numbered task forces. If we’d said that publicly it would have been honest, but that’s a harder sell to people.

“Why are we still there?!?!?”
“Well Mr and Mrs Wisconsin suburban voter… there are still a lot of S-heads that need killing.”


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I have to agree with the point that if the gloves had come all the way off, killing those s-heads would have happened years faster than it did.

[raimius]

We cant just point the finger at civilian leaders.  The DoD writ large has a "can-do" response to basically anything.  We need to stop that.  The military hammer can't fix every problem...but we need to be clear on that.  How many times did we "turn the corner" in Afghanistan?  How many times did we send over-optimistic reports from people who should have known better to people who should have known better?

[Clark Griswold]

Anytime we have a long term occupation and pacification mission, we should institute a draft for this mission
Conscription would be specifically for this mission for at least 1 year in country in combat only MOSs. Conscripts must be 15% of all ground forces at all times
I’m not ranting for this for the purpose of military efficacy but for societal risk burden sharing and to give pause for politicians, media and policy makers
Draft selection would be on composite score of academic performance, standardized test performance and athletic achievement.
This would be to ensure smart kids at exclusive schools and star athletes whom both groups are connected to the wealthy, privileged and powerful are subject to it. They are also highly visible members of communities.
If the nat sec blob wants to remake a country then they (their socio economic cohort) will be required to participate in the mission
Negative 69 percent chance of ever happening


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[gearhog]

For those of us that flew the Herc or other tac airlift, I feel like we had a different perspective than many. Between early 2002-2018 I went into nearly every 2500'+ C-130 capable airstrip in and around the AOR. We got to see nearly every part of it from below 20,000' and 250kts. Tents at the end of dirt strips became B-huts, Q-huts, Prefabs, then permanent concrete structures. Dirt strips got paved, lengthed. Giant hangers, cubic miles of concrete poured in dozens upon dozens of locations. Hundreds of thousands of vehicles and equipment bought, used up and discarded. You'd see them piled in junkyards near many locations. We were constantly hauling contractors, Haliburton, KBR, Fleur, Raython, etc. Often talk to them and discuss the obscene amouts of money they were making for menial jobs. I wrote a story a while back about flying with the Undersecretary of Defense comptroller who, on the flight deck, bragged about a stack of fake currency he showed us with his face in the middle and denominated in One-Billion-Out-Year Dollars. He was handing them out to Generals to demonstrate he had unlimited funds. He was a douchebag. He later couldn't account for 2 Trillion Dollars. But, I sort of feel fortunate to have seen this monumental effort unfold over the course of my career. For much of it, I wanted to believe it was meaningful and the correct thing to do. But I'm also embarrassed that I bought into the whole "They hate your freedom and want to destroy it" line. So naive. I'm sure some of what we did prevented a lot of bad things from happening. Did other things create a lot of suffering? More? Less? I don't know. Are we a better nation because of it?

We'd have blindfolded and drugged detainees strapped to the cargo floor one day, and HR containers the next. We'd reconfig for Medevac. Mulitated soldiers and local civilians including children. It all seemed pretty crazy. What I did not see much of was the up close killing, so I can't comment on that aspect. I guess my point being, looking back, it was the most insanely one-sided conflict in the history of mankind, and I got to see a lot of it, first hand, from a variety of perspectives, over 16 years. We lost 2996 on 9/11. In the war after, we lost maybe 7000 KIA and 8000 contractors. I just looked, 30,000 suicides since. We lost a couple hundred thousand allied troops. I can't find the number of losses we inflicted on the bad guys, though. I have no idea. But the world probably isn't going to miss a few hundred thousand barefoot goat-herders with AK-47s. Sort of makes you wonder what kind of effort fighting a near-peer adversary would require.

That's a long way of saying it was maybe worth it for a little while, and it wasn't for a long while.

 

Edited July 24, 2023 by gearhog

[arg]

9 hours ago, SocialD said:

 

  I will say shame on our leaders for not letting our military do their thing, quickly and violently and getting out.  

 

 

That's the only thing they understand and respect.

Quote from somebody I can't remember. The only way to negotiate with them(muslims) is your knee on their chest and your knife at their throat.

[RedEye1911]

On 7/23/2023 at 5:35 AM, FourFans said:

It wasn't for nothing.  I'll come off the top ropes on anyone who says differently.  For 20 years we kept the wolf on his side of the fence, and he didn't even THINK about making it to our front door.  It was expensive in blood and treasure in modern historical terms, but unprecedently cost effective and unbelievably useful in long view historical terms.  Not only did we secure our own and our allies safety for 20 years, we put the ever living fear of God in anyone who would challenge our military strength.  More importantly, we can back up that fact. Unfortunately it feels like a waste, and I understand that...thoroughly...I was there, but it wasn't wasted.

The mental and emotional health of the men and women who did the heavy lifting hinges on embracing the facts, not the feelings, and is far too important to simply throw out: It was all for nothing.  That's a lie.  Stop propagating it.

lol. Yes, I'm sure those people with $5 to their names over there that we smoked with hellfires daily were a big threat to our families back home.

Afghanistan is just as bad as before we went in except now there are millions of people there that have had family members killed by Americans. What was accomplished? Nothing. The people that died over there were pawns in a political game and did not die protecting our country. I wasted my time there, you wasted your time there, and every other sucker that went wasted their time there.

I'm not saying the dudes on the ground did anything wrong or deserve any blame. They did what they were told to do, and what they were told to do was to be a sacrificial animal to make the powers that be look better. Just War Theory is suicide and I have zero respect for anyone that believes in it. Too bad it is doctrine.

14 hours ago, FourFans said:

What's concerning to me is that we developed an amazing surveillance capacity to develop POL, and I can easily see those capabilities turned on our own citizens by a government that is quickly turning into a ruling class instead of one that derives it's power from the consent of the governed.

Looks like someone has never heard of Ed Snowden. I've got bad news for you...

 

 

[FourFans]

1 hour ago, RedEye1911 said:

lol. Yes, I'm sure those people with $5 to their names over there that we smoked with hellfires daily were a big threat to our families back home.

Afghanistan is just as bad as before we went in except now there are millions of people there that have had family members killed by Americans. What was accomplished? Nothing. The people that died over there were pawns in a political game and did not die protecting our country. I wasted my time there, you wasted your time there, and every other sucker that went wasted their time there.

I'm not saying the dudes on the ground did anything wrong or deserve any blame. They did what they were told to do, and what they were told to do was to be a sacrificial animal to make the powers that be look better. Just War Theory is suicide and I have zero respect for anyone that believes in it. Too bad it is doctrine.

Looks like someone has never heard of Ed Snowden. I've got bad news for you...

 

 

Noted.  I'll bet you're great at parties. 

Be aware that just because your perspective is jaded doesn't mean the rest of us have to adopt that perspective.  Yes, the premise for going there was broken from the beginning.  The leadership was, and is trash.  Just because the task is misguided doesn't mean the workers have to be automatons with no judgment or power to alter the outcome towards good.  Maybe you were.  I'm sorry to hear that.  I refuse to be and I did my best to make life and the mission better for everyone in my sphere of influence. 

You may have wasted your time, but I didn't waste mine.  I know many who didn't.  We are not defined by the negative view of the those who wasted their time.

[brabus]

1 hour ago, RedEye1911 said:

What was accomplished? Nothing

I understand to an extent what you’re saying. It was a garbage long term plan, and honestly whether we left 10 years ago or 5 years from now, what does it change because essentially we’d have to stay forever to continue stopping threats that originate from that region of the world. But that all said, we accomplished a lot, it’s just a lot that you don’t know about. There are 10s of thousands of people alive today in the western world because of actions in that region. Sorry it was never printed in a newspaper, talked about in WH press briefing and everyone involved went home not talking about it.

 Lots of frustration on all of our parts with how all the admins handled the last 20+ years, but even with the steaming pile of shit we all got shoved into, there were positive things that came out of it, that’s a fact. That is not a statement in support of how the whole thing was managed or how long we were there.

[di1630]

I’d say 90% of it was a waste.

I dropped my first bomb 19+ years ago in the Koregal, what I realize now that I didn’t then, I’d probably be fighting the US foreign invaders also if I were a remote Muslim tribal farmer with no education.

Most of you would too.






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[Biff_T]

2 minutes ago, di1630 said:

I’d say 90% of it was a waste.

I dropped my first bomb 19+ years ago in the Koregal, what I realize now that I didn’t then, I’d probably be fighting the US foreign invaders also if I were a remote Muslim tribal farmer with no education.

Most of you would too.






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This. 

[Sim]

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/john-hasson/2023/08/16/bidens-pentagon-brass-lied-about-taliban-attacks-on-us-forces-n2627065

 

Quote

a new report shows that the Taliban violated every aspect of the Doha Agreement and invalidated it, meaning Biden was not obligated to adhere to it and withdraw from Afghanistan. 

The report also directly contradicts the testimony of two Pentagon officials, General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Lloyd Austin, U.S. Secretary of Defense, who appeared before the U.S. Senate on September 28, 2021.