7 ms·

It's probably for the best now, but it shouldn't have needed to come to this. In "Call Sign Chaos" by Jim Mattis, he talks about how the Bush and Obama adminis

by dx87 7y ago

It's probably for the best now, but it shouldn't have needed to come to this. In "Call Sign Chaos" by Jim Mattis, he talks about how the Bush and Obama administrations both repeatedly ignored the recommendations of military and intelligence officials. The Bush administration was too cavalier and thought they knew best, the Obama administration was too weak and wanted to score political points by not providing the force that was required. When I was in the Marines, they told us that we shouldn't need to be there, but politicians from the 80s/90s left things such a mess after trying to stop the Soviets, that now we had to go try and clean up the mess created 20 years prior.

anm89 7y ago
>When I was in the Marines, they told us that we shouldn't need to be there, but politicians from the 80s/90s left things such a mess after trying to stop the Soviets, that now we had to go try and clean up the mess created 20 years prior. This is of course true but you can play this fallacy out forever. The right thing to do in the 80s was not to meddle. Then after that we should have cut our losses and stopped meddling. And now 40 years later we are cleaning up failed clean up attempts on failed clean up attempts. At every point in this chain, the correct move is to admit you can't be world police and stop meddling.
- Udik 7y ago
  > you can't be world police Off topic, but the whole concept of "world police" is just spin. A police force is one that enforces equally laws established by others. You cannot be at the same time the one who establishes the rules and who decides when and where to use force against those who break them. This is just arbitary use of violence.
- ggm 7y ago
  left things such a mess after trying to stop the Soviets So much contained in this one sentence. People need to go look at what backing an insurgency against a repressive but modernising government does and ask questions.
  - pjc50 7y ago
    The effect of backing the mujahadeen on the actual Afghans was, I'm sure, never in the picture. (Anyone remember the Living Daylights where James Bond teams up with the Oxford-educated Afghan head of the local islamists to beat the Russians together?)
    - ggm 7y ago
      One might say the whole effect of the domino theory was to justify US military intervention against Russia and every single place they did, it backfired. Iran, the oil backed coup of the 1950s led to Pahlavi, hatred and fear which in turn led to Kohmeni in Paris. Simply letting the Iranians nationalise the oil industry would probably have been better long-term. 1953 to 2020, US oil interests stuffing up peace...
      - wahern 7y ago
        > One might say the whole effect of the domino theory was to justify US military intervention against Russia and every single place they did, it backfired. A few counter examples: Greece, [South] Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia. Chile is another well known example, though IMO U.S. involvement is wildly exaggerated. AFAIU, it was conservatives in the Chilean Congress that engineered and pushed for the coup. The prospect of American support (e.g. a wink from the CIA) simply made it a marginally easier sell among the people whose heads might roll if it failed. None of which is a defense of the Domino Theory or a comment on the merits of intervention. The take away from all of this, IMO, is to avoid grand strategic theories and goals--context matters.
        ggm 7y ago
        If you think Phillipines or Indonesia worked, I think you're wrong. Both have systemic corruption, massive structural issues and lingering left wing and Islamic rebellion. Indonesia killed millions in their counter communist reaction. Greece I grant you, "worked" within the limits you aren't a left wing Greek. The US wound up having to play in Greece and Turkey simultaneously, nobody is happy in the middle east really.
- dx87 7y ago
  I don't know if it's really fair to say that after 9/11 we were playing world police when we invaded Afghanistan. They were harboring Al Qaeda who had been carrying out smaller scale attacks on US assets for a while, culminating with 9/11. At that point you can't just ignore them and hope they stop; they'd been escalating violence for years.
  - craftinator 7y ago
    We invaded Iraq because of 9/11, not Afghanistan. That came later.
    - aibara 7y ago
      What? The U.S. invaded Afghanistan first, in 2001. Iraq came in 2003.
    - krapp 7y ago
      We were always going to invade Iraq, as soon as GWB and Dick Cheney were elected it was inevitable. 9/11 just provided a convenient opportunity to manufacture the pretext by implying links between Iraq Intelligence and the hijackers.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - boomboomsubban 7y ago
    What you describe sounds a lot like the police breaking into a house to arrest an alleged criminal. >At that point you can't just ignore them and hope they stop; they'd been escalating violence for years. If you can't ignore the problem, then drastically escalate the violence on your own?
    - pjc50 7y ago
      Very much like this: https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/08/31/actor-steven-seagal-sued-for-driving-tank-into-arizona-home-killing-puppy/#ffc3b7474894 https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/08/31/actor-steve...
- clarkmoody 7y ago
  The only winning move is not to play.
  - ghisler 7y ago
    Thanks for registering WinRAR. <3
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  "World police". I used to buy that, but the more I've learnt the more it seems it was just "corrupt this country for our own ends", covert control seemingly to support megalomania. USA has certainly done a good job of pretending to be the good guy, whilst simultaneously arming bad guys and killing to support Capitalist and tyrannical goals.
paulryanrogers 7y ago
What were these recommendations that got ignored?
- dx87 7y ago
  For the Bush administration, they ignored initial recommendations to work with the locals after the initial invasion, creating a lot of unemployed, angry, young people with military training. For the Obama administration, they ignored recommendations to increase the military presence to a level that they could effectively remove the Taliban. Forces were kept low so they could keep saying "we're bringing the troops home" during speaches. It was like quitting an antibiotic treatment too soon; we eliminated the low hanging fruit, but the Taliban that remained had even better training, and could point to our prescence as a recruiting tool.
  - heymijo 7y ago
    > to increase the military presence to a level that they could effectively remove the Taliban This is easier said than done, if it is possible at all. Having recently taken a dive into the U.S.' involvement in Vietnam, this argument rings eerily similar the one that got us into and led to our escalation in Vietnam.
    - mythrwy 7y ago
      I think these things are more possible than people believe. If it were truly an existential threat the US would remove the Taliban very quickly (that doesn't imply a safe orderly society would result). But Afghanistan, like Vietnam is an optional and non-essential conflict at this point with unclear definitions of victory. Maybe "victory" is packing up and going home at this point.
      - Spearchucker 7y ago
        The Russians also thought victory in Afghanistan was possible. Their humiliation was absolute. The US' mistake was not capitalizing on Russia's failure, choosing instead to make exactly the same mistake.
AndrewKemendo 7y ago
I've been totally demoralized over nearly two decades of being AD, reserve and a civilian, at the level to which appointees and senior defense civilians just completely ignore those of us who have actual, ya know, experience with war.
m0zg 7y ago
Not just for now, it's the best decision the US government has made since 1973 Vietnam War withdrawal. Not one, but _three_ superpowers were defeated in Afghanistan: Britain, USSR and the US. You can't win a land war against insurgents who are spread out, have religious zeal about their fight, and don't mind dying. Or to be more precise you can, but you'd have to raze everything to the ground and kill everyone, which, while doable, does not seem like a good idea in this day and age.
- jmpman 7y ago
  Maybe if you raze everything to the ground, and kill everyone, you can then offer the land to the Russians.
almost_usual 7y ago
Thank you for your service!
xzel 7y ago
I'm not a picking sides politically, but I see this as a perfect microcosm of problems of those two presidencies. I always thought during Obama's term it was a problem we got ourselves into and couldn't just leave, however much I don't think we should be interfering/policing other countries the way we did in Iraq and Afghanistan.
dehrmann 7y ago
> the Obama administration was too weak In hindsight, withdrawing from Iraq left a void that ISIS filled.
- ajross 7y ago
  Seems like invading and destroying the pre-existing government of Iraq left the void, no? I mean, if you drill a hole in the bottom of a bathtub and then stand there with your thumb in it to hold the water in, you don't blame the fact that it drained on your getting tired and pulling out your hand.
  - SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
    Hussein did a good job of keeping his thumb on the region, yes. But... when we took Iraq and Afghanistan, it was farmers with AK47s, Toyota Hilux trucks, and fertilizer IEDs.... when we “left” Iraq under Obama, we came back to ISIS with US military M16s, US Humvees, and high grade explosives. We didn’t make ISIS... we just armed them very well (via Iraqi “security”).
  - dehrmann 7y ago
    The US filled enough of the void, especially post-surge, for things to be stable. When the US invaded Iraq, there were a decent amount of protests against it, and generally, Americans grew to see it as a mistake. What's different here is this connection gets a lot less attention, and it was arguably worse for the region.
lonelappde 7y ago
I'm curious which military thinks their executive is a great strategist, and in general who thinks their non-techie boss knows better than they do. Did Mattis also disagree with bombing weddings and assassnating "males of fighting age"?
anarazel 7y ago
It doesn't seem surprising that it's portrayed that way, given that it's from a (former) high up member of the military. It's not like failures tend to be popular. There's plenty accounts describing it largely as a failure of the military too. Found the two Afghanistan books by Steve Coll interesting. Certainly not flattering of any group involved.

by dx87 7y ago

anm89 7y ago

>When I was in the Marines, they told us that we shouldn't need to be there, but politicians from the 80s/90s left things such a mess after trying to stop the Soviets, that now we had to go try and clean up the mess created 20 years prior. This is of course true but you can play this fallacy out forever. The right thing to do in the 80s was not to meddle. Then after that we should have cut our losses and stopped meddling. And now 40 years later we are cleaning up failed clean up attempts on failed clean up attempts. At every point in this chain, the correct move is to admit you can't be world police and stop meddling.

Udik 7y ago
> you can't be world police Off topic, but the whole concept of "world police" is just spin. A police force is one that enforces equally laws established by others. You cannot be at the same time the one who establishes the rules and who decides when and where to use force against those who break them. This is just arbitary use of violence.
ggm 7y ago
left things such a mess after trying to stop the Soviets So much contained in this one sentence. People need to go look at what backing an insurgency against a repressive but modernising government does and ask questions.
- pjc50 7y ago
  The effect of backing the mujahadeen on the actual Afghans was, I'm sure, never in the picture. (Anyone remember the Living Daylights where James Bond teams up with the Oxford-educated Afghan head of the local islamists to beat the Russians together?)
  - ggm 7y ago
    One might say the whole effect of the domino theory was to justify US military intervention against Russia and every single place they did, it backfired. Iran, the oil backed coup of the 1950s led to Pahlavi, hatred and fear which in turn led to Kohmeni in Paris. Simply letting the Iranians nationalise the oil industry would probably have been better long-term. 1953 to 2020, US oil interests stuffing up peace...
    - wahern 7y ago
      > One might say the whole effect of the domino theory was to justify US military intervention against Russia and every single place they did, it backfired. A few counter examples: Greece, [South] Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia. Chile is another well known example, though IMO U.S. involvement is wildly exaggerated. AFAIU, it was conservatives in the Chilean Congress that engineered and pushed for the coup. The prospect of American support (e.g. a wink from the CIA) simply made it a marginally easier sell among the people whose heads might roll if it failed. None of which is a defense of the Domino Theory or a comment on the merits of intervention. The take away from all of this, IMO, is to avoid grand strategic theories and goals--context matters.
      - ggm 7y ago
        If you think Phillipines or Indonesia worked, I think you're wrong. Both have systemic corruption, massive structural issues and lingering left wing and Islamic rebellion. Indonesia killed millions in their counter communist reaction. Greece I grant you, "worked" within the limits you aren't a left wing Greek. The US wound up having to play in Greece and Turkey simultaneously, nobody is happy in the middle east really.
dx87 7y ago
I don't know if it's really fair to say that after 9/11 we were playing world police when we invaded Afghanistan. They were harboring Al Qaeda who had been carrying out smaller scale attacks on US assets for a while, culminating with 9/11. At that point you can't just ignore them and hope they stop; they'd been escalating violence for years.
- craftinator 7y ago
  We invaded Iraq because of 9/11, not Afghanistan. That came later.
  - aibara 7y ago
    What? The U.S. invaded Afghanistan first, in 2001. Iraq came in 2003.
  - krapp 7y ago
    We were always going to invade Iraq, as soon as GWB and Dick Cheney were elected it was inevitable. 9/11 just provided a convenient opportunity to manufacture the pretext by implying links between Iraq Intelligence and the hijackers.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- boomboomsubban 7y ago
  What you describe sounds a lot like the police breaking into a house to arrest an alleged criminal. >At that point you can't just ignore them and hope they stop; they'd been escalating violence for years. If you can't ignore the problem, then drastically escalate the violence on your own?
  - pjc50 7y ago
    Very much like this: https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/08/31/actor-steven-seagal-sued-for-driving-tank-into-arizona-home-killing-puppy/#ffc3b7474894 https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/08/31/actor-steve...
clarkmoody 7y ago
The only winning move is not to play.
- ghisler 7y ago
  Thanks for registering WinRAR. <3
pbhjpbhj 7y ago
"World police". I used to buy that, but the more I've learnt the more it seems it was just "corrupt this country for our own ends", covert control seemingly to support megalomania. USA has certainly done a good job of pretending to be the good guy, whilst simultaneously arming bad guys and killing to support Capitalist and tyrannical goals.

paulryanrogers 7y ago

What were these recommendations that got ignored?

dx87 7y ago
For the Bush administration, they ignored initial recommendations to work with the locals after the initial invasion, creating a lot of unemployed, angry, young people with military training. For the Obama administration, they ignored recommendations to increase the military presence to a level that they could effectively remove the Taliban. Forces were kept low so they could keep saying "we're bringing the troops home" during speaches. It was like quitting an antibiotic treatment too soon; we eliminated the low hanging fruit, but the Taliban that remained had even better training, and could point to our prescence as a recruiting tool.
- heymijo 7y ago
  > to increase the military presence to a level that they could effectively remove the Taliban This is easier said than done, if it is possible at all. Having recently taken a dive into the U.S.' involvement in Vietnam, this argument rings eerily similar the one that got us into and led to our escalation in Vietnam.
  - mythrwy 7y ago
    I think these things are more possible than people believe. If it were truly an existential threat the US would remove the Taliban very quickly (that doesn't imply a safe orderly society would result). But Afghanistan, like Vietnam is an optional and non-essential conflict at this point with unclear definitions of victory. Maybe "victory" is packing up and going home at this point.
    - Spearchucker 7y ago
      The Russians also thought victory in Afghanistan was possible. Their humiliation was absolute. The US' mistake was not capitalizing on Russia's failure, choosing instead to make exactly the same mistake.

AndrewKemendo 7y ago

I've been totally demoralized over nearly two decades of being AD, reserve and a civilian, at the level to which appointees and senior defense civilians just completely ignore those of us who have actual, ya know, experience with war.

m0zg 7y ago

Not just for now, it's the best decision the US government has made since 1973 Vietnam War withdrawal. Not one, but _three_ superpowers were defeated in Afghanistan: Britain, USSR and the US. You can't win a land war against insurgents who are spread out, have religious zeal about their fight, and don't mind dying. Or to be more precise you can, but you'd have to raze everything to the ground and kill everyone, which, while doable, does not seem like a good idea in this day and age.

jmpman 7y ago
Maybe if you raze everything to the ground, and kill everyone, you can then offer the land to the Russians.

almost_usual 7y ago

Thank you for your service!

xzel 7y ago

I'm not a picking sides politically, but I see this as a perfect microcosm of problems of those two presidencies. I always thought during Obama's term it was a problem we got ourselves into and couldn't just leave, however much I don't think we should be interfering/policing other countries the way we did in Iraq and Afghanistan.

dehrmann 7y ago

> the Obama administration was too weak In hindsight, withdrawing from Iraq left a void that ISIS filled.

ajross 7y ago
Seems like invading and destroying the pre-existing government of Iraq left the void, no? I mean, if you drill a hole in the bottom of a bathtub and then stand there with your thumb in it to hold the water in, you don't blame the fact that it drained on your getting tired and pulling out your hand.
- SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
  Hussein did a good job of keeping his thumb on the region, yes. But... when we took Iraq and Afghanistan, it was farmers with AK47s, Toyota Hilux trucks, and fertilizer IEDs.... when we “left” Iraq under Obama, we came back to ISIS with US military M16s, US Humvees, and high grade explosives. We didn’t make ISIS... we just armed them very well (via Iraqi “security”).
- dehrmann 7y ago
  The US filled enough of the void, especially post-surge, for things to be stable. When the US invaded Iraq, there were a decent amount of protests against it, and generally, Americans grew to see it as a mistake. What's different here is this connection gets a lot less attention, and it was arguably worse for the region.

lonelappde 7y ago

I'm curious which military thinks their executive is a great strategist, and in general who thinks their non-techie boss knows better than they do. Did Mattis also disagree with bombing weddings and assassnating "males of fighting age"?

anarazel 7y ago

It doesn't seem surprising that it's portrayed that way, given that it's from a (former) high up member of the military. It's not like failures tend to be popular. There's plenty accounts describing it largely as a failure of the military too. Found the two Afghanistan books by Steve Coll interesting. Certainly not flattering of any group involved.