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The US won a land war against Saddam Hussein's Iraqi military, twice, easily. You can't win a guerrilla war against a motivated foe (which is what the situatio

The US won a land war against Saddam Hussein's Iraqi military, twice, easily. You can't win a guerrilla war against a motivated foe (which is what the situation in Afghanistan is), without a long-term total occupation and cultural cleansing. The US could take out the Taliban - it would require a 300,000 to 500,000 occupying force and total cultural change to what Afghanistan is, which would require brutal, horrific crimes against humanity, to strip Afghanistan of many of its current beliefs and culture. The US hasn't primarily been trying to destroy the Taliban (the US can't do it without that mass force and it knows that), it has been primarily trying to hold the Taliban at bay while trying to build up the central government of Afghanistan. This is sort of a replay of the same failed strategy in Vietnam (when the US left Vietnam the south held the extreme majority of territory and population; the south folded rapidly regardless, which is exactly what is going to happen to the government of Afghanistan, unfortunately).

m0zg 6y ago
> The US won a land war against Saddam Hussein's Iraqi military, twice, easily. That's one way to look at it. Another (and IMO more correct) way to look at it is that the US lost there once (hence the second invasion), and will lose again in 10-20 years as the Iraqi elites wait it out and things revert to the mean. Oh, and we lost in Syria as well, although not funding and not arming ISIS did help to alleviate some of the problems in the last few years. Assad is still right where he was, and he will remain there for decades to come. This is much like Napoleon "winning" the war against Russia in 1812. Captured Moscow. Pissed on the floor in the Kremlin. And then he got chased back all the way to Paris and exiled. Except in the Middle East it's even worse than that. The US tends to forget that those folks represent much older civilizations and they live on a different time scale. They can literally sit it out for 20-30 years while we sink trillions of taxpayer dollars there and while our soldiers are torn apart with an occasional IED. They also culturally don't give a flying fuck about "democracy" or whatever. There's really not a hell of a lot that can be done about that, and there's no way to "win" under such circumstances. If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by. That's why there won't be a permanent "victory" there, in any sense of the word.
- adventured 6y ago
  > Another (and IMO more correct) way to look at it is that the US lost there once (hence the second invasion) Your history is badly mixed up. There wasn't a first invasion, so your premise is wrong from the start. The first Iraq war wasn't meant to topple Saddam at all, which is why George HW Bush wisely didn't attempt to invade Iraq with an occupation force. The first Iraq war was to push Iraq out of Kuwait and smash the Iraqi military to reduce them as a regional threat (eg to Saudi Arabia). It was a huge concerted success (the US was joined by a very strong, diverse coalition). Saddam's once vaunted military was left in shambles, their hardware and capabilities were dramatically reduced. And then aggressive sactions prevented Saddam from rebuilding the military effectively. > Oh, and we lost in Syria as well The US didn't lose in Syria. From the position of the warmongers in DC, it was a stellar victory. On the cheap Syria was reduced to rubble and is a non-actor now, they've been almost completely destroyed. Russia is still the dominant big political-military ally of Syria, so nothing changed about that. At worst the US neither gained nor lost, at best - again, from the perspective of the hawks in the Pentagon - Syria is crippled as a regional power. Israel and several other regional powers are also thrilled with Syria's situation, to say the least. It'll take decades for Syria to just get back to where they were before. As a player in the Middle East, they got almost entirely neutralized.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - m0zg 6y ago
    But it's not "mixed up" if you start from the premise that a full land war cannot be won. Consider why Saddam was not deposed in the Gulf War. It's because to depose him the coalition would have to go all the way to Baghdad and endure a guerilla war, something that a conventional army just can't really endure. That's why Bush did not go for it - he knew Saddam would not go quietly into the night, but he also knew he could not win the land war against Iraq. So the operation ended in a withdrawal, much like the second gulf war will also end in a withdrawal, allowing the local elites to re-emerge. Epic fail. That's like saying we "won" in Afghanistan just because the Taliban temporarily moved elsewhere. As long you don't have permanent control of the country, you haven't really "won" anything there. And I don't think you will argue that we have any kind of permanent control there, then or now, or can realistically get it in the future. At least the Gulf War achieved something worthwhile. Later Iraqi and Afghan wars achieved nothing whatsoever.
goatinaboat 6y ago
The US could take out the Taliban - it would require a 300,000 to 500,000 occupying force and total cultural change to what Afghanistan is, which would require brutal, horrific crimes against humanity, to strip Afghanistan of many of its current beliefs and culture. Kabul in the 1970s was a groovy, swinging place with women in miniskirts and men wearing tie-dye (as was Tehran). It's the Taliban who imposed the present culture after ejecting the Soviets (with US help). Western strategy should have been to revert it to that, but instead it was to somehow replace the Taliban with a regime that was equally religiously hardline but just happened to be US friendly, and that was obviously never going to work...
- adventured 6y ago
  While I certainly agree the ideal would be to revert Afghanistan to the pre Soviet-invasion culture, that's a task impossible for any foreign power to accomplish. It would have to come from within, be organic, to be sustainable. No outside power can afford the cost necessary to give Afghanistan a long-term umbrella required to develop relatively quickly. The US couldn't afford to do it, nobody else is going to be able or willing to try. The reason the US is willing to side with less than ideal groups is because there are no practical alternatives, you need a large pillar to put in place or it'll all just fold that much faster when confronted by the Taliban. There are few large pillars in Afghanistan in terms of power structures. The moment the US is gone, the Taliban will immediately press and crush the central government (regardless of which group is in power at the time), any agreements the Taliban sign will be ignored just as North Vietnam ignored everything they agreed to and immediately resumed their conquest. The Northern Alliance was able to very rapidly smash the Taliban with the help of the US (the Taliban can't easily hold Afghanistan as a military force, so chaos and civil war is guaranteed in the near future). The challenge now and in the future is how to make any positive progress stick. The various powerful groups there, and their perma foreign sponsors (eg Pakistan, Iran, Russia, Turkey, etc), are not going to stop trying to topple eachother. The only thing giving Iraq a shot at being an independent, functional nation is their oil resource providing considerable funding to support a central government; Afghanistan of course lacks anything comparable. I don't know where the economy is going to come from to fund a potent central government in Afghanistan (while the Taliban operates on the cheap in comparison). It obviously takes a very long time to build up an economy from scratch in a location like Afghanistan.

m0zg 6y ago

> The US won a land war against Saddam Hussein's Iraqi military, twice, easily. That's one way to look at it. Another (and IMO more correct) way to look at it is that the US lost there once (hence the second invasion), and will lose again in 10-20 years as the Iraqi elites wait it out and things revert to the mean. Oh, and we lost in Syria as well, although not funding and not arming ISIS did help to alleviate some of the problems in the last few years. Assad is still right where he was, and he will remain there for decades to come. This is much like Napoleon "winning" the war against Russia in 1812. Captured Moscow. Pissed on the floor in the Kremlin. And then he got chased back all the way to Paris and exiled. Except in the Middle East it's even worse than that. The US tends to forget that those folks represent much older civilizations and they live on a different time scale. They can literally sit it out for 20-30 years while we sink trillions of taxpayer dollars there and while our soldiers are torn apart with an occasional IED. They also culturally don't give a flying fuck about "democracy" or whatever. There's really not a hell of a lot that can be done about that, and there's no way to "win" under such circumstances. If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by. That's why there won't be a permanent "victory" there, in any sense of the word.

adventured 6y ago
> Another (and IMO more correct) way to look at it is that the US lost there once (hence the second invasion) Your history is badly mixed up. There wasn't a first invasion, so your premise is wrong from the start. The first Iraq war wasn't meant to topple Saddam at all, which is why George HW Bush wisely didn't attempt to invade Iraq with an occupation force. The first Iraq war was to push Iraq out of Kuwait and smash the Iraqi military to reduce them as a regional threat (eg to Saudi Arabia). It was a huge concerted success (the US was joined by a very strong, diverse coalition). Saddam's once vaunted military was left in shambles, their hardware and capabilities were dramatically reduced. And then aggressive sactions prevented Saddam from rebuilding the military effectively. > Oh, and we lost in Syria as well The US didn't lose in Syria. From the position of the warmongers in DC, it was a stellar victory. On the cheap Syria was reduced to rubble and is a non-actor now, they've been almost completely destroyed. Russia is still the dominant big political-military ally of Syria, so nothing changed about that. At worst the US neither gained nor lost, at best - again, from the perspective of the hawks in the Pentagon - Syria is crippled as a regional power. Israel and several other regional powers are also thrilled with Syria's situation, to say the least. It'll take decades for Syria to just get back to where they were before. As a player in the Middle East, they got almost entirely neutralized.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- m0zg 6y ago
  But it's not "mixed up" if you start from the premise that a full land war cannot be won. Consider why Saddam was not deposed in the Gulf War. It's because to depose him the coalition would have to go all the way to Baghdad and endure a guerilla war, something that a conventional army just can't really endure. That's why Bush did not go for it - he knew Saddam would not go quietly into the night, but he also knew he could not win the land war against Iraq. So the operation ended in a withdrawal, much like the second gulf war will also end in a withdrawal, allowing the local elites to re-emerge. Epic fail. That's like saying we "won" in Afghanistan just because the Taliban temporarily moved elsewhere. As long you don't have permanent control of the country, you haven't really "won" anything there. And I don't think you will argue that we have any kind of permanent control there, then or now, or can realistically get it in the future. At least the Gulf War achieved something worthwhile. Later Iraqi and Afghan wars achieved nothing whatsoever.

goatinaboat 6y ago

The US could take out the Taliban - it would require a 300,000 to 500,000 occupying force and total cultural change to what Afghanistan is, which would require brutal, horrific crimes against humanity, to strip Afghanistan of many of its current beliefs and culture. Kabul in the 1970s was a groovy, swinging place with women in miniskirts and men wearing tie-dye (as was Tehran). It's the Taliban who imposed the present culture after ejecting the Soviets (with US help). Western strategy should have been to revert it to that, but instead it was to somehow replace the Taliban with a regime that was equally religiously hardline but just happened to be US friendly, and that was obviously never going to work...

adventured 6y ago
While I certainly agree the ideal would be to revert Afghanistan to the pre Soviet-invasion culture, that's a task impossible for any foreign power to accomplish. It would have to come from within, be organic, to be sustainable. No outside power can afford the cost necessary to give Afghanistan a long-term umbrella required to develop relatively quickly. The US couldn't afford to do it, nobody else is going to be able or willing to try. The reason the US is willing to side with less than ideal groups is because there are no practical alternatives, you need a large pillar to put in place or it'll all just fold that much faster when confronted by the Taliban. There are few large pillars in Afghanistan in terms of power structures. The moment the US is gone, the Taliban will immediately press and crush the central government (regardless of which group is in power at the time), any agreements the Taliban sign will be ignored just as North Vietnam ignored everything they agreed to and immediately resumed their conquest. The Northern Alliance was able to very rapidly smash the Taliban with the help of the US (the Taliban can't easily hold Afghanistan as a military force, so chaos and civil war is guaranteed in the near future). The challenge now and in the future is how to make any positive progress stick. The various powerful groups there, and their perma foreign sponsors (eg Pakistan, Iran, Russia, Turkey, etc), are not going to stop trying to topple eachother. The only thing giving Iraq a shot at being an independent, functional nation is their oil resource providing considerable funding to support a central government; Afghanistan of course lacks anything comparable. I don't know where the economy is going to come from to fund a potent central government in Afghanistan (while the Taliban operates on the cheap in comparison). It obviously takes a very long time to build up an economy from scratch in a location like Afghanistan.