U.S. goal is to end Afghan combat mission in 2013

[Kit]

The Afghanistan mission had over a decade A DECADE to sort the place out. We made leaps and bounds, but at some point, we have to call it quits.

[tea drinker]

The sooner the better. Afghanistan has become a waste of our blood and treasure. UBL is dead, AQ is much weaker, and the Taliban are not our problem. Train the forces and let them protect their own country "from" themselves for once.

If Lieberman wants to stay so bad, give him a weapon and send him over there.

Absolutely, stop wasting money - leave and chalk down to experience the fact that Osama was next door with an "ally" the whole time.
Who cares if the taliban take it? Our problem how? What do they "take" - rocks, stones and goats?
We done what we could, up to them now, and good luck with that. Securing our borders, rebuilding the and reforming the forces as much as fiscal problems allow, will mean Western armies become a more credible and threatening fighting force than they were when mired in Afghanistan and Iraq. Meaning it says lives.

[HellToupee]

Yes and no, the South essentially fought a conventional battle with the North and the United States turned it's back on the Vietnamese. I think ISAF will depart Afghanistan and it's government will become a kingdom in Kabul with power only within its limits. Last time that happened faction after faction rocketed and shelled the hell out of the place.

PLus the South were still left with a much larger military than the North, all falls apart without leadership.

[Soldat_Américain]

For those that have been know what I'm talking about. The majority of what I'm going to lay out is anecdotes and facts but not personal experience.

The last Afghanistan had a viable central government was in the 1960s, they're had a national university, up to date hospitals, a solid Army. It was also a federal system that played well with. I'm not so certain we should not have just created a Monarchy with Karzai as the man. Although he was the one who had the dream of a loya jirga and pushed for it hard, yet did not necessarily wish to be president if they had chosen to build a democracy.

Shah Massoud being assassinated also did not help the ability to build a sustained government because although the Northern Alliance had fought it was in dis-union after he was killed.

We put together an invasion very quickly, the Taliban fell much quicker than we anticipated much like in Iraq. But it seemed for the most part that the right hand was not talking to the other. The force caps that Tommy Franks put on the mission put it to the breaking point which is where we ran into problems such as Tora Bora and Anaconda. The idea that we needed to use Native Afghans was great, yet we didn't put in the time to train them. The fact is we needed a lot more on the ground to accomplish the task, however, when you're planning an invasion of Iraq at the same time I guess you're going to place little emphasis on such a small problem. There was a very big problem in regards to unity of command at the outset of the war.

This whole BCT thing makes no sense, as Division HQs plan to use their own BCTs not someone else's. It seems to work now that we've been at war for so long, but as we withdraw division planners are going to go back to planning for the big enemy.

That's a brief of our mistakes, now lets look at Afghanistan. It has not had a central government that was credible since Mohammed Zahir Shah was overthrown by his cousin which in turn pretty much led to the country being as it is today. We supported an insurgency and threw billions to fight the Sovient Union by proxy, but when it came time to rebuild the country we did not care.

Yet since 1973 the country has been at war with itself off and on with different groups claiming to rule it. This has brought down the education level, the standard of living, and in the end lent itself to reverting to the tribal way that had ruled the area for thousands of years. The government is corrupt...but hey so is ours, but that's in a different way. The National police seem to be a joke, the Army is corrupt. Buddy of mine told me how an Afghan soldier was stopped from raping one of his medics, and that he was sent to a central base to be processed. You can't do much when they're on the hash all the time. I know that some in the ANA are there because they want to better Afghanistan and I understand they're not us.

But we put the hole in the bucket ourselves by not putting a 100,000 Soldiers and Marines on the ground by the end of 2002. We didn't secure the country well enough and we've been constantly fighting with a hand tied behind our back. But guess what, we got the man responsible for planning, funding, and training the terrorists that were responsible for several terrorist attacks upon us and our allies. Yet, that is a pyrrhic victory compared to the sons and daughters that will not return home to their parents.

Vietnam killed the Morale of our troops as we left when we should have probably stayed, when our boys came home it seemed that they were hated, leaving Afghanistan and morphing into a garrison Army may do the same.