We still disagree on many things even though we agree on others.
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Originally Posted by
carl
There is a matter of degree of course but in our history we have worked successfully with people from radically different cultures ..
I think you may wish to read a little more deeply into that thought. There was friction in many of the cases you cite, just didn't arise with folks who were into multi-generation blood feuds.
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We have even successfully worked with Muslim men from a culture just as prickly if not more so than the Afghans, those being the Moro members of the Philippine Constabulary.
Also, the Moro Constabulary guys in the 5th Region were told by their Imams and Datus to go and to do good -- and they did. They were also locally receruited and employed. With the Afghans, we deliberately avoided local recruiting or getting elders and Imams involved. That doesn't mean we didn't know better, it means we deliberately decided to support other values. A mistake? Sure, one of many -- but stemming not so much from ignorance as from egos and arrogance "we know what's best..." :mad:
Having worked with Filipinos to include Muslims and with Afghans, I disagree with that assessment of temperament....
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The important thing is that these killings may result in us getting bounced out of there much sooner and in a much more confused way than we are planning on. Maybe not of course, but I think that is more than possible edging into probable territory.
Given the extremely confused way we are now leaving, I doubt more confusion would be possible but if it were, it might even help. More speed in leaving, a more likely outcome would not be at all bad.
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That reaction to set off factors may be different in Afghanistan than elsewhere is a very good point. But we have been there for 11 years.
No, we have not. We have been there for 11 one year or less tours, a very different thing.
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We should know how things differ and make or have made changes in order to allow for those differences.
We do know but we cannot change the way we do business. Many thing we do are not really very smart but they are deeply imbedded and both societal and Congressional pressures as well as long standing policies preclude any significant change. You and I can talk about what's wrong until we're both blue in the face, we can agree on much of what should be changed but in the end, I'll tell you it will not be changed and you'll say that it isn't right. I'll then say "you're correct -- but it still won't change." We've already done that on this and similar topics. No sense in doing it again.
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However, judging by the number of murders and their increasing frequency, we haven't.
Oh, many have -- problem is that most of 'em figure out what to do just before they rotate and and new guy comes in, won't listen to the old guy because he's smart (ego and arrogance again...) and proceeds to make the same mistakes...:(
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I don't think things had to come to this point. But they have and I don't think much, if anything can be done about it.
In reverse order, I agree little to nothing can or will be done about it but disagree that it didn't have to come to this point. It did. The minute George W. Bush decided to change the game plan and stay in Afghanistan, it was pre-ordained. I was telling folks that right after I came on this board five years ago. Nothing's changed. Nothing. Except we told the world we were going to leave which just encouraged everyone involved -- including the homicidally inclined -- to cock a snook at anything American.
Did the Soviets have this problem?
Jon asked:
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Has anyone done any scrounging to see if the Soviets had similar problems during their time in AFG and trying to prop up a government?
I have looked thought the 'Soviet Experience in Afghanistan' thread, plus some of the linked articles and found nothing. There is one article (Post No.12) that refers to KGB advisers undergoing a two year training before deployment and concerns over "Muj" infiltration of Afghan forces.
IIRC the Soviet intervention suffered from Afghan Army units defecting or refusing to fight, not individual acts of murder. There is long-standing story that a massacre of Soviet advisers and families in Herat before the 1980 intervention, but in my recent reading this appears to be a legend.
You go to war with the Army you have ... sorta
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Originally Posted by
Ken White
Moral of that is do not use a crew of HVAC technicians to do EMT jobs. You cannot and will not fix that basic incompatibility problem with all the edumacational finesse in the world. The GPF milieu, Army or Marine, will never do the 'COIN' thing properly -- nor should it be able to do so. Use SF for that; if there aren't enough of them, you best have a Plan B...:mad:
Agreed. But as you have pointed out on numerous occasions that is what will only happen in a perfect world.
If what I am thinking about works it may be applicable in other places (think JIIM). Not sure any of it is worth spit, but keep thinking that I ought to do something, even if its wrong. ;)
Does understanding start at the top?
Abu M is critical of the proposed new ISAF general:
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The cultures, politics, tribes and peoples of Afghanistan are at least as complex as those of ancient Gaul, yet we Americans are so arrogant to think that we can send officers there with no experience and, owing to our superior knowledge of combat operations, watch them succeed. We will then send units which have never deployed to Afghanistan to partner with Afghan forces and wonder why they do not get along.
This is madness. The casual arrogance with which the U.S. military has approached the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan has a direct relation to the difficulty with which we have fought each war. That we think we can send a commander to Afghanistan with no prior knowledge of Afghanistan and watch him be successful in the eleventh year of the conflict shows that after eleven years of conflict, we really don't know too much about Afghanistan. And we might not know too much about conflict either.
Note his post's title provides some context and the link is:http://www.cnas.org/blogs/abumuqawam...ini-rants.html