The Myth of Competence

[theaustinescorts]

Ayman is in someplace so isolated that he's not really the head of anything. He is able to communicate with no one. Anyone declaring him the head of al-quada is dealing only in ridiculous propaganda as ubsurd as Baghdad Bob.

The fact that anyone would put forward such a ridiculous comment illustrates how utterly fanciful and bizarre the arguments have to be to try to turn all facts upside down to further this insatable quest for adventure and to find enemies where none really exist.

Ten years has proven they will never be defeated.

If somone tries they will exhaust themselves and their nation until they go home defeated.

This is what happened in Vietnam for the same reasons.

The grunts who were sent there were never told that the reason they were there was that the elections of 1956 had to be cancelled because 86% of the voters in the south intended to vote pro-communist.

Everyone in the Middle East is opposed to us just as they were opposed to us in Vietnam.

We can't defeat them through attrition or annahlilation; nor should we.

[DTorrchia]

Originally Posted by theaustinescorts

Ayman is in someplace so isolated that he's not really the head of anything. He is able to communicate with no one. Anyone declaring him the head of al-quada is dealing only in ridiculous propaganda as ubsurd as Baghdad Bob.

As of May 2, 2011, he became the leader of al-Qaeda following the death of Osama bin Laden.[6] This was confirmed by a press release from al-Qaeda's general command on June 16.[4]

Of course, keep "informing" us about the "absurd propaganda" TAE.
As the thousands of files recovered from Bin Laden's computer and other data storage devices showed, there's no way in this modern age that someone can communicate and direct operations while in "isolation". I'm assuming you're speaking of the same kind of "isolation" Bin Laden lived in, a few hundred meters from one of the most prestigious military academies in Pakistan. Ohh, and HOW exactly did he communicate? By good old fashioned courier service.
LOL, you're always good for a laugh TAE!

The fact that you would put forward such a ridiculous comment illustrates how utterly fanciful and bizarre the arguments have to be to try to turn all facts upside down to further this insatable quest for adventure and to find enemies where none really exist.

Your spelling has really deteriorated in the last year TAE.
How is taking someone's (al-Zawahiri's) own declared words and actions turning ANYTHING upside down?

You will never defeat them.

You're entitled to your opinion. Yet, strangely enough, as much as you support them, you don't seem inclined to move there.

If you try you will exhaust yourself and your nation until you go home defeated.

Again, your opinion. While I get tired at times, I'm still hanging in there. It appears, so is our Nation. She may be tired at times, but she's certainly not defeated. Interesting too how you label it "your" nation and not "our" nation. Guess you're not part of this Nation?

This is what happened in Vietnam for the same reasons.

The grunts who were sent there were never told that the reason they were there was that the elections of 1956 had to be cancelled because 86% of the voters in the south intended to vote pro-communist.

Oh, I see. you must be talking about these 86% who intended to "vote pro-communist":
When Vietnam was divided, 800,000 to 1 million North Vietnamese, mainly (but not exclusively) Roman Catholics, sailed south as part of Operation Passage to Freedom due to a fear of religious persecution in the North.

Yep, I bet the above 1 Million Vietnamese DEFINITELY planned to vote pro-communist. It's why they fled from the communist north to SOUTH VIETNAM.

Yes, and the Cambodian people loved the treatment they received at the hands of the communist Pol Pot regime. I mean, who wouldn't cherish the idea of genocide, "re-education" camps, forced labor, deprivation of all individual rights.....You're right, TAE...Communism rules!!! It worked so well for Russia too. Between you and me....I think you should start a movement to bring Communism back to the people.

Everyone in the Middle East is opposed to us just as they were opposed to us in Vietnam.

Yes, you're absolutely right. It's why there are 1,122,528 people who identify themselves as Vietnamese alone in the United States, not counting the Laotians, Cambodians, etc that emigrated here once the Communists took over. Millions couldn't WAIT for all the good things the Communists had in store for them and instead sought a better life in the good ol' USA. I bet they have no idea what they missed out on. You're right, we were absolutely WRONG to try to stop THAT from happening.

We can't defeat them through attrition or annahlilation; nor should we.

Oh, you'd be surprised what a few good ol' fashion nukes can do. Feel free to take a poll in Japan asking if they'd be willing to revert back to their old ideology if it meant getting a couple more nukes dropped on them. Don't be shy....ASK!

[theaustinescorts]

Is the only way you can argue with me to accuse me of positions I've never taken? Are you now claiming the US should have stayed longer in Vietnam? How much of the 90% pro-communist South Vietnamese population would you have been willing to kill? And it was the Vietnamese that invaded Pol Pot's Cambodia btw....

I'm certainly not a communist, and the last thing I'd ever want to do is live under a muslim political system.

That's why I'm here and not there. I will only live in a liberty-driven society, but I will not impose that upon other cultures at the point of a killer drone.

The problem is that people such as yourself think you have the right to travel across the globe wearing the uniform of my country and force other peoples to do what we would want to do by force....even when it's not their will.

That is why we lost in Vietnam.

That's why ten years into Afghanistan we've accomplished nothing, and never will.

I deplore the Talibs.

But the best way to empower them is to keep foreign troops in their country so everyone else there will rally around them.

btw...

The reason why the Saudi public supports anyone in Afghanistan killing foreign troops is the reason why they did the same in the 1980s when the Russians were there...because foreigners don't belong regardless of whatever local idiots might be in control.

Now if you want to argue please tell me why Michael Scheuer and the CIA are wrong about our mission?

How do you propose we can win short of killing everyone there who doesn't want foreign troops or foreign politics in their country?

And lastly, how many Americans have to die? Give me a number of what you think it's worth.

[DTorrchia]

Originally Posted by theaustinescorts

Is the only way you can argue with me to accuse me of positions I've never taken?

Even though you went back and edited some of your responses, your original statements are in my answers to you. So people can read what you wrote and draw their own conclusions. I certainly drew mine.


Are you now claiming the US should have stayed longer in Vietnam? How much of the 90% pro-communist South Vietnamese population would you have been willing to kill? And it was the Vietnamese the invaded Pol Pot's Cambodia btw....

I'm well aware of who invaded Cambodia. As I am of the thousands of Vietnamese that did NOT want the Communists to take over and the fate that awaited them in Vietnam. Re-education camps if they were lucky, death if they weren't.

I'm certainly not a communist, and the last thing I'd ever want to do is live under a muslim political system.

That's why I'm here and not there.

The problem is that people such as yourself think you have the right to travel across the globe wearing the uniform of my country and force other peoples to do what we would want to do by force....even when it's not their will.

That is why we lost in Vietnam.

That's why ten years into Afghanistan we've accomplished nothing, and never will.

I deplore the Talibs.

But the best way to empower them is to keep foreign troops in their country so everyone else there will rally around them.

btw...

The reason why the Saudi public supports anyone in Afghanistan killing foreign troops is the reason why they did the same in the 1980s when the Russians were there...because they don't belong regardless of whatever local idiots might be in control.

Again, total misinformation and deception on your part. The Saudi's have been at it A LOT LONGER than the Russian invasion of Afghanistan.

"For more than two centuries, Wahhabism has been Saudi Arabia's dominant faith. It is an austere form of Islam that insists on a literal interpretation of the Koran. Strict Wahhabis believe that all those who don't practice their form of Islam are heathens and enemies. Critics say that Wahhabism's rigidity has led it to misinterpret and distort Islam, pointing to extremists such as Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. Wahhabism's explosive growth began in the 1970s when Saudi charities started funding Wahhabi schools (madrassas) and mosques from Islamabad to Culver City, California"

Read more: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...#ixzz1YRDhhpkH

[theaustinescorts]

So because a few thousand people in South Vietnam didn't want the communists to take over that justifies us killing 300,000 of their countrymen to prevent it from happening? And even that didn't work.

We lost in Vietnam because less than 10% of the population was on our side.

That's why we've acheived nothing in Afghanistan.

You keep going back to these issues...."Wahhabism is bad. The Taliban is bad. The communists were bad....."

I agree with all that.

But it's what THEY want.

We can never change that by force.

We are as much of an alien culture to them as one from Pegasus or Orion would be to us if they came here by spacecraft.

Remember the Prime Directive?

[irishlad]

Originally Posted by DTorrchia

...TAE disagrees with me on this point but it is my belief that there are only two ways that people who are entrenched in a radical ideology change their behavior. Either so much pressure is put on them by a majority of their own people to conform and change their ways or they have to be forced to give up their ideology by having to choose between their beliefs and utter annihilation. The latter means war.
Few rational people would argue that once WWII started, Hitler could have been stopped by anything less than total war. Few people dispute that point with Japan as well during that time period.....

War traditionally was an extension of national politics with an aspect of conquest. One army is set against another army. Maybe civilians died, but as a side effect because they got in the way.

My issue is that armies don't work against terrorists, not that terrorists shouldn't die. It's not even killing a fly with a shotgun because the fly will probably live. More like trying futilely to kill a fly in a crowded restaurant with a machine gun, holding the trigger down and pursuing it at all costs. More flies just breed in the corpses.

[theaustinescorts]

As I said above I favor selective targeting of forigners plotting criminal acts in our country. We should capture or even kill them when reliable intelligence indicates it. We should use local assets and never do it in a way that's not plausibly deniable. We should never use drones.

There were several reasons [none wise IMHO] why the military was brought in from the outset, but none of those reasons envisioned fighting there ten years later.

It was simple enough to use limited forces to drive the Taliban to ground.

However things came un-stuck when they kept re-emerging and our client's troops proved no match for reasons of corruption, ideology, etc.

Now we're trying to do the best we can to contain them with as small a force as possible, but there's no prospect for success.

We will have to do what the Russians did and surrender the field. That's hard to do when you're leaving dead buddies on the field.

In my opinion most Afghans don't want to be ruled by the Talibs again, but they will chose to support them if the only alternative is a secular, foreign-supported government in Kabul.

In South Vietnam most people didn't really want a communist system, but they prefered to support the communists because the American alternative was a tyrannical military Junta or despot with no nationalist credibility. Only the communists in Vietnam had nationalist credibility, and that's why only a few objected to their harsh methods...and they were very harsh. Look at it from their point of view.....if the Saigon government was nationalist then why are they propped up only by all these foreign soldiers? What conclusion would anyone reach?

[DTorrchia]

Originally Posted by irishlad

War traditionally was an extension of national politics with an aspect of conquest. One army is set against another army. Maybe civilians died, but as a side effect because they got in the way.

I'm not sure how dropping two nukes on cities could be construed as civilians dying as a side effect of getting in the way. I don't think that theory applies when we would carpet bomb German cities...example...the fire bombing of the city of Dresden, or when the Germans would send V-2 rockets into London.....all these actions were directed at civilians.
In the case of the nuclear bombs on Japan, it had no military value, it was done specifically to crush the Japanese Government and People's will to keep fighting. It accomplished that goal.

My issue is that armies don't work against terrorists, not that terrorists shouldn't die. It's not even killing a fly with a shotgun because the fly will probably live. More like trying futilely to kill a fly in a crowded restaurant with a machine gun, holding the trigger down and pursuing it at all costs. More flies just breed in the corpses.

Not sure which terrorists you're talking about. In the case of the Taliban, they are not truly terrorists. The war in Afghanistan is much more of a counter-insurgency war than simply fighting a few terrorists. As such, armies CAN be successful in fighting a counter-insurgency, just not the way we're currently doing it.
Examples of armies fighting successful counter-insurgencies:
The Malayan Emergency 1950-1960
Indonesian Confrontation 1963-1966
The Dhofar Rebellion (Oman) 1962-1975

It can be done, we just haven't been very good at it.

[DTorrchia]

Originally Posted by theaustinescorts

As I said above I favor selective targeting of forigners plotting criminal acts in our country. We should capture or even kill them when reliable intelligence indicates it. We should use local assets and never do it in a way that's not plausibly deniable. We should never use drones.

There were several reasons [none wise IMHO] why the military was brought in from the outset, but none of those reasons envisioned fighting there ten years later.

It was simple enough to use limited forces to drive the Taliban to ground.

However things came un-stuck when they kept re-emerging and our client's troops proved no match for reasons of corruption, ideology, etc.

Now we're trying to do the best we can to contain them with as small a force as possible, but there's no prospect for success.

We will have to do what the Russians did and surrender the field. That's hard to do when you're leaving dead buddies on the field.

In my opinion most Afghans don't want to be ruled by the Talibs again, but they will chose to support them if the only alternative is a secular, foreign-supported government in Kabul.

In South Vietnam most people didn't really want a communist system, but they prefered to support the communists because the American alternative was a tyrannical military Junta or despot with no nationalist credibility. Only the communists in Vietnam had nationalist credibility, and that's why only a few objected to their harsh methods...and they were very harsh.

That's simply not true. Many if not most times, the villagers in the countryside were FORCED to support the Communists as a matter of their own survival. Time and time again village elders and their families were executed by the Viet Cong Political Cadre if they didn't support "the Cause". After that, most villagers would simply go along. It was either that or have their entire village wiped out. This is really not too different from what the Taliban are doing in Afghanistan. The Government in Kabul can't protect every village. The Taliban exploit this fact and the people have no choice but to go along.
Most Vietnamese living in the provinces simply wanted to be left alone, be able to market their produce without getting taxed to death etc. They had no more love for the communists than they did the corrupt Government in Saigon.
Corruption was one of the biggest problems in the war in Vietnam as it is today in Afghanistan. You and I are in agreement on that point.
However immediately following Tet '68 the U.S. was in a position where it could have secured large parts of South Vietnam and with continued bombing of the North could have brought the North to the peace table.
However given the circumstances back home in the United States following Tet and the perception that the war was lost (when quite the opposite was true, Tet nearly destroyed the Viet Cong) we gave away any gains made and any hope to win.

Look at it from their point of view.....if the Saigon government was nationalist then why are they propped up only by all these foreign soldiers? What conclusion would anyone reach?

.

[theaustinescorts]

You are putting forward a sometimes-heard apology for the American role, but it is not historically accurate.

In 1954 the Geneva conference called for elections in the South in two years. When US polling showed that at least 86% of voters intended to vote communist the US cancelled the elections and instructed President Diem [the US-installed stooge] to begin a campaign of terror to suppress the communist organization. Diem began torturing, collecting lists of names, and killing anyone in the party. It was because of this that the communists in the South organized into the National Liberation Front and the armed insurgency began.

After Tet the US staged colossal military campaigns [including Wheeler Wahlawah] in response, but they were to to avail. There was no conventional military progress throughout any of those campaigns.

There was however a substantial suppression of visable insurgency activity, but this was due to Phoenix and other terror programs eating away at the communist infrastructure in the South. This was CIA's work, and it was William Colby who largely ran it.* However even this only brought the problem to a stalemate, and there was no prospect of eliminating the insurgency.

There was a minority of people, including Catholics, who were opposed to the communists, but the vast majority of people in the South were opposed to the US and it's client governments for nationalist reasons. The war effected every village and hamlet and everyone in the country had political views. I don't believe that there were any simple villagers who wanted to be left alone, particularly since all the land was owned by feudal landowners who treated those who worked it like surfs.

In Afghanistan please look to the history of how the Talibs took power in 1994.

They didn't terrorize anyone. The bulk of the tribes in most areas consented to Talib rule because there was no alternative. They are using terror now, but go figure.... What do you expect would happen when people collaborate with foreign invaders.

In these situations the vast majority will make an unwelcomed choice, for communism or strict Islam, if the alternatives are even more unsavory.

*both sides used terror seeking to enforce compliance.

[DTorrchia]

Well, the professed goal of the 1968 Tet offensive, according to the North Vietnamese themselves, was to create a general uprising among the South Vietnamese population. If your assertions were true that 90% of the population supported the Communists, then Tet 68 would have been the perfect time for this uprising to take place as the North Vietnamese hoped for. It did not however. In fact, in many areas it had quite the opposite effect:

"Many urban dwellers were indignant that the communists had launched their attacks during Tet and it drove many who had been previously apathetic into active support of the government. Journalists, political figures, and religious leaders alike—even the militant Buddhists—professed confidence in the government's plans"
Aftermath

North Vietnam

The leadership in Hanoi must have been initially despondent about the outcome of their great gamble.[148][149] Their first and most ambitious goal, producing a general uprising, had ended in a dismal failure. In total, approximately 85,000–100,000 communist troops had participated in the initial onslaught and in the follow-up phases. Overall, during the "Border Battles" of 1967 and the nine-month winter-spring campaign, 45,267 communist troops had been killed in action.[150]
[171]



The keys to the failure of Tet are not difficult to discern. Hanoi had underestimated the strategic mobility of the allied forces, which allowed them to redeploy at will to threatened areas; their battle plan was too complex and difficult to coordinate, which was amply demonstrated by the 30 January attacks; their violation of the principle of mass, attacking everywhere instead of concentrating their forces on a few specific targets, allowed their forces to be defeated piecemeal; the launching of massed attacks headlong into the teeth of vastly superior firepower; and last, but not least, the incorrect assumptions upon which the entire campaign was based.[151] According to General Tran Van Tra: "We did not correctly evaluate the specific balance of forces between ourselves and the enemy, did not fully realize that the enemy still had considerable capabilities, and that our capabilities were limited, and set requirements that were beyond our actual strength.

[152]


What the North Vietnamese did NOT predict was the complete turn around in public opinion that Tet 68 would produce in the United States. Once the North Vietnamese recognized that most of the news outlets were declaring Tet 68 a disaster for U.S. troops and for our policy in Vietnam, the North Vietnamese quickly took advantage and declared the Offensive a victory.



Your assertion that the way the insurgency played out illustrated common support is also not factually correct. After Tet 1968, 1/3 of all Viet Cong forces had to be replaced with North Vietnamese Regular Army troops. So after 1968, 1/3 of all the "insurgent forces" were North Vietnamese Army regulars.


The horrendous losses inflicted on Viet Cong units struck into the heart of the irreplaceable infrastructure that had been built up for over a decade. MACV estimated that 181,149 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops had been killed during 1968.[156] From this point forward, Hanoi was forced to fill one-third of the Viet Cong's ranks with North Vietnamese regulars.[157]


This would indicate that the Viet Cong ranks were not filled by an abundance of South Vietnamese peasants dissatisfied and eager to fight after 1968 but instead a substantial portion of their ranks came from the North Vietnamese Army.

[theaustinescorts]

The fact that 90% of the South Vietnamese supported the communists over the alternatives is the product of polling, and is not subject to subjective dispute. Several agencies including CIA and the Defense Department did these studies, and they are all over the "Pentagon Papers" and elsewhere. It just cannot be denied however much grunts in the field were misled. Even President Eisenhower stated on camera in 1956 that government polls predicted that 86% of the voters in the South intended to vote the communists in. For that matter Eisenhower is also on camera stating that "the President of Guatamala was a communist so we had to get rid of him." Eisenhower was always stating the truth on camera, and what he did with his farewell speech about the "military industrial complex" was just one example of his extraordinary candor and belief in democracy.

All the tactical issues you raise are correct.

The NLF was severly damaged over the years. The biggest problem they had was that joining them turned out to be a death sentence. If their leaders didn't send you on a suicide mission then you'd be found out by the anti-communists and you would be tortured and killed.

The terror directed against the NLF attritted them severely, but not enough to end the very small numbers they needed to keep a horrible insurgency alive.

For that matter there was enormous progress in attritting the supplies going south, but it only took a small amount reaching the South to keep up a terrible level of damage.

The basic problem was that conventional means and even terror tactics worked only so much....and given public sympathy it would have to have worked completely.

This is why the military was always touting objective measures...numbers showing success and progress...but the American public turned away when they realized that all this "success" was not going to bring an end to the war.

The same can be said of Afghanistan today. Objectively Patraeus' strategy brings about accomplishment of certain goals, but it will never be enough. We either have to commit to being there forever or surrending the field. It is not in the American character to be there forever because we don't like to think of ourselves as an imperial power.