WikiLeaks has released of thousands of pages of military reports and diplomatic dispatches regarding Afghanistan from 2004-2010. The Afghani government has already responded to some of the things it is reading, so has Pakistan.
What is really fascinating to me is for example the documents relating to Pakistan's "double-game." The US State Dept would under almost any circumstance never make that public. But when documents are leaked regardless of how the government feels about the matter, it has a huge impact on the diplomatic game. Certain Afghani leaders have read they were targeted for assassination and that Pakistan's intelligence community was assisting in logistics. Now they are demanding a fierce response.
WikiLeaks is of course blocked by the Great Firewall, but I'm sorely tempted to work my way through the documents anyway, I just don't really have the time. Still if they keep leaking bombastic documentation such as this, I wonder if governments are going to try stop up the leaks by dealing with the website, or changing the way intelligence is distributed.
quote:National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones issued a statement Sunday calling the documents' release "irresponsible."
But he didn't say "Inaccurate." Very interesting.
Link to the full response.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
In general, it is pretty interesting.
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: WikiLeaks is of course blocked by the Great Firewall, but I'm sorely tempted to work my way through the documents anyway, I just don't really have the time.
quote:Still if they keep leaking bombastic documentation such as this, I wonder if governments are going to try stop up the leaks by dealing with the website, or changing the way intelligence is distributed.
Well. Certainly the Obama Administration has stepped up its persecution of whistle-blowers. Second, Wikileaks itself has already leaked information on a government plan to deal with Wikileaks in that manner.
Ex:
quote: In 2008, the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Center prepared a secret report -- obtained and posted by WikiLeaks -- devoted to this website and detailing, in a section entitled "Is it Free Speech or Illegal Speech?", ways it would seek to destroy the organization. It discusses the possibility that, for some governments, not merely contributing to WikiLeaks, but "even accessing the website itself is a crime," and outlines its proposal for WikiLeaks' destruction as follows ...
As the Pentagon report put it: "the governments of China, Israel, North Korea, Russia, Vietnam and Zimbabwe" have all sought to block access to or otherwise impede the operations of WikiLeaks, and the U.S. Government now joins that illustrious list of transparency-loving countries in targeting them.
The main thing that I find interesting is that most of this really does not seem to be news, in the sense that it is new information. The big thing is that now the information is available from a first-person POV, which is almost always a great deal more inflammatory.
Posted by youngnapoleon (Member # 12358) on :
I am angry about the release of such important information to the world at large. What's stopping, say, an intelligence officer in Yemen from looking at it and seeing the problems on a tactical level the U.S. faces, and using that to their advantage in an invasion? I think that Tom Clancy's books, while often very anti-media , provide a good perspective of the diffculties of command with regards to the media.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Gee, the US could have trouble if it invades yet another country. *plays world's smallest violin*
Posted by The White Whale (Member # 6594) on :
What's stopping, say, a government-military complex from misleading its populous by dramatically mischaracterizing a war?
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: Gee, the US could have trouble if it invades yet another country. *plays world's smallest violin*
If you'd played the, "World's smallest Huqin" I would have laughed a bit more.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
My question is: how much can WikiLeaks get away with before it's forced to move to Iceland and our government starts deliberately feeding it misinformation and/or obviously damaging information to discredit it?
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
I think I'm going to call this event Pentagon Papers II: Electric Snafu
Posted by Wingracer (Member # 12293) on :
I haven't read the articles but I just heard something about the guy that allegedly stole all this info and leaked it to wikileaks put it all onto a DVD labeled "Lady Gaga." That kills all his credibility for me, haha.
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
There's information that's sensitive because it endangers existing operations, and then there's information that's sensitive because it discloses information about previous operations that makes people look bad. As far as the latter goes, I heartily applaud WikiLeaks. Enough sunlight, and maybe, just maybe, the folks up the chain of command will think twice about starting up something that will make them look like callous, power-abusing miscreants if revealed before they start.
(And as far as "This hurts our diplomatic relationship with the countries we've been messing with behind their backs"... I believe that's the equivalent of "Doctor, it hurts when I do this".)
How long they can go on without one of the big boys making a focused effort on leaving them a smoking crater is another question, of course... But one that certainly means it's in their best interests to stay in the spotlight where such efforts could just mean further ugly disclosures for those involved.
Posted by James Tiberius Kirk (Member # 2832) on :
The logs and information on the Battle of Kamdesh are riveting:
quote:At first, the outpost reported that Keating and the observation post were IN HEAVY CONTACT.
Typing in the casual familiarity of Internet chat, on a secure server, a soldier immediately asked that an Air Tic Be Opened.
That was military jargon for shifting available close-air support to troops taking fire. The sense of urgency was clear; the reason chilling.
We need it now, another soldier typed. We have mortars pinned down and fire coming from everywhere.
The battle escalated from there. The outpost relayed details. We are taking casiltys, the first soldier typed within minutes the first reports of wounded troops. He added: GET SOMETHING UP!
The consequences of decisions made in distant headquarters were now taking shape for young enlisted men. The enemy had the high ground. The outpost had the low ground. The troops were outnumbered, and starting to drop. Fire support was far away.
The arrival of attack helicopters, the outpost was told, would take time. ITS A 40 MINUTE FLIGHT.
And here's more on that [url=http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/world/26warlogs.html#report/1892FD4E-1517-911C-C5601B60F44B345B ]incident:[/url]
quote:[02:15] < Keating2OPS > our mortars are still pinned down [02:16] < OP_MACE > AAF ACTIVLEY TALKING ABOUT BREECHING WIRE FREQ [02:18] < Keating2OPS > we need aaf is attemtping to breech ana side of keating [02:19] < Keating2OPS > aaf took one of the ana [02:19] < Keating2OPS > according to the ana commander 0218z Fritsche is 100% equipment and personel [02:19] < Keating2OPS > enemy in the wire at keating [02:20] < BlackKnight_TOC > ENEMUY IN THE WIRE ENEMY IN THE WIRE!!! [02:21] < Keating2OPS > how long until cca [02:21] < Keating2OPS > we need support [02:22] < Keating2OPS > we have enemy on the cop
Though I'm not sure I understand what's going on here -- it reads like a chat transcript. Are they communicating using a portable computer or something?
--j_k
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Sterling: (And as far as "This hurts our diplomatic relationship with the countries we've been messing with behind their backs"... I believe that's the equivalent of "Doctor, it hurts when I do this".)
I agree in general outlines, but you take as assumed a fact which is hardly in evidence. The US government and nation, as a rule, does not function as a singular apparatus. Often our diplomatic and military goals are in conflict. Often this is because we as a country operate on so many levels, no one individual and no group of people has any idea how many irons we might have in the fire, and to what ends they are being employed. I think a legitimate concern about Wikileaks is that it can be used cynically to damage good works that our government is trying to do by exposing bad works that other parts of the government have already done. Rob Peter to pay Paul, and punish Paul for the things that Peter is doing. Wikileaks is yet another way that foreign governments or individuals can use media to manipulate the U.S. relationship with other foreign powers. It is not a free and open source of information, and it is not democratic. It's an arbitrary and unstable force, and a potentially powerful one. I would have no confidence in our government if they *didn't* take a pro-active stance towards dealing with it.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
And yet... the world is better because this exists. I truly believe that. And I've followed through with that belief by donating to wikileaks in the past, and I will again in the future.
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
We want the truth! We want the truth, but can we handle the truth?
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
"There's a wide discrepancy, and we need to know." Canadian military: The loss of four Canadian soldiers in September 2006 was the result of insurgent activity. Newly released WikiLeaks document: The Canadian soldiers weren't killed by the Taliban but rather by friendly fire from U.S. forces. (cbc.ca)
and we're off to the races!
Posted by Black Fox (Member # 1986) on :
I would certainly argue with the world being a better place due to this specific leak. A lot of this is just putting the realities of a war into some kind of a context that some people can digest. To no surprise war is not fun or nice, it actually tends to be weighted towards the bad side of things.
The large problem, at least from my perspective, is that people are very uneducated when it comes to military history ( history in general to be honest ) or military operations. Is one civilan casuality acceptable, a thousand? It is a hard thing to be a firm number on, however many people will simply go the unrealistic route of saying none. Friendly fire has always been a major killer in warfare, in WWII the numbers were insanely high. Western militaries in general have gotten much better at stopping such incidents from occuring, however they still do as it is part of the package that is war.
People simply do not want conflict to be a part of the modern world, but it most certainly is. Whenever the world points out that war is horrible we simply want to stop our involvement in whatever conflicts we are engaged in, which does little to solve the underlying problems that create most of these conflicts in the first place. Of course some people would call one of those underlying problems America.
That and the chat lines come from the whole Blue Force Tracker system, due to the long ranges in Afghanistan a lot of small outposts only have tacsat connections or chat through the BF tracker. Since TAC SAT is set for entire region ( we used to listen to the Brits and Canadians doing fire missions on ours ) and tends to be full ( one speaker at a time ) we sent in a lot of CAS requests that way.
That and I feel for the guys at that COP/FOB; the FOB I was at was in many similar situations. We were about an hour out for AH-64 support, Three hours minimum for QRF response by vehicle, and getting CAS could take sometime to get on station and then they would generally only be able to stay around for 15-20 minutes at a time. During the summer we had somthing like 58 straight days in contact with the enemy ( short breaks during the day of course ).
Either way, war is not fun, but neither are some of the consequences from not prosecuting it in the first place.
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: I agree in general outlines, but you take as assumed a fact which is hardly in evidence. The US government and nation, as a rule, does not function as a singular apparatus. Often our diplomatic and military goals are in conflict. Often this is because we as a country operate on so many levels, no one individual and no group of people has any idea how many irons we might have in the fire, and to what ends they are being employed. I think a legitimate concern about Wikileaks is that it can be used cynically to damage good works that our government is trying to do by exposing bad works that other parts of the government have already done. Rob Peter to pay Paul, and punish Paul for the things that Peter is doing. Wikileaks is yet another way that foreign governments or individuals can use media to manipulate the U.S. relationship with other foreign powers. It is not a free and open source of information, and it is not democratic. It's an arbitrary and unstable force, and a potentially powerful one. I would have no confidence in our government if they *didn't* take a pro-active stance towards dealing with it.
You have a point, but while activities the U.S. might want to conceal may not come from the U.S. as an organized whole and may effect organizations and diplomatic efforts from branches that aren't responsible for those activities, it's hard not to feel that the decision to conceal wrongdoing usually comes from much higher up the chain.
I agree that the governement has reasons to respond to WikiLeaks, but I think they'd be much better served by setting up better internal means of protecting whistleblowers and acting on potentially damaging information from within (making it less likely that those who provide leaks will feel that such leaks are the only way to bring about action on their information) than by simply attempting to discredit, damage, or destroy WikiLeaks itself.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:The logs and information on the Battle of Kamdesh are riveting
They are certainly interesting, but I must say I rather dislike the NYT's spin. They present the action as a barely-contained disaster, movie style. It reads to me like a textbook example of a tribal skirmish for a Great Power trying to hold down an outlying region. Take away the air support and instant communications, and you could have read the like in a Victorian boys' paper, minus the intimations of disaster because our soldiers were being shot. (Although if an officer got shot, that would have been A Tragedy, to be sure.) The British would have responded with a punitive expedition, though; and whatever you think of the morality of collective punishment, when the redcoats had been through, that district was pacified.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Turns out a hacker revealed the identity of the man currnetly being held in custody.
There's a strange sort of irony where one uses the internet to disseminate information, while another uses that same internet to make sure you do not do so anonymously.
Posted by youngnapoleon (Member # 12358) on :
In the time of the Romans, if a conflict dragged on this way, they wouldn't leave one stone on top another.
Posted by airmanfour (Member # 6111) on :
quote:Originally posted by youngnapoleon: In the time of the Romans, if a conflict dragged on this way, they wouldn't leave one stone on top another.
We're not Rome. I mean, last time I checked, the field manuals didn't include actionable Roman tactics and strategy to combat modern insurgencies. Maybe to their detriment, but probably not.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Wikileaks put up an encrypted 'insurance' file, likely in the event that the government takes action against its (crazy) founder.
Posted by youngnapoleon (Member # 12358) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: Gee, the US could have trouble if it invades yet another country. *plays world's smallest violin*
<sarcastic> Im sure if the U.S. acts like it did in Rwanda in 1994, Yugoslavia in 1992, Cambodia in 1979, or Darfur in 2006, the world would be a better place.
Posted by Wingracer (Member # 12293) on :
quote: We're not Rome. I mean, last time I checked, the field manuals didn't include actionable Roman tactics and strategy to combat modern insurgencies. Maybe to their detriment, but probably not.
I don't see any mention of decimation so we certainly haven't copied the Roman playbook.
Then again, any commander who doesn't know the exploits of Caesare, Scipio and Belisarius is a detriment to the war and to his troops.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote:Originally posted by youngnapoleon:
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: Gee, the US could have trouble if it invades yet another country. *plays world's smallest violin*
<sarcastic> Im sure if the U.S. acts like it did in Rwanda in 1994, Yugoslavia in 1992, Cambodia in 1979, or Darfur in 2006, the world would be a better place.
See, now you're not arguing about invasion per se, but over whose interests are best served by intervention. In those situations, the United States had no direct interest in intervening other than for the sake of human life, but this was deemed insufficient by the administrations in charge at the time. In Iraq and Afghanistan, it was only self-interest that prompted our invasions, and in both cases, it came to the detriment of the people involved, especially in Iraq. And you could argue that in neither care were we made any safer, yet managed to sow incredible discord in the nation in question, arguably leaving them worse off than before we started.
Posted by youngnapoleon (Member # 12358) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn:
quote:Originally posted by youngnapoleon:
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: Gee, the US could have trouble if it invades yet another country. *plays world's smallest violin*
<sarcastic> Im sure if the U.S. acts like it did in Rwanda in 1994, Yugoslavia in 1992, Cambodia in 1979, or Darfur in 2006, the world would be a better place.
See, now you're not arguing about invasion per se, but over whose interests are best served by intervention. In those situations, the United States had no direct interest in intervening other than for the sake of human life, but this was deemed insufficient by the administrations in charge at the time. In Iraq and Afghanistan, it was only self-interest that prompted our invasions, and in both cases, it came to the detriment of the people involved, especially in Iraq. And you could argue that in neither care were we made any safer, yet managed to sow incredible discord in the nation in question, arguably leaving them worse off than before we started.
I am against the Iraq war, since it is an obvious waste of blood and money, and stopped us from decisively beating the Taliban. However, for the sake of arguement, 1) another Iran-Iraq war could have broken out, which would have been catastrophic. 2) genocide could have again been committed against the Kurds. 3) Saddam Hussien could have provided refuge for bin Laden and Al-Qaida, and funding and weapons for terrorist groups.
Afganistan, in my opinon, was justified. After 9/11, we demanded that the Taliban hand over Osama bin Laden. They refused, and provided weapons, support, funds, and training to terrorist groups. Are you suggesting that we should have let fanatical extremists tell us, the world's only superpower, what we can and cannot do?
The point I made in my previous post was that armed intervention can't always be looked down on. It wasn't only the administration, plenty of Americans feared "another Vietnam" against the Khmer Rouge's teenage guerrila army (defeated in fact, by the army of Vietnam), a bloody stalemate against the Serbs (defeated by Slovenia), or sending Americans into harm's way. Liberals and Conservatives both have opposed armed intervention to genocide in the past. We couldn't stop Darfur because we had so many troops in Iraq. The only time we were really sucessful in stopping a genocide was in Kosovo in 1999.
[ August 02, 2010, 09:59 AM: Message edited by: youngnapoleon ]
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
*shrug* So if we accept your description (which I do not) and if we accept your premise (which I do not), Wikileaks has made it more difficult for the US to stop genocide if it felt like it (which it rarely does with your one provided exception) and more difficult for it to invade when American interests are actually at stake.
*whoop*
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
A rather stronger criticism is that the leaked documents include names of collaborators, and thus makes targeting easy for the Taliban. Indeed, they have announced that they will specifically target several village chiefs who are outed as US allies by the leak. This, it seems to me, is rather a high price to pay for stuff that was, basically, known already. Whatever one may think of the rights and wrongs of the invasion itself, these are people who allied themselves with the US, on the promise of protection. Now a soldier of the US has broken that promise, or at the very least made it much harder of fulfilment, on his own authority, for a fairly small gain in transparency. What does this teach the world about the advantages of being friendly to the US?
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
That it is a bad idea? But that seems to be a feature, not a bug.
See above:
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Newly released WikiLeaks document: The Canadian soldiers weren't killed by the Taliban but rather by friendly fire from U.S. forces. (cbc.ca)
Posted by Wingracer (Member # 12293) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: That it is a bad idea? But that seems to be a feature, not a bug.
See above:
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Newly released WikiLeaks document: The Canadian soldiers weren't killed by the Taliban but rather by friendly fire from U.S. forces. (cbc.ca)
That might be true if NO US soldier had never been killed by an allied friendly fire incident. Sadly, that is not the case.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
I don't see how that is relevant either way.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: That it is a bad idea? But that seems to be a feature, not a bug.
Not sure I follow. Do you mean that you approve of alienating allies, or that you think the leaker would approve?
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
On second thought, the first-order effects are a bit more interesting. The leaks will lead directly to people getting their heads cut off because they allied with the US. Are you prepared to defend this as a feature and not a bug?
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
It is certainly a feature of invading a country.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Not sure I follow. Do you mean that you approve of alienating allies, or that you think the leaker would approve?
Well, both sorta.
From the Wikileaks POV, it seems to me from the media coverage was chosen specifically to alienate the US from its allies. It doesn't seem like a coincidence that they chose Der Spiegel as one of the three initial outlets when the German government is having a lot of trouble justifying their presence in Afghanistan for example. So if it happens that they also alienate potential collaborators for the US in Afghanistan itself, that seems like a bonus, albeit regrettable.
Posted by Wingracer (Member # 12293) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: I don't see how that is relevant either way.
I'm not sure what you were trying to say originally but it sounded like the intent of your post was to state that our allies should not be our allies because we have accidentally killed some of their soldiers. I was pointing out that the same has happened to us.
Should we no longer accept any help from any of our allies because they have accidentally killed some of our troops? I guess we should never again ally ourselves with the British, Germans, Japanese or Italians because of all the American soldiers that died at their hands in the past.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Ummm, ok? That sounds like a good compromise.
Posted by youngnapoleon (Member # 12358) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: *shrug* So if we accept your description (which I do not) and if we accept your premise (which I do not), Wikileaks has made it more difficult for the US to stop genocide if it felt like it (which it rarely does with your one provided exception) and more difficult for it to invade when American interests are actually at stake.
*whoop*
My post was about armed intervention, and where it could have helped for minimal cost. The point I made was that it is not always wrong to invade another country. I never said anything about Wikileaks.
Posted by Wingracer (Member # 12293) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: Ummm, ok? That sounds like a good compromise.
Then the world just became a much more dangerous place for all of us.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Wingracer:
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: Ummm, ok? That sounds like a good compromise.
Then the world just became a much more dangerous place for the US.
FTFY
Posted by Wingracer (Member # 12293) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus:
quote:Originally posted by Wingracer:
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: Ummm, ok? That sounds like a good compromise.
Then the world just became a much more dangerous place for the US.
FTFY
Please don't put words in my mouth or change the meaning of my post. The idea you have advanced would affect much more than the US. If you have a legitimate point to make, please make it.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Wingracer, Mucus isn't a big fan of the US and would, I think, consider the world better if we, as a country, vanished.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus:
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Not sure I follow. Do you mean that you approve of alienating allies, or that you think the leaker would approve?
Well, both sorta.
So wait, you genuinely do think that it's better if the US has no friends? Or is it rather that you believe the US can't treat other nations nicely, and it's better for the other nations if they recognise this?
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
As in it's not a general principle. As in I approve of the whole Wikileaks incident in specific alienating Germany and to a lesser extent, Canada from the war in Afghanistan, causing us to pull out our respective militaries.
This allows for what are now Canadian and German casualties to fall purely on American soldiers. Also, focusing the Muslim backlash more on the States rather than the rest of us as well.
Posted by youngnapoleon (Member # 12358) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: As in it's not a general principle. As in I approve of the whole Wikileaks incident in specific alienating Germany and to a lesser extent, Canada from the war in Afghanistan, causing us to pull out our respective militaries.
This allows for what are now Canadian and German casualties to fall purely on American soldiers. Also, focusing the Muslim backlash more on the States rather than the rest of us as well.
Funny, considering that Europe has been meddling in the Middle East since the fall of the Ottoman empire (not including the repeated British invasions of Afganistan), while America has just started.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Kate: I don't think Mucus hates the US *that* much. He just isn't a big fan of our nation building policies.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by youngnapoleon: Funny, considering that Europe has been meddling in the Middle East since the fall of the Ottoman empire (not including the repeated British invasions of Afganistan), while America has just started.
1918 is a funny cutoff. Egypt, to take just one example, was an English colony since ~1880. And there were American troops in Tripoli as early as 1801.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Kate: I don't think Mucus hates the US *that* much. He just isn't a big fan of our nation building policies.
Well neither am I, but he actually wishes us harm.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots:
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Kate: I don't think Mucus hates the US *that* much. He just isn't a big fan of our nation building policies.
Well neither am I, but he actually wishes us harm.
I've never gotten that vibe from him either.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
I think wishing that we would stop getting HIS friends killed and alienated from the world isn't the worst of things to wish.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
I can't imagine myself thinking, "Gee, I wish that they would kill more Canadians and fewer Americans."
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: I can't imagine myself thinking, "Gee, I wish that they would kill more Canadians and fewer Americans."
I think it's more like Raymond Arnold's words.
"Canadians shouldn't be there anyway, let the Americans die needlessly if they don't want to leave."
But I agree in that I personally do not value the lives of American soldiers more than Canadians, or any country for that matter.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by youngnapoleon: ... Funny, considering that Europe has been meddling in the Middle East since the fall of the Ottoman empire (not including the repeated British invasions of Afganistan), while America has just started.
I'm not sure what the argument is here. Are you saying that Germany should stay out of Afghanistan because of the general crummy European results in the Middle East? Because if so, I'm there right with you! I don't see how thats an argument for the US and Canada continuing on though.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: ... "Canadians shouldn't be there anyway, let the Americans die needlessly if they don't want to leave."
Mostly this, it isn't much about value though.
It's more about results. If you accept as a premise that I do that the war is unwinnable, all you can really do realistically is shift around casualties between the various occupying forces.
Our Conservative government in one of their rare wise decisions has stuck to the timetable of a withdrawal in Summer 2011, despite strong pressure from Clinton. It is now unanimous among all five parties that the war was a bad idea. Given that we're only in Afghanistan in order to preserve good relations with the US after saying no to the Iraq War, the whole thing is especially pointless. Also since, since the earliest realistic election will be in Fall 2010, there is basically no chance of us getting out any sooner.
Things are pretty different in the US situation. Your timetable is still fluid and public perception of the war is still changeable, as quick examples.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Nu, if you cannot win a war then yes, it's reasonable to cut your losses. But even then it seems hard to argue that something which will lead to increased losses is good on the grounds that it makes it easier to convince people that you can't win. You're arguing for more losses so that you can minimise the losses; this appears a bit backwards.
Then there's the wider question of what you mean by 'win'. To create a stable liberal democracy in Afghanistan is clearly untenable without an amount of political will that we do not have. To create a regime centered on Kabul which is, at least, strong enough to keep the Taliban at the level of regional guerrillas does not seem quite so unrealistic. If you insist that victory must mean remaking Afghanistan in our image, you will certainly be disappointed; but then, letting the perfect be the enemy of the good often leads to disappointment. As long as the Afghanis are not sponsoring international terrorism, that looks like a win to me; that's what the war was originally declared for.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: You're arguing for more losses so that you can minimise the losses; this appears a bit backwards.
Counter-intuitive yes, but it doesn't make it wrong. Setting aside the morality of it, thats why some countries have a death penalty for murderers, to deter a greater number of possible murders by specifically killing a murderer.
Going back to the issue, combat losses can have two deterrence effects. First, they deter a country from future wars. I think we can establish that while it is extremely unlikely that Canada will invade someone in the near future, the US is already rattling its sabre on Iran. Second, they deter a country from extending a war. In this case, I've already shown above why this affects the US more than Canada.
So if we must (or could) "distribute" combat losses, thats the reasoning.
As for the latter point, you're more optimistic than I am. The Soviets left their puppet government around after they left and it didn't last particularly long. I don't see why an American one would fare particularly better.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
Mucus, I'm not entirely sure that's the case with the death penalty. I think personally that it is used more as punishment, not a deterrent. Considering every study shows it doesn't deter anything, I think that's fairly well supported. Just my opinion though.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: Considering every study shows it doesn't deter anything ...
*shrug* Here's a dozen that don't fit into every.
quote:According to roughly a dozen recent studies, executions save lives. For each inmate put to death, the studies say, 3 to 18 murders are prevented.
The effect is most pronounced, according to some studies, in Texas and other states that execute condemned inmates relatively often and relatively quickly.
The studies, performed by economists in the past decade, compare the number of executions in different jurisdictions with homicide rates over time while trying to eliminate the effects of crime rates, conviction rates and other factors and say that murder rates tend to fall as executions rise. One influential study looked at 3,054 counties over two decades.
I personally am opposed to the death penalty, said H. Naci Mocan, an economist at Louisiana State University and an author of a study finding that each execution saves five lives. But my research shows that there is a deterrent effect.
Mind you, I think there's room for debate, but I don't see a mechanism for why it wouldn't work.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
There's a difference between "used as a Deterrent" and "actually successful at Deterring." The entire notion of scientific reliable studies to figure out how legislation affects crime is a pretty modern invention.
I don't know how the actual percentages break down, but I'm sure that over the course of history, there's been plenty of people who saw the death penalty as pure punishment, and plenty of people who saw it as a deterrent, and plenty of people who saw it as both.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
(On the semantic issue, I personally use deterrent as a reason for punishment (like so) rather than as two different sets. But meh)
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
That's a perfectly valid view, but there are plenty of people who genuinely care specifically about the punishing aspect, regardless of its usefulness as a deterrent. Revenge as opposed to justice, as it were.
Posted by Black Fox (Member # 1986) on :
Interestingly enough it is generally the people least educated on war that declare a war to be unwinnable.
Regardless of it being "winnable" the United States was obviously attacked on 9/11 and the Taliban Regime based in Kandahar was obviously supporting the party guilty of those attacks. Being a member of NATO and the notion that an attack on one nation is an attack on all makes it seem rather logical that every member of NATO should be participating in Afghanistan.
Now, we can argue about was 9/11 actually an attack by another nation, or if the Taliban harboring Bin Laden connected it enough to 9/11 that the NATO treaty should go into effect, but really the fact is that NATO is mostly a joke now.
What is generally irritating is that everyone scorns the United States for looking after their international interests, when really every other nation does the same thing. What really irritates most people is that the United States is the only nation at the moment that can effectively project power on a world wide basis. The fact that we do so without the desire to add a fifty-first state is generally lost on most of the world.
That and the general argument that the last person failed so you will well is a very, very, very weak one. Especially given that the situation is much different. The funny thing is that by following the kind of advice you would give for American foreign relations is what led to many of the problems that the United States and the rest of the world have to face at the moment.
The belief that just letting things go and they won't come back to haunt you is not one that I am fond of.
Posted by Black Fox (Member # 1986) on :
Also side note, the wikileaks information is currently being used by the Taliban to kill various Afghani nationals who were shown to either work with coalition forces in Afghanistan or be receptive to western influence in general. The double edge of poorly applied good intentions.
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
Under what conditions would you consider the war in Afghanistan to be "won?" How can NATO and Afghanistan get from the current state to that state?
Posted by Black Fox (Member # 1986) on :
Personally, I would say that if a stable popularly elected government could maintain power in Afghanistan and keep it from becoming a destabilizing influence in the region.
This could be done by destroying the Taliban's logistical infrastructure in the region, applying lethal force to Taliban leadership, mass education for the bureaucracy in Afghanistan, agricultural education, education in civil engineering, construction etc.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
I am less ambitious: I would consider an ongoing civil war between a Western-puppet regime in Kabul and a Taliban regime in the outlying districts to be a victory. Talibani guerrillas fighting for control of their own territory are not state sponsors of terrorism. Afghanistan has never had a powerful central government whose writ ran among all the tribes, and why should we care? Let the tribes ignore Kabul's taxes if they like, just so they are not supporting al-Qaeda cells in their midst. And the path for getting to this state seems fairly straightforward: You just need an Afghan military capable of defending Kabul and surrounding regions, and getting a sufficient share of the pie that it finds it worthwhile to do so. In other words, a tribal militia, which we can subsidise with heavy weapons. There is no need for a professional force of soldiers-not-warriors loyal to the nation rather than the President, which is what we've been trying to build so far.
Posted by youngnapoleon (Member # 12358) on :
I agree with KoM, we don't need Afganistan stable, but we need the Taliban to be unable to sponsor terrorism. Pakistan must also be taken into the equation. The Taliban have had a string of sucesses in Pakistan and the people often support them. If the Taliban capture nuclear warheads destruction on an unprecedented scale will be unleashed on Israel, and maybe on America as well.
Mucus, what my point was is that you hoped the Muslim backlash fell against America instead of the European NATO countries, which is ironic considering that Europe has been interfering with Islam since the Crusades.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Black Fox: Interestingly enough it is generally the people least educated on war that declare a war to be unwinnable.
That would seem to imply an odd situation where people are generally the most educated on a war and its consequences *before* a war and progressively become less educated as they fight it
quote:Originally posted by Black Fox: The funny thing is that by following the kind of advice you would give for American foreign relations is what led to many of the problems that the United States and the rest of the world have to face at the moment.
I on the other hand am amused that you think I've given advice for American foreign relations in this thread. I think my attitude is generally summed up as "Canadians shouldn't be there anyway, let the Americans die needlessly if they don't want to leave."
quote:Originally posted by youngnapoleon: ... Mucus, what my point was is that you hoped the Muslim backlash fell against America instead of the European NATO countries ...
*shrug* What would that accomplish?
Posted by youngnapoleon (Member # 12358) on :
![[Wink]](wink.gif)