NATO Summit: Canada declines to extend Afghanistan training mission

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/...clines-to-extend-afghanistan-training-mission

About goddamn time. Absolutely no reason to be there anymore. Clusterfuck of a situation and not worth the time, the money, or the effort to try and help a backwards people achieve any semblance of freedom.

Why this obsession with the idea that wars are only supposed to last as long as World War One or Two?

He said WWI AND WWII - which is an awfully long time to fight a war in the modern era.

War is bad, Dayton. Not good.

Its even worse when we're in a war that we might not ever win. There is no end in sight in Afghanistan. So why stay?

Yep, we are achieving nothing over there, and spending lives and treasure for no obtainable goal, just our own hubris and politics. Obama is dead wrong on this one, and I said it a dozens times here when he was campaigning. There was no reason to be in Afghanistan, and our allies there betray us at every turn while taking money that could be spent better here.

You're also talking about an extremely low intensity conflict in regards to the U.S.

The U.S. has over the course of 11 years averaged what? One or two soldiers per day losing their lives when you factor in all deaths?

WWI and WWII were clear cut and stereotypical good guy vs. bad guy scenarios. That in addition to the concept of the good guys also refered to as the "Greatest Generation" it kind of makes them a good candidate for "acceptable" war.

Nah, WWI was pretty fuckin' stupid....

I agree with Dayton. While this statement is true, it's completely irrelevent. And, when this line of reasoning is used to justify war policy, it makes the person using it look ignorant.

WWI and WWII were completely different conflicts than the War on Terror, fought with much higher intensity against a very different enemy, in a different time, with different technologies, and in very different places.

If I said that casualties had been far lighter in the War on Terror than in WWII, I'd be stating a fact, but you'd quickly say the same thing: I'm comparing apples to oranges.

The fact that the War on Terror has gone longer than war X does not say anything about the merits or outcomes of either war. The War on Terror has gone on longer than the Vietnam War, but we've managed to take virtually all of the enemy's territory from him and killed his leader to boot.

^^^
You took Terror's territory?

Really?

I had forgotten when Stalin became classified as a "good guy"?!WTF!!!

Basically, the bulk of the fighting in World War 2, involved the nations of two of the three greatest monsters in human history (Hitler & Stalin) duking it out.

Much of the "America worship" of World War II is a classic case of looking backward through rose colored glasses.

And World War One?

Let's see. The Germans committed some atrocities in Belgium while the British brutally starved the Germans with an illegal blockade.

Of course, World War One started as a result of an assassination of a member of a dying royal family that no one gave a damn about by agents of a small country that no one gave a damn about.

Yes, and we killed a whole bunch of Terror's guys, too.

It's just a name.

Terror's President hangs out with Aquaman now.

Funny. It doesn't seem low intensity at all to my high school friend who is crippled for life, or to the examiner who did my checkride last week who lost his son there last year.

One or two too many given the wheel-spinning, politicized nature of this war and its lack of victory conditions or an exit strategy.

You really are a fucking clueless idiot who needs to STFU on this issue and most others.

You're wrong on the last count.

Now, I'm sympathetic to your friend and the son of your examiner.

But.

They VOLUNTEERED to serve. EVERY American soldier serving in the U.S. military today either joined or reenlisted in the military well AFTER both the Iraq and Afghan wars began. They assumed the possible risks of service and I commend them for it.

Now, just because Americans volunteer to serve, that doesn't mean the U.S. govt. should be wasteful with their lives and health.

But the fact remains that American soldiers fight when and where they are told to by POLITICAL leaders. And they full well knew this when they joined.

By any known measure, the wars of the last 12 years have been very low intensity conflicts.

And know better Marso. You know that EVERY war is a political war.

WTF? If a soldier joined in 1997 (for example) he'd still be serving in the sandbox - it's at least a 20 year career if you're a "lifer." Thus many soldiers enlisted before Sept. 2001. I enlisted (for the second time) in 1988 and did a deployment in the sandbox.

Regardless, getting fucked up is the luck of the draw. Lot's of military die from training accidents or off duty vehicle accidents. It's the nature of the beast, and yes we all accept this.

I don't see an endgame where Allied forces pull out and leave behind a stable, democratic government. Also, driving out the rats have merely spread them elsewhere.

While Iran is the latest hot button, AFRICOM just gained a brigade.

The U.S. has pretty much lost every conflict post-WWII. Why change things now?

The "War on Terror" is a fucking joke and it will never be won. Just like the "War on Drugs".

Both are massive wastes of resources and human life.

I love all your smug comments about Canadians in general. It never gets old.

Either way, point still is we've been in both this conflict for way to long with no possible good outcome in sight.

Therefore there is no point in being there anymore.

Now imagine if your government had the balls to say that, and on top of everything, say that they won't support the government financially unless all the money can be counted for.

Wouldn't a soldier who enlisted in 1997 have to reenlist at some point?

Well, if the Afghans can't take care of themselves by now then they never will be able to it's that cut and dried.

Bully for Canada getting out of this quagmire. Now, we need to follow suit.

You do know there are twelve months in a year right, and that if someone joined in early 97 their reup would be prior to 9/11, right?

Read what the man wrote, it's crystal clear.

HA! I stand corrected. I didn't see the "reenlisted" part.
But you would be one dumb fucker to be mid-way into your career and quit just because you had to deploy.

That said, several times? Man, that would be a game changer, I'll be honest.
My hat is off to those who kept going back over and over and seeing little progress. When I joined in the 80's something like this would be inconceivable.
My career was a cakewalk. Downtown Seoul Korea twice? I got over, it's true.

I retired (couldn't stay any longer at my rank) not too long after "mission accomplished."

Canada is pulling out, France is pulling out, I don't even know if Spain or Italy has already pulled out. Time to pack our bags and go home.

Fuck 'em. We should have left the moment after Bin Laden got his brain air conditioned.

WWI most certainly wasn't "good guys vs. bad guys". I wish I could find an old post with an explanation as to why, I've said this before. In a nutshell, it was a combination of alliances backing up allies, monarchs who happened to be cousins hating each other, and the want to test new technologies then being developed. The odds of Germany occupying France in a WWI victory were astronomically low. A post Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 scenario would have been more likely. It wasn't about world domination or genocide, I've found most people now conflate WWI and WWII to a certain degree almost 100 years on.

War is bad. It is sometimes necessary, when faced with a very specific threat, but it should not be a permanent state. It was appropriate to go into Afghanistan and smash Al Queda and the government that was protecting them, but our error was in thinking we could make the place a haven for freedom and democracy afterwards. It was a nice motive that caused us to try, but it soon became obvious that it was incredibly naive to think it could be done. So we should leave them to their own fate. If they put in place another intolerant religious regime, that's their problem. If they use that regime to hurt us again sometime in the future, we will smash it, too. But other than that we should leave them to their own unworkable sociological ideas, which will necessarily lead to an unstable country.

I cannot say the Canadians are right on this, because they are a number of years late in finally coming to this choice, but I can say that they are finally doing something they should have done years ago. And so should we.

First off, I haven't been in country since Jan. Haven't been in the military for a month now.

All just personal opinion.

The trifecta of shit (body pissing, Qur'an burning, village slaughtering) that went down after I left pretty much sealed the deal. Before that the double pincher COIN on one hand* combined with Obama taking JSOC off the leash had the fuckers on their heels. Turns out Good Cop Bad Cop is a cliche for a reason. It fucking works.

Or worked.

Now we are just in the how do we pull out without scaring off our allies mode. That's really been the big issue since even before we got Osama. How do we abandon our 'allies' in Kabul without signaling to our real allies in Eastern Europe and East Asia that we won't abandon them when the Russians or Chicoms decide it's time to throw down?

*VSO [Village Stability Operations] bottom up COIN combined with CJSOTF-A [Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force Afghanistan] putting A LOT of pressure on the Central Government and Provincial level to clean their shit up, top down COIN.

Just to translate the rest of Anc's post into English:

COIN: COunter-INsurgency

JSOC: Joint Special Operations Command.

You're welcome, Anc.

Bah! I translated all the technical ones. The ones you mopped up are just the general/easy ones. Next you'll want me to translate SNAFU and FUBAR.