Any thoughts on the top general in Afghan being ousted

Grumpy · #1 05-13-2009, 01:30 PM

Lets hear your thoughts

merrylander · #2 05-13-2009, 03:34 PM

In one of the news reports Gates let it slip that on one of his visits he found the troops without certain supplies, but that the General was simply waiting for someone to ship whatever it was. Kind of think Gates figured the General should have been busting someone's a** to get it shipped.

noonereal · #3 05-13-2009, 04:22 PM

Being pro active is important.

SAE2922 · #4 05-13-2009, 10:21 PM

Whatever the reason that Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal replaced Gen. David McKiernan, it should be for the better.

Why is it better? Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal is a special forces chief (snake eater) that will, by his training, take the fight to the Jihadis (mujahideen) in a merciless manner. Well, hopefully he will be turned loose to continue fighting this war with a different American spear point leading the way.

The Hindu Kush sub-range region of the Himalayas mountains in Afghanistan is a horrible place to fight a conventional ground war in the both the logistical and tactical senses. America must fight smarter, not harder.

To have any chance of defeating the crazed mindset of the enemy, this Lt. Gen. McChrystal is America's best bet in Afghanistan.

Delta Force, Green Berets, SEALs -- Turn them loose and get out of their way. Favorable results are guaranteed.

kretinus · #5 05-13-2009, 11:30 PM

If he can defeat the terrorists without the loss of innocent life, let him have have it, otherwise he will be completely ineffective.

The Taliban has given us an opportunity to capture the moral highground, the people of Afghanistan are willing to turn their backs on the terrorists, but not if doing so simply results in the US killing innocent people and saying oops, sorry.

A moral nation does not fire on the enemy when they know it's likely to kill innocent people. It's a cop out to say otherwise and simply shows we do not care if we are a moral nation.

If the terrorists are hiding behind people, then we stop and fight another day and another way.

If you think you can convince a mother or father who just saw his son cut in half that the people who did are good, then we are all fools.

merrylander · #6 05-14-2009, 07:26 AM

If they are hiding behind people and shooting at our soldiers, how many should die before we fire back or cut and run?

Grumpy · #7 05-14-2009, 09:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by merrylander

If they are hiding behind people and shooting at our soldiers, how many should die before we fire back or cut and run?

A very tough question that can only be answered in my opinion by those placed in that position..

kretinus · #8 05-14-2009, 11:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grumpy

A very tough question that can only be answered in my opinion by those placed in that position..

I disagree. Any killing is done in our name, therefore it is our concern and our duty to make sure what is done in our name isn't counter productive.

The problem with military solutions are that the military is a hammer and sees every problem as a nail.

There are those in the military even now who question whether a military solution will be the answer.

But put yourself in this scenario, put your child in the line of fire and ask yourself what's right and then remember someone elses child deserves that same consideration.

merrylander · #9 05-14-2009, 01:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kretinus

I disagree. Any killing is done in our name, therefore it is our concern and our duty to make sure what is done in our name isn't counter productive.

The problem with military solutions are that the military is a hammer and sees every problem as a nail.

There are those in the military even now who question whether a military solution will be the answer.

But put yourself in this scenario, put your child in the line of fire and ask yourself what's right and then remember someone elses child deserves that same consideration.

The difference is that I would never put my child, nor any one else's, in front of me. These walking bits of human tissue really don't care about human life.

SAE2922 · #10 05-14-2009, 04:44 PM

The Rules According to Hoyle.

Marquis of Queensbury Rules.

Parliamentary Procedure.

Listed above are three bullet points of discussion that should neither be uttered nor considered when dealing with the type of enemy our military is facing today in the Middle East theater of operations.

This is an ongoing battle that will consume our national psyche (think Vietnam) if we do not break the will-to-fight of these madrasa-indoctrinated, religiously-fanatical Jihadists. We as a nation can not be timid when the time comes to unleash our military to break things and kill people. Yes -- I admit that does sound extremely harsh when put down in words on a page and read back for content.

This enemy is programmed to come after our American troops (infidels in their eyes) as well as anybody else that stands in their way for a complete Sharia (Islamic religious law) domination of the local region. The Taliban’s Sharia ideology starts with the local villages and populated mountain valleys and will continue unabated throughout district and provincial city seats in a relentless march, unless stopped. The idea of a world dominated and ruled by Sharia law is a goal that these religious zealots are driven to achieve.

These people do not respect anything or anyone that stands in their way except for raw, brutal force that is brought down on their heads. Our country will forever be on the losing end at the conference table striving to negotiate a solution to end this conflict. These people have been killing each other and stealing one another’s goats for ten thousand years. This centuries-long mindset that is intertwined into the double helix of their DNA along with tribal-ties and a humongous slathering of religious brainwashing spells out only one final long-lasting solution to end this conflict -- America’s military hammer carried out with extreme prejudice.

Sadly, during the savage aspects of war, the innocent will always be standing in Harm's way. It's just an unavoidable fact of life unless two opposing sides are located in desolate, frozen Antarctica.

I do not want my loved ones killed either. I am not championing the armchair quarterbacking of, "send in more young Americans (cannon fodder) to die", while I drink my favorite adult beverage and wait for the enemy body-count like the Pentagon and news organizations did during Vietnam.

Sometimes, very tough and extremely unpopular choices have to be made in life. The Pentagon has a tiger by the tail, and the tiger is rabidly agitated. Not one country on this planet burns up as many brain cells as America in figuring, finessing, finagling, developing, funding, testing and producing accurate weapon systems to kill an enemy that is actively shooting at Americans and spare not only innocent lives but keep collateral damage to a minimum. Absolutely NO ONE !!

As wide spread as the war is in Afghanistan and the amount of ordinance that is being expended on both sides, along with the close proximity the enemy keeps by hugging close to the belt of the innocent while the enemy shoots at us, how can all the innocent be completely spared ??? Well, they can't. It's a war. It's a brutal war. It's a war with an enemy that has a complete disregard for life, including THEIR OWN loved ones whenever the need arises to strike at the American infidels.

Sadly, we as a nation need to speak truth to evil, quit wringing our hands and do what needs to be done to vanquish this enemy we are facing on this battlefield.

Blasting the holy living hell out of our enemy in a pitched battle has absolutely nothing to do with us (the USA) being a "moral nation" or not. It's a battle to kill your enemy before he harms you. Our military can not go into brain-freeze mode every time we have an enemy (1 or 100 count) trapped in a cave or gravel hut, and then begin postulating about the innocent lives that could be lost if ordinance is placed on the target.

We (the nation’s people, the Pentagon deep thinkers and military leaders, and Washington, D.C. lawmakers) need to come to our senses and figure out what it takes to win a war. It will be extremely painful and far reaching into our collective souls to lay waste to our enemy. The alternative is a replay of the infamous round-table bickering in Paris, France during the Paris Peace Accords to end the Vietnam war. When U.S. National Security Advisor Dr. Henry Kissinger and Vietnamese politburo member Le Duc Tho finally signed on the dotted line, South Vietnam effectively ceased to exist and America lost a great slice of its soul. We can not travel that road to internal destruction again.

If the enemy takes over a madrasa (Islamic indoctrination school) full of many innocent children in which to hide behind, just what can our military commanders do in such a situation? We must finesse the situation and have Special Forces at the ready.

The worst action to take is a wait-and-see attitude. These are not Boy Scouts we’re fighting. Innocent children will most probably die. Washington and America must open its eyes widely and brace up to the fact that war is a messy business. We are fighting a blood-thirsty group of people that knows no bounds to reach their goals.

The sooner that America comes to see this enemy for what it really is and the grotesque actions it uses to reach its goals, the quicker America will begin to develop a means-to-an-end attitude to blunt the worldwide Jihadist movement. There is NO simple solution here. This will be a decades long struggle to contain these savages.

America must change its collective thinking on the art of wagering war. America must begin to think about winning with our heads held high and not pacification with our tails tucked between our legs.

Our military is ham-stringed and hand-cuffed enough as it is. There is no need to add a desert-camouflage-pattern blindfold to our troopers' battlefield handicaps.