TIME TO LEAVE ?

[seboni121]

After the British soldiers killed last week, also the murder of 16 civilians in Kandahar by a rouge American soldier, is it time to leave ? Although the murder of NATO troops don't seem to matter to karsai and his cronies!, they have now passed a resolution to bring the soldier in question to be tried in Afghanistan , I hope not as it will be a farce IMO , this will now be used to enflame the general public in Afghanistan by the Taliban , this will be over next days and weeks make Afghanistan even more dangerous, I have two boys about to deploy and it's a mistake, bring em home enough is enough all karsai wants is kudos and cash he will turn on the NATO guys, he has already started to turn

[Clunkclick]

I don't think we have the capability to pull out in a hurry, not without putting the casualty rate up. For every soldier in the field there are 2-3 contractors performing support roles and a huge tonnage of kit and facilities which we would be ill-advised in terms of international relations/financially ruinous to leave behind/allow to fall into the wrong hands.

Nick

[Babs]

Take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

[deecee]

I agree with you that we should get our guys out , we should never have gone in , historically Afganistan has never been conqured , we failed in the 1800s the Russians failed in the 70s and now the most powerfull nation on earth and us are being worn down and beaten , without the backing of the local population its unwinable.

As to the rogue USA soldier , i think he should be tried by Afgan courts and take whatever punnishment they think fit , there is no excuse for a highly trained proffessional to murder civvys , if the guy had been a terrorist who commited murders in our country wouldnt we want to try him in our courts , the Yanks must use thier influence to ensure the trial is conducted in a proper manner.

[seboni121]

Take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Oh Babs in a perfect world!

[seboni121]

I agree with you that we should get our guys out , we should never have gone in , historically Afganistan has never been conqured , we failed in the 1800s the Russians failed in the 70s and now the most powerfull nation on earth and us are being worn down and beaten , without the backing of the local population its unwinable.

As to the rogue USA soldier , i think he should be tried by Afgan courts and take whatever punnishment they think fit , there is no excuse for a highly trained proffessional to murder civvys , if the guy had been a terrorist who commited murders in our country wouldnt we want to try him in our courts , the Yanks must use thier influence to ensure the trial is conducted in a proper manner.

Yes the population is not with the crusaders, as long as we pull out properly it would be fine, the yanks and French will pull out in 2013 or even earlier, as for our boys it's 2014 ? It will be us again holding the baby, drop the baby and kick into touch

[Clunkclick]

Assuming UK armed forces did a Dunkirk style evacuation leaving all kit behind, I.E. Warriors, apache, tornado and materials and just recovered the personnel, How many jumbo flights carrying 400 people at a time would it take to lift 10,000 troops and civilians plus 30,000 third country workers out from Bastion, assuming that Bastion runway could handle a jumbo and that the T'ban didn't,the start rocketing the Base as soon as the operation began. How exactly would you refuel them given that most of gas comes by road and has a lead time of at least a week, thereby immediately disclosing intentions - you'd be amazed at how many RPG impact holes you can get in a 10,000 gallon road tanker without it disintegrating totally. Must be a four hour flight to Cyprus,@ 5,000 gallons an hour, assuming you can get a weeks worth of overflight permissions over the rest of the middle east.

What do you think the Foreign Secretary was doing earlier this month?

Nick

Posrscript

Imho, our roving ambassador to the Middle East, ex-presidente teeth,should be recalled a bit and encouraged to offer up his personal bank account to assist in the repatriation of UK personnel. After all, he was the one who got us into it.

Edited 12 March, 2012 by Clunkclick

[gadgetman]

History teaches us what happened after the Russians gave up after 25 years.

9/11.

[Octygone]

As bad as it seems .......just stop and have a think ....how bad has the terrorist action in the world been since they went in to Afganistan

[Moist Von Lipwig]

Just transporting people and kit out is not the real issue. If the various nations pull out too soon then the goverment now in place and the infrastructure will be unlikely to survive for very long and the Taliban will take over once again, probably using much of the infrastructure NATO has put into place, and then we will find ourselves with a Taliban nation rather than a Taliban terrorist organisation, giving them far more credibility..

The recent incidents by the allied forces have to be treated correctly and it may well be a case of letting Afganistan deal with a crime carried out on their soil. How would we feel if a US serviceman serving in the UK did the same thing and the US insisted on trying him in the states? (possibly a poor example as they have the death penalty and generally much harsher sentencing than us, but hopefully you get the principal).

It is impossible to say how pulling out now will affect the security of the world or go any way to justifying the rapidly increasing death toll of civillians and service personnel. However it is important to take hold of the problem and attempt to sort it out rather than just running away when it gets too difficult. That said the politicians, who are so removed from the deaths and issues, need to take responsibility for their decisions and ensure that we fully appreciate and understand the situation and potential consequences.

[Beryl's Chief Pilot]

Take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

That's stolen from Aliens 2 isn't it Babs?.........

[vindaloo]

Only country to "do" anything successfully in Afghanistan was GB. Problem is that wasn't exactly a positive move.

In response to this...

http://www.britishbattles.com/first-afghan-war/kabul-gandamak.htm

We did this...

http://www.britishbattles.com/first-afghan-war/kabul-1842.htm

Scorch the earth and slaughter the population, taking away anything of value!

A couple of lessons.

- How NOT to manage/leave Afghanistan.

- How to provoke a major power into acts of utter aggression/revenge.

J.

[Hunty278]

These american Soldiers are over there for a year minimum, away from their family, with only a 21 day break in the middle. They see a lot of their friends die at the hands of the insurgients. It was only a matter of time before one of them had a break down. This isn't something he went out there with the idea to do. It is a very sad situation we are now in. We were making massive inroads in Afghanistan. Hearts and Minds has been proven to work in the past and will in Afghan. There is the obvious hurdle of Corruption and greed, and unfortunately it will have to self regulate itself. But as a country, we should not sit idle and allow our country to be threatened. We should take the battle to them. And that I do not believe to be a mistake. If we were to leave Afhanistan as it is now, all those deaths would be in vane, and I can tell you now, that very few servicemen will want to leave the job half done!

SEBONI121. Best of luck to your boys, hope they have an enjoyable tour!

[Ootohere]

The US are 'sending in a very small number of troops for a very temporary missions, that is British Forces as well'. 

3,500. 

 

'Doing it now before it is to late!'      In other words, Crapping themselves, & far too late.  

 

They will be armed and going for a very narrowly defined mission, not a combat mission.        Mericans. 

[lol-lol]

13 hours ago, e-Roottoot said:

The US are 'sending in a very small number of troops for a very temporary missions, that is British Forces as well'. 

3,500. 

 

'Doing it now before it is to late!'      In other words, Crapping themselves, & far too late.  

 

They will be armed and going for a very narrowly defined mission, not a combat mission.        Mericans. 

 

GB has been interfering in Afghanistan for 2 centuries. 

 

Most recently following in the US forces after 9/11 to chase a Saudi jihadist and his camps.

 

Apparently Opium production is greater during Western occupation than during Taliban occupation go figure, maybe Air America ?

 

Having had a nephew just pass out as a marine from Lympstone last month I do not want to see him sent to such a folly and join 500 or so dead or thousands injured. 

 

[Ootohere]

They really are trying to make it look like 'nothing to see here, now move along'.   Ben Wallace MP,s ministerial position would normally be on a shoogly peg for talking almost honestly  today but who would want his job now.   Give it to the Gover and send him out to assist in getting people out safely. What is the worst that could happen?

 

Edited 13 August, 2021 by e-Roottoot

[EnterName]

We should not be using our military to enforce political decisions on the other side of the world.

By using soldiers as a political tool, they are forced to get embroiled in local issues in other countries that are not fully understood by the West, and pay the cost with their lives.

Meanwhile, the politicians who send our soldiers to die for political ambition suffer no penalty at all.

 

We should be using our military to protect our borders, nothing more than that.

I don't GAF about Afghanistan, I do care about British soldiers put in harm's way, primarily to give the sitting UK PM (of whatever flavour) bragging rights at the next global talks.

Edited 13 August, 2021 by EnterName

[lol-lol]

Deja vu

 

 

 

[skomaz]

21 minutes ago, lol-lol said:

 

Having had a nephew just pass out as a marine from Lympstone last month I do not want to see him sent to such a folly and join 500 or so dead or thousands injured. 

 

 

I hate to say the obvious but if he's passed out as a Marine then he's bound to get embroiled in some form of 'war' or dangerous situation at some point in time (that's not to say that I don't concur with the thoughts being expressed re Afghanistan)

[Pagan-Image]

Without getting too deeply into the politics, and the right and wrong.

 

There is currently a HUGE issue with veterans of Afghanistan seeing what is happening since the withdrawal.

 

Many including myself have have lost friends and colleagues in that country and had to do things that are against the natural grain of human nature whilst trying to fulfil the requirements set by NATO. We see the country now sliding back into the theological ideological anarchy that was causing many global issues and will do so again. This will ultimately mean intervention again in the future.

 

The sense of futility, of the lives lost and taken on all sides for no purpose, the sense of waste of time and life is very hard to understand or bear.

 

I have ongoing issues since I left the military, with bouts of depression and flashbacks, not to the same degree as many who are suffering much worse than am, but its bad enough. There has already been an increase in suicide rates of modern conflict veterans, and this situation is making it worse.

 

I am by no means advocating going back, but the withdrawal was a mistake, as was not finishing the job in a military sense. Using the military for peacekeeping has always failed, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan all show this to be true. Soldiers are not police!

 

I have always believed, certainly in Iraq and Afghanistan, that once the initial military targets had been achieved, the job of policing the peace should have been the UN, not NATO. So that the countries military and civil departments from them all over the world could have been seen to be making the effort to de-escalate the region. If countries such as India, Pakistan Russia etc had been involved, it wouldn't have become the political football, and wouldn't have been seen as the 'Invading western infidels' wanting to occupy, which would have removed a lot of the rhetoric and propaganda that is used by the Taliban.

Edited 13 August, 2021 by Pagan-Image

[lol-lol]

30 minutes ago, skomaz said:

 

I hate to say the obvious but if he's passed out as a Marine then he's bound to get embroiled in some form of 'war' or dangerous situation at some point in time (that's not to say that I don't concur with the thoughts being expressed re Afghanistan)

 

Possibly. 

Marines these days do much in disaster work like with the Caribbean hurricanes but absolutely fighting is large part of the training and expectation of service.

 

Our armed forces seem to be used as a fill in, do anything body of people ie fire service.  

 

When one takes the Queens shilling on gives up the right to choose.  One of the many reasons I chose Merchant rather than Royal Navy.

[EnterName]

2 hours ago, lol-lol said:

Our armed forces seem to be used as a fill in, do anything body of people ie fire service. 

Yes they did, and should do. Like they did with the Nightingale hospitals, when some competent people with organisational skills were needed to achieve a result in a hurry. (Which counts out our political overseers.)

The UK armed forces are there to serve and protect the people of the UK, not the jokers in Parliament.

I get so angry about our lads (and now increasingly lasses) being sent off to try and impose a change of regime somewhere.

[lol-lol]

5 hours ago, EnterName said:

Yes they did, and should do. Like they did with the Nightingale hospitals, when some competent people with organisational skills were needed to achieve a result in a hurry. (Which counts out our political overseers.)

The UK armed forces are there to serve and protect the people of the UK, not the jokers in Parliament.

I get so angry about our lads (and now increasingly lasses) being sent off to try and impose a change of regime somewhere.

 

What is worrying is the UK Armed forces are such as small number now, much less than 100k, tiny compared to comparable countries.  The have been run down so small and stretched so much and the TA, RNR etc cannot make up these gap as well.

[lol-lol]

Taliban already in the outskirts of Kabul just as our 600 troops arrive by passenger aircraft.

 

Skies of Kabul full of Chinooks and other large helicopters moving around the city.

 

The Mujahidin supposed not firing on citizen or Westerners who are heading for the exit and saying they do not intend to take the capital "by force" but expecting to walk in.

 

Not bad for less than 100,000 fighters compared to supposed 300,000 Afghan government forces and mostly using Western weapons supplied to the Afghan forces and simply taken off them and used for themselves. 

 

Military analyst got this very wrong as the expect to have to the ends of August to evacuate rather than the Ides of August.

 

 

Edited 15 August, 2021 by lol-lol

[@Lee]

Kabul has fallen and the President's fled. Twenty years and for what?