The Afghan Papers

[pp4me]

Brought to you by the Washington Post, I believe one of the newspapers along with the New York Times that published The Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam war.....

Who could have possibly predicted the the government was lying to us all along about Afghanistan......

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics ... -database/

The Lessons Learned interviews contradict years of public statements by presidents, generals and diplomats. The interviews make clear that officials issued rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hid unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable. Several of those interviewed described explicit efforts by the U.S. government to deliberately mislead the public and a culture of willful ignorance, where bad news and critiques were unwelcome.

[I Shrugged]

I haven't even read the story, because I feel I don't need to. It's been so obvious that it was Viet Nam all over again.

All of the dumbasses who think the mighty American military can win wars have not been paying attention. They can win wars if the battles are set up like WW2 battlegrounds.

[yankees60]

They probably knew that they were not going to win. Russia's attempts prior should have been a dead giveaway. But how else would the military-industrial complex make tons of $$$?

I believe that the arrogant Bush II administration sincerely believed we could win both that war and the Iraq War ("Mission Accomplished").

[yankees60]

If you believe it, it’s not a lie.

Yes. But it could still be be a case of one being delusional.

[stuper1]

War is just a money-making racket. C'mon don't be naive.

[glennds]

All of the dumbasses who think the mighty American military can win wars have not been paying attention. They can win wars if the battles are set up like WW2 battlegrounds.

Which will never happen again. The last of the WW2 style battles happened in WW2.

Personally I think the next war will be a cyber war anyway. The conventional military as we know it will be of little use. And the aggressor does not necessarily need to be a nation state, which complicates things even further because there isn't even an obvious place or physical target to attack. "The Perfect Weapon" is a good read on the subject. I think there is a HBO documentary by the same name.

[I Shrugged]

All of the dumbasses who think the mighty American military can win wars have not been paying attention. They can win wars if the battles are set up like WW2 battlegrounds.

Which will never happen again. The last of the WW2 style battles happened in WW2.

Personally I think the next war will be a cyber war anyway. The conventional military as we know it will be of little use. And the aggressor does not necessarily need to be a nation state, which complicates things even further because there isn't even an obvious place or physical target to attack. "The Perfect Weapon" is a good read on the subject. I think there is a HBO documentary by the same name.

I think so too. This pandemic has produced havoc that is a taste of how fragile our supply chains are.

[Kbg]

Been there, done that, got several Afghanistan T-shirts.

You guys are WAY too cynical. I've never seen nor heard anyone ever say...hey, let's go make Northrup Grumman rich today nor anything remotely like it. (Though certainly these guys are happy to sell their wares and like any corporation are looking for "market opportunities.")

My take from both my history/political science readings and almost three decades in the military indicate something MUCH more simple, less devious and very human. People get invested in something and a dynamic forms that makes it very hard to simply quit and walk away. In economics they call it the sunk costs fallacy. It's a thing, we all do it as do governments.

For senior military leaders you do NOT get accolades or promotions for saying this one is too hard and/or not worth it. The culture and expectation is to "fix it." For senior politicians you will be labeled "weak" or worse. What I particularly despise is when politicians are told they are dishonoring those who gave their lives for the cause.

Americans as a general rule are goal and success oriented culturally which compounds the above. As I mentioned in the WW2 thread, I'm not a big fan of US strategy since the Bush I administration...way too much hubris, way too much focus on the goal and way not enough focus on is this really worth it?

Personally I think going to Afghanistan in the first place was the right call. However, we probably should have left in say the 2003-4 time frame. We've been a big brother proxy for one side of a fight that has been going on since the 1950s that is entirely religo-culturally based.

[stuper1]

You guys are WAY too cynical. I've never seen nor heard anyone ever say...hey, let's go make Northrup Grumman rich today nor anything remotely like it. (Though certainly these guys are happy to sell their wares and like any corporation are looking for "market opportunities.")

I'm sorry, I don't understand your point. In your years in the military, were you stationed in the back rooms of Congress? How would you have access to people who would be saying let's go make Northrup rich?

All I'm saying is that the people in the back rooms of Congress who are pushing for more war are doing it, at least to some relatively large extent, whether consciously or unconsciously, because it's financially lucrative for some important people who then of course provide support to politicians. Also, I don't see how that fact/opinion is at odds with anything else you said in your post.

[pp4me]

We've been at war with some country in the Middle East practically since 1990 when the first Bush was the commander in chief for Operation "Desert Storm".

That's 31 years. I don't know if anybody has added up the total $ in all that time. Fortunately, casualties have been way down since Vietnam or I doubt that the American people would have put up with it this long.

What in the hell do we have to show for it?

Have we been at least winning hearts and minds?

[yankees60]

We've been at war with some country in the Middle East practically since 1990 when the first Bush was the commander in chief for Operation "Desert Storm".

That's 31 years. I don't know if anybody has added up the total $ in all that time. Fortunately, casualties have been way down since Vietnam or I doubt that the American people would have put up with it this long.

What in the hell do we have to show for it?

Have we been at least winning hearts and minds?

During all that time since the Vietnam War...we've had a "professional" military and no draft. Therefore that considerably isolates the costs of these wars to a tiny percentage of the country. So while most of us are paying for them in $$$$ we are not paying for them in much worse ways. That makes it somewhat "out of sight..out of mind" for an overwhelming portion of the populace.

[flyingpylon]

We've been at war with some country in the Middle East practically since 1990 when the first Bush was the commander in chief for Operation "Desert Storm".

That's 31 years. I don't know if anybody has added up the total $ in all that time. Fortunately, casualties have been way down since Vietnam or I doubt that the American people would have put up with it this long.

What in the hell do we have to show for it?

Have we been at least winning hearts and minds?

One of the responses will be: we haven't had to fight them over here.

Not sure about that one, but it's usually mentioned.

[pp4me]

We've been at war with some country in the Middle East practically since 1990 when the first Bush was the commander in chief for Operation "Desert Storm".

That's 31 years. I don't know if anybody has added up the total $ in all that time. Fortunately, casualties have been way down since Vietnam or I doubt that the American people would have put up with it this long.

What in the hell do we have to show for it?

Have we been at least winning hearts and minds?

One of the responses will be: we haven't had to fight them over here.

Not sure about that one, but it's usually mentioned.

They said the exact same thing about Vietnam when I was in high school. Fortunately, the Vietnamese didn't think the same way we do after all but the 9/11 terrorists apparently did.

[SomeDude]

Look guys, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were very successful like some of the posters said. I mean, how many times since have a bunch of planes been hijacked by incompetent pilots with boxcutters and flown directly into the most heavily defended military nerve center of the most powerful country in history?

[Kbg]

You guys are WAY too cynical. I've never seen nor heard anyone ever say...hey, let's go make Northrup Grumman rich today nor anything remotely like it. (Though certainly these guys are happy to sell their wares and like any corporation are looking for "market opportunities.")

I'm sorry, I don't understand your point. In your years in the military, were you stationed in the back rooms of Congress? How would you have access to people who would be saying let's go make Northrup rich?

All I'm saying is that the people in the back rooms of Congress who are pushing for more war are doing it, at least to some relatively large extent, whether consciously or unconsciously, because it's financially lucrative for some important people who then of course provide support to politicians. Also, I don't see how that fact/opinion is at odds with anything else you said in your post.

Six years at the Pentagon, three of them as a more senior person...I understand the game and I laid out how it works in actuality. Defense contractors are happy to supply the materials...which I said. That's what they do. They don't start wars and they don't advocate they continue. If one did, I'm pretty sure said company would never do business in the US again. Whenever a war winds down there is a major scramble to re-posture or defend existing contracts, but again no one advocates for a war to continue except for the politicians (and indirectly as I noted with the military culture that doesn't like to admit defeat/quit).

[Kbg]

**@^!*!!!

Wrote a great reply to pug and lost it due to an accidental back arrow click...grrrr.

Maybe later.

[yankees60]

**@^!*!!!

Wrote a great reply to pug and lost it due to an accidental back arrow click...grrrr.

Maybe later.

Sorry to hear about that. Has also happened to me way too often. As a result when I'm writing anything of length I keep pausing every so often to send an email to myself what I've written so far. Gives me something to resurrect rather than having to start from scratch which is painful on too many levels.

[Xan]

**@^!*!!!

Wrote a great reply to pug and lost it due to an accidental back arrow click...grrrr.

Maybe later.

Sorry to hear about that. Has also happened to me way too often. As a result when I'm writing anything of length I keep pausing every so often to send an email to myself what I've written so far. Gives me something to resurrect rather than having to start from scratch which is painful on too many levels.

Why not just paste it into a text editor?

And, when there's an accidental back arrow, a right arrow should bring everything back. At least it does for me just now.

[yankees60]

**@^!*!!!

Wrote a great reply to pug and lost it due to an accidental back arrow click...grrrr.

Maybe later.

Sorry to hear about that. Has also happened to me way too often. As a result when I'm writing anything of length I keep pausing every so often to send an email to myself what I've written so far. Gives me something to resurrect rather than having to start from scratch which is painful on too many levels.

Why not just paste it into a text editor?

And, when there's an accidental back arrow, a right arrow should bring everything back. At least it does for me just now.

Because if my computer just freezes and it's not been saved...there it goes also. I always have my email program open so that is most convenient and effective for me.

[pp4me]

**@^!*!!!

Wrote a great reply to pug and lost it due to an accidental back arrow click...grrrr.

Maybe later.

Sorry to hear about that. Has also happened to me way too often. As a result when I'm writing anything of length I keep pausing every so often to send an email to myself what I've written so far. Gives me something to resurrect rather than having to start from scratch which is painful on too many levels.

Why not just paste it into a text editor?

And, when there's an accidental back arrow, a right arrow should bring everything back. At least it does for me just now.

You don't even have to paste it into a text editor. Just highlight and CTRL-C. Then if you lose it all you have to do is CTRL-V.

What I usually do if I'm going to post something of any length is do it in a text editor and then copy and paste it into the message. Solves the problem completely.

[Xan]

Because if my computer just freezes and it's not been saved...there it goes also.

I'm curious when was the last time it happened that your computer completely froze?

[pp4me]

Because if my computer just freezes and it's not been saved...there it goes also.

I'm curious when was the last time it happened that your computer completely froze?

Me too. Used to experience that a lot in the old days but it's happened maybe once in the last 10 years.

[flyingpylon]

In those situations I usually create my post in an online note taking app first (there are dozens). They auto-save every few seconds, so even in the event of an act of God I should be covered.

[yankees60]

Because if my computer just freezes and it's not been saved...there it goes also.

I'm curious when was the last time it happened that your computer completely froze?

Unfortunately several times a day.

I have four external drives connected to this computer. Oftentimes during the day...without me doing anything...their USB connections will be lost...then, again without be doing anything, their USB connections will be re-connected.

This happens frequently when I am using SyncBack and doing my many times a day backups to and from those external drives (plus the two drives in this computer).

That ends up with no programs working. Not being able get Task Manager to appear to end programs. Not being able to even get to "Power" to then choose "Shut Down".

Many times when I am able to get to "Shut Down" and click it nothing happens. Sometimes I'm watching it "shutting down" but it never does. At any of those various points I'll have to resort to holding the power button of the computer to force it to shut down.

I brought this issue to the person from whom I bought this computer (and several others).

Quite a bright person (Phd in biology who teaches biology at a college but extremely knowledgeable about all things computers). He seems to rebuild computers for sale as a hobby.

He pointed me to an article about making changes in the power management settings for USB's. He said one of the recent Windows updates had changed settings. That seemed to make sense since this problem of mine is fairly recent.

I thought for sure it would solve the problem. I followed all that the article said to do but to no avail.

So I put up with this annoyance.

He told me that the way computer parts pricing is now...now is not a good time to buy one. The next one I buy will be custom built by him according to my specifications.

Aside from the problem this computer with its 23" monitors connected to it meets all my needs.

[Kriegsspiel]

How long do the forumites give the Afghan "government?" I figured they would last half a year or so after we pulled out, but now I could see the Taliban back in control sooner.