An Unpatriotic Question? What is Victory in Afghanistan?

[Big Frank]

I think the art of war is required reading for officers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_War

[deepwater]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_9th_Company

this is a good movie about the Ruskies in Afghanistan. watched it recently with my first engineer, (he's from Poland) and was impressed by the Soviet propaganda machine. not bad for a bunch of commies. (the first engineer left communist Poland and sought political asylum anywhere in the world, and ended up in the USA.) anyway, interesting movie, subtitled and dubbed in English.


deepwater

[tombogan03884]

Sun Tsu's "The art of War"  is required reading For Marine's Staff Sgt and above, Just like Rommel's "Infantry Attack's" and Giap's "How we won the war".
Does not mean you can make them understand it though .
If they did Giap would not have won his war.

Here's the list, it goes by rank.
Some surprising titles in there, like "Starship Troopers"

http://home.comcast.net/~antaylor1/usmccommandant.html

Rat Catcher, ever since the Palistinians accepted his money then screwed him on the investments they promised him, regardless of what he says for the masses , he has closed all the terrorist training camps and has been burying us with intel.
He is a much better ally than the Saudi's, Yemeni's, or Pakistani's.
I will take this chance to point out that the Taliban are in fact a creation of the Paki ISI.

[fightingquaker13]

Sun Tsu's "The art of War"  is required reading For Marine's Staff Sgt and above, Just like Rommel's "Infantry Attack's" and Giap's "How we won the war".
Does not mean you can make them understand it though .
If they did Giap would not have won his war.

Gee, you think we might have thought twice about building the base at Khe Sahn if we'd ever heard abut a pre-historic battle fought far away at a place called Dien Bien Phu? You have to wonder whether Giap was laughing or just rolling his eyes and shaking his head. Of course, the same could be said for the Taliban today.
FQ13

[tombogan03884]

Gee, you think we might have thought twice about building the base at Khe Sahn if we'd ever heard abut a pre-historic battle fought far away at a place called Dien Bien Phu? You have to wonder whether Giap was laughing or just rolling his eyes and shaking his head. Of course, the same could be said for the Taliban today.
FQ13

FQ, They were very aware of DBP, . They knew exactly what they were doing when they staged the build up at Khe San, that is why they made "little changes" like putting the base on a hill instead of on the floor of the valley, minor enough to be overlooked by the NVA command, but important enough to change the out come of the battle.
 It was a trap for the NVA they bit and suffered humongous losses.

[Sponsor]

[fightingquaker13]

FQ, They were very aware of DBP, . They knew exactly what they were doing when they staged the build up at Khe San, that is why they made "little changes" like putting the base on a hill instead of on the floor of the valley, minor enough to be overlooked by the NVA command, but important enough to change the out come of the battle.
 It was a trap for the NVA they bit and suffered humongous losses.

Just like every battle Tom. 10 or 20 to one body count and Giap called them a win. He was right too.
FQ13

[tombogan03884]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khe_Sanh

US casualties                                                        
730 killed in action                                                
2,642 wounded,
7 missing

South VietnamARVN:
229 killed
436 wounded

Total: 4,044 casualties
(959 killed, 3,078 wounded, 7 missing)

NVA Casualties
Unknown; At least 1,600 killed according to US sources, total casualties estimated between 10,000 and 15,000[

[Fox_Hound]

I don't think that I lack any understanding on the subject. Maybe I just wasn't explicit enough.

Just because I said that they would "hurt us again" doesn't mean that I was referring to the attack on the WTC.

The difference between Al Queda and Taliban don't really matter to me. Yes, they are from different places. I have a good grasp on geography.

They both will take American lives given any opportunity, so in my perspective they are on the same side of the fence.

The one point I wished to communicate is that we have come this far. If we leave now (and I mean on any front that we fight these enemies), I feel that the soldier's that have given their all for this cause will have died in vain.

The obvious problem is the administration we have in place.   

[tombogan03884]

I don't think that I lack any understanding on the subject. Maybe I just wasn't explicit enough.

Just because I said that they would "hurt us again" doesn't mean that I was referring to the attack on the WTC.

The difference between Al Queda and Taliban don't really matter to me. Yes, they are from different places. I have a good grasp on geography.

They both will take American lives given any opportunity, so in my perspective they are on the same side of the fence.

The one point I wished to communicate is that we have come this far. If we leave now (and I mean on any front that we fight these enemies), I feel that the soldier's that have given their all for this cause will have died in vain.

The obvious problem is the administration we have in place.  

So how many more lives do you think we should waste to compensate for a total lack of coherent objective ?

[fightingquaker13]

Exactly. If I were to die because my CO made an error, would I really want one of my buddies to die bringing my body back home? If I were wounded, yeah, I'd appreciate the effort. If I'm dead, go home to your family and leave me be.
FQ13