Marines, NATO troops, and Afghan soldiers launch major offensive in Afghanistan

[Mezlo]

U.S., Afghan and NATO Forces Begin Offensive Against Taliban - Afghanistan | Map | War - FOXNews.com

Let's go troops!!!

[Malacite]

Re: Marines, NATO troops, and Afghan soldiers launch major offensive in Afghanistan

Yeah and sadly they killed 12 Civilians by accident in an attack this morning...



BUT! They say this is the biggest major offensive since the start of the war and while I personally oppose both wars, I have nothing but respect & support for the men & women in uniform.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Marines, NATO troops, and Afghan soldiers launch major offensive in Afghanistan

Kinda sad it took this long to get the offensive started, now the Taliban have been given time to threaten and terrorize more people within Afghanistan's boarders. They practically have this town held hostage and the offensive's attention now has to be divided between fighting landmines, bombs and the Taliban.

It probably would have been like that anyway, given the nature of the threat being dealt with, but there was a lot more time to get more troops out there for the American side of this operation and Obama just wouldn't budge on it for several months , so now the offensive is months behind and only going to sweep up a handful of Taliban in a painstaking fashion.

My problem is that the prior inaction and indecision it's going to cost the lives of more troops and innocents than it probably should have.

[ShepardG]

Re: Marines, NATO troops, and Afghan soldiers launch major offensive in Afghanistan

Lmao


/sigh

Me and my team (4 of us alltogether) pushed into the helmand province back in Feburary of '09. We went with the 4|2 Britt Commando's, as thier Counter IED team. We (Meaning the brits and us, as none of us had any kills that op) killed 112 Taliban, Disposed of some ridiculus ammount of Explosives, and only had like 11 injured. We had the area we pushed into secured within 20hrs. hung out for 2 more days, pushing further into the villages/outskirts of the main city. And then we left. Just up and left, and I imagine all the bad guys came right back in.

That has been the main problem with the 9 years we've been in afghanistan, we never cared about it (san's Bin Laden) and now it's biting us in the ass. This op is to setup and control the area, hopefully, instead of just harassing the bad guys and killing a few of them.

I hope anyway.

[Malacite]

Re: Marines, NATO troops, and Afghan soldiers launch major offensive in Afghanistan

More importantly, the end goal is to equip the Afghans to deal with their own mess isn't it? Right now the U.S. is lockstep with Britain in their fall from glory. Like many others, I believe the U.S. won't return to it's prior top-dog status, but unlike Britain it won't completely come down from power either; For better or worse the U.S. is a necessary super power in the way things are structured right now. It will simply wind up with a little less influence than it previously had.

IMO this would have happened either way with or without the wars, but Bush certainly helped speed things along the dolt. The U.S. just can not maintain it's effort of trying to police the world which is a shame because someone sure as hell needs to... though it really ought to be a more shared operation.