Afghan insurgents blow themselves up planting IED

[Fitz]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-zOQjX5vy0

I'd like to point out that, on multiple occasions in that vid, the pilots decline to engage because of the presence of the kid, even though later it appears the kid is assisting the bad guys.

Then at the end, I lol'd a bit at "Never mind... they blew themselves up"

[TommyGunn]

Ain't karma a b!tch...............

[tokugawa]

What a waste.  Someday, in the future, our Afghan adventure will be held, rotated, examined with special measuring apparatus, and declared to be the apex of idiocy, a blunder so great as to set the standard for foolishness for all time. With the luck of fools, hopefully we will not have a replay of 1842.

[HankB]

. . . I'd like to point out that, on multiple occasions in that vid, the pilots decline to engage because of the presence of the kid, even though later it appears the kid is assisting the bad guys.

Excellent outcome.

(Good thing the bad guys don't have Internet - otherwise they might see this video and ALWAYS bring along a kid in the future when planting a bomb.)

[Poper]

"Never mind... they blew themselves up"

Oopsie Daisy.

Poper

[Scout26]

Always cut the green wire last. 

[wmenorr67]

Seen my share of videos from both Iraq and the Stan where the bad guys do it to themselves.  Actually had the pleasure a time or two to see it in real time as it was happening.

[agricola]

What a waste.  Someday, in the future, our Afghan adventure will be held, rotated, examined with special measuring apparatus, and declared to be the apex of idiocy, a blunder so great as to set the standard for foolishness for all time. With the luck of fools, hopefully we will not have a replay of 1842.

Afghanistan 2001 will always be the Return of the Jedi to Iraq 2003's Empire Strikes Back.

It is very sporting of the terrorist to blow themselves up though.

[TommyGunn]

What a waste.  Someday, in the future, our Afghan adventure will be held, rotated, examined with special measuring apparatus, and declared to be the apex of idiocy, a blunder so great as to set the standard for foolishness for all time. With the luck of fools, hopefully we will not have a replay of 1842.

What would you have done to A'stand after Al Qaeda murdered 2,973 human beings on September 11th, 2001?
Sent them a nastygram?

[Ron]

Bush actually had that one right. Small footprint no nation building.

Obama managed to f' up the one thing I was hopeful of with him in charge, disengaging from the warmaking in the middle east.

Almost seems like it doesn't matter who is in office or what party they're members of 

[Phyphor]

Afghanistan 2001 will always be the Return of the Jedi to Iraq 2003's Empire Strikes Back.

It is very sporting of the terrorist to blow themselves up though.

And quite economical.  Saves us the missiles and cannon shells.

[tokugawa]

What would you have done to A'stand after Al Qaeda murdered 2,973 human beings on September 11th, 2001?
Sent them a nastygram?

exactly what we did do- and less-  send in some SF types to coordinate a devastating air campaign with the Northern Alliance, break the back of the bastards. and leave.

 Admittedly, we are doing it in a high tech way, but we are still fighting the way our enemy  fights best.
 
 The fact that not killing the kid assisting the guys planting a bomb  was even a consideration is telling.
 
 This war has no goal, no chance of success, if anyone can even come up with what constitutes a metric for success, and has made an enormous commitment of resources in an strategically  worthless place.
 
 Don't get me wrong, I am no anti-military type- it is just that the war our politicians have told them to fight is stupid beyond belief- it makes our *expletive deleted*ck up in Nam look like a well reasoned enterprise.
 
 

[Blakenzy]

While they blow themselves up, we shoot ourselves in the head... on the "good guy" side, more troops are lost to suicide than to enemy action.

No winners I can see. Yay war!?

[De Selby]

exactly what we did do- and less-  send in some SF types to coordinate a devastating air campaign with the Northern Alliance, break the back of the bastards. and leave.

 Admittedly, we are doing it in a high tech way, but we are still fighting the way our enemy  fights best.
 
 The fact that not killing the kid assisting the guys planting a bomb  was even a consideration is telling.
 
 This war has no goal, no chance of success, if anyone can even come up with what constitutes a metric for success, and has made an enormous commitment of resources in an strategically  worthless place.
 
 Don't get me wrong, I am no anti-military type- it is just that the war our politicians have told them to fight is stupid beyond belief- it makes our *expletive deleted* up in Nam look like a well reasoned enterprise.
 
 

Afghanistan is of tremendous strategic value - if you're worried about Russian and Chinese influence on the world economy.   Its value has very little to do with terrorism.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

While they blow themselves up, we shoot ourselves in the head... on the "good guy" side, more troops are lost to suicide than to enemy action.

No winners I can see. Yay war!?

at the end of vietnam we lost more to overdose and car accident than combat.  and lots of overdoses are really suicides

[TommyGunn]

exactly what we did do- and less-  send in some SF types to coordinate a devastating air campaign with the Northern Alliance, break the back of the bastards. and leave.

 Admittedly, we are doing it in a high tech way, but we are still fighting the way our enemy  fights best.
 
 The fact that not killing the kid assisting the guys planting a bomb  was even a consideration is telling.
 
 This war has no goal, no chance of success, if anyone can even come up with what constitutes a metric for success, and has made an enormous commitment of resources in an strategically  worthless place.
 
 Don't get me wrong, I am no anti-military type- it is just that the war our politicians have told them to fight is stupid beyond belief- it makes our *expletive deleted* up in Nam look like a well reasoned enterprise.
 

Good answer.
It is easy to misunderstand your post from the way it was written -- atleast it was for me.
It is easy to get caught up in the idea of "nation building" when one thinks that just blowing things up will leave a vacuum and that will be filled by more "bad guys."  However we've been there a whole decades and spent billions of dollars and Kharzai (sp?) is still a corrupt thug and the real bad guys are hiding in NW Pakistan, with us seemingly unwilling to hunt them down en mass....really, we're reduced to whacking them with an occasional Predator strike.
Should have leveled the field in 2001-02 but good and left. 
I think we're on the same page.

[TommyGunn]

Afghanistan is of tremendous strategic value - if you're worried about Russian and Chinese influence on the world economy.   Its value has very little to do with terrorism.

Well...yea I s'pose....save for the Taliban having harbored Al Qaeda there. 

That's sorta like saying Germany had nothing to do with Nazis ....except that's where they started from in 1933.
DeSelby, you certainly have a unique view of the world, I'll give you that.

[Fitz]

You can thank Bradley Manning And WikiLeaks for pilots reluctance to kill bad guys

[Blakenzy]

The guys in the Wikileaks video weren't killing bad guys.

[Fitz]

The guys in the Wikileaks video weren't killing bad guys.

In both cases, prior to engagement, the targets were simply shapes of people holding shapes of things

[tokugawa]

Afghanistan is of tremendous strategic value - if you're worried about Russian and Chinese influence on the world economy.   Its value has very little to do with terrorism.

  Yes, I am quite sure our involvement in Afghanistan is of major strategic  value- for the Russians and Chinese.  Anything that pulls the US away from the Gulf, the Med, and the Pacific has to have them all warm and fuzzy feeling.

[De Selby]

Well...yea I s'pose....save for the Taliban having harbored Al Qaeda there. 

That's sorta like saying Germany had nothing to do with Nazis ....except that's where they started from in 1933.
DeSelby, you certainly have a unique view of the world, I'll give you that.

Yeah, because the two are so comparable - terrorism explains why we attacked and destroyed the al Qaeda network in 2001. 

It does not explain why we are still there in 2013.  Look at a map of us base building/troop stationing and it's fairly obvious where Afghanistan fits in.

[TommyGunn]

Yeah, because the two are so comparable - terrorism explains why we attacked and destroyed the al Qaeda network in 2001. 

It does not explain why we are still there in 2013.  Look at a map of us base building/troop stationing and it's fairly obvious where Afghanistan fits in.

So THAT'S where they make those black helicopters.........

[agricola]

Afghanistan is of tremendous strategic value - if you're worried about Russian and Chinese influence on the world economy.   Its value has very little to do with terrorism.

That is how many very senior people throughout history have come to justify their actions in Afghanistan, but its not necessarily true.  Certainly the strategic usefulness of the country is considerably - if not totally - offset by the costs of having to try and occupy it, unless you just do what Alexander did and kill / marry everyone you can find. 

[De Selby]

That is how many very senior people throughout history have come to justify their actions in Afghanistan, but its not necessarily true.  Certainly the strategic usefulness of the country is considerably - if not totally - offset by the costs of having to try and occupy it, unless you just do what Alexander did and kill / marry everyone you can find. 

True - there's always someone (Britain Russia US) who sees it as achievable.

Tommy, observing geopolitics at work is not a conspiracy theory.