A 3-Star General Explains 'Why We Lost' in Iraq, Afghanistan
http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/26877-a-3-star-general-explains-why-we-lost-in-iraq-afghanistanOn his earliest hints that the operations might not be successful
What I saw almost immediately was trouble figuring out who the enemy was. We knew within a day or two of the 9/11 attacks that it was al-Qaida, a terrorist network that had a headquarters element, if you would call it that, or a chairman of the board in Osama Bin Laden. And they were operating out of Afghanistan.
But that's not who we ended up fighting most of the time. Sure, we went after al-Qaida at times. But we ended up fighting the Taliban, which were Pashtun people in Afghanistan who were trying to run that country. We evicted them in 2001. And we ended up fighting Sunni Arab insurgents in Iraq, who again — although they might make common cause with al-Qaida — those weren't the guys who attacked us on 9/11.
On the lack of advance information about enemies on the ground
One of the things that we often say in the military is you have to fight for information, or fight for intelligence. So as we developed this picture and it became obvious that we were fighting an insurgent enemy mixed into a civil population that was suspicious of us anyway as outsiders (and that was true in both Afghanistan and Iraq), it really brought up the second point, which is what is the U.S. Military trained to do? And the U.S. Military is trained to carry out short and decisive conventional operations against a uniformed [enemy in formations].
So if you want us to go in and do something along the lines of 1991 Desert Storm, where we go against armored divisions and air force squadrons of the Iraqi forces and destroy them and capture the remainder, that's what we're trained to do. It's very, very difficult to take even the great troops that we have and send them into a village to try and sort out which of the males there ... might be insurgents, [or] who might be just people living in the area, [or] who might potentially be government supporters, when you don't speak the language and you really don't understand what's going on in that village very well.
= new reply since forum marked as read
same fucked up results. 
But, let's have more of them. Plutocrats do great, usually on power as well as money, and lower population is good for the environment. Win win.
foundered: not Rachel Carson, not Rosenhan, not Judi Chamberlain, not the yawns that began greeting Apollo 14 despite all the banner-waving that this, THIS was the most important event in history EVA
Dow and Monsanto sent their finest chemicals, bleeding-edge aircraft from the aero"space" sector loaded with the latest microchips, radar, and infrared sensors unleashed more explosives than WWII saw from Shanghai to Nagasaki, the PR industry sent their most proven and successful Lansdales, Phoenix murdered tens of thousands of admitted noncombatants to "drain the swamp," the liberals sent their literal best and brightest to run the thing, scientists and SF authors argued night and day over its rightness
and none of it worked: from Wilmington to Long Island, South SF Bay to Cambridge, NorVa to DFW to the Space Coast, the whitecoats and white-collars were faced with two creeping realizations: one, that no matter how liberal and enlightened they thought themselves, they were behind the carnage their families saw in their ranchettes' groovy Edward Scissorhands/Mad Men living rooms once they arrived home at 5:30, and, two, that the carnage wasn't working: war is a terrific incubator for science and technology (and the scientists denying that 40 years later are actually being culpably naive)--and yet with R&D going as fast as it was during WWII (when science "won the war"
and the VC simply. didn't. stop
No doubt with the same results.
In modern times, World Wars I and II, the wars to end all wars, were begun under Democratic Presidents. So were the Korean "Police Action" and the Vietnam "Era" -- begun without Congressional votes, as required by the Constitution or any admission to US citizens that their nation was indeed at war. Again. So soon.
Tracing when the Vietnam "Era" began is a little tricky because we started only with money. And it was known to us as the Indochina War before it was the Vietnam Era. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War
Many Republicans in the general public and in elected offices were "isolationists.: But not President Eisenhower. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower
Supposedly, both of the largest two political parties offered Eisenhower the opportunity to run as its Presidential nominee, but he chose Republican. I have no idea if that bit is true. It could be that the combination of the horrors of WWII and Eisenhower's President marked the end of Republican isolationism, but that is pure speculation on my part. And, of course, genial Ike presided over some conflicts himself, including an invasion of Lebanon. (I believe "guns and butter" became a slogan during the Eisenhower years, meaning you could have both wars and domestic prosperity.)
JFK escalated the "Vietnam Era." By this time, the ideas of undeclared wars and unjust wars was becoming widespread in the US.
When the anti-war movement of the 1960s protested LBJ, only to end up with Nixon, a lot of the wind went out of the sails of protestors, who were or, at least were perceived as predominantly the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. And, at that time, many protestors were getting that not only was resistance futile, but it was self-defeating. The appeal of LOTE voting hit them between the eyes.
Then came Kent State, which also cut back war protests. Nixon could have started a war (or a "war on terror" over the Munich massacre of 1972, but did not. Guess he was too busy with other wars, or maybe the idea of a war on terror just did not occur to him and Henry.)
We can debate if abolition of the draft under Nixon in 1973 was an accomplishment of protestors, neocons or both. However, whoever was responsible, that, too, made war much smoother to slide in and out of.
Say what you will about Carter, but he could have started a war over the Iran hostages. He didn't and was labeled weak, among other things. Maybe a combination of the anti-war protests, associated with liberals, and Carter gave rise to the idea that Democrats were the anti-war party?
In any event, Carter was a one term President, followed by 12 years of Republicans, with Desert Storm being the biggest war that came to American attention--maybe a bit with Grenada.
Somehow and for some reason, Hollywood managed to pin our involvement in Afghanistan on a dicey Democratic Congressman in Charlie Wilson's War but I am calling bs on that. It was Ronnie and Poppy.
Poppy, like Eisenhower before him, also invaded Lebanon. Despite aid from the US that Osama Bin Laden had benefited from during Afghanistan's war against the Soviets, Osama Bin Laden once claimed that Bush's invasion of Lebanon led him (Osama) to resolve to attack the US, as he watched the blood of Lebanese children running in the streets.
Clinton was involved in trying to hunt down Bin Laden and fight an undeclared war on terror, including extraordinary rendition, but we weren't thinking in those terms then. And, Clinton, like Nixon, may have been distracted.
And then, of course, came the bipartisan war on terror, fought by Dimson and Obama so far--and probably every President to come after them.
Of course, there have been other conflicts throughout the entire period described above that never got labeled as wars, even as faux wars, that I may not have mentioned.
Anyway, I can't really tell which of the two largest political parties is the party of war. Maybe, it's just whichever party happens to be in office at the moment. 
And, Obama in his after Mid-Term Presser sneaked in "I don't foresee military action in Iran" at the end of an answer to reporter about the status of the Iran Nuke Agreement negotiations.
He wasn't asked in the reporter's question about "military action" in Iran if an agreement couldn't be reached... yet, he chose to bring it into his answer meaning that it isn't off the table...he just doesn't "forsee it" at this point.
