Comments on: A Tale of Two Offensives, About the Same Offensive

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:14:54 +0000

Sending our troops in and not going after the Taliban and eliminating as much of the threat as possible sounds like a mistake. Our boys are going to be there in the small outposts they build and it won’t be long before the Taliban strategically targets them one by one. I fear this new, less aggresive strategy will cost more American lives than necessary for this operation.

By: Joshua Foust

Joshua Foust — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:09:50 +0000

Alan,

I am sorry for the confusion. I was referring to the attitude amongst many U.S. troops, not any sort of objective analysis of British contributions and sacrifices to the overall effort.

By: Alan

Alan — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:04:04 +0000

I dont like the expression “British Mucking things up and the Marines having to fix it..” We British are having men and women killed and injured almost daily in Afghanestand and we are fighting alonside our American Counsins.

You seem to have forgotten – after 9/11 it was Britain who sent combat troops to Afghanestine and Iraq – you were attacked and we supported you. What did our so called NATO allies do? Unlike Britain they forgot that an attack on one members is an attack on us all.

By: tequila

tequila — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:11:27 +0000

Good God, I wish I was with them.

By: BruceR

BruceR — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:09:35 +0000

Not sure the Canadian experience is comparable. They have always been focussed on the rural population. What’s been happening now is they’ve been trading unmanageable isolated posts, farther from the city, to concentrate more resources on currently more peaceful areas closer to the city. It’s more like a fire-break strategy: to keep the fire from the city you first have to get out in front of it, etc.

It’s a shame for those farther from the city we thought we could protect and now can’t, but I’m not sure we had much in the way of an alternative. Population-wise in Kandahar Province, the city is the whole ballgame, with the density gradient fanning out from it: farther away means fewer people. It follows that, whether you’re trying to inkblot or not, you simply have to reestablish dominance in the “suburbs” to it before you can safely re-dedicate resources to those less-populated regions farther away. Helmand, with multiple medium-sized population centres as opposed to one large one, is a different game in that respect.

By: Nathan

Nathan — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:31:47 +0000

I am hard pressed to find out what was so unsupportive in this post.

By: Joshua Foust

Joshua Foust — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:37:37 +0000

Pardon me? Did it suddenly become 2002 again?

By: Kathleen Cook

Kathleen Cook — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:34:43 +0000

I am the mother of one of those 20 yr. old Marines, and you could sound a bit more supportive of our guys over there, don’t you think? Are you an American? Or are you a transplant????????