Afghanistan

DrewADesign 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Would you consider the US military presence in Afghanistan comparable to it's presence in the US? How about knowledge of the landscape, ability to understand local cultures, having local contacts, having working transportation routes, resources in place, and the fact that none of the people fighting back are going to be backed by foreign governments? These two scenarios are incomparable.

	▲	anigbrowl 9 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		They're absolutely comparable, notwithstanding their being different. One could just as well argue that it was a lot easier for the military to do drone strikes or call in CAS on the Taliban with zero risk of political blowback. You remind me of someone who was seriously arguing with me in 2004, telling me the Iraq war would not turn into a quagmire because Iraq was arid desert whereas Vietnam was semi-tropical and forested.
	▲	I-M-S 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		True, but it goes the other way around as well - the Taliban had absolutely no way to infiltrate the ranks and do damage to the military operations from within.

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qcnguy 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The Taliban lost immediately and was suppressed indefinitely until the US decided to leave. It's a good demonstration of how well the US military can suppress even decentralized and suicidally fanatical movements for as long as it wants.

	▲	anigbrowl 6 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Suppressing them didn't cause them to stop fighting, though. In every guerrilla war the conventional army is nominally in charge, and generally never loses any sort of pitched battle. The whole military theory of guerilla warfare is to avoid shootouts in favor of hitting the enemy and running away.