Three Army Rangers Killed in Afghanistan in "Insider Attack".....

Three US soldiers were killed and one wounded in Afghanistan Saturday, reportedly when a member of the Afghan army opened fire on them. The Afghan soldier was killed "in return fire," Attahullah Khogyani, a spokesman for the provincial governor in Nangarhar province, said.

The Taliban has claimed responsibility, saying a Taliban loyalist infiltrated Afghan forces "just to attack foreign forces."

Achin, where the attack took place, is close to the Pakistan border and is an Islamic State stronghold. According to the Military Times:

Members of the Army's 75th Ranger Regiment and 7th Special Forces Group have been operating in Achin, which has become the scene of worsening violence as U.S. special forces and elite Afghan commandos intensify their efforts to take out ISIS loyalists there, a group known as ISIS Khorasan or ISIS-K. Three other American soldiers have died there so far this year, including two Army Rangers reportedly gunned down in an friendly fire mishap.....snip~

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/jenni...led-in-afghanistan-in-insider-attack-n2339400

3 of my bruthas killed and one wounded. This Afghani mope was training with them. Here is an idea.....quit training others with our Best of the Best. Ya want to train them. Put them thru basic and AIT. But do not train others with our SF, Rangers, or Navy Seals, dammit.

Sua Sponte my bruthas.

 

I find it ridiculous our govt. hasn't rescinded that ridiculous policy after all these years of it being worthless. Enough with trying to do social engineering among savages, particularly Muslim savages.

 

Yeah.....lets stop any and all training with our elite forces. Also, with the Marines. Let others around the world learn to War on their own.

 

The US went into Afghanistan 15 years ago to 'train' them. WTF didn't you simply train a bunch of Afghan soldiers to become trainers then you could have got out in a few weeks instead of staying for 15 effing years, and the Talibs have been running rings around the US military all this time.

 

Pakistan provides them with safe havens to operate from, which is why our policy is never going to go anywhere. Iran does, too.

 

Yeah, and it don't take 15 years to get them thru Basic and AIT. Trump does need to change that BO peep ROE about waiting until they fire on us.

 

Ah yes. Obama's famous rule to put soldiers in more danger. Trump does need to change that. This ROE nightmare is something I held against Obama, and I will also hold it against Trump. This needs to be changed.

 

Yea it's a geographical nightmare for operations.

 

The US can't fix Afghanistan, and it should stop trying


http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/t...tan-and-it-should-stop-trying/article/2624827


The difficult but plain truth is that no amount of U.S. military intervention can impose an exterior stability on Afghanistan.



Months have passed since we first heard the Trump administration is considering a new surge of United States forces in Afghanistan, and if the president is any closer to a decision than he was in February, mark that down as the one secret the White House has yet to leak to the press.

Trump's unpredictability makes it impossible to define what this delay might mean, but perhaps the wait can offer opportunity for more prudent and realistic counsel to prevail. Sending more U.S. soldiers to Afghanistan cannot and will not produce anything resembling a win—it will only protract the failed status quo of the country's longest war.

The surge proposal is lousy with the sort of familiarity that should breed contempt, because it is a reiteration of debates we've had at least four times before. Whether it's sending the oft-cited 5,000 or an ambitious 50,000 new troops, the basic logic is that more boots on the ground will serve to shore up an increasingly messy situation.

As Brookings' Michael O'Hanlon writes at USA Today in a representative argument for escalation, if "we want a robust eastern pillar in our broader counterterrorism network to take on foes ranging from the Taliban to al Qaeda to ISIS, an increase of several thousand U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan has a sound logic behind it."

Sure, O'Hanlon concedes, this is likely to further guarantee permanent U.S. occupation, with U.S. forces serving as Afghanistan's surrogate military forever. But in his telling, the 15 years of U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan since 2002—bought at a price of tens of thousands of U.S. and Afghan casualties, trillions of U.S. tax dollars, and a shambolic nation-building debacle—was just too passive, too half-hearted. These 5,000 more troops will finally do the trick.

Except, of course, they won't, and the "passivity" narrative of post-Sept. 11 foreign policy is so absurd it'd grow Pinocchio a skyscraper.


The first point, the suggestion that a surge is all we need to build a "robust eastern pillar in our broader counterterrorism network," easily breaks down under scrutiny. At the height of the intervention, there were 140,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan. This was in 2011, and about 100,000 of that number were American.

Six years later, Afghanistan remains in utter turmoil. Basic institutions of civil society are nonfunctional. Corruption and insecurity are rampant, and it is no surprise the Afghan refugee crisis continues. The Taliban controls at least 40 percent of the country—and that's the conservative estimate. Some analysts suggest it's more like 90 percent, excluding cities. Adjusted for inflation, the U.S. has spent more on Afghanistan than the Marshall Plan which re-built Europe, and we've fought there for four times as long as U.S. combat participation in World War II.

The results of that investment are dismal.

In the context of this recent history, the surge case unravels.

What can 5,000 troops possibly accomplish that 100,000 could not? What will be different this time? What positive outcome is remotely plausible?

Wishing that a new surge will produce peace or even basic stability is not enough to make it so, and it certainly isn't enough to justify sending more Americans into harm's way. (The price, by the way, of maintaining a single U.S. soldier in Afghanistan for a year is nearly $4 million. Even if a strategic case for escalation could somehow be mustered, the cost alone would require serious justification.)

The second point—that the flaw in recent U.S. foreign policy is inactivity—is almost too bizarre to countenance, and yet it is a favorite theme of the bipartisan foreign policy establishment. Unfortunately, this imaginative assessment seems to be persuasive to Trump, whose nascent foreign policy mainly consists of doing the same thing as his predecessors, only more. If he maintains that streak in Afghanistan, some surge seems likely to garner his blessing.

That would be a grave mistake. There is no reason to believe this escalation will make any security gains for the U.S. or even for the Afghan people. (It is telling no one bothers to argue a surge will make the U.S. safer, because the American public long ago realized occupying Afghanistan does not protect us.)

There is no definition of success, let alone a chance it will lead to victory, and it will not end the chaotic status quo.

The difficult but plain truth is that no amount of U.S. military intervention can impose an exterior stability on Afghanistan, however much Washington denies this fact. It is futile and dangerous to continue to try.





Please note that the source is a CONSERVATIVE newspaper.

 

Yes.....this would be something to hold on Trump if he doesn't change it up. Moreover.....we still haven't learned to decimate the enemy. All to caught up with the PC world and worrying about how the media will show the Taliban's women and children as victims.

 

At this point, I'm inclined to agree with you. The main part of the Taliban that controlled Afghanistan in 2001 was destroyed in months. What's left over are tiny pockets.

 

The war will continue so long as there is a profit to be made by the military industrial complex. Sadly, unpatriotic elements in our society applaud this treasonous profiteering at taxpayer expense.

 

Well I'm not going to jump completely into the conspiracy theory universe but I see your point. This should be the middle east's problem now. We should pull out and focus on ourselves.

 

My recollections are that apart from the occasional air strike, most of which seemed to kill civilians (but then who would know who were civilians and who were Talibs ) the US and UK military spent all their times patrolling - but don't ask me 'Patrolling for what?' because I don't think anybody knows - and either coming under ambush fire, or being maimed and killed by IEDs.

 

Reminds me of the 'lions led by donkeys' aphorism?

 

More than likely making sure those Opium fields aren't destroyed. Got to keep those Chinese mellowed out. KnowwhatImean.

 

Depends on your MOS and what your unit's mission is.

 

But simply 'patrolling' is doing nothing except exposing themselves to the enemy? If your high command don't get that logic then no wonder there were so many casualties!

 

Patrolling draws out the enemy. 9.9 times out of 10 we have more firepower than them. If you have trouble grasping that, then we can't help you.

 

I do have trouble grasping it because the element of surprise gives all the advantages to the Taliban. Indeed I think you'll find that particular precept in the ROE (I'm surprised you need a civilian like me to inform you of it?), so I say again - no wonder you lost the Afghan war??

 

We aren't at war with Afghanistan. I'm not sure why you think that. Also, the Taliban ran Afghanistan prior to 2001. In just weeks they were decimated and forced to live in caves in the mountains. Now, they are just pockets of tiny cells spread out. The damage is done. In no way did we "lose" anything. We killed so much more of them. We took their country from them that they had control of. We stole their capital in days, and we drove THEM into hiding.

Game over, time to move on.

And back to your notion that patrolling is stupid, it's US that catches the enemy off guard when we patrol. They never know when we'll be there. It's never the same time. They HATE when we patrol

 

What, you mean you've been playing war games with the Taliban for the last 16 years then? Effing hell, with your thoughts on patrolling aka intentionally exposing yourselves to the other side 'to bring them out' (and it sure does that?), and your perception of being buddies with the enemy (and at the risk of repeating myself once more!), no wonder you're losing the pretend war. Does your Pentagon know about all this?

PS. They're not forced to 'live in caves in the mountains', they choose to. 'They HATE when we patrol' You sure are some character, ArmySoldier. Oh, and one more thing - you haven't 'stolen their capital', they still live there as is proved by the almost daily explosions.

 

Thank goodness you didn't have the stomach to enlist. Patrols would have made you **** your pants. Nothing better than walking into a village and catching them with their towels down before they can pick up an AK.

 

Where are the daily explosions in the capital? Are they done by the hundreds of thousands of people that live there, or 1 or 2 that die in the explosion? Cite these sources that the Taliban runs the capital.

According to England, that ended in 2001.

 

There have been a few explosions mainly aimed at the Afghan military and militia in well-defended secure areas, so who would be doing that if not the Taliban? Watch Bitter Lake and note how smart they are, then you'll see where I'm coming from.