Rules of Engagement (ROE) CHANGED...Hurray!!!

[Old Rocks]

And remember THESE are the people that think they know better then the battlefield commanders!

Goddamn, you just get increasingly stupid with every post. Here is the fellow that knows more than the generals.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

ROE from Obama...
"Patrol only in areas that you are reasonably certain that you will not have to defend yourselves with lethal force."

Watching President Trump speech moments ago and during it he mentioned that the "Rules of Engagement" have changed since he became President.

During the Obama administration, the military had to follow standards set by the president in 2013 to carry out airstrikes or ground raids in countries like Somalia, where the United States was not officially at war. Those rules required that a target had to pose a threat to Americans and that there be near certainty that no civilian bystanders would die. Under the Trump administration’s new rules, some civilian deaths are now permitted in much of Somalia and parts of Yemen if regional American commanders deemed the military action necessary and proportionate.
The Obama administration process frustrated many in the military.

Now for a perfect example of one of the many many onerous ROEs...
A laminated card with the following text was distributed to all U.S. Army and Marine personnel in Iraq.
Policies about limiting civilian casualties have soldiers complaining they can't effectively fight;
one showed author Michael Hastings a card with regulations including:
"Patrol only in areas that you are reasonably certain that you will not have to defend yourselves with lethal force."
For a soldier who has traveled halfway around the world to fight, that’s like telling a cop he should only patrol in areas where he knows he won’t have to make arrests.
“Does that make any f–king sense?” Pfc. Jared Pautsch.
In Afghanistan, a New General -- But An Old Strategy

Every Bodybag Should Be Stamped MADE IN GENEVA

ROEs are the deadliest regulations of all. There are no non-combatants in a combat zone. Populists must force the regulators' sons to pay for this on the battlefield.

 

[Old Rocks]

So this doesn't happen again.

Except that there are w hole lot of better places for ISIS or Al Qaeda to set up shop than Afghanistan to plot the next attrocity. Yemen, Libya and Syria come to mind, as well as Iraq. Places that are closer to where they live and they can recruit local talent because they speak the same language.

Hey, if you guys were serious about keeping that from happening again- How about changing our dumb-ass Zionist policies that make them angry.

Because there are a BILLION of them and only 300 million of us.

Muslims are not rational people you son of a bitch.

Yes, you and they have much in common. But they live in that nation, and we are the occupying intruder in that nation. That has not worked out for anyone that has tried it.

 

[Old Rocks]

ROE from Obama...
"Patrol only in areas that you are reasonably certain that you will not have to defend yourselves with lethal force."

Watching President Trump speech moments ago and during it he mentioned that the "Rules of Engagement" have changed since he became President.

During the Obama administration, the military had to follow standards set by the president in 2013 to carry out airstrikes or ground raids in countries like Somalia, where the United States was not officially at war. Those rules required that a target had to pose a threat to Americans and that there be near certainty that no civilian bystanders would die. Under the Trump administration’s new rules, some civilian deaths are now permitted in much of Somalia and parts of Yemen if regional American commanders deemed the military action necessary and proportionate.
The Obama administration process frustrated many in the military.

Now for a perfect example of one of the many many onerous ROEs...
A laminated card with the following text was distributed to all U.S. Army and Marine personnel in Iraq.
Policies about limiting civilian casualties have soldiers complaining they can't effectively fight;
one showed author Michael Hastings a card with regulations including:
"Patrol only in areas that you are reasonably certain that you will not have to defend yourselves with lethal force."
For a soldier who has traveled halfway around the world to fight, that’s like telling a cop he should only patrol in areas where he knows he won’t have to make arrests.
“Does that make any f–king sense?” Pfc. Jared Pautsch.
In Afghanistan, a New General -- But An Old Strategy

Every Bodybag Should Be Stamped MADE IN GENEVA

ROEs are the deadliest regulations of all. There are no non-combatants in a combat zone. Populists must force the regulators' sons to pay for this on the battlefield.

Ah yes, kill them all, and let God sort them out. Again, that worked so Goddamned well in 'Nam.

 

[bripat9643]

The major point I am making with regards to Trump's rescinding the Obama ROEs is that makes a world of difference in how our military can respond AND also
teach the Afghanis. All of Obama's ROEs were political based. That is, if we happen to have civilian collateral damage that would have never happened!
Remember Obama was the traitor who told the world "our troops are air-raiding villages and killing civilians,"
He and these other traitors also helped the barbarians by telling the world:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid(D) "War is lost", Certainly gave the barbarians a good old atta boy!
U.S. Rep. Murtha(D) "Our troops killed innocent civilians in cold blood,”
Or how about the future Secretary of State Senator Kerry(D) "American soldiers going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children." Calling our troops "TERRORISTS"!
With this mentality was it NO wonder ISIS regained Mosul,etc. and 11% of Afghanistan is still in barbarians' hands.

With these totally hand tying ROEs and the politically correct mentality GONE... maybe our military can do what the trillions of dollars are used for WIN!
Defeat the Islamic extremists and its core objective is becoming clear: to kill Christians. Its long-term goal: to provoke a new Crusade, reviving the holy wars of many hundreds of years ago in the belief that this time around Islam will win.
In practical terms, this focus on a single pervasive, easily targeted enemy is useful to a “caliphate” under pressure that is trying to keep its troops in line.
ISIS Orders Its Franchises to Kill Christians

As President Trump clearly outlined... it is them or us!

Ah yes, heard this argument concerning Vietnam. They won, but here we are, and there they still are, and we are not communist, and they are not western. Were we to pull out of Afghanistan tomorrow, the world would hardly notice. Nor would most of the citizens of the nation.

They didn't win. We simply gave up and walked away because douche bags like Walter Cronkite said we lost.

 

[Old Rocks]

I really don't understand you people that have never been in combat! While I never have, I at least can understand that if idiots like Obama who micromanaged the
wars in Iraq/Afghanistan with these stupid ass ROEs we would never win!
GEEZ WWII. Ike Never had to check with FDR. FDR was smart enough to let the military do what they know how to do best!

World War II, we had the Chinese, Soviets and British India troops to do most of the heavy lifting.

We also drafted most of the adult male population, nationalized the factories and passed confiscatory taxes on the wealthy. Somehow, I don't think you'd be down for any of those things to win this war.

Here's the thing. The Taliban in Afghanistan might be a bunch of assholes, but they arent' an existential threat to the United States. We need to stop treating them like they are.

The taliban ARE an existential threat. Funny how you can't seem to figure that one out.

They are far less a threat to this nation than is the Sovereign Citizens movement. In other words, no danger at all to us. It was the Al Queda, using Saudi citizens, and funds from Saudi Arabia that performed 9-11. The Taliban had nothing to do with it, other than offering them a place to live, in exchange for a lot of money. The Wahabi's are far more a threat than is the Taliban. And we start the same idiocy that we did in 'Nam, and we will be the best recruiting agents the Taliban ever had.

 

[Rustic]

So this doesn't happen again.

Except that there are w hole lot of better places for ISIS or Al Qaeda to set up shop than Afghanistan to plot the next attrocity. Yemen, Libya and Syria come to mind, as well as Iraq. Places that are closer to where they live and they can recruit local talent because they speak the same language.

Hey, if you guys were serious about keeping that from happening again- How about changing our dumb-ass Zionist policies that make them angry.

Because there are a BILLION of them and only 300 million of us.

Muslims are not rational people you son of a bitch.

Yes, you and they have much in common. But they live in that nation, and we are the occupying intruder in that nation. That has not worked out for anyone that has tried it.

I was never for either war, but we are there. Because of career politicians...
Muslims kill people they disagree with This is a fact they cannot tolerate people that disagree with them in countries they control. Christians are burned and beheaded in countries they control, fags are thrown off of roof tops in countries they control.

 

[Old Rocks]

So this doesn't happen again.

Except that there are w hole lot of better places for ISIS or Al Qaeda to set up shop than Afghanistan to plot the next attrocity. Yemen, Libya and Syria come to mind, as well as Iraq. Places that are closer to where they live and they can recruit local talent because they speak the same language.

Hey, if you guys were serious about keeping that from happening again- How about changing our dumb-ass Zionist policies that make them angry.

Because there are a BILLION of them and only 300 million of us.

Muslims are not rational people you son of a bitch.

Yes, you and they have much in common. But they live in that nation, and we are the occupying intruder in that nation. That has not worked out for anyone that has tried it.

I was never for either war, but we are there. Because of career politicians...
Muslims kill people they disagree with This is a fact they cannot tolerate people that disagree with them in countries they control. Christians are burned and beheaded in countries they control, fags are thrown off of roof tops in countries they control.

Goodness sakes, what a lying little fuck you are. The Christians in Iraq were not under attack until we occupied that nation.

 

[bripat9643]

So this doesn't happen again.

Except that there are w hole lot of better places for ISIS or Al Qaeda to set up shop than Afghanistan to plot the next attrocity. Yemen, Libya and Syria come to mind, as well as Iraq. Places that are closer to where they live and they can recruit local talent because they speak the same language.

Hey, if you guys were serious about keeping that from happening again- How about changing our dumb-ass Zionist policies that make them angry.

Because there are a BILLION of them and only 300 million of us.

Muslims are not rational people you son of a bitch.

Yes, you and they have much in common. But they live in that nation, and we are the occupying intruder in that nation. That has not worked out for anyone that has tried it.

I was never for either war, but we are there. Because of career politicians...
Muslims kill people they disagree with This is a fact they cannot tolerate people that disagree with them in countries they control. Christians are burned and beheaded in countries they control, fags are thrown off of roof tops in countries they control.

Goodness sakes, what a lying little fuck you are. The Christians in Iraq were not under attack until we occupied that nation.

You mean they weren't under attack until Obama ran away.

 

[Old Rocks]

President Barack Obama’s announcement on Friday that all 40,000 U.S. troops still in Iraq will leave the country by New Year’s Eve will, inevitably, draw howls of derision from GOP presidential hopefuls — this is, after all, early election season. But the decision to leave Iraq by that date was not actually taken by President Obama — it was taken by President George W. Bush, and by the Iraqi government.

In one of his final acts in office, President Bush in December of 2008 had signed a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the Iraqi government that set the clock ticking on ending the war he’d launched in March of 2003. The SOFA provided a legal basis for the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq after the United Nations Security Council mandate for the occupation mission expired at the end of 2008. But it required that all U.S. forces be gone from Iraq by January 1, 2012, unless the Iraqi government was willing to negotiate a new agreement that would extend their mandate. And as Middle East historian Juan Cole has noted, “Bush had to sign what the [Iraqi] parliament gave him or face the prospect that U.S. troops would have to leave by 31 December, 2008, something that would have been interpreted as a defeat… Bush and his generals clearly expected, however, that over time Washington would be able to wriggle out of the treaty and would find a way to keep a division or so in Iraq past that deadline.”

But ending the U.S. troop presence in Iraq was an overwhelmingly popular demand among Iraqis, and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki appears to have been unwilling to take the political risk of extending it. While he was inclined to see a small number of American soldiers stay behind to continue mentoring Iraqi forces, the likes of Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, on whose support Maliki’s ruling coalition depends, were having none of it. Even the Obama Administration’s plan to keep some 3,000 trainers behind failed because the Iraqis were unwilling to grant them the legal immunity from local prosecution that is common to SOF agreements in most countries where U.S. forces are based.

Iraq’s Government, Not Obama, Called Time on the U.S. Troop Presence | TIME.com

Such a liar you are, Bripat.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

A) May I remind you that this happened?
B) The above was planned by Al-queda in Afghanistan remember???
C) Now let's return to the Rules of Engagement!

Obama killed those guys. And since we are not going to occupy every failed state in the middle east where Al Queda or ISIS is going to set up shop (Libya and Yemen are bigger threats in that regard). What's the compelling interest again?

You see, what made Al Qaeda dangerous was not that some of them were hiding in Afghanistan. What made them dangerous was that they had cells all over the world and bankers in Saudi Arabia willing to fund them.

Obama severely restricted rules of engagement. The U.S. was only allowed to intervene on behalf of the Afghans about to suffer a particularly devastating military setback. These rules of engagement, coupled with an increasingly corrupt Afghan government, led to the Taliban’s best year since the U.S. invasion and, later, fertile ground for a new ISIS branch.

and again, why are we still propping up the Afghan Government 16 years later? It would seem to me if the Afghan people haven't rallied to the corrupt, drug-dealing Quislings we've put in charge of the place, they never will.

Or to put it another way, the Afghans has been fighting this war one way or the other since the 1970's. What are we goign to do in a 40 Year civil war that is really going to change it?

Certainly nothing the Orange Shitgibbon has proposed. He's just trying to show he tried something.

Well we certainly weren't going to WIN with this attitude:ROE from Obama...
"Patrol only in areas that you are reasonably certain that you will not have to defend yourselves with lethal force."

How can anyone ever win any battle if you don't have to defend yourself with lethal force?
GEEZ this was the stupidity of ignorant naive people like Obama and especially his followers who he and the people he hired thought were morons. Yes..
Obama hired this guy who told you morons that voted for Obama it was because of YOUR " stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass."
ObamaCare architect: 'Stupidity' of voters helped bill pass

But only people of your ilk can support a person who depended on lying and tricks and tactics to fool you!
View attachment 145448

Obambino was the product of date rape, but abortions were illegal at the time.

 

[westwall]

The taliban ARE an existential threat. Funny how you can't seem to figure that one out.

I think you don't understand what the word "Existential" means.

Nazi Germany was an existential threat.
The USSR was an existential threat.

They could do something that could END America as we know it.

The Taliban. Not so much. Sure they could sponsor a terror attack or two. But that wouldn't END America.

Sorry, a bunch of guys hiding in caves is NOT an existential threat.

Happy to have cleared that up for you.

Nazi Germany couldn't reach us. The Soviet Union could. The taliban CAN reach us, and more to the point if they can get their hands on a nuke, and place it in the right place, they could very easily cause enough damage to the Command and Control of this country to cause it to fail. Then this country would very rapidly collapse, so yes, the taliban ARE an existential threat, and idiots like you don't have the brain power to understand that fact.

 

[Claudette]

Bout damned time.

Who the hell expects soldiers to fight with one hand tied behind their backs?

Men forced to use ridiculous Rules of Engagement prepared by folks who are sitting on their big fat asses safe at home??

Why are we still there again?

When you can tell me that, then we can discuss the Rules of Engagement.

As long as our military forces are there then the ROE's should be discussed.

Doesn't matter why we are there. WE. ARE. THERE.

Unless, of course, you don't give a shit about our military????

 

[JoeB131]

The USA helped kick the Russians out!
Obviously you never heard of Charlie Wilson's War! Check it out

No, I simply don't give a fuck about Hollywood's version of history.

It was kind of a stupid idea, arming religious fanatics and then wondering why they turned on us.

But you don't compound the stupidity by engaging in more stupidity.

We've had nearly 40 years of stupid policy in Afghanistan. Time to say, Enough.

 

[JoeB131]

Explain in DETAIL why before Trump was President you NEVER voiced a desire for Obama to get our troops out?

Actually, if you paid attention, it was one of the things I criticized Obama for on this board.

But here's the thing, buddy, you don't continue a bad policy because it's about to fail on your guy's watch.

 

[JoeB131]

Nazi Germany couldn't reach us. The Soviet Union could. The taliban CAN reach us, and more to the point if they can get their hands on a nuke, and place it in the right place, they could very easily cause enough damage to the Command and Control of this country to cause it to fail. Then this country would very rapidly collapse, so yes, the taliban ARE an existential threat, and idiots like you don't have the brain power to understand that fact.

if they get their hands on a nuke (the people who have Nukes aren't giving them away)

if they could place it the right place (again, how would they get it here?)

they could easily cause enough damage to command and control (not really, because we have developed systems that were designed to function even if there was total nuclear exchange)

So you need three "ifs" that are pretty improbable to make them anywhere near an existential threat.

Now, I DO understand how it's an existential threat to Trump, because if there's one thing that will get the stupid rednecks who follow him to turn on him, it will be the joyous sight of people being evacuated off the roof of an embassy in Kabul when it falls to the Taliban.

But this is totally NOT my problem. Trump wanted this job, it entails making all the tough decisions.

I will even be a bit sympathetic in that Bush and Obama handed him a shit sandwich on this one. But that's why he's paid the big buck, to make the tough decisions.

The right decision here is to stop throwing good money after bad, withdraw all the troops, and tell the Pakistanis 'you made this problem, you deal with it."

 

[JoeB131]

As long as our military forces are there then the ROE's should be discussed.

Doesn't matter why we are there. WE. ARE. THERE.

Unless, of course, you don't give a shit about our military????

I do. That's why I think we should pull them out. Tomorrow morning.

Our problem isn't the ROE. Our problem is that we are there at all, giving a live illustration of Santayana's definition of a fanatic. (Someone who redoubles his effort while losing sight of his objective.)

Whatever we were trying to do there, failed a very long time ago. My opinion, it failed when we let Karzai steal the 2009 election, and most Afghans just kind of gave up on our corrupt Quislings over there and turned back to the Taliban.

So in the immortal words of John Kerry, "How do you ask someone to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

 

[JoeB131]

Every Bodybag Should Be Stamped MADE IN GENEVA

ROEs are the deadliest regulations of all. There are no non-combatants in a combat zone. Populists must force the regulators' sons to pay for this on the battlefield.

again, problem isn't the ROE. It's that we are over there with no clear objective and no way of achieving it. Killing more civilians by mistake isn't going to change that.

They didn't win. We simply gave up and walked away because douche bags like Walter Cronkite said we lost.

No, we really did lose for the same reason why we are losing in Afghanistan. Because at the end of the day, the people of those countries don't want the government we are trying to impose on them.

In the words of Santayana (Boy, he's getting a workout today!) "Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it."

 

[Anathema]

Why are we still there again? .

Why is the US Military ANYWHERE in the world outside our own borders?

 

[JoeB131]

Okay, here's the problem in Afghanistan in a nutshell.

The country itself has always been a polite fiction. There is no Afghan Language. there is no afghan culture. There are Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, but there are no Afghans. What Afghanistan was is a blob on the map that was drawn up so that there would be a Separation between Tsarist Central Asia and British India, so the two largest empires would have a buffer zone between them. Both empires have tried to subdue the place and failed miserably before collapsing.

We were dumb enough to arm the various religious fanatics to get back at the Soviets for what they did to us in Vietnam, but it came back to bite us when these fanatics mutated into Al Qaeda and the Taliban. It's a classic example of sticking your dick in a hornet's nest and complaining about getting stung.

Going in there to bust up the Al Qaeda training camps was a good idea, but then somehow it became about "nation building". Which is already a bad idea, but it becomes worse when you leave the project half finished to go work on something else, which is pretty much what George W. Stupid did when he went off to get Saddam. If there was an opportunity to make this work at all, it was in 2002, and it was missed.

And since I'm not a partisan hack, like some of you people, let's give Obama his share of the blame. In 2008, he didn't want to sound like a Dukakis-like wimp, so he criticized the Iraq war as a "war of choice" but called the Afghanistan War a "War of Necessity". It was a dubious position, to be sure. (All Wars are really wars of choice, it just depends if you are willing to live with the consequences). But the policy became truly stupid when Obama went ahead with an Afghan surge despite the fact that Hamad Karzai stole the 2009 election and lost what little credibility he had left with the various tribes that make up the fiction of Afghanistan.

So what are we trying to accomplish? Create an Afghan government that is pro-Western (it never will be) and Democratic (not with the corrupt people we are supporting)? Or to simply kick inevitable failure down the Road a bit more until Trump's successor (who can't get here soon enough) has to bite the bullet and pull out?

again, how do you ask someone to be the last man to die for a mistake?