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War against Taliban 'will be lost by autumn' unless strategy changes

Truth Detector said:
FAIL.

“The Iranian people DEMOCRATICALLY elect Mossadegh to lead their nation.”

FALSE.

The Iranian people did not democratically elect Mossadegh to anything, he was appointed by the Shah after the assassination of his predecessor. He also led a Communist faction which made many Shia’s afraid of his leadership.

You need to review your warped history records dude; read and become more informed before you make such uninformed statements:

“On 28 April 1951, the Majlis named Mosaddeq as new prime minister by a vote of 79–12. Aware of Mosaddeq’s rising popularity and political power, the young Shah appointed Mosaddeq to the Premiership.”

Mohammed Mosaddeq - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

“CIA overthrows that government, and installs the Shah”

FALSE.

The military overthrew Mohammed after he showed his “Socialist” colors and nationalized the oil assets owned and developed by what is now BP. Again, the CIA’s role in this was merely support, propaganda and funding of opposition powers. The Iranian politics have always been extremely volatile not because of anything the Americans did, but due to internal and external EUROPEAN influences as well.

The Shaw was always the Monarch and played a real political role in power.

Events that led to the Shah removing Mossadegh:

On 28 April 1951, the Majlis named Mosaddeq as new prime minister by a vote of 79–12. Aware of Mosaddeq’s rising popularity and political power, the young Shah appointed Mosaddeq to the Premiership.

In August 1953, Mosaddeq attempted to convince the Shah to leave the country and allow him control over the government. The Shah refused, and formally dismissed the Prime Minister. Mosaddeq refused to leave, however, and when it became apparent that he was going to fight to overthrow the monarchy, the Shah, as a precautionary measure, flew to Baghdad and from there to Rome, Italy, after signing two decrees, one dismissing Mosaddeq and the other nominating General Fazlollah Zahedi Prime Minister.

massive protests broke out across the nation. Anti- and pro-monarchy protesters violently clashed in the streets, leaving almost 300 dead. The pro-monarchy forces, led by retired army General and former Minister of Interior in Mosaddeq’s cabinet, Fazlollah Zahedi and pahlavan like Shaban Jafari,[37] gained the upper hand on 19 August 1953 (28 Mordad). The military intervened as the pro-Shah tank regiments stormed the capital and bombarded the prime minister’s official residence. Mosaddeq managed to flee from the mob that set in to ransack his house, and, the following day, surrendered to General Zahedi, who had meanwhile established his makeshift headquarters at the Officers' Club. Mosaddeq was arrested at the Officers' Club and transferred to a military jail shortly after.

Shortly after the return of the Shah, on 22 August 1953, from the brief self-imposed exile in Rome, Mosaddeq was tried by a military tribunal for high treason. Zahedi and the Shah were inclined, however, to spare the man’s life (the death penalty would have applied according to the laws of the day). Mosaddeq received a sentence of 3 years in solitary confinement at a military jail and was exiled to his village not far from Tehran, where he remained under house arrest on his estate until his death, on 5 March 1967.[38]
Zahedi’s new government soon reached an agreement with foreign oil companies to form a "Consortium" and "restore the flow of Iranian oil to world markets in substantial quantities."


“who was so sadistic he even made Saddam look like a boy scout.”

How trite, yet the sadistic murdering that occurred after the Shah’s reign was ended paled in comparison to that attributed to the Shah. I find it amusing that you wallow in the rhetoric of the terrorists and their supporters.

The only thing more fascinating is your support to keep in power a more brutal thug in Saddam Hussein whom you think was removed illegally by the US led coalition.

"Eventually, the American hating fundies overthrow the Shah."

Wong; eventually the Western hating fundies who support and fund terrorists overthrew the Shah thanks to fecklessness of the Carter Administration who even allowed the overtaking of US soil through our embassy in Tehran and did nothing but act cowardly for the next 444 days our people were held hostage by a rogue regime who used rogue tactics.

I suggest you take some history lessons before attempting to re-write them on this forum with your inane accounting of what occurred. You sound more like an Osama or Liberal mouthpiece than someone credible who has a historical knowledge of what went on.

I think you have "blowback" on the brain. Blowback is a figment of terrorist propaganda which Liberals, and apparently you, swallow with little or no suspension of disbelief.
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If you so believe in our Iran policy, why lie about it? What you posted is not even close to the truth. Did it come from some Neocon think tank, that is, if there are any of them left?

Here, read this, and before you start whining that the source is bad, here is the source's bibliography:

REFERENCES
Declassified Documents — The University Publications of America have microfisched the declassified U. S. documents for the 1951–54 period.
FO — Foreign Office. The archives of the British Foreign Office are kept in the Public Record Office in London, England.
Ahmadi, Hamid. 1985–95. The Iranian Left Oral History Project. Berlin, Germany.
Amir-Khosrovi, Babak. 1996. Nazar az Daroun beh Naqsh-e Hezb-e Tudeh-e Iran (An Internal Look at the Tudeh Party of Iran). Teheran.
Avery, Peter. 1965. Modern Iran. London: Ernest Penn.
Bamberg, J. H. 1994. The History of the British Petroleum Company. Cambridge, Eng land: Cambridge University Press.
Bill, James, and William Roger Louis, eds. 1988. Musaddiq, Iranian Nationalism, and Oil. Austin, Texas: Texas University Press.
Bozorgmehr, Esfandiar. 1993. Karavan-e Omr (Life’s Caravan). London.
Cottam, Richard. 1964. Nationalism in Iran. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Davar-Pana, Iraj, and Mosavi Fesharki. 1979. “Interview Concerning the Attack on Dr. Mossadeq’s Home on August 19,” Ettela’at, August 19–20.
Dorman, William, and Mansour Farhang. 1987. The U. S. Press and Iran: Foreign Policy and the Journalism of Deference. Berkeley, California: University of California Press.
Dorril, Stephen. 2000. MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service. New York: The Free Press.
Elm, Mostafa. 1992. Oil, Power, and Principle: Iran’s Oil Nationalization and Its Aftermath. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press.
Elwell-Sutton, L. P. 1955. Persian Oil: A Study in Power Politics. London: Lawrence and Wishart.
Farmanfarmaian, Manucher. 1997. Blood and Oil: Memoirs of a Persian Prince. New York: Random House.
Gasiorowski, Mark. 1987. “The 1953 Coup D’Etat in Iran.” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 19:3 (August), 261–86.
Harkness, Gladys and Richard. 1954. “The Mysterious Doings of the CIA.” Saturday Evening Post. October 30–November 13.
Heiss, Mary Ann. 1997. Empire and Nationhood: The United States, Great Britain, and Iranian Oil, 1950–1954. New York: Columbia University Press.
Javanshir, F. M. 1980. Tajrabeh-e Bist-u-Hasht-e Mordad (The Experience of August 19). Teheran.
Key-Ostovan, Hussein. 1950. Siyasat-e Muvazineh-e Manfi dar Majles-e Chahardahum (The Politics of Negative Equilibrium in the Fourteenth Majles). Teheran.
Khosrowpana, Mohammad. 1998. Sazeman-e Afsaran-e Hezb-e Tudeh-e Iran (Organization of Military Officers of the Tudeh Party of Iran). Teheran.
Kianuri, Nuraldin. 1992. Khaterat (Memoirs). Teheran.
Lajevardi, Habib. 1993. The Iranian Oral History Project. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Lenczowski, George, ed. 1979. Iran Under the Pahlavis. Stanford, California: Hoover Institution Press.
Love, Kenneth, 1960. “The American Role in the Pahlavi Restoration.” Unpublished paper at Princeton University.
Lytle, Mark Hamilton. 1987. The Origins of the Iranian–American Alliance. New York: Holmes & Meier.
Marigold, Stella. 1953. “The Streets of Teheran.” The Reporter, November 10.
Military Governor of Teheran. 1956. Ketab-e Siah darbareh-e Sazeman-e Afsaran-e Tudeh (Black Book on the Tudeh Officers’ Organization). Teheran.
Mohammadi, Mohammad-Jafar. 1993–95. “The Military Organization of the Tudeh Party.” Rah-e Azadi, 29–37, February 1993–February 1995.
———. 1999. “The 1953 Coup.” Nimrouz, October 18–December 26.
Nejati, Ghulam-Reza. 1986. Jonbesh-e Mellishudan-e Naft-e Iran va Kudeta-ye Bist-u-Hashte Mordad (The Movement to Nationalize Iranian Oil and the Coup of August 19). Teheran.
———. 1999. Mossadeq: Salha-ye Mobarezeh (Mossadeq: Years of Struggle). Teheran.
Roosevelt, Kermit. 1979. Countercoup: The Struggle for the Control of Iran. New York: McGraw Hill. Ruehsen, Moyara. 1993. “Operation Ajax Revisited: Iran 1953.” Middle Eastern Studies, 29:3 (July), 467–86.
Sarreshteh, Hassan. 1988. Khaterat-e Man (My Memoirs). Teheran.
Seifzadeh, Hamid. 1994. Hafezeh-e Tarikh-e Afshartous Kibud? (Who Preserved Afshartouz’s Memory?). Teheran.
Woodhouse, Christopher. 1982. Something Ventured. London: Granada.
Zibayi, Ali. 1955–57. Komunism dar Iran (Communism in Iran). Teheran. (Unpublished document, compiled by the Iranian Secret Police.)
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Ikari said:
No, I'd rather not blind myself to history and think we've done nothing bad. You probably deny Iran-Contra as well. Sit around with your fingers in your ears believing that our government has never acted improperly or done things which have angered an entire group. But fact is that ever since it became known that there was massive oil in the Middle East several decades ago, the West has been in there. Dividing it up, doing what we want, running roughshod over there. Yet according to you, they just hate us for no reason. Woke up one morning and thought "Europe and America suck, let's hate them!". Why? What partisan excuse you got for us? They hate us for our freedoms? Because they're Muslim?

Blinding yourself to history won't bring about change, it's just stagnation. And stagnation is death. We won't win less we understand the root cause, but you have no interest in the root cause. Pretend we have business messing with other sovereigns and pretending our government has never done anything wrong. And if anyone points out that we have acted suspiciously and that maybe the root cause isn't some irrational hatred but rather that a people are sick of foreigners bombing the crap out of them all the time, taking what they want all the time, ignoring their own soverignty and wishes then they're just America bashing.
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No one has made the arguments you suggest above; no one has argued that America is pure as the driven snow, which is for the Obamaphiles. I am countering the absurd versions of history made by the thread author.

But again, you cannot seem to comprehend the notion that blaming the US and the Western European nations for all the turmoil is made in a complete vacuum of ignorance. It also requires willing ignorance to not acknowledge the basic turmoil all nations in the Middle East have always been under even without Western interference.

But once again, you attempt to make arguments that no one is making, take up the terrorists and despots talking points and vainly attempt to suggest that there must not have been any turmoil before America; how profoundly trite and lacking in facts. It is OBVIOUS that you rarely attempt top READ or COMPREHEND what the debate is about.

Carry on; I look forward to more of your whiney BS about arguments no one has been making.
 
The Middle East has been it state of turmoil and treacherous alliances for hundreds of years long before the US existed. To blame the West for everything wrong overthere is ignorance plain and simple. Our problem in dealing with them is merely the due to the difference in our cultures, as would be expected. The biggest difference between our culture, Asian culture and Middle Eastern culture is that Middle Eastern culture lacks any honor whatsoever. A prime example the placing of bomb belts on women and children.
 
American said:
The Middle East has been it state of turmoil and treacherous alliances for hundreds of years long before the US existed. To blame the West for everything wrong overthere is ignorance plain and simple. Our problem in dealing with them is merely the due to the difference in our cultures, as would be expected. The biggest difference between our culture, Asian culture and Middle Eastern culture is that Middle Eastern culture lacks any honor whatsoever. A prime example the placing of bomb belts on women and children.
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Actually, before the 1917 Balfour Declaration, in which Britain carved up the Middle East into nations with arbitrarily set boundaries, Jews and Arabs lived peacefully together.
 
American said:
The Middle East has been it state of turmoil and treacherous alliances for hundreds of years long before the US existed. To blame the West for everything wrong overthere is ignorance plain and simple.
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I agree with that, but to say that just because the ME was in turmoil that justifies everything the U.S. has done is BS.

The simple fact is the U.S. involvement in the ME has just added to the conflict and the U.S. is not clean.

It is an example of the arrogance of the west to think that they can force their way of life on others.

The simple fact is that some areas of the Earth are Barbaric and simply placing a military presence doesn't change that fact. In fact, it has proven to make it worse.
 
TheNextEra said:
I agree with that, but to say that just because the ME was in turmoil that justifies everything the U.S. has done is BS.

The simple fact is the U.S. involvement in the ME has just added to the conflict and the U.S. is not clean.

It is an example of the arrogance of the west to think that they can force their way of life on others.

The simple fact is that some areas of the Earth are Barbaric and simply placing a military presence doesn't change that fact. In fact, it has proven to make it worse.
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Oh come on, we showed them how to become rich (oil)...you think we would do it for nothing?
 
American said:
Oh great, another Bush bashing thread. :roll:
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Nagl is a very much respected military thinker. I once exchanged a post with him at another forum.

The preface to his book, "Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam"

Preface to Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam by John A. Nagl

“Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife has become must reading for high-level officers in Iraq because its lessons seem so directly applicable to the situation there.”—National Review Online
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The next president of the United States will inherit a foreign policy nightmare: wars on two fronts, an overstretched military, a resurgent Taliban and a reconstituted Al Qaeda based far from America's reach.

In The War Briefing, award-winning FRONTLINE producer Marcela Gaviria and correspondent Martin Smith offer harrowing on-the-ground reporting from the deadliest battlefield in the mountains of Afghanistan, and follow the trail to the militant safe havens deep inside the Pakistani tribal areas, probing some of the most urgent foreign policy challenges facing the next president.

"The situation is worse; there's no question about that," says Ronald Neumann, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan from 2005 to 2007. "Provinces close to Kabul are now having incidents that didn't have incidents before. And to my mind, that is clearly a strengthening insurgency."

The War Briefing begins in the mountains of northeastern Afghanistan, where FRONTLINE embedded with Bravo Company, a unit posted on one of Afghanistan's deadliest fronts. Bravo Company comes under fire almost daily. Attacks have reached an all-time high, now making Afghanistan a deadlier battlefield than Iraq. Often called the "forgotten war," top U.S. commanders concede that the next president will inherit a security situation that has deteriorated markedly over the last two years.

"The next president will face a situation where, in the next year or two, he will have to make the decision that faced the Soviets in 1988 -- either to massively reinforce and to wage a war very aggressively, or to get out," says Michael Scheuer, the former head of the CIA's Bin Laden unit. "That's the inheritance of the next president."

In the short term, commanders agree that more troops are desperately needed. Lt. Col. John Nagl, a former counterinsurgency adviser to Gen. David Petraeus, tells FRONTLINE: "In Afghanistan, we simply don't have enough boots on the ground to provide security on the ground, to convince the young men that we're there for the long haul; that if you work with us, we will not only keep you safe, but we'll work with you to build a better future for you and your family."

But the next president's options in Afghanistan will be limited by a depleted military, with some units already on their fifth deployment. "The next president will be told: 'You need to spend more money on training troops. You need to recapitalize the military in equipment. And you might have to think about increasing the size of the military, especially ground forces,'" says Tom Ricks, author of Fiasco. "As one officer at the Pentagon put it to me: 'We're out of Schlitz. There are no extra troops left on the shelf. We're at our limit.'"

Even with more troops, any progress in Afghanistan will be hostage to developments just across the border. As long as the Taliban and Al Qaeda are able to launch attacks from their sanctuaries in the lawless tribal areas of neighboring Pakistan, any policy is likely to fail. But cracking down on the insurgent safe havens in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas presents enormous challenges of its own.

In recent months, special forces have mounted ground assaults on targets inside the tribal areas without the consent of the Pakistani government, prompting growing tensions with the Pakistani army and its new civilian leaders. "The United States does not have the right to go into a sovereign country that is its ally without permission and approval and consent of that ally," Husain Haqqani, the Pakistani ambassador to the United States, tells FRONTLINE. Vali Nasr of the Council on Foreign Relations adds: "This was an early and decisive success we had [against the Taliban] after 9/11. If eight years later it collapses before the very force that we defeated and kicked out of Afghanistan, then the symbolism is tremendous. It would be a major morale booster for extremism across the Muslim world."

FRONTLINE: the war briefing: watch the full program | PBS

Watch the show online.
 
American said:
Oh come on, we showed them how to become rich (oil)...you think we would do it for nothing?
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For some Money is not everything. Another misconception of the West.

Osama Bin Ladin could have been one of the most richest people in the world, he chose not to.

I'm not idealizing Osama in the least, just pointing out that money is not everything nor is the end all be all goal of some people.
 
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To say that the war in Afghanistan is winnable depends on what the objective is. If it's removing all of the local warlords and creating a new power structure that is fair to all the tribal regions, then that is impossible. Alexander the Great, the USSR, and finally the United States all could not achieve this. Afghanistan was on its way to being a stable, developed nation between the 30's and the invasion of the USSR, but now due to fighting between the U.S. and the former USSR, it has been bombed back into the stone age.

If the Taliban is truly responsible for 9-11, then they should be the primary objective. But that's going to be difficult without control over Pakistan, another dwindling failure in U.S. foreign policy. Right now, the Southern front lead by Canada is achieving some stable victories over Taliban forces, but the status quo of attack and advance won't mean anything as long as the Taliban exists in the foothills and in neighbouring Pakistan.

I seriously doubt this war is "winnable", and thanks to past conflicts, Afghanistan will likely fall back into the hands of tyrant warlords who don't care about its development, but only about their greed and self-interest.
 
Ikari said:
We did our fair share of monkeying in the region though to be fair.
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Any attemot to equate Soviets monkeying in ALL regions with the goal of spreading Communism and enslaving people with the US trying to stand up against murder and slavery assosiated with Communism is an undeniable proof of absence of any morality and decency in those who try to draw such an equation. Those individuals and fairness are incompatible.
 
I am surprised that Gree has not posted here yet. Gree is an Infantry officer currently srving in Iraq. According to him we were actually losing that war to when they adopted new strategies that turned every thing around.

I seem to remember in one Hamas thread they were planning to try these same new strategies in Afghanistan. So maybe all is not lost. The only reason we went into Afghanistan was because of Bin Laden. The Taliban refused to hand him over.

If it were not for Bin Laden the Taliban would still be in power today.

Moe
 
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