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34,000 troops will be sent to Afghanistan

I was not aware that the time table was "set it stone", as it goes.

Right here.

After the briefing, Gibbs went to the president for clarification. Gibbs then called me to his office to relate what the president said. The president told him it IS locked in – there is no flexibility. Troops WILL start coming home in July 2011. Period. It's etched in stone. Gibbs said he even had the chisel.

White House: July 2011 Is Locked In for Afghanistan Withdrawal - Political Hotsheet - CBS News
 
Right here.

Good. It's good to have a timetable for our withdrawal, so we aren't stuck there forever. If Afghanistan can't pull its own weight by then, there wouldn't be much hope for us to achieve anything there.
 
And, when we leave, the Taliban comes out of hiding and it's business as usual. What did we accomplish?

If you get into a fist fight with someone and you tell him that you're going to hit him four times and stop figting, what's he going to do? He's going to let you hit him four times and then kick your ass.

I find it really hard to believe, not to mention very disheartening, that we've waited all this time for PBO to make a decison and it took this long to come of with this stupid ass decision.

First off horrible analogy. I know how to kill a guy in three hits. Second off, if the Taliban doesn't attack us until we pull out, then that gives us a whole lot of room to train a competent Afghan army.
 
Good. It's good to have a timetable for our withdrawal, so we aren't stuck there forever. If Afghanistan can't pull its own weight by then, there wouldn't be much hope for us to achieve anything there.

So, you are going along with the idiocy? You're probably looking to calling defeat.
 
First off horrible analogy. I know how to kill a guy in three hits. Second off, if the Taliban doesn't attack us until we pull out, then that gives us a whole lot of room to train a competent Afghan army.


In 18 months? You know nothing about military operations, do you?
 
then that gives us a whole lot of room to train a competent Afghan army.

:rofl:rofl:rofl

I got news for ya.....The Soviets spent 10 years training an Afghan Army and never succeeded.

America has spent 8 years training an Afghan Army and hasn't done much better.
 
In 18 months? You know nothing about military operations, do you?

Training the Afghans is not going to be the problem. They already know how to shoot (chances are they've shot at the US once or twice).

The problem is that 18 months is going to be allotted time to re-wire their culture, and level the ethnic and cultural discrepancies in the Afghan population.

Military tactics, and how to stand Rank-N-File doesn't take long (it's only a summers worth for Boot Camp in the US; and that's really all we want out of Afghan, privates.), it's going to be re-wiring the culture that's going to be the most pressing.
 
Training the Afghans is not going to be the problem. They already know how to shoot (chances are they've shot at the US once or twice).

The problem is that 18 months is going to be allotted time to re-wire their culture, and level the ethnic and cultural discrepancies in the Afghan population.

Military tactics, and how to stand Rank-N-File doesn't take long (it's only a summers worth for Boot Camp in the US; and that's really all we want out of Afghan, privates.), it's going to be re-wiring the culture that's going to be the most pressing.


You were never in the service, either. Were you? Please, tell me you don't really believe that that's all there is to it.
 
You were never in the service, either. Were you? Please, tell me you don't really believe that that's all there is to it.

Of course not; my Dad would kill me :). How much training does it require until a recruit turns into a deployable Marine?
 
Of course not; my Dad would kill me :). How much training does it require until a recruit turns into a deployable Marine?

We're not talking about an individual, who is going to go through basic training and AIT, then to a line unit filled with several hundred years worth of experience. We're talking about a green army that has almost no experience operating as a cohesive combat unit.

It's took years to build the Continental Army.
 
Of course not; my Dad would kill me :). How much training does it require until a recruit turns into a deployable Marine?

3 months basic training
2 months School of Infantry
1 month Marine Combat Training

6 months training altogether.....But this doesnt make them deployable.They still have to complete courses in their respective fields which could take anywhere from 1 month to 6 months.
 
We're not talking about an individual, who is going to go through basic training and AIT, then to a line unit filled with several hundred years worth of experience. We're talking about a green army that has almost no experience operating as a cohesive combat unit.

It's took years to build the Continental Army.

Exactly right.
 
3 months basic training
2 months School of Infantry
1 month Marine Combat Training

6 months training altogether.....But this doesnt make them deployable.They still have to complete courses in their respective fields which could take anywhere from 1 month to 6 months.

Okay. I was just curious.

It's like comparing Apples to Oranges though. I bet none of y'all grew up the midst of constant warfare, like many of soldiers will have.

I bet we can see a good amount of tribal militias being absorbed as the main-frame of this (doomed to fail) National army.


There's very little, other than providing training for weaponry (which I pray to God we don't) that the US should be expected to do as far as training.

it's not like the Taliban and A.Q. learned to compete with NATO through military training from a third party.
 
It's like comparing Apples to Oranges though. I bet none of y'all grew up the midst of constant warfare, like many of soldiers will have.

How many of them have had real leadership training? Tactical training? Weapons training? You make it sound simple, but it's not.
 
3 months basic training
2 months School of Infantry
1 month Marine Combat Training

6 months training altogether.....But this doesnt make them deployable.They still have to complete courses in their respective fields which could take anywhere from 1 month to 6 months.

A Marine whose military occupational speciality (MOS) is infantry doesn't go through MCT. Just School of Infantry.

So 13 weeks of bootcamp, then 52 training days at SOI. From there the Marine goes to the Fleet Marine Corps, where they will be assigned to an infantry battalion.

Depending on the deployment schedule of the unit he just joined he will go through weekly field ops, classes, and various other training assignments for a certain amount of time. Some of my buddies at SOI went straight from infantry school to units that were being deployed to Iraq a month later. Others caught the ass end of a deployment schedule and got the full 7 months to be part of what is known as the 'build up' for a deployment.


This whole process cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $250k..I think.
 
A Marine whose military occupational speciality (MOS) is infantry doesn't go through MCT. Just School of Infantry.

So 13 weeks of bootcamp, then 52 training days at SOI. From there the Marine goes to the Fleet Marine Corps, where they will be assigned to an infantry battalion.

Depending on the deployment schedule of the unit he just joined he will go through weekly field ops, classes, and various other training assignments for a certain amount of time. Some of my buddies at SOI went straight from infantry school to units that were being deployed to Iraq a month later. Others caught the ass end of a deployment schedule and got the full 7 months to be part of what is known as the 'build up' for a deployment.


This whole process cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $250k..I think.

Thanks for the correction,I used wikipedia....should've used a better source.
 
Okay. I was just curious.

It's like comparing Apples to Oranges though. I bet none of y'all grew up the midst of constant warfare, like many of soldiers will have.

I bet we can see a good amount of tribal militias being absorbed as the main-frame of this (doomed to fail) National army.


There's very little, other than providing training for weaponry (which I pray to God we don't) that the US should be expected to do as far as training.

it's not like the Taliban and A.Q. learned to compete with NATO through military training from a third party.

Actually growing up in the middle of the war would probably be a greater hinderance than a benefit as far as developing bad habits, thinking you know it all.. etc.

Some of the best shots in the Marine Corps were those who had never fired a rifle before, due to the fact they were a blank slate and easy to train in accordance with what has been shown to work.

The U.S should be doing much more than training how to use weaponary. That actually should be one of the lowest priorities. Leadership training, tactical movement, discipline, attention to detail, etc should all come first. Weapons training is relatively easy to learn.
 
Actually growing up in the middle of the war would probably be a greater hinderance than a benefit as far as developing bad habits, thinking you know it all.. etc.

Some of the best shots in the Marine Corps were those who had never fired a rifle before, due to the fact they were a blank slate and easy to train in accordance with what has been shown to work.

The U.S should be doing much more than training how to use weaponary. That actually should be one of the lowest priorities. Leadership training, tactical movement, discipline, attention to detail, etc should all come first. Weapons training is relatively easy to learn.

Yeah sometimes I just don't know wtf I'm talking about. Military training is one of them .
 
That sounds awfully familiar. Where did we try that and it was a total cluster ****? Anyone remember?

You don't shape events on the ground to a timeline, you shape a timeline to events on the ground.

So we don't have a plan. I disagree. You go into a fight with a plan. Once we begin fighting and their are obvious flaws you change it.

You don't go into a fight without a plan and just imporvise until you know exactly what to do.

PBO did nothing, but give the Tallies an 18 month period to rest and reconstitute their forces, so as to launch a major offensive after there are enough American troops withdrawn from the theater to stop them.

I would agree if we were giving them a rest, but we are not. I read somewhere today there will be 100,000 troops in afghanistan. We need to keep the pressure on them so when we pull out the taliban has not had the time or resources to create a major offensive. I would hope with this large of a force we could pull it off.
 
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So we don't have a plan. I disagree. You go into a fight with a plan. Once we begin fighting and their are obvious flaws you change it.

You don't go into a fight without a plan and just imporvise until you know exactly what to do.

There's an old saying in the service, "no plan survives first contact with the enemy".

I don't doubt they have a plan and I agree that we shouldn't go in without a plan. But, the plan that PBO presented to us and the enemy is total BS and isn't going to work.



I would agree if we were giving them a rest, but we are not. I read somewhere today there will be 100,000 troops in afghanistan. We need to keep the pressure on them so when we pull out the taliban has not had the time or resources to create a major offensive. I would hope with this large of a force we could pull it off.

The Tallie are going to pull their most elite forces into places of sanctuary and conserve them until Allied forces leave Afghanistan. Don't believe me? Just wait till 24 months from now.
 
The Tallie are going to pull their most elite forces into places of sanctuary and conserve them until Allied forces leave Afghanistan.

assuming you are correct, which is a big assumption, would that not be good?
 
The Tallie are going to pull their most elite forces into places of sanctuary and conserve them until Allied forces leave Afghanistan.

assuming you are correct, which is a big assumption, would that not be good?

No! It wouldn't.
 
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