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C.I.A. Had Plan to Assassinate Qaeda Leaders

Re: Counter-Insurgency

It just seriously blows my mind that you're arguing that the CIA and military have no idea what they're doing and should listen to you instead. It's like me trying to tell a radiologist what he's looking at on the film.

I know what you mean. The people in the military and CIA are experts but there will always be civilians with no military background who think they know more about war than a warrior himself.
 
Re: Counter-Insurgency

You know what, I don't really need to reply to each part of your post individually, because one thing really covers it all: this isn't a ground war in the conventional sense.

It doesn't matter that this is an unconventional fight. As I've already pointed out, the same principles apply to the battlefield. Yes, it's still a, "battlefield", although it's not configured in the Napolianic sense of the term.

The frontlines are so blurred, neither side can find them, and neither side can define them. We cannot operate against a counter-insurgency like we would a standing army, and thats pretty much what you are saying we should do. 5 elements of combat, paralyze combat units, etc.

Either you haven't read what I've written, or it went right over your head. 1) At no point did I say we should use the same tactics against an unconventional force as we would a conventional, i.e. Warsaw Pact, force. 2) What I have said, is that the combat tactics change, but the principles of combat do not. If you're not familiar with them, they are: Objective, Offensive, Mass, Economy of force, Maneuver, Unity of Command, Security, Surprise, Simplicity. Neither does that fact that logistics is the backbone of any force. It doesn't matter how tough, cool, smart, dedicated, fanatical, or willing to die a soldier is, he has to eat, he has to have ammo. Even the most dedicated soldier, who will readily give his life on the battlefield, isn't ready to starve to death. Nor is he ready to fight the enemy with no ammo. That's a fact, I don;t care what PC, Libbo history book you were educated with.

The last time we faced anything like what we face in Afghanistan is Iraq, and as you can probably tell, pretty much all we can do is send as many men into the area as possible. All we can really do is dissuade them from fighting us there, and maybe persuade them to fight in more favorable terms. What those are, don't ask me.

Yes, we dissuaded them from fighting us there, on their terms. We did it by killing the hell out of their rank and file. They couldn't sustain their combat operations against us, because we took away their combat power. We took away their combat power to the point they could no longer engage our forces. American soldiers are the all-time experts on counter-insurgency warfare. No other military in the history of the world has the counter-insurgency experience that the United States military has.

And unless you misread/ignored a lot of what I've been saying, the exact problem is that everyone isn't a terrorist in Afghanistan.

I haven't misread, nor ignored anything you've posted. All I've done is recognized the error in your thought process.
 
Re: Counter-Insurgency

Then what operation are you talking about? I'm talking about every single operation that should take place in the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan, which would concern the operation this thread is about. So what other operation are you talking about?

I'm talking about CIA's covert operation to zap selected terrorist targets. It's in the OP, you can read all about it.


I posted several things. You failed to address them.

I've addressed all of your opinions.


No longer safe havens. Gee, how'd that **** happen?



Your expanding the parameters of who is and who isn't the enemy to encompass way too wide of a scope. Polls conducted in 2004 found numbers like 72% or 84% of Sunnis oppose the American presence and some 36% find attacks acceptable. This was an effect of the CPA's alienation of the Sunni community... So your answer is to label them as combatants and say they are legitimate targets? Nice try... you are the unbelievably naive one.

On the battlefield, when you and your buddy's life hangs in the balance, your polls mean exactly, dog ****. If you see someone supplying the enemy, carrying ammo for the enemy, etc., they become a legit target.

BTW, when you've taken someone's life in the service of the country, or when your young ass loses your cherry to your high school sweetheart, then you can call me naive. Until then, you can stowe that bull****.


Its genocide when virtually an entire religious sect opposed the occupation and you respond by labeling them all combatants. But no, its very black and white, right? Civilians and combatants are clearly marked. Your naivete is being exuded at its highest.

Was it genocide when we invaded Germany in 1944? We didn't make a distinction then.




What are you even talking about? Victory in what? Close quarter combat?... What? Victory is achieved in a number of ways... but it also depends on what degree or what objective you are victorious in... your statement here makes little sense.


:lol: You completely disacknowledged what I said and just went back to "killing people wins wars". When its an insurgency, killing people can lose your war just as much as win it. You don't understand counterinsurgency at all.

Let me help you:Introduction to Insurgencies and how to defeat them




But tactical victory did not give way to strategic advances. Without a coersive strategy, MACV simply sought to rack up body counts. Tactical victories can also be counterproductive to strategic success, especially when using overly-agressive tactics that make civilians more likely to become insurgents. Such was true, without a strategy and with many units that failed to understand counterinsurgency and endorsed overly agressive tactics, in the first 20 months of the Iraq war.


PS: There is a point of ignorance that is reasonable when defending a point. Try not to cross that line.[/QUOTE]
 
Re: Counter-Insurgency

I'm talking about CIA's covert operation to zap selected terrorist targets. It's in the OP, you can read all about it.
Which took place in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan so would have to rely on UAV support and not long range artillery or manned aircraft like you claimed.

Case closed.

I've addressed all of your opinions.
This right here is as much as you have adressed my "opinions". Your ignorant and your view is not shaped by substantial evidence.

No longer safe havens. Gee, how'd that **** happen?
Your original statement:"They were allowed to used as safe havens, because no one wanted to hose the place down, in fear that there might be collateral damage." Completely false and proved so. What's your response? Another random and useless statement.

On the battlefield, when you and your buddy's life hangs in the balance, your polls mean exactly, dog ****. If you see someone supplying the enemy, carrying ammo for the enemy, etc., they become a legit target.
Again, your cinematic view of war only proves your naivete. War is not constant combat. I am talking about war... you are now narrowing that down to combat. Stop trying to change the subject and just address the point if you disagree with it.

BTW, when you've taken someone's life in the service of the country, or when your young ass loses your cherry to your high school sweetheart, then you can call me naive. Until then, you can stowe that bull****
Reverting to my age to defend your argument proves your lack of evidence... Yeah, because having sex is really relevant to the war in Iraq.

How bout this:Until you read a ****ing book on Iraq or pick up a goddamn newspaper, don't try arguing a point on it because you just look like a bigot.

Was it genocide when we invaded Germany in 1944? We didn't make a distinction then.
Great... more WWII analogies. Let me reiterate this point again: AN INVASION IS NOT THE SAME AS AN INSURGENCY. If we were arguing about the Iraq invasion, these analogies would be relevant. If you compared Iraq to the Allied occupation of Germany, these analogies would be relevant. Otherwise, there pointless.
 
Re: Counter-Insurgency

This right here is as much as you have adressed my "opinions". Your ignorant and your view is not shaped by substantial evidence.

Ok, tell ya what, boy. When you get your first piece of ass and make your first kill, let me know. Till then, you're just a punk ass kid that's too smart for his own good.
 
Re: Counter-Insurgency

Ok, tell ya what, boy. When you get your first piece of ass and make your first kill, let me know. Till then, you're just a punk ass kid that's too smart for his own good.

Are you even a veteran of combat? Doubting it...

Whatever man, I didn't intend to get in some heated convo with you... you made it what it was. I was just laying out the facts and saying some of your views were naive and you started to revert to ad homm and talking about popping girls cherries. Whatever bro.
 
Re: Counter-Insurgency

Are you even a veteran of combat? Doubting it...

As if you are one to judge? You still live with your parents!

Whatever man, I didn't intend to get in some heated convo with you... you made it what it was. I was just laying out the facts and saying some of your views were naive and you started to revert to ad homm and talking about popping girls cherries. Whatever bro.

Um, no, you called me ignorant. I cut you some slack, because you're just a ****ing kid, but when you wanna call me ignorant, then it's time to cut your young ass loose. When you get a little more up-bringing from you mommy and daddy, come see me.
 
Re: Counter-Insurgency

As if you are one to judge? You still live with your parents!
You don't have a veteran tag. You know little about the military. Nah... your not a veteran.

Um, no, you called me ignorant. I cut you some slack, because you're just a ****ing kid, but when you wanna call me ignorant, then it's time to cut your young ass loose. When you get a little more up-bringing from you mommy and daddy, come see me.
I told you not to cross that line. Then you responded by proving my point and crossing that line. You don't have anything to back-up your bull**** claims so you just attack my age.

Good one... Again, when you read a book or two and pick up the daily newspaper then maybe you won't sound like such a bigot and won't spew out bull**** all the time. Maybe.
 
Re: Counter-Insurgency

It just seriously blows my mind that you're arguing that the CIA and military have no idea what they're doing and should listen to you instead. It's like me trying to tell a radiologist what he's looking at on the film.

What I am saying is what they have been using since we got into Iraq. You need as many men as possible, and you need as many supplies as possible. What Apdst has essentially been doing is treating this like a conventional war, where you can actually take away certain combat essentials. Here, we can't.
 
Re: Counter-Insurgency

Just because there are no "front lines" doesn't mean there aren't well-defined boundaries.

That's not what he's saying. Our military has altered and refined its SOPs since day one of Afghanistan/Iraq. We have the most effective counter-insurgency forces on the planet, and they will only continue to get better.

Why would we ask you anything? You have no experience whatsoever.

Yeah, the boundaries are the following: our bases, friendly; everywhere else, hostile. And that gets the enemy more support when our troops accidently kill/injure some terrorist without a gun.

Then why haven't we won? Oh yeah, because what Apdst has been saying about denying them combat elements or whatever isn't really feasible.

Do you have experience in say...getting an abortion? You undoubtedly have an opinion on that right?
 
Re: Counter-Insurgency

It doesn't matter that this is an unconventional fight. As I've already pointed out, the same principles apply to the battlefield. Yes, it's still a, "battlefield", although it's not configured in the Napolianic sense of the term.

The problem is you can't deny an enemy the supplies and guns on this battlefield without going to unprecedented security, which we don't have the manpower for. And we can't get all of the enemy, there are thousands of them, and then hundreds of thousands of people who look just like them, but are civilians.

Either you haven't read what I've written, or it went right over your head. 1) At no point did I say we should use the same tactics against an unconventional force as we would a conventional, i.e. Warsaw Pact, force. 2) What I have said, is that the combat tactics change, but the principles of combat do not. If you're not familiar with them, they are: Objective, Offensive, Mass, Economy of force, Maneuver, Unity of Command, Security, Surprise, Simplicity. Neither does that fact that logistics is the backbone of any force. It doesn't matter how tough, cool, smart, dedicated, fanatical, or willing to die a soldier is, he has to eat, he has to have ammo. Even the most dedicated soldier, who will readily give his life on the battlefield, isn't ready to starve to death. Nor is he ready to fight the enemy with no ammo. That's a fact, I don;t care what PC, Libbo history book you were educated with.

First, I've read everything you've said. And what you are saying is a denial of necessary materials for fighting. But we can't rid the enemy of those fighting materials. As I've said before, it'd be implausibly hard, and would probably take more men then in Iraq right now.

The tactics are used to carry out the strategy, right? But they cannot in this instance, without going to unprecedented security.

Yes, we dissuaded them from fighting us there, on their terms. We did it by killing the hell out of their rank and file. They couldn't sustain their combat operations against us, because we took away their combat power. We took away their combat power to the point they could no longer engage our forces. American soldiers are the all-time experts on counter-insurgency warfare. No other military in the history of the world has the counter-insurgency experience that the United States military has.

I haven't misread, nor ignored anything you've posted. All I've done is recognized the error in your thought process.

We killed a lot, and they thought, "Hey, there are only a few in Afghanistan, let's kill all of them, then come back to Iraq." All we can do is basically keep our troops there, and wait for them to kill all of the enemy, yes. That's allw e can really do here.

What you've done is simply say the same thing over and over in different words, while I rebuted what you said.
 
Sorry, but we do not have dictators in this country.

In matters of covert ops, the Director of Central Intelligence by law must notify the intelligence oversight committees of the Congress.

If the CIA was ordered not to tell congress as has been charged, this is about as serious as it gets.

Not when the LOTUS has already granted the POTUS an AUMF to use all necessary means to defeat the targets of the assassination. The POTUS not the head of the intelligence oversight committee is the CinC, I suggest your brush up on your Constitution.
 
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You are six weeks behind on your Republican Talking Points Daily Memo. Pelosi was right, she was lied to. In fact, CIA director Panetta was also lied to.

lol then release the transcript of Panetta's testimony. Sorry sport it's you who is a bit late on your talking points. The CIA spokesmen is stating that the Dems are lying through their teeth as does Panetta and as does the Republican spokesmen for the Intelligence Committee.
 
You mean back when the CIA was a loose cannon, funneling money to Saddam Hussein and Osama binLaden? You liked all the duplicity which grew into a harvest of terrorism and hatred?

Proof for either of those assertions? :roll: Family Jewels release sport.
 
Care to show proof the Bin Laden did not recieve any CIA money in the Afghan campaign?

The burden of proof is on you sir.

Everything I have read on the subject, including "Ghost Wars," asserts that Bin Laden indeed recieved training and money from the CIA.

Everything that I have read completely contradicts this assertion.
 
There is a problem with this commentary. First you are assuming that the officials are telling the truth. Second, if Pakistan controlled all of the weapons and money flowing into Afghanistan, then how can we know what went to whom?

The foreign Jihadists had their own sources of funding.
 
So here it 6 days after the original post and the arguing continues unabated. I would just remind everyone of the following.

The plans remained vague and were never carried out, the officials said, and Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A. director, canceled the program last month.
I think I got this right.

t is not clear why Mr. Panetta decided to cancel the program. The C.I.A. never proposed a specific operation to the White House for approval, said the officials, who would only speak anonymously because the program had been classified.

Because the program never carried out any missions and because Congress had already signed off on the agency’s broad authorities after the Sept. 11 attacks, the officials and some Republican legislators said that the C.I.A. was not required to brief lawmakers on specifics about the program.

This is like the program that never was. And if they had killed some bad guys so what. Would it be any different than using a Predator to take someone or a group of someones out? I would say yes because it's more precise with little or no collateral damage.
Forgive me if I make a point or two that someone else has made. I didn't have time to go back and read every post since my first one 6 days ago, but I had to weigh back in.

The use of snipers and if you prefer hit teams to take out key targets has been around since the beginning of war which means it's almost as long as man himself. The main object is in the end to save lives on a larger scale by eliminating a specific target. Imagine how nice it might have been if Hitler or Tojo had been taken out in 1939. And don't forget that even though it was a time of War a special mission was put together that took out Admiral Yamamoto in April 1943 when his plane was shot down. So there is a long tradition of as I call it doing the right thing.
Not to be too sappy but to paraphrase a line from a Movie. "The good of the many out weighs the lives of a few bad guys."

Since the topic never happened and this discussion has become so heated, I was wondering what it would be like as a child to have ones father say, I'm going to punish you because you thought about doing a bad thing. I know you didn't really do it but you could have if you had been able to figure out how to Im going to have to do this. So go to your room and I'll be in there in a minute to spank you.
Let's wait till something that's not for the good of the many to take place before we become part of the "Blame America First Bunch", as it seems some may have already done.
I personally salute everyone who puts it on the line so I can be here to do this, whether they are in uniform or a member of some special operations unit working behind enemy lines as hard as those lines can be to define. All of them put their lives on the line and follow orders to keep us safe and free.
:2usflag: America and her people first last and always, and if some bad guys have to die. Very simply 'THEM'S THE BREAKS', tough Shiite.
 
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When the CIA has secret plans to take out members of congress is when I get worried. It seems to me they were mandated to plan on wacking some AQ. Were the plans completed? Were they implemented? Eight years is a long time to do nothing. If I get briefed every day for eight years on something that never changes it goes to junkmail pretty quick. Maybe they were informed and it went to junkmail because it was equivalent to internet banality.
 
Re: Counter-Insurgency

What I am saying is what they have been using since we got into Iraq. You need as many men as possible, and you need as many supplies as possible. What Apdst has essentially been doing is treating this like a conventional war, where you can actually take away certain combat essentials. Here, we can't.

That is a lie. He has not been treating this like a conventional war.
 
Yeah, the boundaries are the following: our bases, friendly; everywhere else, hostile.

Incorrect. The "boundaries" are defined by physical presence and the projection of force, both of which extend well beyond the walls of our bases.

And that gets the enemy more support when our troops accidently kill/injure some terrorist without a gun.

Sometimes. Sometimes not. Do not make blanket statements.

Then why haven't we won? Oh yeah, because what Apdst has been saying about denying them combat elements or whatever isn't really feasible.

We haven't won because counter-insurgency campaigns are long.

Do you have experience in say...getting an abortion? You undoubtedly have an opinion on that right?

Having an opinion on abortion is not analogous to speaking authoritatively on the tactical, strategic, and operational aspects of military campaigns.
 
Re: Counter-Insurgency

That is a lie. He has not been treating this like a conventional war.

Then why hasn't he said anything concerning a counter-insurgency type conflict??? He's making the most generic statements, which are like saying, "take the water out," while a boat is sinking. It's understood to be what's necessary, but it doesn't do a single thing to explain how.
 
Incorrect. The "boundaries" are defined by physical presence and the projection of force, both of which extend well beyond the walls of our bases.

The boundaries are nothing more then little Lesotho like places in the middle of South Africa. Our troops are attacked everywhere, including the bases, and most definetely places where power has been projected. Those areas are subjected to more attack because of our simple presence in the regions. The physical presence fades between patrols, and patrols are attack, are they not?

Sometimes. Sometimes not. Do not make blanket statements.

Ambiguity is Apdst's trump card, why can't it be mine?

We haven't won because counter-insurgency campaigns are long.

And we won't win by trying to stop the inflow of supplies, or by killing all of the hostiles either. And saying thats what's necessary is rather vague, and useless.

Having an opinion on abortion is not analogous to speaking authoritatively on the tactical, strategic, and operational aspects of military campaigns.

As a matter of fact, the analogy works perfectly. If you have never done action A (abortion) you can still comment, and advise on action A, right? Well, same goes for action B (military conflict).

Many military figures have opinions on hwo to win certain types of conflicts. Some (for Afghanistan) might suggest sweeping attacks, followed by intermittent patrols or something. Others might suggest simply establishing a presence and then patrolling around the bases. Others might suggest a combination of the two. It all matters on opinion, and for the record, Apdst has about as much military experience as me, seeing as he doesn't have an active service badge.
 
Re: Counter-Insurgency

The problem is you can't deny an enemy the supplies and guns on this battlefield without going to unprecedented security, which we don't have the manpower for. And we can't get all of the enemy, there are thousands of them, and then hundreds of thousands of people who look just like them, but are civilians.



First, I've read everything you've said. And what you are saying is a denial of necessary materials for fighting. But we can't rid the enemy of those fighting materials. As I've said before, it'd be implausibly hard, and would probably take more men then in Iraq right now.

The tactics are used to carry out the strategy, right? But they cannot in this instance, without going to unprecedented security.



We killed a lot, and they thought, "Hey, there are only a few in Afghanistan, let's kill all of them, then come back to Iraq." All we can do is basically keep our troops there, and wait for them to kill all of the enemy, yes. That's allw e can really do here.

What you've done is simply say the same thing over and over in different words, while I rebuted what you said.


So, please, tell us what tactical, or strategic doctrine, or theory your basing your opion on.
 
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