How and why did the US fucked up so badly in the invasion of

Nobody has ever done a good job of invading Afghanistan.

ROE's.

>>28442755
There is a reason Afghanistan is know as the graveyard of empires.

It's essentially because the American tactics were like a really fucked up application of whack-a-mole.

We'd bomb the shit out of high priority targets, sit our asses in a firebase and lockdown the nearby countryside, kill a bunch of tali, and start making progress with the local villagers.... and then go somewhere else.

We'd pull out and move somewhere else for a few weeks and do the same thing, but tali would just filter back into where we were because all the police and afghan national guard guys didn't want any fucking part of fighting/got slaughtered when they tried. Then tali would kill off all the people who got pointed out as having helped us and set up shop again.

A few weeks would pass and we'd move back into the area and the cycle kept repeating.

Only way to win was not to play, or play smart with a Northern Alliance type who was actually motivated/capable of fighting and holding ground for a long time.

>>28442775
I was just reading these and the CIA/military did some pretty stupid things. Seems like it wasn't ROE's.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/911timeline/main/escapeafghanistan.html

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/05/america-first-drone-strike-afghanistan/394463/

>>28442807
Ah sorry, I'm talking about the initial phase which was 2001-2002.

>>28442840
because instead of not letting forces like Delta operate and act on intelligence when needed. Instead for instance Operation Anaconda on tora bora was held off for over 12 hours which people believe gave Osama Bin Laden time to escape as well as the local forces fighting along side them at the time werent loyal and switched sides last minute. They ended up bombing where they believed he was instead of making their way there and ofcourse he escaped. It was a lot of the higher ups simply not listening to intelligence and acting on it in a timely manner.

>>28442755
Most anything involving the words "America," "Afghanistan," and "wrong" is answered with the word "Pakistan."

>>28442755
You grossly misunderstand what the invasion of Afghanistan was.

>>28442895
What was it then?

>>28442962
The Taliban was never centralized dipshit. It wasn't like fighting the Republican Guard or Iraqi Army. The whole country was a bunch of tribes.

>>28442990
I'm talking about the initial phase. When the Taliban was still in Kabul fleeing to Tora Bora.

>>28442765
>Nobody has ever done a good job of invading Afghanistan.

Alexander
Mongols
Rambo

>>28442755
>If the US captured/killed Al-Qaeda or Taliban leaders would the war in Afghanistan be considered a win?

They did that, for years. It's very expensive and Afghanistan is still a shithole. The Al-Qaeda was effectively driven out of the country.

The only way to exert control in the tribal areas is to go in there and set yourself up as the strongest tribe. That's a shitty, thankless job.

You can kill as many people as you like but you can't make it into 'not a shithole'. It's always going to be a terrible place, filled with terrible people. The only winning move is to not go there.

>>28443009
You're not making a point. Initial operations in Afghanistan did not focus much on Kabul.

>>28442874
This. The last thing Pakistan wants is an independent Afghanistan that might side with India. Scares the bejeezus out of them.

>>28443061
>Scares the bejeezus out of them.

population:
Afghanistan- 32,000,000
Pakistan- 199,000,000

Afghanistan is not a legitimate country, Pakistan doesn't give a fuck what they do.

>>28443085
Pakistan isn't a country either. THe government literally doesn't control sizable portions of the country.

>>28443050
Sorry I meant Kandahar.

>>28443085
It'd still be a second front sandwiching Pakistan between two rivals. It's a bad situation regardless of numbers.

>>28443104
>Pakistan isn't a country either. THe government literally doesn't control sizable portions of the country.

welcome to every country outside of Europe or the US

>>28443128

you underestimate how shitty afghanistan is

>>28443085
It's not Pakistan being scared of Afghanistan, it's Pakistan wanting to play regional power. Pakistan wanted to be the Syria to Afghanistan's Lebanon or, barring that, they wanted to make sure that Afghanistan was not aligned with opposing foreign power, i.e. India.

>>28442755
All we did was capture and kill their leaders. They just got new ones.

File: Afghan_women_1970s.jpg (313KB, 822x497px) Image search: [Google]

313KB, 822x497px

The only thing you need to know about why we went into Afghanistan and Iraq is because of $$$$.

War is a racket.


And remember, Afghanistan was very liberal and western oriented before the Soviets invaded.

>>28443617
*Kabul was. Everything outside of that was the same tribal shithole

>>28443617
Holy shit look at the brow on the one on the left....

So- what do we all think about the Mumbai event? What was ISI's goal there?

>>28442817
looks like ROE to me

the wrong ROEs for the situation

>>28442765

The British did, three times.

Yeah, the Retreat From Kabul was a disaster (mainly due to a commander who was literally senile), but what everyone forgets is that afterwards they came back and burnt Kabul to the ground.

Then in the 1870s the Afghans were completely humilitaed and reduced to a British client for the next 40 years.

Then in 1919 an attempted Afghan invasion of India and attempt to spark off a second Indian Mutiny was handily thwarted.