PFF - Pennock's Fiero Forum, PDA Edition

You thought Bengozi was hard to see, look at this (Page 5/16)

rinselberg

AUG 18, 01:48 PM

quote

Originally posted by williegoat:

No. Why would they? Trump has no authority to conduct foreign policy. Such a conversation might be construed as a violation of federal law.

Of course, I suppose they could talk about yoga and the grandkids.

Really? I think DJT's attitude on that would be "Hey, this ain't federal. This is Florida."

maryjane

AUG 18, 01:50 PM

quote

Originally posted by Rickady88GT:

I guess we can only speculate? But it would make sense that those people would jump off when they realized the plane wasn't going to stop for them? When did they jump off? Were they the 7 that got killed on the tarmac as the plane sped up to 200+ mph? Don't know for sure but they had to know that they could not stay there in flight. And I know I am assuming and or projecting here, but I think they were just trying to stop the plan, not actually hitch a ride on the outside? So they had to abandon the attempt at some point, was that point to late, and got killed jumping off while still taxying?

I have not read about it closely but did read one report that this particular plane did not toff load any of it's cargo or take on any cargo or passengers but took off hastily when it became surrounded by the throngs of Afghans. Accurate or not, I do not know.
https://www.india.com/news/....1&usqp=mq331AQCKAE=

https://twitter.com/i/status/1427191622899441667

[This message has been edited by maryjane (edited 08-18-2021).]

blackrams

AUG 18, 03:26 PM

A Valkyrie friend of mine from the Netherlands sent this to me. He's a retired military fighter pilot and spent quite a bit of time in the middle east and specifically Afghanistan.
This letter from the Taliban pretty much sums up why we left with our tail between our legs. There's a lot of truth in that letter whether I like it or not.
The purpose of war is to win and if you're not out to win, then stay the hell out of the conflict.

Long
Warning: This post may be controversial to you.
It is a fragment from Matthew Griffin and Scott Chapman, not by yours truly.

The Taliban once stated: “You may have your watches, but we have time.” This is not just about the Americans as the Taliban’s enemies but it also easily applies to all members of the Coalition forces, including my country, The Netherlands.

***Authors’ ***
Matthew Griffin is a 2001 United States Military Academy Graduate, Army Ranger, Combat Veteran with the 75th Ranger Regiment (3x Afghanistan, 1x Iraq), CEO of Combat Flip Flops, author, and 2019 Henry Crown Fellow with the Aspen Global Leadership Institute.
Scott Chapman is a 2000 Murray State University Graduate, Army Ranger Fire Team Leader from Alpha Company 2/75th Rangers (‘01 - ‘05), OGA Blackwater Alumni, entrepreneur, and author. Combat Veteran ( 21x Afghanistan, 1x Iraq)
-----
Written in Taliban:
The first time I saw you was in the Khyber pass. You came with your technology, elite fighters fueled by revenge, and the hubris to believe you could disprove history.
This was a war that you didn’t have the stomach to fight. But I’m glad you tried.
We bled you the same way we bled the Soviets in our Holy Land. We bled you the same way the Vietnamese bled you in their home land. We did it patiently and deliberately.
Patience. Something Westerners never learn.
Our history is millennial. We don’t yearn for an early victory when the Infidel ravages our Holy Land. Our victory is celebrated decades from now. We’ve endured, then ravaged every standing military that crossed our borders. Why? How? We’re patient.
In 30 days, we’ll be stronger, richer, and have control over precious natural resources that you need for your pathetic life that’s dictated by comfort. We will have women, riches, land, guns, and ownership of one of the greatest chapters in military history.
You lose.
If you want to try again, we welcome the challenge. You will fail regardless of how much money you burn in our deserts. For pity, here is free advice that may contribute to your future success; should you ever decide to invade again.
You recruit your warriors and supporters from a drug addicted, distracted, disillusioned population that’s obsessed with comfort and entertainment. A population obsessed with altering their mundane reality. Alcohol, marijuana, pills, and our new favorite -- Tide Pods. Every time your doctors prescribe opiate painkillers, you line our coffers with gold. Your population’s thirst for our pristine heroin has never been more lucrative for our warrior tribes. We will keep feeding you poison for as long as you keep your hands out.
If your population wasn’t so spineless, undisciplined, and self loathing, then you might be able to compile a raiding party with enough tenacity to outthink ours.
Our fighters are born into war. Raised in it. It’s a way of life that evades your “first world” nations. They live a life of such immense misery and pain that they’re willing to fight barefoot in the snow for the opportunity to martyr themselves. They yearn for the opportunity to die. When they do have the blessed opportunity to sacrifice themselves, they sit above Mohammed at the right hand of God. Blessed in Allah for eternity.
What honors do your fighters receive? Their empty sacrifice is remembered in the form of a “three day weekend.” The majority of your population uses this sacred time to get drunk and grow more fat as a way to celebrate their fallen warriors. Sadly, we pay tribute to their death more honorably.
The colored pieces of cloth you pin on their chests are similar to the jewelry worn by our women. What good are accolades and vanity if you don’t have the stomach to endure a fight? We don’t offer the burden of healthcare to our fighters as they often want to die for Allah. Your fighters fight to live. Their inability to reconcile the inevitable outcome of our patience leads them to kill themselves. Your medications, counselors and non-profits will never undo the pain and suffering you’ve forced them to endure. It will never remove the pain we’ve caused your broken nation. You are your own worst enemy.
We will give your fighters credit. Some are creative, tenacious, and fierce. They outgun us in every way possible. But again, we simply wait them out. Allah is patient. You cycle them through our Holy Lands every 3 to 12 months for their combat rotations. After their tour is complete, they return to the comfort of their warm beds and endless entertainment. If you left them here, in our Holy Land, with no way out but to win, then you might of have had a chance of success. The longer you poisoned our Holy Land with your presence, your “rules of engagement” only strengthened our position. There is only one rule in war - that is to win.
Your commanders made you fight with your hands tied behind your back. Your rules also confused our fighters too. “We’re clearly the enemy, why are they letting us go?” Thank you for your compassion as it allowed our fighters to kill more Infidels. We began to feel as if your commanders were on our side. We’re thankful your most vicious dogs were never allowed off their leash.
Your showcase Generals make us laugh. You spend millions of dollars flying them around our country inventing new ways to win, while ignoring the guidance of our most capable foes. Your Generals make decisions to minimize risk to their fragile reputation with the ultimate goal of securing a lucrative retirement--jobs with suppliers that fuel your losing force. A self-serving circle that’s built on the backs of your youngest and most naive fighters.
Your retired Generals “earn” tens of thousands of dollars talking to your political, industrial, and financial leaders about “teams, winning, and discipline.” It’s a mockery of the war they refused to fight. It’s a mockery of the Infidel warriors who died in our lands. We urge you to continue following their vacuumous personalities so we can further watch your once great nation collapse.
Your statesman and elected officials are spineless, narcissistic, and more cowardly than your Generals. They crave power over you above all else. They come to our country, hide behind blast walls, and only heed the word of the indigenous leader they put in power. I believe your soldiers call this a “self licking ice cream cone.”
They’ve burned billions of dollars in a wasted effort to bring clean water, electricity, business, education, agriculture, and exports to a region that didn’t ask for it. You should have saved yourself the effort and simply given the money directly to us. Don’t worry, your diplomatic friends gave us plenty of your American tax dollars. If you want to give it another shot with your “soft power,” send those with real experience, not fancy degrees and silver tongues.
Over the next few months, we will make the world understand that you failed worse than any fighting force that’s ever invaded our lands. Today we celebrate victory.
As you evacuate your embassy, our fighters will be standing in the shade. We thank you for the parting gifts. You’ll find surface-to-air missiles staged in the back of Toyota pickup trucks that you purchased for us. Our marksmen will be patient.
We saw what Extortion 17 did to your nation and the morale of your fighting force. Do your citizens even remember that victory? We’ll be repeating and improving upon our victory while your citizens and sympathizers evacuate in disgrace. Every one of your foes around the world will know exactly how to break you.
You are welcome to fly your empty drones, target our cell phones, and send your spies. But they, too, will ultimately fail. We’ll use their failures to show the world that you’re not all-powerful. You’re a false front. An empty shell. You lie, cheat, steal, and are easily defeated because you lack the spine to fight. This is your history now. We’re grateful Allah gave us the opportunity to show the world how to defeat the Infidels.
We look forward to seeing you again across the battlefield.
Praise be to God,
The Taliban
-----

***Authors’ Note from Matthew Griffin and Scott Chapman ***
If you’ve read this far. Thank you. I’ve spent the past week trying to find a way to communicate this to the American people in a manner that would cause anger, rage, action, and understanding. Writing in the voice of a Taliban felt right. If this made you angry, cry, or contemplative--then our goal is achieved. Our hope is that it inspires you to take action with your elected officials. They’ve been repeating the same failing playbook since World War II with your sons, daughters, and tax dollars. If you want this to keep happening, do nothing. If you don’t, then do something. If we all do a little, together we do a lot.

kslish

AUG 18, 03:38 PM

quote

Originally posted by williegoat:

Generals and diplomats warned about a pullout, but the president told his team the U.S. was simply providing life support for the Kabul government while neglecting more pressing issues
I read a few reports that the Taliban are now shooting people who try to get to the airport.

This man needs to resign or be removed THIS WEEK. Yes I know that that would leave us with Kamala Harris, but at this point, we have no other choice.

If that article is completely accurate in it's account, this ranks right up there with Carter abandoning support for the Shah of Iran, and we all know how well that turned out.

If he ignored senior members of his own administration, I'm willing to bet he didn't consult with or listen to any other NATO countries as well, and the coalition troops deployed there were at least 3x the number of Americans.

https://www.irishtimes.com/...istan-exit-1.4649515

We've got over 28,000 deployed in South Korea still 50+ years after that war. Seems like 2,500 Americans and 7,500+ NATO forces were keeping the region relatively stable. Not perfect by any means, but stable especially when you had complete control of airspace in the region.

FieroSTETZ

AUG 18, 03:55 PM

quote

Originally posted by blackrams:
***Authors’ Note from Matthew Griffin and Scott Chapman ***
If you’ve read this far. Thank you. I’ve spent the past week trying to find a way to communicate this to the American people in a manner that would cause anger, rage, action, and understanding. Writing in the voice of a Taliban felt right. If this made you angry, cry, or contemplative--then our goal is achieved. Our hope is that it inspires you to take action with your elected officials. They’ve been repeating the same failing playbook since World War II with your sons, daughters, and tax dollars. If you want this to keep happening, do nothing. If you don’t, then do something. If we all do a little, together we do a lot.

Ha the author's note is awesome.

sourmash

AUG 18, 03:57 PM

I smell bullchi. It lost me at heroin production. Bullcrap. The Taliban virtually eradicated growth of poppies. The USA allowed it when they went in.

blackrams

AUG 18, 04:04 PM

quote

Originally posted by sourmash:

I smell bullchi. It lost me at heroin production. Bullcrap. The Taliban virtually eradicated growth of poppies. The USA allowed it when they went in.

Your call to accept or reject, doesn't matter to me.

Rams

sourmash

AUG 18, 04:07 PM

One report I read, which was not confirmed, is that American security forces shot some Afghanis at the airport when they got swarmed while trying to leave.

blackrams

AUG 18, 04:10 PM

A follow up message I just received from my Valkyrie friend:

One of the basic military doctrines is 'know your enemy'. That is why I posted my previous message.
While I was still active duty until 2008, I recollect we would comply with the following strategy to counter these bastards. w/o going into too much detail and in my own words, it boiled down to something like this.
a. ‘Proactive engagement’. A (very) large number of troops will deploy (show of force) to exercise and demonstrate a clear military superiority. Meanwhile civil structures are reinstalled and supported in maintaining law and order.
The presence of troops in general should be everywhere in the operations area, independent of reserves and support from one of the coalition member States.

b. ‘Proactive, but more limited engagement’. In this phase, violence is countered in a more flexible manner with less troops. The operations are mainly controlled by intelligence. With timely prior knowledge, less troops can still operate effectively and sufficiently.

c. ‘Deterrent Presence’. National troops under coalition command undertake military operations to prevent subversive elements from destabilizing the local authorities. These troops should counter small scale crisis situations with own resources. The deterrence by 'over the horizon' presence of coalition forces increases in importance. Allied troops delegate their responsibilities to international organizations, NGO's and local authorities.

d. ‘Minimal NATO presence’. A minimal allied contingency takes care of long-term interests, before disappearing. 'Over the horizon' ops is the only means left for the coalition. This phase ends by a decision of the NAC (North Atlantic Council)

Having been there myself I can tell you the military is not to blame for any of the results we are witnessing now. On the contrary. Soldiers, sailors and airmen who fought in Afghanistan went to numerous and great, even ultimate sacrifices in achieving their objectives. Not only that, they did their utmost best to provide for a better life of the, obviously oppressed locals there. True hero's, each and every one of them. My respect.

Trouble is, every time politicians start to interfere with the execution of military operations, failure is at the horizon. This applies to yours and mine as well.
The last time we fully complied with above strategy, to my recollection, was in Nazi Germany and Japan. After that period, over 35 conflict areas in the world have been dealt with in sending military troops but are still not resolved. For example, there are still troops in Korea, Kashmir, Cyprus, Lebanon, Western Sahara, Congo, Sudan, Mali, Libya, Syria, Iraq and for that matter, I include Bosnia and Kosovo as well.
Why does this happen all the time?
In the case of Afghanistan, after nine eleven Bush declared war on terror. The Soviets tried it before with the Mujahedeen as opponents. You can say, the Taliban is a legacy of the Mujahedeen.
After Enduring Freedom, a coalition was formed with ISAF. Here is where the politics start kicking in.
Not enough countries participated with sufficient boots on the ground, rendering Proactive Engagement a matter of risk rather than fact. My country did so, and held Kunduz with a considerable number of soldiers and F-16's for many years.
While the US was on the winning hand at first, over time the Taliban started to gain territory and influence again. Meanwhile the war was dragging on, became less popular and started to get a burden for most countries involved. Nowadays the general public expects everything to be solved quickly or they lose interest. This has an impact on politicians who are elected. They have less money to spend on employment and economic issues, body bags are flown in and they become unpopular. Politicians who promise peace want to proceed towards the following steps, Proactive, but more limited engagement and Deterrent Presence.
With the knowledge of today, we have to admit that in Afghanistan, the follow-on strategy steps were taken too quickly. Taliban was still not entirely defeated and the civilian structure had too much loose ends everywhere.
Remember, for a simple Afghan shepherd somewhere, suddenly a foreign invasion force starts bombing his land, installs a puppet government, holds razzia's and deports his people to Guantanamo. No matter right or wrong, he is convinced the intruders have bad intentions and need to move out.
During WW2, some people rejected the Nazi’s and became resistance fighters. We now call them war heroes. If you imagine yourself in the minds of these people however, they are doing the same but we now call them terrorists.

Not that I even pretend to have an answer or solution. I don’t draw conclusions and leave it up to you.
Just wanted to share some thoughts I have right now.

82-T/A [At Work]

AUG 18, 04:15 PM

quote

Unfortunately, the overwhelming vast majority of these civilians have never been on a plane before, and most lack the exposure to understand really the mechanics of flight. I suspect that to some degree, most of them knew that they ran the risk of dying... but that was likely going to happen anyway. When we captured terrorists over the years, they would usually be transported by C-130. They would be forced to sit cross-legged on the floor, hand-cuffed with their cuffs chained to the floor railing skids (which is also used for the cargo straps/ties). They will usually have a black cover over their heads as well while in transport. Even the terrorists are so terrified of flying (because they don't know what to expect), that they almost always piss themselves out of fear during the flight (don't understand turbulence, etc.). The airmen then have to clean up the mess after the fact. This is why they have them sit on the floor rather than on the jump seats that they can pull down when there's no cargo in the plane. In the case of the picture with the 800+ civilians, they were just sitting anywhere they could.

With the C-17, I suspect those clinging to the outside figured that if there was an opening ANYWHERE that they could get into, they would be fine... without understanding that there would be no heat, little oxygen, etc... and that they would die. To some degree, I also have to believe that many figured they could hang on and that the landing gear would just stay as it is. For 95% of them, this is the closest they've ever been to a plane in their life, or even HKIA.