Why is Nato falling short in Afghanistan?

Wow, mighty arrogant of the UN to declare defeat in Afghanistan. I haven't seen terms of surrender being signed by Bush. I also seem to remember a time when nations fought on bitterly, even after daunting setbacks.

Get real. The USA lost more soldiers in single days of fighting in WWII, or Vietnam. For that matter, we lost more soldiers during the "Peace Years" while Clinton was in office than we have so far lost during the war on Terror, AND the Iraq War.

It took 11 years of peace, for the founding generation of the United States to write its constitution. They were all well educated men, with unquestionable competency, and were united in the same goal. It was the most ideal possible situation, and took 11 years to restore order to the 13 colonies. Frankly, it seems unrealistic when people look at Afghanistan, and claim that we have lost there because we couldn't do in 5 years what the Framers of the Constitution did in 11.

No, the situation is not ideal.
Yes, it is difficult to bring order to a country that has been lawless for centuries.
Yes, there are still terrorists there.

But there is progress in Afghanistan. And if you think the USA is loosing in Afghanistan, then you better be ready to show some reasoning behind it. Why do you think the USA is loosing? Where are the lost battles? What objectives have our enemies met? Where are the NATO forces being repelled from the Territory? Some UN envoy claiming that Afghanistan is lost isn't good enough for me.

I do admit though, I would like to see both wars being fought differently. The USA had martial law in affect in Germany, Japan, and even the American States that rebelled in the US civil war for over 4 years each. In all of those cases, formal surrenders were signed by the leaders of the defeated. I don’t think there has been a day of martial law declared or enforced in either Afghanistan or Iraq. Why they haven’t, I can’t even imagine, and CNN is reporting our enemy’s triumphs, no matter how minor they may be, so enthusiastically that it’s hard to miss the results of no martial law. Still, it seems to be working much better than I expected. Heck, look no further than the later half of that article you posted. Nato Commanders have no idea what this Paddy Ashdown is talking about.

My gut feeling is that this is more a problem with the EU than with NATO. The unfortuate fact that the membership of NATO is the US, Canada, and the EU. The EU's long standing difficulty is a daliance with leftism and anti-americanism. In reality this mentality in the EU, means that subconciously if not consiciously they are determined to frsutrate the US and damn the consequences. The removal of the Soviet threat has allowed this mentality to manifest. The EU collectively instinctively acts to reject anything which can be interpreted as US dominance.

The French I found were harbouring Gaulist resentment of the US' clumsy attempt to sideline them in the early post-liberation period and had this reinforced by the Suez crisis---which the French rightly still have not forgiven.

In short for the US, with the EU as allies.....enemies are not required.

You can't look at the task NATO is undertaking in Afghanistan as a simple battle, it is a campaign and thus long term. So you can't look to a single battle or incident and say that is where we won or lost because it is much larger quandary. Someone who has experience in long term rebuilding projects would be someone who dealt with Bosnia directly. If they are signaling that the mission is in trouble they are not some causal pedestrian offering their opinion on something they have no grasp about.

That the US or NATO can do something in the short term is not relevant to the discussion, it's the stamina of the major players that will determine the 'winner'. An insurgency has a lot going for it in that regard as they are fighting in their own back yard so they know the people and the politics and use that to their advantage it's up to us to root them out. Our allies in theater have to sleep knowing that they are surrounded by them. To counter their constant presence is to have a constant and effective influx of troops, equipment and support. For Afghanistan to work we are looking at the ballpark of at least $30 Billion dollars in aid. If the ranks grow thin and the aid drys up NATO will fall short and the mission fails. That is not a desire on my part this is an empirical fact. Our forces can preserver in the face of this adversity but they have to have the people on the ground working with us and not against us and we have to have our allies not exacerbating an already tenuous situation. We already have Karzi demanding the US stop bombing and Canada is now paying for the police because the locals are too corrupt to do so.

What we have now in theater gets the job done but everyone knows more would be better. We also know that current troop levels can not be maintained the way they are now for the next 20 years. Support is drying up both in troops and in dollars. You can't have a military solution to every problem and expect it to work. The mission is focusing on the security aspect because it is pressing and you can't have anything else without that 1st but it is what is done beyond that which will make the mission easier to sell to the people who we need to support it. That part of reconstruction is being hampered by the corruption under Karzi and the appearance of an Islamic state that has banned Christianity all the while creating a narco state while our US ally has turned to outsourcing all it's problems to mercenaries that answer to no one and a massive bombing campaign that has turned the local population against us.

That’s purely speculative though. Of course we would loose if we stopped sending supplies and soldiers to fight. It's hard to win any conflict when you've stopped fighting it.

What makes you assume that the USA will stop? Counting reserves the USA has 2.5+ million soldiers, barely 8% of which are deployed in Iraq. Despite what polls and news papers say, there’s plenty of political will lying around too. Even if NATO left the USA holding the bag, I'm pretty confident that wouldn't stop the USA from fighting on.

I'd say this is wishfull thinking on Scapes part.
While CNN has some credability, I don't put much into the "wired news network"

If the US was fighting only this one war then why is Canada needed there? My concern is not over the resolve of the US forces in theater. My interest is over how my country is investing into a cause that is not able to withstand even a cursory level of examination without collapsing under the weight of its own corruption. The majority of the Karzi Government is made up of ex-warlords. None of them have any interest in little girls going to school or stopping the flow of heroin let alone standing up to the Taliban which they have offered a seat at the table to.

If nation building is the mission, what nation are we building?

The Soviet Union wasn't able to "pacify" Afghanistan, why do you think we'll do any better? At that time the Warsaw Pact countries had as much military might as NATO. It's just another Vietnam.

The other problem is the question Scape asked: "If nation building is the mission, what nation are we building?" A free nation must establish itself, and do so without any force from outside. If the nation is to be peaceful, it must be established peacefully. We have already seen how much violence the United States has; they were founded by revolution, we were founded by negotiation and a group of delegates from Ontario and Quebec going to the Maritimes with a boat load of champaign. We were founded peacefully, we are fundamentally a peaceful nation. The Middle East, including Afghanistan, has used violence as a means of establishing power for thousands of years. In this conflict the people of Afghanistan have said we're useless unless we're willing to hunt down and kill the opposing political faction. Rather than teaching them how to live with a multiparty political system peacefully, they're indoctrinating us into their culture of violence, torture, and assassination.

Let me put it another way; how many people in Canada are willing to use military force to kill members of an opposing political party, and terrorism to effect their desired political change? The last time that happened in Canada was the FLQ crisis. That was a very few extremists and we stamped that out quick. I would say below 0.01% of the population accepts violence as an acceptable means of political change. We may argue for or against political parties, but we all accept the democratic process. The proportion in Afghanistan who reject violence has not reached 90% much less 99.99%, and they aren't willing to fight for the right of an opposing party to voice their views. They're still willing to kill any members of an opposing party on sight. Violence will never stop under those circumstances, we have to stop bailing them out and leave them to suffer the consequences of their own violence

All this means we cannot win. It's time for a much more focussed approach: take out Al Qaeda fast and firm, then go home.

Taking out Al Qaeda has always been on the hit list but leaving outright would only allow it to reemerge stronger much like the Mujahidin. The fight to root out Al Qaeda should still be the primary focus but rooting out corruption and not tolerating incompetence should also be right up there. Afghanistan can stand on it's own but not as a theocracy with an economy based on the drug trade. We can't have that as that is as bad as the threat Al Qaeda posed to begin with.

Not true. Striking fast and strong right after 9/11 would leave them in shock. The message is "Leave us alone, we leave you alone. But attack us, we will wipe you out so fast you won't know what hit you."

That's why the Taliban are so different than Al Qaeda. The Taliban didn't attack us, Al Qaeda did. We should have taken out Al Qaeda, and if the Taliban didn't hand over Al Qaeda or invite NATO in to take them out ourselves, then do some collateral damage to the Taliban. But the Taliban are not our target.

You may not understand the psychological trauma of a fast, overwhelming, focussed attack. Let me give you an example. A friend told me Middle East terrorists attempted an attack on Russians once. Remember those who operate suicide squads often "recruit" the bomber by threatening him, telling the bomber if he refuses not only will he be killed, his entire family will be killed too. So carrying out the suicide bombing protects his family. The Russians responded to the suicide bombing by killing the bomber's entire family. It was fast and complete; no one has attempted an attack on Russia again.

The Taliban were the most effective at banning opium in Afghanistan. It's ironic that this war has caused the Taliban to grow and trade in opium when they had stamped it out. This war is contra-productive.

Haha, just noticed that I can post links to other websights now that I've made more than 10 posts. I think you will find that
THIS is relevent to the discussion at hand.

Using biased material and slanted titles is just another example of trying to shift public opinion by making it look like everyone already believes this. It's an attempt to stack the deck.
By force of arms, the taliban cannot win and it looks like they can't keep up an effective terrorist front against a combined NATO. For all this chatter, the facts look like the people of Afghanistan recognise and welcome our actions and they are working to strengthen their forces so they can again stand on their own.

An American and joined in, and a newbee at that. I've had enough difficulty explaining this to Canadians. This board has a lot of serving Canadian soldiers and other hawks, I've had enough difficulty explaining this to Canadians.