# Taliban:  You Ain't As Tough as the Soviets (And They Lost)



## The Bread Guy (1 May 2009)

Remembering the April 28 anniversary of the coup that got things rolling (at least most recently)....

" The invaders of October will meet the fate of the Perpetrator of April Coup dentate <coup d’etat>" (GoogEng) - .pdf of entire statement at non-terrorist web page here


> …. The evil alliance should understand that the Red army and their quislings were not able to subjugate the Afghans, though they were more than you in terms of the numbers of troops and presence but the Afghans did not retreat from their Islamic and national values. You are weaker than they were. You are a frightened army versus the voluntary tactics of sacrifice (kamikaze attacks) ; you should know that this country is not ready to accept you. All your chances for advancement have lost their viability and your conspiracies are doomed to failure.
> 
> Better for you to ponder over the fate of the Russians and their henchmen; choose a logical way out less you should not be able to find a way of escape. The Afghan nation will not accept any compromise or conspiracy in the presence of the foreign troops that still more based on buying time and duplicity ….



With a bit of revisionist history thrown in for good measure - in their version, following the "warlord rule" phase of recent history....


> ....t was a special mercy of the Almighty Allah (SwT) that the Islamic movement of Taliban emerged in this critical phase under the leadership of the Leader of the Faithfuls Mullah Mohammad Omar. They put an end to the mischief, corruptions and plundering; established an Islamic system as per the desires of the people and in line with the objectives of Jihad, ushering in a phase of security, consolation and justice. However, the global power of arrogance could not tolerate existence of the Islamic Emirate. It weighed hard on them. Therefore, they started poisonous propaganda, beefing up their mercenaries against the Islamic Emirate, funding their war expenditure directly and indirectly. These arrogant powers assembled the traitors of the dreams of the Afghans in a part of our country and encouraged them to start the fire of war. However, *when the West found that the warlords and gunmen could not face the forces of the Islamic Emirate, they launched a black propaganda, claiming the Islamic Emirate was jeopardizing their interests and the enemies of the West were hiding in the country*....



_More on link, attachment_


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## X-mo-1979 (1 May 2009)

He ain't lying.However if we dropped these rule of combat we would already be done in that country.It isn't the taliban who will defeat us,it's our adherence to rules.We moved into a rebuild phase when we should have kept pushing and doing major offensive operations.IMHO.

To defeat a devil you have to be worse,and although I'm sure our soldiers could be international law,military law prevents that.And they use it against us.


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## pbi (1 May 2009)

Really? Can you name one counter-insurgency in living memory that was successful because the COIN forces used uncontrolled brutality and violence, or sank to the insurgents' level? That sort of tactic usually leads to just one thing: more of the same. Even the Israelis, who from time to time have "loosened the leash" far more than our Army would ever be allowed to do, still haven't achieved full peace since 1948, and some of their most inept stunts (Lebanon II, Shatila Camp) have hung around to haunt them. And, how much public support could we expect if we acted like that? Remember Somalia? You want to go through THAT again? Not me. 

Cheers


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## PanaEng (1 May 2009)

well said Pbi


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## X-mo-1979 (2 May 2009)

pbi said:
			
		

> Really? Can you name one counter-insurgency in living memory that was successful because the COIN forces used uncontrolled brutality and violence, or sank to the insurgents' level? That sort of tactic usually leads to just one thing: more of the same. Even the Israelis, who from time to time have "loosened the leash" far more than our Army would ever be allowed to do, still haven't achieved full peace since 1948, and some of their most inept stunts (Lebanon II, Shatila Camp) have hung around to haunt them. And, how much public support could we expect if we acted like that? Remember Somalia? You want to go through THAT again? Not me.
> 
> Cheers



I believe if the US stayed out of Afganistan in the 80's it would have be a Russian state by now.Would it be peaceful?No.But it a lot better state than it is now.


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## 40below (2 May 2009)

X-mo-1979 said:
			
		

> He ain't lying.However if we dropped these rule of combat we would already be done in that country.It isn't the taliban who will defeat us,it's our adherence to rules.We moved into a rebuild phase when we should have kept pushing and doing major offensive operations.IMHO.
> 
> To defeat a devil you have to be worse,and although I'm sure our soldiers could be international law,military law prevents that.And they use it against us.



No, you have to be *better* than the people you're fighting. The role of the CF is not to be a group of armed thugs deployed to defeat another group of armed thugs, and if you're going to toss the Code of Conduct for CF Personnel and the Law of Armed Conflict out the window, stay home. The insurgents are way ahead of you.


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## Fusaki (2 May 2009)

I like quote on O'Leary's profile:

"The moral high ground can not be dominated by fire alone. It must be occupied to be claimed as held."


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## X-mo-1979 (2 May 2009)

40below said:
			
		

> No, you have to be *better* than the people you're fighting. The role of the CF is not to be a group of armed thugs deployed to defeat another group of armed thugs, and if you're going to toss the Code of Conduct for CF Personnel and the Law of Armed Conflict out the window, stay home. The insurgents are way ahead of you.



When did I say I was tossing the law of armed conflict etc.I just got back.I'm still on leave.Although I closed with and destroyed the enemy I can honestly say I saw zero progress from my stand point.Yes we killed a bunch of them,but is that gonna work?Nope.

We just have to rethink our actions over there and how were operating.
Thanks for offering I can stay home however.


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## X-mo-1979 (2 May 2009)

To add.The Afghan's will side with whom ever is stronger.When we leave and the taliban come back in that night,guess what happens to those who help us.Guess what happens to the promises from the Mullah etc,to us.They don't care for us to be there.They will not side with us with our very small numbers outside the wire.They know we are leaving,they know our numbers.

Our only saviour is the amount of Americans coming into our area.Hopefully that will saturate the area enough so that everytime we go on an offensive we can keep the ground.We can actually do COIN operations.Cause right now we don't have the means to do COIN period.


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## Colin Parkinson (5 May 2009)

Well there was Genghis Khan.....


The Soviets suffered 300,000 soldiers hospitalized through diseases alone. They used Muslim soldiers from their client states with little training and little motivation and had the Soviets not used a scorched earth policy, they would have stayed in control until the fall of the Soviet Union. Considering the US destroyed the Taliban as a conventional force with only a small contingent of Special Forces supporting the Northern Alliance with airpower.
The new Taliban are a capable enemy but if they become more conventional again they will expose themselves to severe destruction. They can’t really make that transition as long as NATO/US is there. The Taliban claim time is on their side, but they can’t afford the country becoming to organized or the population becoming to educated, time ticks for them as well, just not as quickly.


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## X-mo-1979 (5 May 2009)

Colin P said:
			
		

> The new Taliban are a capable enemy but if they become more conventional again they will expose themselves to severe destruction. They can’t really make that transition as long as NATO/US is there. The Taliban claim time is on their side, but they can’t afford the country becoming to organized or the population becoming to educated, time ticks for them as well, just not as quickly.



I actually agree that time is on their side.Weither we agree with it or not securing a country half way across the world is not important in the eyes of many Canadians/Americans.And every time a member of our force die's there is of course sorrow then a question of weither we should remain there,or have been there in the first place.

When they lose a member the members family is treated well.His son's will be taken care of and told of their father heroic actions.His sons will look up to his martyrdom.There is no questioning if it is right or wrong.It is Jihad.Time is nothing.As one generation dies during the fight,another is ready.

Education.There are plenty of schools operating in Afganistan.However how many are under taliban control?How many have a extremeist teacher taking the governments grant money and teaching the children about Jihad.There are a few videos on liveleak showing just this.Schools opened by the actual government of Afganistan,but with lack of power to control the regions the taliban turn it into their own Madrasas.Other schools are just plain destroyed if the teachers dont agree with their teachings.

As for them doing anything conventional I don't ever see that happening.They are getting their desired effect now.Why change something that is working.

As for the Russians;as a poorly trained and corrupt force they still managed to do more with the country than we have.They built things up such as roads and dams.What has been Canadians contribution?We don't have a large enough force to provide a continual presence.Hopefully this influx of Americans will change that.

There is no way the mission will succeed without the Americans.Fingers crossed the saturation will work.


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## Colin Parkinson (9 May 2009)

I agree the west seemed to have gone into snooze mode shortly after the Taliban defeat, this was a crucial time that was not well spent, the majority of the money should have been spent right there and then improving the road system, not just the big roads, but lots of the small roads, just employing lots of people would have jumpstarted the economy and reduced the ability of the Taliban to bounce back. while projects where underway, things were taking to long, i don't think the people holding the purse strings realized how critical the time was. i know that some people where warning that time was short. I also wished that more focus had been put on a western supply route early on. I also think extending raillinks further into the country would have been good, much of the work could have been done with manual labour further employing people.

My current reading about the early days of the Taliban shows that everything was about the road network and who controlled it, the author claims the Taliban were given the job intially to clear the roads of bandits and warlords so Pakistan could have a viable trade route to Central Asia.


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## Infanteer (10 May 2009)

pbi said:
			
		

> Really? Can you name one counter-insurgency in living memory that was successful because the COIN forces used uncontrolled brutality and violence, or sank to the insurgents' level?



Syria dealt with the Ihkwan uprising at Hama quite effectively.  Don't know if that counts as a full blown insurgency, but it does seem to fit the mold of the "pyramid of skulls" approach.  How about the Germans in Warsaw?  The Turks with the Armenians.  Don't exactly fit the cookie cutter mold of "counterinsurgency" but I think it does equate to "making societies submit through sheer brutality".

If you're going to go the "brutality" way and pound a society into submission, you have to do it Ghengis Khan style to work.  Obviously, that is not our style of warfighting (until the conditions are set - ie: Hiroshima) so "dropping the rules" isn't a viable strategy.  Other places and times, both in the past and future, it was or may be (ie: Caesar and the Gallic Campaign - something about making a wasteland and calling it peace).


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