Do we pull out of Afghanistan? Page 2

Quote: Charley @ June 19 2008, 6:56 PM BST

The sad fact is, its the lack of protection that killed the last 4. A flimsy Land Rover. Our Army does have the correct armoured vehicles that would have protected these soldiers from the worst of the blast. Yet again they were penny pinching.

Afghanistan is almost impossible to win. I appreciate what we are trying to do out there. This is no Iraq.
We could bomb all the drug fields & get rid of the Talibans means of income in seconds. However we also harm the villager's we are there to help.

I still can not understand what makes any young person decide to go into the army at this time. Least of all my own son. However I am thankful to them all.

So what do we do. Pull out & suffer any consequences or plod on & watch the loss of our sons & daughters, climb higher & higher?

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It's been a terrible week, but 100 deaths over 6 years is hardly unsustainable. The cause is just and I'd hate to see a proud army turn and run at the sight of its own blood.

As for blaming the soldiers' deaths on poor equipment, it's important to remember that every soldier who ever bled on a battlefield could have been protected by strapping on more gear. But how well could they fight with 4 feet of reinforced concrete strapped to their backs? There are EFP weapons in use in Iraq that slice through nearly invincible M1 tanks like butter. (Thanks, Iran.) A determined enemy will always be able to inflict casualties no matter how well your soldiers are protected.

Pakistan needs to stop pandering to the lawless tribal regions and deny Al-Qaeda and the Taliban the safe havens they've carved out. At the very least, Pakistan should drive them west into Afghanistan so that they can fight (and hopefully die) like real soldiers at the hands of NATO instead of melting back into the civilian population like cowards.

I think Iran hate us just as much TBH.
And 100 odd deaths being classed as sustainable is a terrible sentence that everyone of those 100 odd families may well find offensive.

So the soldier who died on his first parachute training session, who could have been saved if he had had a radio is cool eh! Cor that radio would have weighed tons.

The several young soldiers who have died due to a lack of a simple jamming device is cool to. Does the fact that an SAS Chief has resigned due to the appaling lack of equipment for soldiers mean nothing.

I guess you know more than he does.

As for the landrovers.
29 service personnel have been killed since 2001 while travelling in them.
However the MOD like them because they are quicker and intimidate civilians less than other military vehicles. BTW they are supposed to be used in PEACEKEEPING missions.

NOT roads covered in bombs. You need an armoured vehicle for that.(They do cost more though: but hey the civillians prefer them)

It is like giving a chef a carrott & getting him to make chicken Stew.

Quote: DaButt @ June 19 2008, 9:35 PM BST

It's been a terrible week, but 100 deaths over 6 years is hardly unsustainable. The cause is just and I'd hate to see a proud army turn and run at the sight of its own blood.

As for blaming the soldiers' deaths on poor equipment, it's important to remember that every soldier who ever bled on a battlefield could have been protected by strapping on more gear. But how well could they fight with 4 feet of reinforced concrete strapped to their backs? There are EFP weapons in use in Iraq that slice through nearly invincible M1 tanks like butter. (Thanks, Iran.) A determined enemy will always be able to inflict casualties no matter how well your soldiers are protected.

Pakistan needs to stop pandering to the lawless tribal regions and deny Al-Qaeda and the Taliban the safe havens they've carved out. At the very least, Pakistan should drive them west into Afghanistan so that they can fight (and hopefully die) like real soldiers at the hands of NATO instead of melting back into the civilian population like cowards.

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Fleeing from their own blood? Maybe 50,000 is a better figure than a 100, but the war was jsut as surely lost.

And if you can think of an argument for Paksitan to sink voluntairly into a bloody civil war that'll kill 100,000s. Great you may be the worlds most persuasive man.

n.b. A Pakistani civil war, is far more what Al Quaeda want than the rather pallid entertainment of being bombed flat by NATO.

n.b. the MOD has a lousy reputation for buying small amounts of rubbish equipment, at huge prices. Israel is proof you can provide all your troops with IED proof armour, if their lives are vlauable enough to you.

Well said Sooty.

Quote: Charley @ June 19 2008, 9:50 PM BST

And 100 odd deaths being classed as sustainable is a terrible sentence that everyone of those 100 odd families may well find offensive.

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The cost of war on a personal scale can be immeasurable. But strategically, wars must be viewed from a much more distant vantage point. Any military that can't withstand the loss of 15 or 20 soldiers a year should reconsider its existence. Where would the world be now if England had backed out after the first night of the Blitz?

Quote: Charley @ June 19 2008, 9:50 PM BST

The several young soldiers who have died due to a lack of a simple jamming device is cool to. Does the fact that an SAS Chief has resigned due to the appaling lack of equipment for soldiers mean nothing.

I guess you know more than he does.

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I spent several years in boots, but I'll defer to the SAS when it comes to UK military matters. But I will point out that no army is ever funded, equipped, supported or respected well enough. All we can do is try to do better by them.

Quote: sootyj @ June 19 2008, 9:59 PM BST

IED proof armour

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There ain't no such thing.

RG-31, a mine- protected vehicle built in South Africa by a division of BAE Systems, the UK company. It is designed to withstand a roadside explosion and looks like a bulky big brother of the Land Rover. It is used by the Americans and the UN.

Then there is The blast-proof Cougar/Mastiff

are the losses that high? far more people get killed on our roads but we dont pull out of the M25.

At the end of the day you join the army to kill people when required....i have more sympathy for Bob the salesman killed when his Mondeo hits a lorry than a soldier who signed up to be in harms way.

That born in mind...we stay and finish the job, no matter how long it takes.

Good job we never had modern media in the 1940's....they'd have knocked D Day on the head pretty quick when the Sun started printing tales of how the thousand 19 years olds killed that day were all sweet and lovely. Its a WAR! Our 19 year olds want to kill their 19 year olds....no ones sweet!

We are not in the 1940's. I do not understand why people keep comparing that.

We are also on a mission to help another country, not fighting for our own.

Quote: Charley @ June 19 2008, 10:21 PM BST

RG-31, a mine- protected vehicle built in South Africa by a division of BAE Systems, the UK company. It is designed to withstand a roadside explosion and looks like a bulky big brother of the Land Rover. It is used by the Americans and the UN.

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And several U.S. Army soldiers (Canadian troops, too, I believe) have been killed by IEDs while riding in RG-31s in Iraq and Afghanistan. Like I said, there's no such thing as guaranteed protection - all you need is a big enough bomb. And those EFPs I mentioned slice right through the toughest battle tanks ever built.

Quote: Charley @ June 19 2008, 10:21 PM BST

Then there is The blast-proof Cougar/Mastiff

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There's no such thing as blast-proof.

Please don't pull out, if you do who does that leave us with?....France?!?! Ah shit.

Quote: Charley @ June 19 2008, 10:26 PM BST

We are not in the 1940's. I do not understand why people keep comparing that.

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So what's the limit on modern casualties that an army can sustain before running away? 100? 50? 10? A single soldier?

If an army will back out in order to save a life or two, then I'll be taking over the world by kidnapping a few soldiers, strapping them to the front of a tank and driving up to their leaders and demanding surrender.

Quote: Charley @ June 19 2008, 10:26 PM BST

We are also on a mission to help another country, not fighting for our own.

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That's incorrect.

Quote: DaButt @ June 19 2008, 10:28 PM BST

And several U.S. Army soldiers (Canadian troops, too, I believe) have been killed by IEDs while riding in RG-31s in Iraq and Afghanistan. Like I said, there's no such thing as guaranteed protection - all you need is a big enough bomb. And those EFPs I mentioned slice right through the toughest battle tanks ever built.

There's no such thing as blast-proof.

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I bet the death toll would have been higher if they were traveling in landrovers.

They just need protection from roadside bombs which are not massive bombs & those vehicles would offer greater protection if not total protection.

Has anyone apart from the Afghans ever won a war there?

Quote: Charley @ June 19 2008, 10:39 PM BST

They just need protection from roadside bombs which are not massive bombs

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Again, that's incorrect. I've seen videos of roadside bombs that blew 30-ton Bradley armored vehicles through the air. The people emplacing IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan aren't stupid. They have big bombs for big vehicles, smaller bombs for lighter vehicles and little bombs for dismounted troops. They're *always* going to get lucky on unfortunate occasions. It's a testament to the NATO troops' gear, training and technical expertise that far greater numbers of soldiers haven't been killed.

We should not be in Afghanistan. We invaded partly because for domestic political reasons Bush needed be seen to be doing something in response to 9/11 and partly because 9/11 could not be used as a pretext for the long held Neo Con project of invading Iraq without invading Afghanistan first.

Neither war ever stood the remotest chance of success other than as a punitive action. Hanging around to engage in nation-building on a democratic model was always going to be a disaster. The only way we will ever 'civilise' these countries is by treating them in a civilised fashion and letting them find their own destiny, rather than meddling for our own economic and geopolitical ends.

Quote: David Chapman @ June 19 2008, 10:43 PM BST

Has anyone apart from the Afghans ever won a war there?

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Alexander the Great.