In testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Secretary of Defense James Mattis offered rare specifics on a change in US rules of engagement, in this case in the Afghan War. He confirmed a substantial loosening of restrictions on strikes.
Gone are long-standing restrictions limiting US strikes to cases in which ground forces are in close proximity to the target. As with several previous moves, officials are also allowing commanders on the ground to act more unilaterally.
The removal of proximity requirements allows US forces to carry out airstrikes anywhere in Afghanistan they want, on essentially any pretext. Officials are presenting that as a way to try to speed up the escalation of the war.
Rules of engagement in Afghanistan are the product of nearly two dozen commanders with different priorities, some trying to reduce the chances of civilian casualties and some just wanting to strike on any pretext. That seems to be the direction they’re heading in again.
Can carpet bombing be far behind?
victory is just around the corner
It is. This Pentagon is not Obama’s. They will not hesitate to lay the heavy materiel. Expect Taliban to go quiet and ride out the Trump years, they are not stupid.
So victory means the Taliban will lay low until Trump is gone? Then we will be able to leave?
leave ? well, maybe someday the US troops will leave, but the ones they are employed to fight for are going nowhere.
Is our intel on par with the locals giving away our position 24/7?
So in other words, more civilian casualties, more soldiers deployed, all the while rich US corporations are now given even greater ( though now publicly known) free cover to pillage the earth there for minerals to enrich none but themselves and their small faction of elite shareholders. This of course has the consequence of poisoning all water sources,leaching the soil of nutrients needed to grow ANYthing, and requires a decimation of necessary ecosystem protections including but not limited to any plant and animal life. ( think of how the willful destrtuction our southern coastal wetlands has exacerbated all effects of normal hurricanes and flash floods, let alone the warm water caused larger storms). This may not seem important to some people, given the problem of human terror, but the destruction of any peoples homes,livelihoods, and ability to provide basic needs from themselves is a recruitment tool all on its own, and where we see poverty,famine,&plague we see conflict and power grab. How is this supposed to end, really? Or is it really even supposed it? If one sees how much money is made by the weapons manufacturers, how the politicians pockets are greased to complicity, it would seem that an end to conflicts would be antithetical to these industries interests ( our corrupt federal government included) It just seems that the consequences, and I speak as a mother, as an American, and as someone who has people she loves both in active duty,reserve,and veterans of this conflict who are,have been, or could be directly affected by this never ending nightmare. Who is winning here when more of our children ( a whole second generation of young people) will be sent off to possibly die or be irrevocably scarred, for more innocents already terrorized to die,or for orphans to be made that may find nothing more than the comfort of those very people the US claims to be destroying
when they clamor for a place to belong or to avenge their family.It seems only fair that those who profit from this bloodshed should have to put their own lives at risks,since they are using our families and foreign familes as disposible externalities. I understand there is a culture bred into people to obey and see any conflict their government decides to enter into is as a duty and some existential crisis for our freedom, but we should have learned by previous conflicts that was not the case,and in many situations continues not to be, and conversely makes us LESS safe. If we have to sacrifice our loved ones, or our loved ones choose to put their lives on the line, it should not be for the liars who will reap the rewards at their expense.