20 years! In 20 years you will have the Afghanistan Liberation Organisation, and Bin Ladin will be its "Arafat".
And who will prevent Taliban from returning after the last NATO soldier departs?
I'm getting too busy again to continue with the subject, so will make this quick. In future I think its more productive to do, rather than to talk in a forum such as this.
Doesn't matter what you call it when the shooting starts. For the record, Australians went to a guerrilla war in Malaya.
If the war in Afghanistan keeps going, Australian troops will find that Taliban do not flinch so easily from bullets fired over a kilometre away. They had in the past, and will again lug heavy weapons around.
My qualifications mean nothing to me, why would they mean anything to you?
This is how training works in the Islamic World of a mujahid .
The group build a model of a Bushmaster. They select a firing position. Then they practice hitting it in the fuel tank with a weapon that is likely to leave them unhurt, so long range. When the firer can hit the fuel tank several times in a row, they set up a range where the target is moving slowly, maybe 5-10km/h pulled by a winch. The shooter starts his practice again. Then, they all go out and drag this canon out to where they think there is a patrol and wait...a day, a week, even a month. Then one of the party goes out and kidnaps a child somewhere, and when the patrol vehicle is coming, they send out this child in front of the vehicle. When the vehicle starts to slow down, the shooter fires just one shot, that hits the fuel tank. As the troops dismount, the ambush party attacks at close range. Then the weapon gets buried and camouflaged, and the entire group disperses to meet elsewhere a day, a week or a month later, and start on their way back to the weapon.
The best tactic agains this is what the Soviet Spetznaz did. On foot they would cover no more than 3 km/h patrolling in open country, exposed to mines and IED's, in temperatures sometimes into the high 40's or minus 10 degrees. They would make any mujahideen be prime targets for a dragunov armed sniper. The patrol's sniper would fire just once. And wait, tracking the mujahideen to fire again, an hour, a day, a week later...just once. The mujahid is not afraid to die, but he is afraid to die without firing back.
We are at war, and eventually you, and everyone in Australia, will get it....maybe a few years from now. Its early days yet.
I am too old, and have a physical disability to serve, but even so, I would serve in whatever role offered if that came to it.
A Pakistani Muslim that went to an Australian Uni! Do you not know anything about the Muslim World?
I'm sure you have read something on the history of Afghanistan, so will just suggest you reread that. There is no "Afghanistan". Its a convenient vacuum left by the British Empire between Sunni and Shi'a.
"Who died and appointed us grand high invader and stabiliser of countries?"
Its not that...we will have to take care of ourselves, that's all.
"We are trying that interventionist /offensive idea you are talking about in Afghanistan - and according to you that's unwinnable." - Afghanistan is not an "intervention", but the most expensive criminal chase in history.
"this incredible amphibious assault force" - this is a strategic force, not a whim-of-the-moment force. Is Fiji a strategic objective, and is its democracy strategically important to Australia? I'd say no. Fiji is a tribal society, and will never have democracy as long as its traditional social structures are intact.
The only things ever built from scratch were the wheel, the stone hammer and a self-bow.
"how much longer is it going to take to design all of these things" - its an ongoing activity, just like the economy.
If we can build an ICV in two decades we will have equalled the US effort with the Bradley. I think we can do better
I have decided to do, rather than talk, so will not participate in this forum actively since talking achieves nothing.
