German Soldier Killed, Nine Injured in Afghan Attacks

[Coventina]

Source: Bloomberg

April 30 (Bloomberg) -- A German soldier was killed and nine injured in two separate attacks in northern Afghanistan’s Kunduz province, where the army is suffering more frequent insurgent assaults.

One soldier died and four were injured in a roadside ambush yesterday, while five more were injured in a suicide bombing, Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung told reporters in Berlin today. The attacks happened as Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was in the Afghan capital, Kabul, where he met with President Hamid Karzai.

“We know that Kunduz has become a problem area, there’s nothing to gloss over there,” Army General Inspector Wolfgang Schneiderhan, the armed forces’ highest-ranking officer, told the same briefing. “It’s become more difficult there than it was four years ago.” While the attacks appear to have been planned in advance, he ruled out a connection to Steinmeier’s surprise visit.

Chancellor Angela Merkel told a NATO summit April 4 that Germany is ready to do its duty in Afghanistan to stem the terrorist threat. Merkel, who went on to tour German military bases during a surprise visit to Afghanistan after the summit, is scheduled to meet for talks with Karzai in Berlin on May 10.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601100&sid=a2bPZBVF.QuI&refer=germany

[ShortnFiery]

1. And it begins.

You want to see how these occupations will turn out, study your military history of The Vietnam War.

http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index.html

March 29, 1973 - The last remaining American troops withdraw from Vietnam as President Nixon declares "the day we have all worked and prayed for has finally come."

America's longest war, and its first defeat, thus concludes. During 15 years of military involvement, over 2 million Americans served in Vietnam with 500,000 seeing actual combat. 47,244 were killed in action, including 8000 airmen. There were 10,446 non-combat deaths. 153,329 were seriously wounded, including 10,000 amputees. Over 2400 American POWs/MIAs were unaccounted for as of 1973.

[jkappy]

2. We're falling into the same trap we set up for the Russians

decades ago... and we continue to make Afghanistan a killing field.

[MellowDem]

3. What about...

South Korea, the Phillipines, Japan, Germany, Italy, etc. etc. Vietnam is just one example and isn't necessarily even the best example.

[ShortnFiery]

4. Vietnam is the BEST example because they also had no centralized control of their fighters.

Vietnam was a true test of natives who lived in abject poverty fighting a Guerrilla war against OCCUPATION ... who ENDURED (despite two million killed and no viable AF) because they were there *for the duration.*

We won every damn battle but lost the war. We will also win and lose in both Afghanistan and Iraq. The only entity that is keeping us militarily involved in both countries is *the mighty beastie* we know as The Military Industrial Complex propped up by Corporation $$$. :(

[MellowDem]

5. But this is different

The North Vietnamese were a large professional army that practiced Guerrilla War driven by ideology and nationalism. The Taleban is a numerically small radical religious group that practices Guerilla War. The terrain is different, the political dynamics are different, there's a lot that is very different from Vietnam. Most of the local population does not support the Taleban. The Taleban rule by brute force in the territories they are in. They aren't nationalists or ideologues, they are religious extremists.

How did we *win* in South Korea? I don't think you can accurately predict what will happen in Iraq or Afghanistan by looking just at Vietnam.

What's keeping us involved in Afghanistan is that that is where the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 came from and where the Taleban are now causing a destabilizing movement in nearby nuclear armed Pakistan. If there is any country to be in, it is Afghanistan. And Iraq we are going to be pulling out of. We already are shifting resources from there to Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the reasons behind us being there aren't so simple as the military-industrial complex.

As for winning and losing, a lot of that depends on what your definition of "victory" is.

[provis99]

6. dandy, except we don't have a definition for victory

That was the whole problem in Vietnam, too. Even if the Taliban were to be completely destroyed, we'd still have al-Qaeda cells, and local Afghan warlords to contend with, too, with no hope of setting up a unified central government that can maintain order in the country. Afghanistan is impossible to win, because there's nothing there to win.

[MellowDem]

8. To me...

if we are able to destroy the Taliban and al-Qaeda cells in Afghanistan, that's victory and we will leave the rest to the warlords. I have no doubt we would pull out in that circumstance. As for waiting for "democracy", I doubt we will.

[DavidDvorkin]

7. This will surely make the mission very popular in Germany

and will increase Merkel's support.

Not.

When's the next German election due?

[Karenina]

9. September.

[DavidDvorkin]

10. Thanks.

That's a while yet, in political terms.