[Suntzu]

They had to test them in combat, like they had to test MOAB in combat too.

This debate is over on my part.

Yep, you lost.

[Beren]

I just don't have any more to tell you.

[Suntzu]

The Trinity Site at White Sands is opened twice a year to the public. Something worth seeing. You can even pick up bits of volcanic glass created by the explosion called Trinitite.

[Rich]

I always enjoy when random people come up with a definite strategy from a comfy chair at home like @Rich does.

Random in what sense? Admittedly I haven't been through the rigorous, intellectual and character selection process that enables one to become American President or even a Presidential press secretary. But I have had a strategy for dealing with Islam in general and the Taliban in particular going back to before 9/11. I could sum up the strategy in four points.

1 Reverse Muslim emigration into Infidel majority countries.

2 A continual political and educational campaign to expose the absurdity, contradictions and hypocrisies of Islam. All children in Infidel countries to receive anti- Islamic education.

3 Freeing and strengthening the Shia in Iraq, Saudi Eastern Province, Kuwait, Yemen and Bahrain.

4 Strengthening and supporting nationalism within Sunni Islamic populations such as the Kurds, Baluchis and the Tajiks.

[Suntzu]

The more we can encourage the Muslims to kill each other the less they will kill us. In the mean time we can make some money by arming both sides.

[Beren]

Random in what sense?

In the common sense. Some common people invest really much in solving global problems in theory.

Admittedly I haven't been through the rigorous, intellectual and character selection process that enables one to become American President or even a Presidential press secretary. But I have had a strategy for dealing with Islam in general and the Taliban in particular going back to before 9/11.

I'm sure you've invested more in this than Trump, Kushner, and Bannon combined.

I could sum up the strategy in four points.

1 Reverse Muslim emigration into Infidel majority countries.

2 A continual political and educational campaign to expose the absurdity, contradictions and hypocrisies of Islam. All children in Infidel countries to receive anti- Islamic education.

3 Freeing and strengthening the Shia in Iraq, Saudi Eastern Province, Kuwait, Yemen and Bahrain.

4 Strengthening and supporting nationalism within Sunni Islamic populations such as the Kurds, Baluchis and the Tajiks.

Now I see why you're so apologetic to National Socialism.

[Zagadka]

No one seems to be interested in following up what actually happened. Turns out that the bomb did fuck all and Afghans aren't impressed.

The Mother of All Bombs: How badly did it hurt IS in Afghanistan?
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39705128

On 13 April the US dropped one of its largest non-nuclear bombs on a tunnel complex used by so-called Islamic State militants in eastern Afghanistan. It was the first time such a weapon had been used in battle.

The BBC's Auliya Atrafi has been to the area to see if it really had any impact in the battle against IS.

The view from the hills overlooking the Mamand Valley is beautiful. Green fields and trees fill the valley floor. Ahead, the valley narrows and hills become mountains. In the distance rises the magnificent Spin-Ghar, the White Mountain, which marks the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

But there was no chance of quiet contemplation when I visited this area of Nangarhar province. Above, three types of American fighter planes were circling and dropping bombs.

One bomb hit the narrow part of the valley. It was there, a young soldier told me, that the weapon known as the Mother of All Bombs (MOAB) had been used.

I was confused. Reports of the bomb had made me think that it had wiped out the IS stronghold here in Achin district. I assumed that US and Afghan troops would have sealed off the area and that IS (or Daesh, as it is known here) would be in disarray.

An Afghan officer corrected me. "For a start this bomb wasn't as powerful as you think," he said.

"There are still green trees standing 100m away from the site of the impact."

A large number of IS militants were killed by the MOAB, but it is hard to know how many. The Achin district governor, Ismail Shinwary, says at least 90.
Either way, the battle against IS continues.

"Daesh hasn't gone anywhere; there are hundreds of caves like the one the Americans bombed," the officer says, adding that strikes have continued since the bomb was dropped. "They can't get rid of them like this."

The fighting appeared to be taking place along a huge area in the mountains. The bombardment was relentless, filling the valley with smoke and noise.
But IS were taking casualties. Over a breakfast of eggs and green tea, the district police chief, Major Khair Mohammad Sapai, showed us pictures of dead IS fighters. They had beards and long hair.

In death they looked pitiable, quite unlike the image they try to portray in their propaganda videos - riding horses, carrying their black flags or making the local Shinwari people sit on bombs and then blowing them up

Major Khair said some of them were foreigners, but from their disintegrating, dust-covered faces it was hard to tell.

He showed us hand-written lists of Afghan telephone numbers seized during operations, and some of the names on the list were indeed Arabic or Pakistani.
The major's claims were backed up by Hakim Khan Momand and his friends. They are members of the so-called "people's uprising" - new militias made up of local people that help with security in the area. They cooperate with state security forces but their existence is seen as a sign of weak central government and instability.

The bearded men lay on portable cots, drinking strong green tea and relishing the sight of IS fighters being bombed by American planes.
"They are all sorts - Uzbeks, Tajiks, Arabs and Wahhabis from Kunar Province. They have nowhere to go; best to bury them in the caves where they happen to be hiding," Hakim Khan said.

His house lies in the Mamand Valley, in an area still under the control of IS. He adds: "God willing, the Americans have given us their word that they would clear the entire valley of Daesh fighters."

Unlike the Taliban, who tend to have many supporters in their core areas, IS seem to have angered a lot of people. Few seemed unhappy about the US bombardment.

A couple of kilometres from the frontline, ordinary life was continuing. Women carried water, boys played cricket and people went about their daily tasks.

However, there was anxiety. One man, Khaled, said local people were pawns in a US game.
"[Dropping the bomb] was a trick to show the world that their mission was going well. But this wasn't the type of bomb they showed in the media. The bomb did nothing."

"Will IS come back?" I asked.

"Yes, as soon as the government leaves, the locals won't be able to fight them. If the government makes permanent bases in the area and helps us, then we will be happy," he answered.

Another local resident suggested IS could do with something a little stronger.

"Let Americans bring down a bigger one, this one was small," he said.

Back in the hills, Hakim Khan and his friends were listening in to IS fighters communicating via walkie-talkies with the help of their radio. The fighters were reassuring each other and communicating with their comrades in a neighbouring district.

A border police officer wondered aloud if the commitment of the Trump administration would match that of IS.

"The more we kill, the more they come from the other side of the Durand line, in Pakistan," he said.

After a night back in the safety of Jalalabad, we returned the next morning.

There was no fighting so we drove into the valley until we were stopped near the bomb impact site by Afghan special forces, who agreed to show us around.

They said that IS fighters saw the district as their own. After most locals fled, IS banned poppy cultivation and began farming wheat, turning the valley green.

Now the lush allotments were their battlefields. Bodies lay next to hollow trees that fighters had been sleeping inside.

Shear, a tough-looking special forces soldier, said that IS fighters were "crazy" and very committed.

"They make the most of their basic Russian guns; they are technical fighters," he said.

"You can't hear them coming in the mountains: they will wear six pairs of socks and get within striking distance without you hearing them.

"In the mountains they fight individually or in groups of two or three. They don't leave their positions, so you have to kill them. And their friends don't come to collect their bodies; they lie where they die."

We waited for permission to visit the impact site, surrounded by crates of military supplies dropped from the air.

Our escort was Haji Beag, a unit commander, who first showed us a smaller "IS command base and prison".

One door opening into a spacious courtyard led to a room which led to a small cave that could house around 10 people.

It was dug into the rock and felt very solid. It was clear why finding and killing IS militants in these mountains took so much time and energy.

At the entrance to the cave stood an improvised cage, made of mesh frames. It held two tight spaces which Haji Beag said were used as prison cells.

He said he believed the US made a good decision to use the MOAB to target caves used over decades by different militant groups - from the Mujahedeen, to the Taliban, and most recently IS.

"We found about 20 bodies around the site after the explosion. The cave system has been destroyed," he said. "It's possible that most of dead are buried inside those caves."

The drive to the impact site with Haji Beag and his unit was a short one. American planes were still flying above us, targeting the next valley a kilometre away.

The mountainous terrain was hard on our four-wheel drive and as we approached the site a rocket landed 200m in front of us.

No one was hurt, but it made Haji Beag cautious, and we weren't allowed to set foot on the impact site.

But we could see it, and it was unremarkable. There was no big crater. Trees had been burnt and a few rooms had been flattened. Not far from it, houses still stood and there were green trees around.

As we left the valley, the bombardment continued. It seemed clear that the bomb that was dropped on 13 April had not come close to delivering a knock-out blow to IS militants entrenched in the area, and the locals certainly expect more conflict ahead.

To me, at least, the Mother Of All Bombs failed to live up to her reputation.

[Typhoon]

Turns out that the bomb did fuck all and Afghans aren't impressed.

One MOAB was never really going to change the situation on the ground in Afghanistan, for a country that's had pretty much everything thrown at it the last few decades one more bomb (even a MOAB) is just a drop in the ocean.

Far more important than the effects in Afghanistan was the impact of using MOAB domestically and internationally, the article does not cover this.

As a way for Trump to distinguish himself from Obama, MOAB was probably a success? The strike was certainly noticed internationally, domestically there has been criticism around the cost of the strike? A mixed result?

[Drlee]

Every soldier knows that the hardest thing to kill is an infantryman in a hole. They were the purpose of WMD in the first place. The poison gas in WWI was an attempt to do what high explosive has a hard time doing.

This is a PR move I would guess. It is a nice proof of concept for the military and an impressive action for the administration. We are never going to get rid of ISIL by bombing them alone. Bombing does, however, keep them back on their heels. They can't fight as an organization when there are no training, staging, communications or logistics areas. They can't occupy territory when their every move is contested by forces they can't suppress. They can still be a royal pain in the ass though.

[Stormsmith]

Sometimes I wonder if it would be more helpful, at this stage, to give the Afghanis something to defend. Maybe move in small shop businesses, ie Starbucks, etc and armed peacekeepers.

[blackjack21]

We've bombed the shit out of them with B-52s and drones and cruise missiles for 15 years now. They just aren't afraid. They are insane extremists, why would they just get afraid?

It's not about making them afraid. It's about killing a large concentration of them, thereby improving the morale of the troops. It signals that the era of Stanley McCrystal's rules of engagement are over.

Why not do something to actually (try to) stabilize the cities or establish a police force that isn't already corrupted?

That's not where the problem is. It's the country side especially around Peshawar and the Pakistan border.

The irony is that this wasn't even how the Nazis were defeated - they were defeated by the Soviet people fighting tenaciously to defend their homeland, and then pouring millions of troops into Germany in the closing months of the War. American B-52s carpet-bombing German cities didn't do the trick.

America didn't have B-52 bombers in WWII. The purpose of bombing Germany was to destroy war making capacity. That's the lesson America hasn't learned since WWII. The Taliban's IED supplies come from Iran and they are made in Pakistan. If we won't bomb Iranian bomb supply factories or bomb assembly lines in Pakistan, we're making the same dumbshit mistakes we made during the Vietnam War. If the enemy doesn't respect borders, we shouldn't either.

We learned literally nothing from Vietnam, after spending 40 years saying "we have to learn from Vietnam". Potemkin is 100% right.

Well, not everybody learned from the Vietnam War. Rule #1: The Democrats cannot be relied upon.

That's not a way to defeat militant Islam either. It's both a religion and civilization (the ethno tribal mentality), how can you defeat it? Where is the head? Where is the tail?

That's a better argument. The reason they want to defeat militant Islam is that they want to integrate it into the world order. What they are doing instead is destablizing the West. For example, the Maasai aren't Islamic, but they are tribal. What do they have in common with Muslims? They are relatively primitive. Women and children are worth less than live stock.

It's ridiculous to say that Assad bomb "his own people". The Sunnis are not his own people, they were band together by European powers.

That's a good point too. Saddam didn't bomb his own people either.

Then let them to kill one another until no one left, the problem is they are looking for refuge in welfare states and not in their own sphere.

Right. And that's why a Macron victory will not save Europe. He's criticizing Poland for not accepting refugees. What do all the states that have accepted them have in common? Terror attacks. Notice that Poland hasn't suffered any terrorist attacks? No Muslim refugees. Interesting...

And while we're at the subject of learning the wrong lessons - how about turning Europe into the same multi-ethnic clusterfuck that is the Balkans and the Middle East by shoveling in half of the ME, after having gone to great lengths to clean up the map after WWII? Anyone care to explain the logic behind that?

Exactly. It's the left that hasn't learned the lessons of history.

Anyway, the name of the bomb is immaterial. Its use was just pointless, as our campaign has been for over 15 years. More of the same, turned up louder.

It does a lot for troop morale. During McCrystal's ROEs, they would do things like turn over operational control to Afghan government people who had family ties to the Taliban (many of them do). It proved pointless. Read Level Zero Heroes. They actually did thing like drop JDAMs into areas with no enemy personnel as a "warning" while our troops were under enemy fire. Utterly useless, and it absolutely destroyed morale.

The only way I can see it being rationalized is appealing to one of the ideas behind our nukes on Japan; one big bomb being psychologically more terrifying than the firebombings we'd already done that destroyed a lot more than the nukes themselves. But that was largely predicated on the atom bomb being so much larger than anything contemplated before. This is just a really big bomb that killed 36 assholes living in desert caves. Not terribly impressive.

The death toll was over 90. It sends the signal that the ROEs have changed. The bomb isn't practical, because it has to be dropped by C-130s. The original daisy cutters were developed to clear mountain tops in Vietnam for setting up firebases. It was much faster to drop one of those and toss in a dozer to clear the area than send in a team of lumber jacks. With this GBU, you simply kill everyone in the area with overpressure alone.

However, Obama never bombed Assad, directly at least, but according to you he was wrong to bomb ISIS in Syria because he wasn't invited by him.

Obama didn't understand or agree with the military mentality. People don't like following a guy like Obama in battle, because he will dither while people are out there fighting and dying. So getting behind Obama to fight ISIS is like getting behind a woman freaking out about a mouse.

I don't see what the big fuss about this bomb is.

It's the biggest non-nuclear bomb. I think it's interesting, because I'll bet it could be used to set off a hydrogen fusion bomb, which means we could fight a nuclear war without radioactive fallout. Even the original hydrogen bombs had fission nuke triggers.

First Northern Afghanistan and Kabul need to be utterly cleansed of Pashtun terrorists and all that collaborate with them in any way. This should be done by indigenous forces that can communicate with Taliban sympathisers in the language that they can understand.

They suck. Not just a little. The Taliban are tough fighters. They also suck to some extent, but they are so tenacious. The old line guys who fought the Soviets. They're old, but they are really good fighters. Great shooters, and tenacious as hell.

We should not have combat troops in Afghanistan, we should provide air cover and other support to our Northern allies.

We need to be more surgical in our approach. We need more SEALS, Force One Recon and MARSOC and the whole JSOC apparatus and go anywhere in the world to kill concentrations of these people.

However, the Donald doesn't seem to have any strategy at all, so maybe you could be his counsellor.

Containment. Except he's being defeated by our own radicals. Holy crap. Chuck Schumer cried like a little baby at Trump's travel ban, and it didn't even include Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. Our own extremists in the 9th Circuit district and appellate courts need to be put in Camp X-Ray.

Japan was collapsing anyways, and the Soviets joined too, which counted more than the bomb because the Japanese establishment didn't want any Soviet rule in Japan.

That's a good point, actually. That's why we face long odds. America is the new Soviet Union. We're pushing things like abortion and equality for women, and even homosexuality for godsake in countries with fundamentalist Muslim cultures. They were actually reasonably cool with us in the post WWII era, when the US was handing out food and blankets, stamping out disease in humans and livestock. Yet, trying to make them treat women as the equals of men and so forth, to tolerate Britney Spears and Madonna style culture is a bridge too far for them. Americans don't have a clue how degenerate our society is viewed abroad.

Far more important than the effects in Afghanistan was the impact of using MOAB domestically and internationally, the article does not cover this.

People that thought it was somehow a magic weapon don't really understand warfare, and that's why they yammer on about the cost of the bomb and it's tactical results. What Trump was signalling is that he's not Obama. He doesn't hamstring the troops. He didn't order the strike. In his opinion, it's up to the commanders to determine what to do. That may sound silly to you, but it does absolute wonders for morale. Our troops under Obama/McCrystal's ROEs were not able to shoot at people shooting at them unless they could identify a person with a weapon. The ROEs became absolutely absurd.

This is a PR move I would guess. It is a nice proof of concept for the military and an impressive action for the administration. We are never going to get rid of ISIL by bombing them alone. Bombing does, however, keep them back on their heels.

Yes. It telegraphs the change in the ROEs. Otherwise, using the smaller 250lb JDAMs with delayed fuses is tactically the best choice as it kills the enemy without destroying everything for 50m.

They can't fight as an organization when there are no training, staging, communications or logistics areas.

Well that's the problem we haven't solved yet. They don't train in Afghanistan. They train and stage in Pakistan. Read Sean Parnell's book Outlaw Platoon. There are combat outposts that take 103mm rocket fire from Pakistan, and they couldn't return fire.

That brings up a political question. The government in Pakistan is friendly to the Taliban, or they wouldn't mind us going into Pakistan and wiping them out. Yet, they protest loudly. Sean Parnell's outlaw platoon was stationed at FOB Bermel, and their combat outpost Marjah was almost overrun. B1s, A10s, Apaches, etc. saved the day for them. When they went to pick through the enemy bodies for intel, they found that some Pakistani border patrol were fighting with the Al Haqqani network and Taliban forces. That's why you have to reassess Nixon and his invasion of Cambodia to cut off the Ho Chi Minh trail. If you aren't willing to cut off the enemy's supply lines, it says something about your will to win.

Sometimes I wonder if it would be more helpful, at this stage, to give the Afghanis something to defend. Maybe move in small shop businesses, ie Starbucks, etc and armed peacekeepers.

That's whistful. It is a country where your ANA allies on a forward operating base will drop their pants in the middle of anywhere, squat, take a shit, and wipe their ass with their left hand and carry on like that is how a civilized person conducts himself, instead of going to a latrine to take care of business. Our troops can't interdict that type of behavior, because it is considered culturally insensitive. That's the cruel aspect of political correctness and multiculturalism. The presumption among smug Western self-styled elites is that they have a superior understanding of other cultures and some Americans are simply backward and need their tutelage. So many troops come home with deep emotional conflicts because of their exposure to that sort of thing. These self-style elites are actually deeply and profoundly ignorant of other cultures. Vacationing in France isn't the same as seeing how people live in Somalia. Bringing in Somalian refugees isn't being open-minded and humanitarian, and opening a Starbucks near FOB Bermel is beyond practicality. Besides, it is much cheaper to provide goats, chickens, afghan blankets made in Afganistan, some basic kitchenware made in Afghanistan, etc. to the locals who are loyal to you.

Then, you have to deal with the darker side of politics. I don't think the heroin epidemic in the United States is any accident. They stopped persecuting the poppy farmers in Afghanistan under Obama. The heroin trade is the Taliban's financial arm. You cut that off, and the heroin epidemic in the United States, and you cut off your enemy's financial supply lines. You'll probably never really understand why something like Benghazi would matter to someone like me. I could be charmed and fooled by someone like Obama, but only up to a point.

[Godstud]

Why is it that the people who are the most ANTI-socialist, are the guys using Che Geuvara as their avatars? Irony?

[Zagadka]

It's not about making them afraid. It's about killing a large concentration of them,

Ah, so you are a graduate of the W School of Warfare at Vietnam University.

thereby improving the morale of the troops

Um, lol. Maybe them not getting murdered would be better than blowing up some idiots in caves that we've been steadily bombing for 15 years. This has and will have absolutely no effect on the conditions in Afghanistan.

Because, you know, things have changed so drastically since we dropped it.

[noir]

@blackjack21

That's a good point too. Saddam didn't bomb his own people either.

The international community needed a pretext, the main argument was oil everything else was marginal.

[blackjack21]

Why is it that the people who are the most ANTI-socialist, are the guys using Che Geuvara as their avatars? Irony?

Your powers of observation serve you well...

Ah, so you are a graduate of the W School of Warfare at Vietnam University.

Me? Oh no. However, I did have an ex-US Army captain who did several tours in Vietnam as my history teacher in the 5-8th grade. He'd go into great detail about military history. One of my best friends--the cop--was in the same class, and we developed a great love of military history. For example, in the fifth grade, if you could figure out what chopper was flying overhead from the whop of the blades you'd get a free ice cream or a cold coke. 5th graders are pretty easy to impress. To this day, I can tell the difference between a UH-1 Iroquois (Huey), a CH-47 Chinook, an H-34 "Jolly Green Giant" and an MH-6 from sound alone. Later in life, I could recognize the sound of a blackhawk and its coast guard equivalent. Some things like that stick with you. Yesterday, I rushed out on my patio because two WWII fighters were flying overhead. I could tell from the engines. I couldn't tell you what they were. I knew it wasn't a P-51, P-38 or a corsair.

Um, lol.

Seriously? You don't know the effect of close air support on the morale of ground troops? Set aside 1 minute and 16 seconds for this:

1:54

This is why I said I wasn't that impressed with the attack on Syria with Tomahawks. Consider the firepower of a B-2:

80 500lb JDAMs on one sortie. That video is just a test, so they don't have explosives. You get the point...

This has and will have absolutely no effect on the conditions in Afghanistan.

It's not meant to. It's meant to show the COC that they can use everything at their disposal but nukes and chemical weapons. That has a huge effect on morale.

That doesn't mean troops shouldn't try to avoid civilian casualties. It means that it's in their discretion. They aren't going to get prosecuted like they would have under Obama.

[Suntzu]

You can't bomb Afghanistan back to the 12th Century. They are already in the 12th Century.