Ask Old Man Jokhah

[Old Man Jokhah]

Is the occupation of Afghanistan worthwhile in your opinion?

I thought they left

Midget first because it's faster: We haven't pulled out yet. Still have troops headed to Afghanistan.

Rand0m0mg: It's a very tough call. Being a line dog, it's hard to see the whole picture. From the limited viewpoint I got of it, there is a ton of "dog and pony" show going on. The rules of engagement is insanely restrictive, confusing, and changes so often that sometimes people taking hostile fire fail to react immediately and instead stop to ask for permission. Having lost friends there while making little to no real or long lasting progress, knowing that the government there is as corrupt as it is, I would want to say yes. But then I have to factor in that their people are so mixed in what they want, it's not much better than the chaos on these forums.

What I don't support, is our people laying down their lives to help their people, whom typically don't even want us there. Simple point, if someone comes to your house to help you, ends up causing more trouble than he's worth, you get him out of there. People seem to forget though, ISAF is a lot more than just USA. Tons of people there, German, Romanian, Lithuanian, Canadian, Australian, British, and those are just the ones I know about, yet the media only portrays USA as being there or doing shit worthy of media attention. They love to form opinions on what we do, but fail to note that every day, without fail, major installations take rocket attacks, bombings, suicide situations, getting grenades thrown at us by children, children handing us pressure storing anti-personnel mines after throwing them at a wall a few times to make sure they are extra ready to blow.

For the children in Qulat that we were able to help, the little good we could do, verse keeping them in a constant state of occupied or at war, I wish we weren't there. On the flip side, when you look at what happened when we pulled out of Iraq, how it was predicted years ahead and happened to the letter, I'll leave the decision to the people who are more informed.

Sorry I can't really be useful. It's a mixed bag of staying costs us more lives than it costs them in innocent lives, if we leave because we are losing lives, their innocents could stand to be the ones to suffer the backlash.