Any Military Veteran Out there dislike the way the war been handle in Iraq/Afganistan?

Answer 1

The war has been handled quite fine in terms of achieving the military objectives set out in Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. Both the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the Ba'athist regime in Iraq have been sent into the dust bin of history. The total casualties (combat and non-combat) from both theaters of operation are less than the deaths from illness and injury during the years of 1980-84 when no one was shooting at us. The total for that period of time is 9,555.
To me, the problem is in the political end of the operation. Iraq is a piece of political fiction. It was created by the British fusing together three separate political entities: the Kingdoms of Mosul, Babylon and Basra. One way to achieve some measure of domestic tranquility in the future would be to have a loose confederative government (like that in Canada or Switzerland) composed of three semi-autonomous regions: Kurdistan, North Mesopotamia and South Mesopotamia.
In Afghanistan there is a similar situation since the tribes were never "united" prior to Great Britain fusing them together over one hundred years ago. It's further complicated by a word in one of the dominant languages (Pashto) which has bone-shivering connotations to it. That word is "Tarbun". It means "cousin" and it also means "enemy"!
There has been an uptick in Taliban activity in Afghanistan because the replacement troops from NATO have not been aggressive enough in pursuing and eliminating the foe. Notable exceptions to that rule seem to be the British, Canadian and Dutch contingents.
There is one infrastructure improvement for Afghanistan which can fuse the country together without imposition of that fusion from the top down. They need a rail line across the country. That way, the Farsi-speaking girl from the western part of the country will meet the Pashto-speaking boy from the central part, or the Urdu-speaking boy from the southern part. Once they marry and have children, those offspring will be Afghans. Look what such a railroad scheme did for the U.S. and Canada. It can be a nation builder.
Over the next four or five years the NATO countries, including the U.S. are going to have permanent parties of troops in both countries to train and equip local forces so that the foreign forces can be withdrawn. It took over 20 years to recreate such forces in Germany and Japan after they were defeated and initially stripped of their armed forces.