On December 02 2009 12:31 keV. wrote: TBH, I think the whole Afghanistan war is being blown out of proportion. First of all, you are talking about troop counts, allies included, that are around 1/3 of the 'Iraq surge.' The cost is certainly not zero, but if the 'rule of thumb' conversion is still roughly a million USD per troop a year... war wise; it is relatively cheap to the American tax payer.
"I don't think you can fight a war on terror anymore then a on jealousy" (Mahr) - about sums up my feelings on the war. If there really is a strategy to capture/kill those responsible for terrorist attacks AND snuff the western culture hate machine, then maybe it will work. Who knows... I do know that if Americans were subjected to another terrorist attack then all hell would break lose.
I think pulling out and leaving the situation as is will just develop even more scrutiny from the public, especially internationally. As a superpower America has to get the job done or we will lose face.
That is certainly true. Bush basically cost us our world wide street cred. Imagine if Osama was actually captured or killed, we'd have that swagger again...
Not really...our street cred was already pretty poor from the long list of massive, massive screw ups. Vietnam, Operation Ajax (if you want, you can blame the British too), the Iran–Contra affair, providing Iraq with chemical weapons, and waging an absolutely silly war on people hiding in caves are just a few examples.
We've had so many political fuckups viewable from the moon that anti American sentiment, especially in countries like Iran, is hardly surprising and, at times, very understandable.
I dont think we can compare this to Vietnam, that period was way different.
Plus the fact that we were cleaning up France's mess.
Lol what ? France was gone in 1954. Johnson started the war and send troops in 1964. They had no obligation to do so. Actually that was a retarded Ev- move.
On December 02 2009 12:02 motbob wrote: Anyone who thinks Obama is going back on his promises during the campaign wasn't paying attention during the debates. Obama repeatedly said that Bush made a mistake by focusing on Iraq at the expense of Afghanistan.
I think Obama believes that we can find the same wild success in Afghanistan that we've had in Iraq the past few years.
Maybe im stupid and that was blatant sarcasm, cuz if not damn.. ...
There's a huge dropoff in U.S. casualties ever since Petraeus started getting his way with the surge. His strategy worked really well and we're doing a lot better in Iraq than we used to.
WILD SUCCESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'll take it. Iraq is pretty damn stable, which is something that no one really thought was possible before the surge started working. If U.S. troops get out and the country's still standing, maybe it'll all have been worth it.
For Exxon yes, it will be mighty fine.
For Iraq well, over 80% of the people say the security is worse today that it was pre-invation and over 92% of the people want USA to leave the country right now.
Unfortunately the government, which the people elected democratically, don't want us to leave immediately. But I guess they're controlled by big oil, or something.
yes because the fact that they were chosen democratically gives them right to do anything they want.
And no, obviously the government is controlled by multinational companies nor makes deals with them for common profit.
You win, i think i can have a more intellectual conversation with a dog... at least dogs know when they are being fucked in the ass.
Throughout the campaign, Obama talked about winding down the war in Iraq and ramping up the effort in Afghanistan. That's exactly what he's doing.
I didn't vote for him because I expected one outcome or another on this decision -- I don't have enough information to know for sure what the best decision was, and neither do any of you. What I voted for was a man who would consider the decision from every angle, and make his determination based on an intelligent, pragmatic analysis of the expected costs and benefits of each option. I didn't want someone who would decide one way or another based on ideology, jingoism, or even campaign promises. I wanted a thinker, and that's clearly what we got.
Nobody here knows what the right decision was. Since it took so long to come to a decision, it's obvious nobody in the government knows for SURE, either. But I'm impressed with Obama's decision-making process and I trust him to interpret the evidence before him as well as anyone could. If he thinks the evidence suggests we can improve our long-term security with this move, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt.
On December 02 2009 12:02 motbob wrote: Anyone who thinks Obama is going back on his promises during the campaign wasn't paying attention during the debates. Obama repeatedly said that Bush made a mistake by focusing on Iraq at the expense of Afghanistan.
I think Obama believes that we can find the same wild success in Afghanistan that we've had in Iraq the past few years.
Maybe im stupid and that was blatant sarcasm, cuz if not damn.. ...
There's a huge dropoff in U.S. casualties ever since Petraeus started getting his way with the surge. His strategy worked really well and we're doing a lot better in Iraq than we used to.
WILD SUCCESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'll take it. Iraq is pretty damn stable, which is something that no one really thought was possible before the surge started working. If U.S. troops get out and the country's still standing, maybe it'll all have been worth it.
For Exxon yes, it will be mighty fine.
For Iraq well, over 80% of the people say the security is worse today that it was pre-invation and over 92% of the people want USA to leave the country right now.
Unfortunately the government, which the people elected democratically, don't want us to leave immediately. But I guess they're controlled by big oil, or something.
yes because the fact that they were chosen democratically gives them right to do anything they want.
And no, obviously the government is controlled by multinational companies nor makes deals with them for common profit.
You win, i think i can have a more intellectual conversation with a dog... at least dogs know when they are being fucked in the ass.
You're right; a dog would be a bit closer to your intellectual level, after all.
Actually, being elected means that you have the right to govern as you see fit within the bounds of the constitution of your country. They can't exactly "do whatever they want," but they're well within their rights to request U.S. forces to stay.
I don't really get the second sentence... I think you messed up a correlative conjunction in there somewhere.
On December 02 2009 11:16 MountainDewJunkie wrote: Click here for change!
Quoting Just because this needs to be seen
this liar has his hands all over dirty wall street money funded from the war imo
He is speaking about Iraq in that video and here is what he said about Iraq in his speech:
We will remove our combat brigades from Iraq by the end of next summer, and all of our troops by the end of 2011.
Afghanistan is very different from Iraq and I don't reacall Obama ever promising to end the war in Afghanistan as soon as he took office. Most of the world supported the US when we went into Afghanistan
I don't know much about politics (a conscious effort on my part to stay ignorant), but I find the reasoning people use to bash Obama to be strange. I mean, the statement that all presidents are lying fuckwits. That can either be caused by a biased process which leads to the selection of lying fuckwits as presidents, or, it can be caused by the fact that these presidents take responsibility for making the hardest decisions in the world, and if any decision they make contradicts anything that they have ever implied, they get ripped apart for it.
For example, with the TSL, we spent hours discussing the Nongmin situation before making a decision. We give our final decision (which is absolutely pathetically unimportant compared to the decisions presidents make) and we get accused of everything from being biased to being dishonest to outright abusing the system. All the rules we've made in the past suddenly get thrown back into our faces, and every mod comment made in the last 2 weeks is scrutinized for evidence of bias. I can honestly tell you, we made the decision which we believed to be the best and most fair in the circumstances. What makes you think that a president is any different? What does Obama gain from being a lying fuckwit? He definitely doesn't get the adoration of the people, and I can't see how it makes him richer (unless he owns tons of oil shares or something). Much more likely than him lying is that there are incredible pressures on him from all sides, and he is simply making the best decisions he can in the situation.
Also, since when is everybody a political genius? If we ignore the fact that Obama is president, the man is pretty fucking intelligent. I mean, he got a Harvard law degree (without having a parent who's been a past president to help him get in) and he was the head of the president of the Harvard Law Review which even I know of, and I don't study law. To anyone who's ever applied for positions like these, you'll know that getting them means you are pretty fucking amazing and intelligent. So we have a person who is pretty fucking amazing, who has every bit of relevant intel in the world, and you're sitting on the sidelines shouting at how bad his decisions are. Your primary source of information is probably the internet, the tv, or a political analyst who has a reason to dislike the president. I'm not saying that Obama is making great decisions, in fact, I have no idea what decisions he is making, I just don't know how people can be as convinced as they are that his decisions are bad.
Just going to tell the people who are stereotyping against every American president calling them war-crazy and saying "fuck them" that they are historically uneducated to say such things.
Please read some more the presidents before you decide to generalize them all, or change your argument entirely.
Or better yet, just avoid speaking your mind if you're just going to flame in a derogatory manner.
We will remove our combat brigades from Iraq by the end of next summer, and all of our troops by the end of 2011.
Afghanistan is very different from Iraq and I don't reacall Obama ever promising to end the war in Afghanistan as soon as he took office. Most of the world supported the US when we went into Afghanistan
don't you think that is a bit bait and switch of him ? He talks about ending war(s) as soon as he joins office. Doesn't do it right away, then says a year later "i'll do it within 18 months", meanwhile let's run more wars. "we need more troops"
Standard bullshit. Guaranteed more than half the people who voted for him didn't want this.
Standard bullshit. Guaranteed more than half the people who voted for him didn't want this.
LOL I followed his campaign pretty thoroughly (daily) and he promised to get out of Iraq. Not Afghanistan.
And I don't want to sound rude, but people who are disappointed I think deserve to be disappointed. So far he's doing a pretty good job, a very good job of "mopping" America back to shape. The job is far from complete and we have no idea how its going to look like in 3-4 years, but when people say they are "disappointed" in Obama; clearly, they were expecting him to ride the miracle Unicorn.
On December 02 2009 11:15 Triple7 wrote: I think that the backing of this war isn't unanimous like in World War II. Unlike in WWII, where a foreign government ordered an attack on the US, a single man organized an attack. After invading Afghanistan, then Iraq (wtf?) and failing to find the original antagonist, many people wonder why the USA invaded in the first place. Consequently, since many people do not approve of the war, they would be unwilling to sacrifice anything for it.
Call me crazy but I'd bet one of my legs that Bin Laden is dead and has been for a long time. I think the US government benefits from making people think he is still alive (yes he could be) but as long as people think he is still alive they are ok with the manhunt.
He was putting out a new video every week and then the bombing i think at tora bora (sp?) happened and all the sudden cat's got his tongue? I don't know.. .When someone runs their mouth as much as Bin Laden did and then all the sudden you only see old footage popping up it's a little suspicious to me.
I'm kind of an oddball though... I support the war, but I don't support putting troops on the ground. I think everything should be done with tactical missiles and keep friendly casualties at 0. I know this would never happen, but I just don't see any reason to occupy.
Most the people who voted for him and didn't want this also had no freakin idea what was going on in Afghanistan.
For the better part of the last three-four years there have been numerous outcries by the higher command in the US armed forces, as well as unified outrage from international military forces (especially Canada) about the rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and how the US was doing jack-all about it. There were many in-depth articles written about how the Taliban was slowly but quite surely getting more and more of an iron-grip over Afghanistan, and how the coalition forces were unable to do ANYthing. The shame is that a lot of people never heard these outcries because so much focus was wrongfully on Iraq. Obama never talked about putting a quick end to Afghanistan during his campaign precisely because of this; everyone who knew anything about the situation there knew we (the US) had fucked it up.
To me the real surprise is how long it took for Obama to actually move toward deployment, but I'm not familiar enough with the backdrop of this action to know why it took so long. Obviously part of the reason why it took so long is because we're not completely out of Iraq yet, but I'm also surprised he didn't make a major move in Afghanistan until this year-long "investigation" finished, despite how the high command had been requesting troops for so long. I just hope it's still a salvageable situation and that the troops we're putting in there now aren't too late.
By the way if you just THINK you know what's going on over there but you've never actually looked into it, do yourself a favour and go read up on it.
I would be pretty upset if i was an american. Why are your troops dying for that hellhole nation (afghanistan)? To put that corrupt puppet Karzhai in power?
It also took your president long enough to send backup. Its like a cop calling for backup, only to have his police chief say "ill get back to you in a few months"...
On December 02 2009 22:35 Daigomi wrote: I don't know much about politics (a conscious effort on my part to stay ignorant), but I find the reasoning people use to bash Obama to be strange. I mean, the statement that all presidents are lying fuckwits. That can either be caused by a biased process which leads to the selection of lying fuckwits as presidents, or, it can be caused by the fact that these presidents take responsibility for making the hardest decisions in the world, and if any decision they make contradicts anything that they have ever implied, they get ripped apart for it.
For example, with the TSL, we spent hours discussing the Nongmin situation before making a decision. We give our final decision (which is absolutely pathetically unimportant compared to the decisions presidents make) and we get accused of everything from being biased to being dishonest to outright abusing the system. All the rules we've made in the past suddenly get thrown back into our faces, and every mod comment made in the last 2 weeks is scrutinized for evidence of bias. I can honestly tell you, we made the decision which we believed to be the best and most fair in the circumstances. What makes you think that a president is any different? What does Obama gain from being a lying fuckwit? He definitely doesn't get the adoration of the people, and I can't see how it makes him richer (unless he owns tons of oil shares or something). Much more likely than him lying is that there are incredible pressures on him from all sides, and he is simply making the best decisions he can in the situation.
Also, since when is everybody a political genius? If we ignore the fact that Obama is president, the man is pretty fucking intelligent. I mean, he got a Harvard law degree (without having a parent who's been a past president to help him get in) and he was the head of the president of the Harvard Law Review which even I know of, and I don't study law. To anyone who's ever applied for positions like these, you'll know that getting them means you are pretty fucking amazing and intelligent. So we have a person who is pretty fucking amazing, who has every bit of relevant intel in the world, and you're sitting on the sidelines shouting at how bad his decisions are. Your primary source of information is probably the internet, the tv, or a political analyst who has a reason to dislike the president. I'm not saying that Obama is making great decisions, in fact, I have no idea what decisions he is making, I just don't know how people can be as convinced as they are that his decisions are bad.
Agreed. Also, that's the first time I've ever heard someone use the phrase "lying fuckwit" and I gotta say, I rofl'd irl.
On December 03 2009 03:33 modesT wrote: I would be pretty upset if i was an american. Why are your troops dying for that hellhole nation (afghanistan)? To put that corrupt puppet Karzhai in power?
It also took your president long enough to send backup. Imagine a cop calling for backup, only to have his police chief say "ill get back to you in a few months".
I'm only upset that it took so long (cough Bush cough) for the government to realize how f-ed up Afghanistan had become and then start acting on it, instead of moan moan moan about Iraq all the time.
By the way our (and those of many, many other countries; I think the country that has the most casualties in Afghan is Canada, but I'm not sure about that 100%) troops are dying for that hellhole nation because it's the center of power for a fundamentalist group that has, is, and will continue to fire off terrorism in a myriad of countries. As he said, it's not just the US (9/11, shoebomber, etc.) but many bombings in London, Madrid, etc. that are borne out of here. Also Afghanistan (like Iraq) is a training-ground for international terrorists and combat groups right now. It's Che Guevarra's dream right there at the moment, as many rogue groups of violence tend to send "fresh meat" to Afghan for training.
I'm not going to take a stance one way or another on Obamas decision BUT keep one thing in mind...
As the President of the United States, Obama has access to information vastly beyond what we know, and what the public in general knows. Often we will see Presidents change their opinion on issues once they get into office. Perhaps they have new people whispering in their ears? Dunno. But one thing i'd bet on is the fact they have a wealth of new information to base their decisions on which will result on, sometimes, strange choices in our eyes.
Since every single person here is talking from at least partial, all the way up to complete, ignorance makes debating this pretty moot.
Having said that, the apparent corruption in the new Afghan government is pretty disturbing. If it was up to me, we'd just leave and let them figure it out themselves. If we are worried about Pak/Taliban issues, we will step into Pak when the issue comes up and not before.
On December 03 2009 03:33 modesT wrote: I would be pretty upset if i was an american. Why are your troops dying for that hellhole nation (afghanistan)? To put that corrupt puppet Karzhai in power?
It also took your president long enough to send backup. Imagine a cop calling for backup, only to have his police chief say "ill get back to you in a few months".
I'm only upset that it took so long (cough Bush cough) for the government to realize how f-ed up Afghanistan had become and then start acting on it, instead of moan moan moan about Iraq all the time.
By the way our (and those of many, many other countries; I think the country that has the most casualties in Afghan is Canada, but I'm not sure about that 100%) troops are dying for that hellhole nation because it's the center of power for a fundamentalist group that has, is, and will continue to fire off terrorism in a myriad of countries. As he said, it's not just the US (9/11, shoebomber, etc.) but many bombings in London, Madrid, etc. that are borne out of here. Also Afghanistan (like Iraq) is a training-ground for international terrorists and combat groups right now. It's Che Guevarra's dream right there at the moment, as many rogue groups of violence tend to send "fresh meat" to Afghan for training.
So bomb the training grounds by air. No need to make your men fight like people fought in the 18th century on the ground, dieing to homemade bombs.
Add to the fact that most troops there have suicide rules of engagements. For example they're not allowed to engage the enemy if he's with a woman, or in a mosque etc.
The problem is that the Taliban have no centralized location; I'm surprised the coalition forces have actually taken out so many high-ranked people, although they're probably like zerglings (one down, next one fills the slot). There are no "training grounds" because the training they receive is via direct combat with coalition forces. And by direct combat we're talking constant guerilla warfare, taking advantage of the fact that it's impossible to distinguish ally vs enemy. Frankly, Afghanistan right now is like Vietnam 2.0. The reason why we need more troops? For every village the coalition forces free, the Taliban take back two others, and when we move troops back to the other villages to help them out, we 1) lose the village we just took 2) they slide in more insurgents into the village, so they get free ambush etc.
Not to mention the shattered supply lines, the lack of consistency, the evisceration of trust from the villagers to the coalition forces (if they get "freed" and the "Taliban" re-conquer, they're not gonna just be like "oh okay we been conquered," no they get treated like ass until the CFs show up again, at which point they're not so willing to help the CFs anymore because they'd rather not get re-conquered and have all their crap wrecked by the "Taliban."), etc. etc. etc.
In short, the problem in Afghanistan is that we're unable to take and HOLD ground. We're being forced to run around like one of those puzzles you see all the time, where if you hit one button to change its colour, all the buttons around switch colours too, and you're supposed to figure out how to make all the colours the colour you want (or at least minimize the # of colour you don't want)... and right now not only is that very difficult, but we have one turn while the opponent has three. Firing off tactical missiles not only is useless against indistinguishable enemies, but it only destroys, not cultivates.
Why is this a problem?
Unlike Vietnam, where the Saigon (I think their name was?) simply wanted a revolution and to put their own government in place, the "Taliban" are very much a threat to the world (as illustrated by their worldwide terrorist strikes), and they also happen to have infiltrated a country armed with nukes.