Obama's War Surge

[joshuatxuk]

 

if only the country were this open-minded. i personally find it unbelievable that people feel the need to bash Obama because of what Bush went through. they are two different presidents. one created a mess with no exit strategy - seemingly designed to be dealt with by his successor - and now the successor gets the shit for it?

 

yeah, good luck, America. we are too selfih for our own good to even slightly understand pragmatism or anything other than capitalism. ok, done ranting for now.

 

I highly doubt W and his cronies specifically designed both the wars Iraq and Afghanistan as a punishment for a Democratic administration, unless they hate McCain and Palin.

 

My two cents are this: It is more likely Obama hasn't drastically cut forces in Iraq and is increasing them in Afghanistan because of the vast amount of information he came across that the previous administration had in its hands. After all, Gitmo is still open and Obama's plans to increase troops in Afghanistan go against the majority opinion of most Europeans. (Basing that on poll, can't speak for anyone here.)

 

Personally, I'm annoyed at the following two groups of Americans: 1. Obama supporters who think he will magically transform our military strategy and are ok with Afghanistan b/c "it's the good war" yet were anti-war during the election and before. 2. Republicans who suddenly went from obeying W and supporting the war on terror who now show up at tea parties saying we need to stop big government and military interventions overseas.

 

This sounds wierd, but Obama's approach to the "war on terror" resembles Nixon's toward Vietnam: slow withdrawal of troops from the conflict, increased combat operations in specific fronts, but no definate end.

 

The only major difference between Bush and Obama on the war surge is a timetable. But I seriously doubt that 2 years will get Aghanistan on a good footing, whether it be 30,000 or 300,000 troops. I say start withdrawing because I rather run the risks of a power vacuum now than decades of imperialism in the middle east and central asia. Sounds cynical, but it'd be better to let the CIA/special forces deal with shit quick and nasty before "another 9/11" happens than spend decades and trillions of dollars rebuilding and improving entire counties that have been under oppressive regimes for centuries.

[Guest Glass Plate]

"I've been so focused on state government, I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq. I heard on the news about the new deployments, and while I support our president, Condoleezza Rice and the administration, I want to know that we have an exit plan in place," - pre-Kristolized Sarah Palin, March 1, 2007.

 

"Talk of an exit date also risks sending the wrong message. We should be in Afghanistan to win, not to set a timetable for withdrawal that signals a lack of resolve to our friends, and lets our enemies believe they can wait us out," - Kristolized Sarah Palin, last night.

 

I thought this was funny.

[Hoodie]

what's this "kristolized" stuff?

[Hoodie]

I'd like to hear what the Afghans think we should do. Maybe I missed it, but have they said whether they want us to have continued intervention or what?

 

they probably want us to get the fuck out because of the death and destruction that has been caused in their country by our presence. however, is that a good idea in the long run? we have to consider that. sure, the people of afganistan want us out, because it may quell some disorder for a short period of time. but like i said, in the long run, what effect will that have?

 

i don't know the answer to a lot of these questions, but i'm sure someone has thought it out, or at least someone should think on it. i don't know the entire situation so i can't.

[Guest Adjective]

what's this "kristolized" stuff?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kristol

[awepittance]

how did i win in 4 short pages? that's gotta be a record.

 

please show me this part of the last 4 pages, i must have missed it!

 

if you mean the crazy comment, i thought that was you freeing yourself of the obligation to continue a rational discourse

[awepittance]

i'm not really interested in debating whether it was a good idea to go in or not, because the fact is we did.

we completely removed a country's government.

 

well even if you aren't interested in debating, i am. you said a few exaggerated statements in your post

 

we toppled the Taliban, a government which had very loose control of the populace to begin with. Most afghans have no connection to the Taliban before or after we invaded. So to act as if toppling the Taliban has thrown the country into some kind of chaos is a little baseless, and i would argue a rewriting of the history of the country.

 

if we leave, anarchy will reign. we'll have another somalia,

 

like it's not already 'another somalia' as you call it? At what point did this fictional stable, efficiently operating government in Afghanistan exist? before the Soviets? Because it sure as hell wasn't before we invaded.

 

 

in other words, if it wasn't before we invaded, afghanistan will undoubetdly become a country run by terrorists and criminals if we leave now.

 

sounds like a paraphrase of a George W Bush speech.

what makes you think the country will start being ran by 'terrorists' do you incorrectly believe the Taliban is the same as al queda?

If not i would like to explain this hyperbolic statement, that for some reason people on this board and everywhere else utter all the time as fact.

 

 

so quit bitching about obama on this one - he's being pragmatic. try to put your whiny, insulated, half-formed ideologies aside, and look at it practically.

 

So Bush an Obama they are being pragmatic, we should trust what they set out to do, sit back and have blind faith. Of course they are wise and know what to do so we should trust their decisions, surely they are reasonable ones.

And if you have any disagreements with a war with absolutely no rationale purpose that costs $80billion of our tax money per year, you are a whiner.

pretty amazing level of cognitive dissonance. i'm more impressed by it than weirded out

[awepittance]

 

 

yeah, this seems like the right answer to me. i'm totally against wars, but i don't see how immediately pulling out would make anything better. i mean, sure, american lives and resources would be saved if we got the fuck out. but then afganistan would be slower to be restructured and afganis' lives would suck because of that.

 

I think that if we pulled out less Afghan civilians would die. Even if there was an all out civil war, the numbers required to reach the civilian death count from arial bombing by the US military are pretty unreachably high. I think we've killed something like 250,000 civilians in the last 8 years, mathematically it seems impossible for people with only Ak47s to achieve that number in as many years

 

restructuring afghanistan does not seem to be a goal of ours like it was in IRaq. other countries right now in the international effort in Afghanistan are a little bit peeved at the US for not making restructuring a primary goal with this new troop increase. I think its placing a little bit too much faith in the morality of our leaders to think restructuring is even a priority there at all.

 

thats another thing i'd like to ask the people here who don't think we should pull out, how long should we stay ? and what reason in your minds should we stay? What can we accomplish positively by staying there? should we ever pull out? if not what benefit to the afghan people would us installing a puppet government accomplish( i consider this never leaving because the government will be taking orders from the US) ? IT seems like for all the people who think it's a good idea to go, they have almost no explanation beyond the personal belief that 'the country will implode' .

[awepittance]

 

Personally, I'm annoyed at the following two groups of Americans: 1. Obama supporters who think he will magically transform our military strategy and are ok with Afghanistan b/c "it's the good war" yet were anti-war during the election and before. 2. Republicans who suddenly went from obeying W and supporting the war on terror who now show up at tea parties saying we need to stop big government and military interventions overseas.

 

This sounds wierd, but Obama's approach to the "war on terror" resembles Nixon's toward Vietnam: slow withdrawal of troops from the conflict, increased combat operations in specific fronts, but no definate end.

 

The only major difference between Bush and Obama on the war surge is a timetable. But I seriously doubt that 2 years will get Aghanistan on a good footing, whether it be 30,000 or 300,000 troops. I say start withdrawing because I rather run the risks of a power vacuum now than decades of imperialism in the middle east and central asia. Sounds cynical, but it'd be better to let the CIA/special forces deal with shit quick and nasty before "another 9/11" happens than spend decades and trillions of dollars rebuilding and improving entire counties that have been under oppressive regimes for centuries.

 

great post, i wish more people like you spoke up on this board.

if you think Obama's approach to the war on terror resembles nixon, you might be interested to watch the last Bill Moyers special where he just played clips of LBJ's private telephone calls asking people advice about Vietnam, the resemblance between the rhetoric and talking points for reasons why we have to fight over there was pretty astounding. history repeats itself , yet people ignore it.

 

it's sad that 1 entire year after George W leaves office, most people even people on the left accept the Bush doctrine of foriegn policy as the right thing to do. Remember the question Sarah Palin was stumped on? The bush doctrine means being able to invade countries that are not a direct threat to us, but ones that can become a threat in the future (based on information mostly hidden from us that our leaders know intuitively). It also means invading countries because they harbor terrorists, not because the country is an immediate threat. The entire premise for this war is absurd, but still a lot of the way it was setup goes unquestioned.

[awepittance]

 

i still haven't seen any convincing evidence that it will 'bloodily regress' once american and NATO forces leave. please help me understand this perspective better

too often this logic is thrown around as if its already universally accepted fact i feel.

 

nah you're right, i can't find any peer-reviewed journals that say the taliban would dislike people who collaborated with the occupiers.

 

 

, the idea that the country will bloodily regress is not the same as a few Taliban being pissed at people who helped the americans (Which i can imagine is not that very many actual civilians, they seem to not want to get involved and just be left the fuck alone by Taliban and american forces)), the northern alliance, the offical army working for the US government will probably suffer some repercussions, but why stay in and occupy an entire country just to stave off whatever retaliation might be coming to a mercenary force we created? At the expense of what, killing thousands of civilians monthly with bombs from the sky? It doesn't make any sense when you look at the big picture. I would argue very strongly that an awful lot more people will be dying regularly in afghanistan with the full US military presence there VS a Taliban retaliation to the citizens of any kind.

[SR4]

just heard an interview on npr with the head of the oversight committee to rebuild Afghanistan....it was a retired...Navy? colonel I think?

 

 

my god was that ever a horrible horrible interview.

 

The NPR lady asked him "What do you think is the greatest US success in terms of our money going to rebuild the nation?"

 

His answer was that the military base there was exactly like ones in the United States.

 

 

what the fuck?

[awepittance]

well that's how we define success right? As long as John Mccain in Iraq can go walking down the street within the confines of the highly controlled and guarded 'green zone' surrounded by TV cameras and not get morter attacked, then Mission accomplished ! As long as the bad guys can't do anything to harm our empire being constructed in their country (bases, embassies, zones, etc) then we've done all that we set out to do.

[Guest ezkerraldean]

bah, the Afghans won't stop being twats. there will always be some bullshit tribe/faction fighting whoever's in power. take all the decent clever Afghans to Kabul and turn it into a little city state, then just build a fuckoff wall around the rest of the country. once they've run out of ammo and their AKs go rusty they might stop fighting, but it's probably best to let them all starve to death just incase i'm wrong.

[Guest hahathhat]

i have absolutely no idea what's going on in afganistan. furthermore, i don't care. i am more concerned with my left ringfinger, which is a tad sore.

[Guest ezkerraldean]

i have absolutely no idea what's going on in afganistan. furthermore, i don't care. i am more concerned with my left ringfinger, which is a tad sore.

typical yank

[Guest hahathhat]

i have absolutely no idea what's going on in afganistan. furthermore, i don't care. i am more concerned with my left ringfinger, which is a tad sore.

typical yank

 

convince me i should care. please explain how afghanistan will factor into my daily life... you know, be relevant?

 

edit: if i were in charge there would have been no fucking about with afghanistan. if you put me in charge now, i'd pull the troops home. but i'm not in charge, i'm not gonna be, i'm some guy on the internet and generals rarely listen to my opinion. it is irrelevant to me, like i am to them

[Guest ezkerraldean]

 

convince me i should care. please explain how afghanistan will factor into my daily life... you know, be relevant?

 

well, i guess i can't convince you, since you've just said that you won't care unless it affects you personally. i think that's a fairly frightening way to think, if i may say so. but very typical of an american.

[pcock]

im british and i also dont give a shit. yes its horrible, yes its upsetting, and no, theres nothing i can do about it, apart from the odd general election vote. id prefer to occupy my mind with happier things like music and film and girls and fun. not politics. thats a surefire way to depress yourself.

[Guest hahathhat]

 

convince me i should care. please explain how afghanistan will factor into my daily life... you know, be relevant?

 

well, i guess i can't convince you, since you've just said that you won't care unless it affects you personally. i think that's a fairly frightening way to think, if i may say so. but very typical of an american.

 

i wish you well in your quest to improve the world via caring about things that have absolutely no bearing on your day-to-day life.

[Guest ezkerraldean]

 

i wish you well in your quest to improve the world via caring about things that have absolutely no bearing on your day-to-day life.

yet isn't that how the world works?

 

if at my last job i didn't care about the details of random twats i was never going to meet that sent me forms, then thousands of people wouldn't have got their bus passes, innit.

[Hoodie]

 

i wish you well in your quest to improve the world via caring about things that have absolutely no bearing on your day-to-day life.

yet isn't that how the world works?

 

if at my last job i didn't care about the details of random twats i was never going to meet that sent me forms, then thousands of people wouldn't have got their bus passes, innit.

 

yeah, but you had the ability to send bus passes out. would it be logical for dr hat to worry about someone's lack of a bus pass? no. he can't do anything to change it.

 

worrying about politics is very irrational. you have about as much impact on it as you do the impending expansion and explosion of the sun. which is none at all, unless you work in the media or in the government.

 

i still worry about it though and i admit it's pretty dumb of me. stresses me out way too much. oh well.

[Guest idrn]

im british and i also dont give a shit. yes its horrible, yes its upsetting, and no, theres nothing i can do about it, apart from the odd general election vote. id prefer to occupy my mind with happier things like music and film and girls and fun. not politics. thats a surefire way to depress yourself.

 

yeh m8, all politicians are just same the same and like wat can 1 person do all wana do is jus chill wiv my mates an have a good time mabe deal a little ganja 2 cuz that is boss

 

[awepittance]

if i may say so. but very typical of an american.

 

one of the more notable aspects of American life is to not care about the consequences abroad from the actions of the individual or that of the government.

you pretty much have to 'not care' in america to say totally sane.

 

this extreme distance between what our country does to people across the world and how it makes one feel at home leads to the irrational beliefs like 'we are the freest country on earth' when we hold 25% of the world's prison population, with the highest percentage of our own citizens in prison VS any other country on the planet.

[pcock]

precisely. although no longer with the ganja, unfortunately.

[awepittance]

 

worrying about politics is very irrational. you have about as much impact on it as you do the impending expansion and explosion of the sun. which is none at all, unless you work in the media or in the government.

 

i still worry about it though and i admit it's pretty dumb of me. stresses me out way too much. oh well.

 

as Kurt Vonnegut's friend says in the preface of Slaughterhouse five, why would you write an anti-war book? That's like writing an anti-glacier book

 

it's true that its a waste of energy to idealize at some point in our lifetimes the collapse of American imperialism and high technology mass murder , but i think it's different to worry about and try to turn people away from the accepted dogma of 'why we fight' and more specifically why the hell we still need to be in Afghanistan. I think there is still some importance to cutting through the propaganda