Obama's War Surge

[Guest hahathhat]

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.

 

i care, i'm just pragmatic about it. if you want things to get better, go local. worry about whether your neighbors feel happy and fufilled before you fret about some distant war thousands of miles away.

[Hoodie]

 

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

 

people are terribly stuck in their own opinions though. i mean, it's nice to try (i certainly do, i write pointless political columns for the school newspaper) but i don't think talking or arguing about politics does anything other than force someone even deeper into their already accepted viewpoint.

 

personally, i try to be really open minded. you've personally changed a few of my opinions in this thread because i see your point. in fact, you've changed my opinion to "oh fuck this all sucks i don't know what we should do."

 

i see what you're saying about casualties being far higher if americans stayed in afganistan, but still, what would be the repercussions of leaving? other countries in afganistan would be pissed off. the afgani people would probably like it if we left though. but the country is in such disarray that it'd be a lot easier for some fundamentalist dictator to takeover or what have you. is that any better?

 

it's all very confusing and i honestly can't form a good position on it.

[awepittance]

i don't aim to stop any wars. if you mean pragmatic about it you don't waste mental energy on thinking about it, that's good for you. i wish i could be like that.

I just want people to be informed, and not believe things told to them by their leaders at face value. IT seems like you are informed you just choose not to invest time into it.

But more often than not it's the completely uninformed people who default to a position of not caring about things like this. I feel like if most people read a history book of Afghanistan (again: accurate information, not propaganda designed to go to war) in this country they would have a completely different opinion on this war. We like to keep ourselves in the dark to make things easier. example: I remember when i first heard (probably age 10-11) about the concept of american companies opening sweatshops in 3rd world countries to make things like Nike shoes it made me extremely uncomfortable. I didn't want to believe it, it challenged the image of my own country and the positives of capitalism. For a while i really tried to ignore it, but the older i got and more information i learned the more evident the truth became.

 

 

 

personally, i try to be really open minded. you've personally changed a few of my opinions in this thread because i see your point. in fact, you've changed my opinion to "oh fuck this all sucks i don't know what we should do."

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kcinsu..... thoughts?

[Overand]

It's a bad idea. It's a much more justified war than the one in Iraq. That is to say, it's even the slightest bit justified. That said, they don't call Afghanistan the graveyard of Empires for nothing. Better move on Obama's part would be to get out and recommit his troops to helping the Pakistani government expel the Taliban from there.

[karmakramer]

If we leave afghanistan the terrorist will come back into the country from Pakistan, take over and control the region. Then they will build forces by recruiting all the afghan people who now hate the US because of our presence and destruction since we invaded their country, they will grow stronger and then be able to put pressure and money into Pakistan and possibly acquire nuclear weapons.

 

Now I don't know if this is what will happen if we leave, but it is certainly a possibility... which is why it is completely naive to say you know the right way to deal with this situation at all. There is no right answer because we don't know the fucking future. I hope the Obama administration has looked over all the classified intelligence and has thought about all of the ways to deal with the war in Afghanistan... so I really don't have a problem with his decision. Obama isn't Bush in my opinion.... he's a fucking shit load smarter and he isn't being manipulated by a Vice President who has finances in war tech/manufacturing corporations.

[awepittance]

If we leave afghanistan the terrorist will come back into the country from Pakistan, take over and control the region. Then they will build forces by recruiting all the afghan people who now hate the US because of our presence and destruction since we invaded their country, they will grow stronger and then be able to put pressure and money into Pakistan and possibly acquire nuclear weapons.

 

Now I don't know if this is what will happen if we leave, but it is certainly a possibility... which is why it is completely naive to say you know the right way to deal with this situation at all.

 

 

have you heard Obama's advisor say that only 100 al queda are currently in Afghanistan right now? If you don't mean al queda what terrorists are you talking about exactly.

Sorry i just get really bothered by that term getting thrown around by people without being more specific. Terrorism is a tactic, it doesn't define an organized group of people.

The premise that it's naive to say we should pull out because it's 'certainly a possibility' that this will happen is entirely fear based, not rational.

 

edit: i've never seen anything to back up this claim that Afghanistan will somehow become a giant Terrorist-magnet for everybody from the surrounding regions to come in and use it to stage attacks. Why would a group of people want a country with rough terrain, no running water and no electricity as their home to plan attacks?

the notion is absurd to me that somehow being in Afghanistan gives people who want to use terrorism any sort of advantage over an industrialized country that has easy access to internet, flight lessons, explosives making materials, etc. YOu don't have a Home Depot in Afghanistan where you can go in and buy 100 pounds of fertilizer to make a bomb with. If you believe the official story of 9/11, than America (which is where the 19 hijackers lived), not Afghanistan is one of the best places to stage a terrorist attack from.

[awepittance]

the parallels in this are pretty remarkable

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3nJ2-NaJqY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQtMWt0hrZE

private phone recordings, later made public of LBJ asking for advice from tons of people (even reporters , lol!) about if its a good idea or not to escalate in Vietnam

[CondenseWindow]

Probably the best way to defeat Afghanistan

[karmakramer]

If we leave afghanistan the terrorist will come back into the country from Pakistan, take over and control the region. Then they will build forces by recruiting all the afghan people who now hate the US because of our presence and destruction since we invaded their country, they will grow stronger and then be able to put pressure and money into Pakistan and possibly acquire nuclear weapons.

 

Now I don't know if this is what will happen if we leave, but it is certainly a possibility... which is why it is completely naive to say you know the right way to deal with this situation at all.

 

 

have you heard Obama's advisor say that only 100 al queda are currently in Afghanistan right now? If you don't mean al queda what terrorists are you talking about exactly.

Sorry i just get really bothered by that term getting thrown around by people without being more specific. Terrorism is a tactic, it doesn't define an organized group of people.

 

Yeah I know most of the terrorists are in Pakistan... what Obama is trying to do is set up a secure and stable government in 3 years in Afghanistan so no terrorist group will be able to later take over the region. If we leave we'll have terrorist going around neighborhoods harassing afghan people to join their ranks etc.... they will certainly gain power and having rule over a country right next to nuclear pakistan is not good for anyone (US, Europe, Israel, etc)... thats why most governments and nations have come out in support for Obama's decision.

 

Your strategy is rooted in the concept that we should have never invaded or something (even though I think it was the right call, Iraq was the mistake)... so therefore we shouldn't stick around. It doesn't work like that. In Afghanistan we have captured and kept 80,000 afghans in prison for suspected terrorism. ONLY about 1% of which were actually confirmed/convicted terrorist. The other 99% are going to have definite hatred and bad feelings towards the US and the military. That doesn't mean they are now terrorist but if a radical terrorist group takes the region over, these people will probably have the choice of living or joining, and I bet a good amount of them will join.

[awepittance]

 

 

Yeah I know most of the terrorists are in Pakistan... what Obama is trying to do is set up a secure and stable government in 3 years in Afghanistan so no terrorist group will be able to later take over the region. If we leave we'll have terrorist going around neighborhoods harassing afghan people to join their ranks etc.... they will certainly gain power and having rule over a country right next to nuclear pakistan is not good for anyone (US, Europe, Israel, etc)... thats why most governments and nations have come out in support for Obama's decision.

 

i'm still not clear on how you are using the term terrorist, do you mean specifically al queda or just insurgents who have left Afghanistan and are hiding in Pakistan?

when you say things like 'yeah i know the terrorists are in pakistan' its really confusing to me, because i don't know who you are talking about.

 

it would be nice if we could stop using the word 'terrorist' in this discussion to describe people without identifying anything else about them, it would help to avoid confusion

 

edit: if we were fighting one unified army or force what you are saying would make some sense, but i see almost no unifying force fighting against us in afghanistan except for the Taliban which is highly fragmented, but maintains control of certain areas. The taliban are not 'terrorists' in the sense that you are using it. There seems to be 3 specific groups of people taking up arms against the US, the Taliban, insurgents who are angry at the US occupation and not fighting for religious reasons, and external people coming in to fight in a half-assed jihad (which the media seems to describe as Al queda, even though most of them are not affiliated with the organization)

[karmakramer]

 

 

Yeah I know most of the terrorists are in Pakistan... what Obama is trying to do is set up a secure and stable government in 3 years in Afghanistan so no terrorist group will be able to later take over the region. If we leave we'll have terrorist going around neighborhoods harassing afghan people to join their ranks etc.... they will certainly gain power and having rule over a country right next to nuclear pakistan is not good for anyone (US, Europe, Israel, etc)... thats why most governments and nations have come out in support for Obama's decision.

 

i'm still not clear on how you are using the term terrorist, do you mean specifically al queda or just insurgents who have left Afghanistan and are hiding in Pakistan?

when you say things like 'yeah i know the terrorists are in pakistan' its really confusing to me, because i don't know who you are talking about.

 

it would be nice if we could stop using the word 'terrorist' in this discussion to describe people without identifying anything else about them, it would help to avoid confusion

 

Terrorist is a general term and in context refers to any/all terrorist groups in the region including Al Qaida.

[awepittance]

you need to elaborate more, because if you mean specifically groups who primarily commit acts of terrorism you are talking about a ridiculously small group of people. And if thats who you mean (the people who fight us using tactics like suicide bombings, beheading of captives, bombing marketplaces) it seems awfully irresponsible to take a small group of people any more seriously because they decide to use certain tactics. They use these tactics because they are desperate and do not have the technology and means to cause actual damage .In fact 'terrorists' want us to pay more attention to them, they perform these horrendous acts to get attention, and guess what, we play directly into their hand! We spend billions of dollars trying to combat them, playing into completely the holy war they set out to accomplish. If you had said Taliban i could understand your position a little better. but to be afraid of a completely unknown number of 'terrorists' from coming back into a country to harm us or the world in some way is irrational.

[karmakramer]

edit: if we were fighting one unified army or force what you are saying would make some sense...

 

The goal in raising the troops etc is to further secure the region and to slowly train afghans to defend themselves. Yes we aren't fighting one unified force, but a unified force will come to exists if we leave the country as it exists today.

[awepittance]

but a unified force will come to exists if we leave the country as it exists today.

 

this is totally baseless , just re-read what you just said. Do you really think a force would all of the sudden unify right when the US leaves?

 

wouldn't the US presence there be a pretty strong reason for people to unify and fight? it makes absolutely no sense what you are saying that only AFTER we leave would this force all of the sudden unify.

 

the idea that a unified army will explode from Afghanistan after we leave comes from Bush white house fear mongering propaganda, i am honestly surprised you believe this so strongly

[karmakramer]

you need to elaborate more, because if you mean specifically groups who primarily commit acts of terrorism you are talking about a ridiculously small group of people. And if thats who you mean (the people who fight us using tactics like suicide bombings, beheading of captives, bombing marketplaces) it seems awfully irresponsible to take a small group of people any more seriously because they decide to use certain tactics. They use these tactics because they are desperate and do not have the technology and means to cause actual damage If you had said Taliban i could understand your position a little better. but to be afraid of a completely unknown number of 'terrorists' from coming back into a country to harm us or the world in some way is irrational.

 

Okay then I say Taliban

 

Seems you're just focusing on semantics and not providing much of a rebuttal... I mean you've basically been spouting we should leave immediately since this thread started... to me I don't see much logic in this decision... yeah the violence might go down etc... but the fear of a nuclear attack is possible, and we would be talking about millions and millions of innocent people dying. Afghan was a "just" war, we were pursuing the group that killed 3,000+ Americans... this whole thing would be over by now had we finished that originally but we didn't and Bush fucked us over by going into Iraq. Now we are getting out of Iraq, but Afghanistan is still not over, so let Obama finish the fight and make it so the Afghan people don't see us as totally fucking asshole for dismantling their government and then leaving it in shambles.

 

I got to go, so I won't be responding till I get home later.

[awepittance]

you need to elaborate more, because if you mean specifically groups who primarily commit acts of terrorism you are talking about a ridiculously small group of people. And if thats who you mean (the people who fight us using tactics like suicide bombings, beheading of captives, bombing marketplaces) it seems awfully irresponsible to take a small group of people any more seriously because they decide to use certain tactics. They use these tactics because they are desperate and do not have the technology and means to cause actual damage If you had said Taliban i could understand your position a little better. but to be afraid of a completely unknown number of 'terrorists' from coming back into a country to harm us or the world in some way is irrational.

 

Okay then I say Taliban

 

Seems you're just focusing on semantics and not providing much of a rebuttal...

 

so you're changing this group of people mid argument to a different group? I'm just honestly confused man, i've debated with you on politics a lot in the past on this forum but you keep using the blanket term 'terrorist' to describe an unspecific group of people. I just can't accept that premise and argue within that false framework.

I am asking you to back up your claims, the idea that Afghanistan will become an epicenter for nuclear attacks, or any other type of attack that will kill millions of people. So far you have not done that, i want you to explain yourself and why you believe this. I don't know how many more ways i can try to rebut your arguments, show me a point you made that i didn't address.

 

I mean you've basically been spouting we should leave immediately since this thread started... to me I don't see much logic in this decision.

 

i've been against our reasoning for going into Afghanistan since day one. and if you accept the premise in which the Afghanistan war was launched this means you believe in and agree with the Bush Doctrine (re: back to sarah palin interview). The Bush doctrine as laid out says that we can attack a country that has not threatened us but merely harbors people who do.

If you really think its logical to invade an entire country and decimate the shit out of it because we claim they would not give up one fugitive, i don't know if there is much more we can discuss.

it's quite surreal for me to be debating with Obama voters on why this war in unjust.

[lumpenprol]

Can't be bothered to read the thread, but: opium. Seems to me this is both a drug war and a political war wrapped in one, which is what makes it so hard to resolve. I know its an impossibility, but if we really want to see fewer US soldiers die, we'd let the poor-as-dirt Afghani farmers raise their opium in peace. That would probably win us more loyalty than any troop surge will.

[awepittance]

i agree, its really hard to grasp at what exactly the US policy is towards the opium trade. My friend tells me they burn poppy fields down, the media tells us we try to eradicate the heroin trade there because it helps fuel the Taliban, but statistics and data firms tell us that the world heroin trade is worth more money since we invaded Afghanistan than before.

 

i just hope in my lifetime this premise of a 'war on terror' as a legitimate enterprise will be totally discredited. Everybody probably forgot but John Kerry was actually saying a lot of pretty logical things during his campaign that Obama decided not to, like that we should catch terrorists in the criminal justice system not with our military.

 

*leaves thread to masturbate to power of nightmares*

[essines]

i am really enjoying the discussion in this thread.

[Guest Yegg]

if coalition forces were pulled out now then the entire country would implode.

 

again where is the evidence for this? implode how exactly? be in a worse state than it was before we invaded? even though afghanistan has technically a centralized government, it has almost no control over the populace they operate mostly on tribal law, it's extremely fragmented. I see no logic behind what you are saying.

 

The Afghan invasion was necessary, unlike the Iraq war.

 

you had some interesting points before you said this. Care to explain how the Afghan war is 'necessary' ? you criticize people in here for being knee jerkish, but what is it when someone accepts the logic that 'the afghan war is necessary' and forms opinions based on that?

 

The knee-jerk anti war crap that's being spouted

 

funny to me being anti war can be classified as knee jerk. i lol at this perspective sometimes when people think if they are in the middle or center of a debate and they can 'see both sides' (usually both sides are talking points) they think they are wise and can scoff at those who despise war.

you say that the conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan are different and they are, but the rhetoric used to explain why we need to increase is practically exactly the same. This where i split hairs, because yes we could argue all day about how every war is different, and some wars are necessary as you claim. but when it comes down to it Obama is using the same vocabulary, phrasing as George W Bush to rationalize the same thing but in a different country. You hold out some sort of hope that doing the same strategy in Afghanistan will have a positive effect, I personally think it's a terrible idea. And the belief of yours that people who are 'war mongers' are just as bad as 'anti war' people to me screams of a false sense of older aged 'pragmatism' that a lot of people tend to grow into when they stop being passionate about issues. It's like when you are too lazy and not committed enough to take a position on an issue, default to the centrist position.

 

QFT

[Redruth]

 

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.

 

 

+1

 

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.

 

 

lol

[marf]

What Im sick of hearing about is how the troops are defending my freedom. Since when? ww2? Thats like the last war I can think of that wasn't bullshit.

[awepittance]

i actually heard that radio talk show host Dr. Laura say once 'we need to fight them over there or else the terrorists are going to force us all to wear Burkas here' it's really difficult to put myself in the shoes of someone who thinks like that.

[joshuatxuk]

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

 

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.

 

Insane isn't it? People are making a fuss that the Seattle cop-killer was commuted from a 95 year sentence to an 11 year one for robbery, but that misses the point altogether. Why the hell does someone serve more than a few years or a decade at most, for robbery?

 

the parallels in this are pretty remarkable

[removed to cut down on length]

private phone recordings, later made public of LBJ asking for advice from tons of people (even reporters , lol!) about if its a good idea or not to escalate in Vietnam

 

Thanks, interesting stuff! LBJ's archive is here in Austin, I got to visit the catalog. Huge amounts of tape and unreleased documents.

 

What Im sick of hearing about is how the troops are defending my freedom. Since when? ww2? Thats like the last war I can think of that wasn't bullshit.

 

WWII was fought to get out of the depression, arguably. I know what you mean though, since it has been sporadic police actions or major efforts to wield our influences overseas. And when I hear people cry over Dafur, I wonder why no one goes there, buys some weapons, and do what anarchists/leftist rebels did during the Spanish Civil War, actually fight back. Mercenaries still exist.

 

i actually heard that radio talk show host Dr. Laura say once 'we need to fight them over there or else the terrorists are going to force us all to wear Burkas here' it's really difficult to put myself in the shoes of someone who thinks like that.

 

Dear god. First of all, even if terrorists did invade in a wacky hypothetical situation, xenophonic rednecks and the most of the LGBT community would unite against wearing that much clothing.

[marf]

Darfur, good example. Every war orchestrated since ww2 I just see fat cats with cigars in their mouths pushing around play GI joe men on a giant map