Obama's War Surge

[karmakramer]

Awepittance it'd be great if you would argue why Obama's and my logic is flawed instead of just constantly casting all politicians as fear mongering jarheads who automatically can't have the correct solution cause they are fear mongering jarheads. With more troops provides greater confidence which scares off those who are causing violence and allows a more stable region so we can leave faster, transitioning the power to the Afghan people.

[awepittance]

Awepittance it'd be great if you would argue why Obama's and my logic is flawed instead of just constantly casting all politicians as fear mongering jarheads who automatically can't have the correct solution cause they are fear mongering jarheads. With more troops provides greater confidence which scares off those who are causing violence and allows a more stable region so we can leave faster, transitioning the power to the Afghan people.

 

 

i dont cast all politicians as fear mongers, i highly respect politicians who don't use fear mongering. go back and read Vietnam war strategy just to seem how striking the parallels were

the rhetoric used in the sentence you just said i have bolded you will find spoken in just about every past conflict the US has been engaged in in the last 50 years by generals, politicians, and commanders. Not one single time has that plan actually worked to my knowledge. IT seems awfully strange for Obama (if he is as intelligent as you say) to be repeating the mistakes of countless people before him, which leads me to believe that he does not have the same goals in mind for this war as he claims. The goals of Afghanistan being a functioning democracy is a total pipe dream, i honestly don't believe Obama really believes that, it's just too ridiculous. I think he does however believe in the threat of Al Queda like the previous 'crazy team' before him, which is causing him to make decisions based on the 'what ifs' and yes ill say it again, the FEAR of something that 'might' happen not something that using logical thought process probably will not happen.

and Karamakramer: you've heard the term that Afghanistan is the 'graveyard of empires'? that term is actually based on a lot of historical events.

what makes you think a country highly in debt and in the midst of an economic crisis can be the first one to successfully conquer the nation?

[karmakramer]

Awepittance it'd be great if you would argue why Obama's and my logic is flawed instead of just constantly casting all politicians as fear mongering jarheads who automatically can't have the correct solution cause they are fear mongering jarheads. With more troops provides greater confidence which scares off those who are causing violence and allows a more stable region so we can leave faster, transitioning the power to the Afghan people.

 

 

i dont cast all politicians as fear mongers, i highly respect politicians who don't use fear mongering. go back and read Vietnam war strategy just to seem how striking the parallels were

the rhetoric used in the sentence you just said i have bolded you will find spoken in just about every past conflict the US has been engaged in in the last 50 years by generals, politicians, and commanders. Not one single time has that plan actually worked to my knowledge. IT seems awfully strange for Obama (if he is as intelligent as you say) to be repeating the mistakes of countless people before him, which leads me to believe that he does not have the same goals in mind for this war as he claims. The goals of Afghanistan being a functioning democracy is a total pipe dream, i honestly don't believe Obama really believes that, it's just too ridiculous. I think he does however believe in the threat of Al Queda like the previous 'crazy team' before him, which is causing him to make decisions based on the 'what ifs' and yes ill say it again, the FEAR of something that 'might' happen not something that using logical thought process probably will not happen.

 

Well Obama would look pretty damn stupid if he states a goal, knowing he can't achieve it, and does it anyway, so later he looks like an idiot who thought it would work.

 

I guess at this point we will just have to wait and see what happens.

[awepittance]

read that article i posted above on the previous page for an example of how un clear the actual official policy is. If you listen to Hillary Clinton there is no pull out date but if you listen to his speech the pull out date starts 2011.

[karmakramer]

read that article i posted above on the previous page for an example of how un clear the actual official policy is. If you listen to Hillary Clinton there is no pull out date but if you listen to his speech the pull out date starts 2011.

 

Huh the only contradiction in that article is if the pull out date is set in stone, but both Clinton and Gibbs both recognize the goal is to pull out in 2011... unless things go worse then expected I doubt Obama will want to fail on a PROMISE he made earlier in his term when the next election is right around the corner. He would be an easy target for the GOP on foreign relations

[awepittance]

the GOP will hate him no matter what he does

 

saying something is not 'set in stone' after the president just seemed to lay out that it was is a pretty big deal. TO me its indicative of an internal agreement that the pullout date is flexible, move it around according to the political winds at any given time

[karmakramer]

 

so you're changing this group of people mid argument to a different group? I'm just honestly confused man,

 

Let me fully explain again, now that I have more time and can fully explain everything...

 

So my line of thinking is, currently the region is unstable. So currently if we left the region the Taliban would most likely regain control of Afghanistan. Seeing as our actions in Afghanistan and Iraq (torture ect..) have only enticed more Middle Eastern aggression towards Western worlds, leaving now would only lead to even more radicals (more than before 2001). You are right when you say we should be talking about more of a domestic war (and had we originally pursued Al Qaida and gotten Bin Laden, there would be NO war *), but because of the actions that have already been made, the war is becoming far more of a cultural war, one where un-educated Afghans will easily be persuaded in helping rebuild Al Qaida or other radical movements. This is why there is a need to build a government and infrastructure so future Afghan generations will not fall into these radical religious movements.

 

This is where the geographical element comes into play. Unlike Iraq, Afghanistan has very little infrastructure and is right on the border of nuclear Pakistan. As Al Qaida gets aide from the Taliban and builds up forces and WEALTH, its possible (again this is just my logic, there is probably evidence to back this up, but I would love to see you provide evidence against this) that either the Taliban or Al Qaida could acquire nuclear weapons from Pakistan. If it looks like things are getting to that point, trying to invade and stop Al Qaida and the Taliban would require even more money and troops... and the war would probably last well beyond the expected 3 years.

 

So that is why we can't just pull out. Yes similar lines of reasoning have been applied to different wars and those wars have failed... but Al Qaida was never in Iraq and nor were the Taliban. The violence in Iraq were insurgents and the Sunni's (Saddam's supporters)... the main issue there was when we took over the government we removed all the Sunni's from power and replaced them with Shia's... this brought on the civil war in Iraq, which is why the whole fucking thing took so long.

 

* This is why the Bush Administration backed off Bin Laden, cause had we gotten him, there would have been ZERO justification for Iraq and the rebuilding of Afghanistan.

 

now it just seems like you've gone back to do some fact checking of your own and retooled your own argument to have it make more sense, but still overall does not make sense and is based on fear. I would address these points more directly if they were substantially different than what you already said before in your earlier revision (the one where you conflated 'terrorism' as the Taliban, al queda and any insurgent who fights us)

 

God, you can't keep refuting my logic by just saying its all based on "fear"... it's like refuting someones argument by just saying its all based on "stupidity"... explain why my argument is wrong and explain what the best course of action would be for the US right now.

 

the GOP will hate him no matter what he does

 

Hate without reason is one thing, but having a failed Obama foreign policy on their plate come election time will certainly swing independents .

[awepittance]

 

God, you can't keep refuting my logic by just saying its all based on "fear"... it's like refuting someones argument by just saying its all based on "stupidity"... explain why my argument is wrong and explain what the best course of action would be for the US right now.

 

ill adress everything else in this discussion without calling you fearful i promise. but im not going to break down your arguments in that post you just quoted. It would be like a teacher trying to give someone a genuine grade on a test they know they went back and cheated on an open book. you already laid out your argument the first time and i broke it down.

[karmakramer]

saying something is not 'set in stone' after the president just seemed to lay out that it was is a pretty big deal. TO me its indicative of an internal agreement that the pullout date is flexible, move it around according to the political winds at any given time

 

I think your looking into this too much.

[awepittance]

saying something is not 'set in stone' after the president just seemed to lay out that it was is a pretty big deal. TO me its indicative of an internal agreement that the pullout date is flexible, move it around according to the political winds at any given time

 

I think your looking into this too much.

 

i recommend you do a little more looking into things. if you go based on the Obama speech alone you could come away with that believing practically anything you wanted to hear out of it. I know that when i came away after listening to it i had no idea what he really believed.

[karmakramer]

 

God, you can't keep refuting my logic by just saying its all based on "fear"... it's like refuting someones argument by just saying its all based on "stupidity"... explain why my argument is wrong and explain what the best course of action would be for the US right now.

 

ill adress everything else in this discussion without calling you fearful i promise. but im not going to break down your arguments in that post you just quoted. It would be like a teacher trying to give someone a genuine grade on a test they know they went back and cheated on an open book. you already laid out your argument the first time and i broke it down.

 

No you didn't, you just argued with me on what I meant by "terrorists" and so then I typed up all that and CORRECTED it for you, so you could give me a real response. Quit side steppin foo

[awepittance]

i think thats a pretty big correction, it shows a lack of understanding as to who is actually fighting us in Afghanistan. but if you insist ill go back and do it later pretending the first post didn't exist.

[karmakramer]

i think thats a pretty big correction, it shows a lack of understanding as to who is actually fighting us in Afghanistan. but if you insist ill go back and do it later pretending the first post didn't exist.

 

The logic from my first post to my last hasn't changed... its just the details I fucked up and by details I mean generalizing the enemy as terrorists... versus saying Taliban and Al Qaida

[karmakramer]

Clinton: We don't intend to cut and run from Afghanistan

 

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/12/04/afghanistan.clinton/index.html

[awepittance]

America needs a new boodeyman since the downfall of the Soviets

 

i missed this somehow in the thread, did you mean this?

[karmakramer]

America needs a new boodeyman since the downfall of the Soviets

 

i missed this somehow in the thread, did you mean this?

 

Yeah, but I meant Boogeyman haha... basically had we gotten Osama there would have been no way for Bush to sell the Iraq war or stay in the Afghan region. However, as I said in that longer post, what is done is done... and now the situation in Afghanistan is very different. Leaving it because we should have never invaded is not the answer in my opinion as I've stated.

[awepittance]

ok here is very long response to what you said earlier

 

So my line of thinking is, currently the region is unstable. So currently if we left the region the Taliban would most likely regain control of Afghanistan.

 

i agree with this, but with some stipulations. I do think the region, like a lot of other regions in the globe is unstable. I don't believe however the premise that islamic radicalism in general is a serious threat to the security of america. I sense that you don't either but are facing these conflicts as a here and now scenario. I don't think it would be a bad idea to bring a lot of humanitarian aide to the country. I think it's the least we should do considering how we've meddled in their affairs since the mid 70s. When i say humanitarian aide i don't mean by the way of american soldiers. So in direct response to this, i think even if the Taliban did regain control it wouldn't be a threat to us or other countries.

 

 

Seeing as our actions in Afghanistan and Iraq (torture ect..) have only enticed more Middle Eastern aggression towards Western worlds, leaving now would only lead to even more radicals (more than before 2001). You are right when you say we should be talking about more of a domestic war (and had we originally pursued Al Qaida and gotten Bin Laden, there would be NO war *), but because of the actions that have already been made, the war is becoming far more of a cultural war, one where un-educated Afghans will easily be persuaded in helping rebuild Al Qaida or other radical movements. This is why there is a need to build a government and infrastructure so future Afghan generations will not fall into these radical religious movements.

 

the reason Afghanistan in and of itself doesn't present a more dire global problem to me if we pulled out troops out or even if we didn't the people there have been used to a tribal law system for centuries. Even the Taliban while in power maintained a weak control of the region, and from what i'm reading recently most of them, the largest tribal factions are not aligned with the Taliban . I think part of what you say is possible that islamic radicalism in general across the globe will increase. I think it's more important overall to be concerned about the state of and increase in islamic radicalism globally, rather than to worry about islamic radicalism increasing in an extremely sparse landscape with no electricity. Do radical muslims worldwide hate us because they think we need to put more of our troops in to 'stabilize' a muslim country? or will they hate us more if we leave troops, send more and continue to bomb things like wedding parties? There is an extreme ripple effect that happens with just one civilian kiled. The bloodlines and family lineages in afghanistan are much more interconnected and can be traced back much more easily than in a western country. When you kill one person there with a missile from an american plane, you are directly impacting and planting the seeds for deep anti US resentment in the lives of thousands of family members. We've already tried and failed for the last 8 years to build a successful government. Karzai's election was rigged, his brother is one of the countries leading heroin traffickers and has been on the CIA payroll for over 5 years. In Obama's speech a few days ago, he acknowledged partially that the Karzai government was corrupt. What he fails to mention is that it's not like this was a secret to anyone for the last 8 years. The US government knew full well of the level of corruption, they just chose to ignore it and present Karzai as a heroic figure, obviously it was to help put a positive spin on the war. I don't think the US military is the right way to try and rebuild the country at this point. Especially grunts who rely on 1 poorly trained translator for 20 men. You really ought to check out the film i posted a link to earlier in the thread 'Obama's war'. There are some pretty frustrating scenes in it where these american soldiers who are probably 19 years old are having a yelling match with the translator because he isn't sure if a group of Afghan men are saying if the Taliban went north or south.

 

 

This is where the geographical element comes into play. Unlike Iraq, Afghanistan has very little infrastructure and is right on the border of nuclear Pakistan. As Al Qaida gets aide from the Taliban and builds up forces and WEALTH, its possible (again this is just my logic, there is probably evidence to back this up, but I would love to see you provide evidence against this) that either the Taliban or Al Qaida could acquire nuclear weapons from Pakistan. If it looks like things are getting to that point, trying to invade and stop Al Qaida and the Taliban would require even more money and troops... and the war would probably last well beyond the expected 3 years.

 

The idea that Al Qaeda gets substantial aide from the Taliban or vice versa, or that Al Qaeda is structured enough to have a fighting army or poses a threat to the world i do not personally believe. So you are trying to convince me of a hyperbolic 'what if' scenario out of thousands of different possible outcomes. I think we ought to focus more on worrying about Pakistan itself becoming unstable and waging war with India. People forget why Pakistan got nukes in the first place, it goes back to the dispute over the shared Kashmir area. They have been in an ongoing dispute with India for over 50 years. India and Pakistan got nukes almost simultaneously. There was even a satire film made about a fictional nuclear war between Pakistan and India called '2nd civil war'. My understanding of Pakistan's already crippling internal problems is that they have enough leading to their instability even if you remove the Taliban from the equation.

 

* This is why the Bush Administration backed off Bin Laden, cause had we gotten him, there would have been ZERO justification for Iraq and the rebuilding of Afghanistan.

 

do you think our government intentionally let Bin Laden go? Have you seen this article titled 'the airlift of evil'

MSNBC NEW YORK, Nov. 29, 2001 � The United States took the unprecedented step this week of demanding that foreign airlines provide information on passengers boarding planes for America. Yet in the past week, a half dozen or more Pakistani air force cargo planes landed in the Taliban-held city of Kunduz and evacuated to Pakistan hundreds of non-Afghan soldiers who fought alongside the Taliban and even al-Qaida against the United States. What�s wrong with this picture?

[chim]

With more troops provides greater confidence which scares off those who are causing violence and allows a more stable region so we can leave faster, transitioning the power to the Afghan people.

 

Yes, makes perfect sense, that's what happened the last time.

 

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

[awepittance]

would love for you to reply to that karmakramer , but in the meantime read this -

 

A solid majority of Americans (54 percent) now oppose President Obama's Afghanistan-Pakistan War. In fact, among Democrats, only twenty-six (26) percent support such a foreign war. In other words, by enlarging this conflict, President Obama is governing as if the opinion of a majority of Americans and of his own political base did not matter. In a democracy, a politician can do that for a while, but not for very long.

 

This undeclared war, just like LBJ's Vietnam War (1959–1975) and George W. Bush's Iraq War, is an adventure with no clear objective and no clear exit strategy, but with tremendous costs in lives and money. Nobody can tell if the U.S. and NATO are killing people in Afghanistan and in Pakistan because this is an operation to stop al-Qaeda terrorists from mounting future Sept. 11-type attacks, or because it is part of a larger plan to counter a Taliban insurgency and prevent this Pashtun Islamist party to regain power. But also, it has been said that it is a war waged to protect a pipeline crossing Afghanistan. Such a pipeline would move oil from the Caspian Basin to the coast of Pakistan through Afghanistan. Nevertheless, since this is not clearly explained, the war remains a blur for most people. The reason why such a war brings fewer open protests than the Vietnam War is essentially because it is waged with mercenaries.

 

That may be a reason why such open-ended wars fought with mercenaries can last for so long. For its part, Great Britain, a country used to colonial occupations, says through its incoming military Chief of Staff, General Sir David Richards, that it could stay in Afghanistan for 40 years. Even Germany seems to have regained its taste for military adventures, as its Defense Minister says it could occupy Afghanistan for ten years.

continued here

[SR4]

my worry though is that at this point, americans as a whole are too docile and self-satisfied to really voice enough to make a difference....its like we would have to wait until 50% of the country is in complete poverty until something happens.

[awepittance]

my worry though is that at this point, americans as a whole are too docile and self-satisfied to really voice enough to make a difference....its like we would have to wait until 50% of the country is in complete poverty until something happens.

 

you're absolutely right, the only reason the Vietnam war protests were effective is because a) we had a draft b) we didn't have 900 channels of cable tv, internet and xbox360 user profiles

right now there is very little chance of the same type of protesting and energy happening.

I was just watching some news special on the assassination of the black panther leaders in the 60s and 70s by the police, many of them were pretty absurd like one was shot with 90 bullets while sleeping in bed at 4am. That energy especially that of the black panther movement is totally gone. Now a large part of the black populace in america worships 'the man' aka Barack Obama.

[delet...]

hah

[perunamuusi]

the only thing that would rouse the population from it's slumber and onto the streets in mass protest is if they stopped broadcasting telly. and all you would have to do to quell any revolution is carry on broadcasting the telly again.

 

 

its

[awepittance]

[sneaksta303]