| Author | Message | ||
     Swordsman |
I'm not crazy about the idea, but only because I think we really should have nipped it in the bud the first time around. The Libertarian party has officially denounced it, and wants troops removed from Afghanistan. I tend to agree with almost everything else the LP stands for, but their military stances seem... short-sighted? I understand the LP is against military activity for political purposes, but I would think that anything involving the Taliban or Al Queda would be more of a national security deal? So, what do you other Libertarians think about this? Non-Libertarians need not reply. Seriously. ~SM | ||
| Cityxslicker |
if you aint there to raize the poppy fields, and leave charred mangled earth in your wake, you are wasting your time. | ||
| Mr_grumpy |
Afghanistan, the graveyard of Empires, the British & the Russians both found out the hard way. Welcome to the club. | ||
| Eboos |
The difference is we aren't trying to conquer Afghanistan. We aren't trying to annex them into our empire. | ||
| Smokescreen |
According to General Nawroz, the Afghan-Soviet War was a rare confrontation in history as it helped trigger the collapse of the greatest empire of modern times. Lessons learned from this conflict were gathered by both sides. Whatever else these lessons may show, the most fundamental of them is that no army, however sophisticated, well trained, materially rich, numerically overwhelming and ruthless, can succeed on the battlefield if it is not psychologically fit and motivated for the fight. The force, however destitute in material advantages and numbers, which can rely on the moral qualities of a strong faith, stubborn determination, individualism and unending patience will always be the winner. These may not be the optimum qualities always found in the armies of western democracies. http://www.ciaonet.org/cbr/cbr00/video/cbr_ctd/cbr _ctd_52.html If they figured this out then, why can't we apply this logic now? | ||
| Mr_grumpy |
No, that's true, but the net effect is the same. You'll pour more & more money & men into the place until it finally becomes untenable & you pull out, having lost many lives & gained nothing. I'm not "having a go" far from it, I just see history repeating. The Russians didn't invade either, they went to the aid of a crumbling socialist democratic government, that had overthrown a virtual dictatorship by military coup. The British didn't invade (twice) they went to prevent Imperial Russia doing so. | ||
| Blake |
The same was said for Iraq. Any war can be won. You just have to wage war to win. Until Iraq, we hadn't really done that since WW-II. I see that Soviet era propaganda is alive and well. | ||
| Mr_grumpy |
I see that Soviet era propaganda is alive and well. Blake, you've left the irony filter on again. As you say, any war can be won, the subsequent question is, at what cost? I can't answer that one. | ||
| Blake |
My extreme bad. I swear I left that filter on top of the refrigerator, but now it's gone. Wife must have moved it. | ||
| Mr_grumpy |
They do that as a test I think.  | ||
| Redbuelljunkie |
The fact that Libertarians would not have gone there in the first place is moot because we're already there, and even though it would seem ideologically correct to support bringing the troops home- even Libertarians realize it really would not be the smart thing to do at this stage of the conflict. | ||
| Mmmi_grad |
More troops is part of the stimulus plan to put our people to work. Without afganastan, what does the world have to war about? Pirates? | ||
| Reindog |
This is a complicated one, even more than Iraq was. Our British expatriate friend on the lam in France is correct about the history of the joint and it would be folly to ignore it. The reason Afghaniland is so hard to win is that when you win it, you win dirt. Except for heroin. The real problem sources from the heroin trade. Those funny poppies aren't going away just as Mary Jane won't be eradicated from Kalifornia. The heroin cartel can be an ally or an enemy. Most Afghanis would deep six Islamic fundamentalism if they were left alone to ply their trade. So step 1 is to make friends with the Heroin Master (I've always wanted to write that because that is an anagram of my name, "Thomas Reiner"). Step 2 is to help India and Wackystan play nice. They really can learn to live together and not be afraid of one another. Once that happens, then Pakistan can truly focus on the Border Regions where Al Queda has built luxury condos. Step 3 is for the US to drop money out of the sky to the native Border region. This actually was our winning strategy in Irag. The military literally drove trucks FULL of money and gave it away to the Sunnis. Ask Al Lighton to tell you about that sometime. We win the hearts and minds of the Border people through cold cash. Step 4. Border People/Afghani drug lords/ Paki army/US drones go on a kill crazy rampage and eat the lungs of Al Queda. Step 5. Yankee go home. | ||
| Nevrenuf |
just when i thought i was a libertarian, they're saying things that i don't believe should be. the human toll is to high to just call it quits and staying the course is the only way we have a chance to keep the us safe imo. | ||
| Chellem |
I like it! The cash thing works. It's a shame to say, but I think most of the people there are NOT radical islam jihadists - but if they get their food and are kept alive by the radicals, then they obviously have warmer, fuzzier feelings for them than for us. The people in these villages don't even have their basic needs met. Not for lack of trying I'd wager, but, I mean, what can you really do? The main job seems to be poppy farming. But the people have to want freedom. And they can't want something they've never experienced. What we need is some wifi and laptops out there so they can see what the rest of the world looks like, and what they COULD have for themselves if they only could break away from the jihadists. | ||
| Chellem |
Hey - fellow Libertarians - it's OK to disagree with the official party line! Seriously! Thinking for ourselves is why we're Libertarians to begin with! If we start towing the company line like robots, then we're no better than dems or repubs. | ||
| Reindog |
SM, I am a card carrying Republican but possess a REAL strong affinity for Libertarianism. Sorry for breaking your self imposed rule of "Libs only" but I knew you would respect my right to blurble anyway.  | ||
| Swordsman |
Heh, yeah, that's okay, others got involved ahead of you and already mucked it up.  Some people just can't resist the temptation.  ~SM | ||
| Blake |
Just watched the President's speech from yesterday. On the actual war-fighting, A+! Outstanding! Excellent ending! I think I just may have gained some hope. The rest was nauseating, too much I, I, I, me, me, me, and looking back and bashing prior admin efforts/screw-ups. WTF? | ||
| Garyz28 |
I would be all for it if I thought they were going to let the military do whatever it takes to win. What I expect is Congress will continue to micromanage the war and tell our boys they have to "play nice" when the enemy doesn't give a damn about anything except killing Americans. | ||
| S1joel |
I think you really need to spend time here to realize the extent of the "war" in Afghanistan and exactly what it means to win. In my opinion, the biggest problem with Afghanistan (and the bordering Pakistani areas) is the Afghans. The Pashtun culture does not want the changes that we are trying to provide them. They just want to be left alone to live in their Islamic state. That's not to say that they won't happily take what we give them, but if we left tomorrow, it wouldn't really matter to them. Allah will provide. We buy the ANP furniture for their checkpoints, they burn what burns and use the metal to make ladders or just pile it up. We build them new buildings and they trash them within days. We install indoor plumbing and the poop in the shower. The culture is too far separated from our own to make the changes that we want. We can kill the taliban by the thousands and there will always be more. As long as there is a Pashtun alive, there will be taliban. Remember, the taliban never attacked us on our own soil. They simply provided a save haven for groups that were willing to conduct attacks outside of "Pashtunistan". Afghanistan is NOT Iraq. | ||
| Cityxslicker |
Raize the poppy fields, scourged dead earth, let the Russians back in, keep the stingers at home on our side. Bring back LineBacker BUFF runs. Mobilize train and deploy the 6.2 million convicts sitting in prison playing Nintendo and watching cable. Thats what it would take. We dont have the guts, gaul or testes for any of it. | ||
| Gaesati |
9/11 was shocking. I was surprised by the Bush Government response. I really couldn't see the point of an invasion and committing 100's of thousands of troops to an ongoing campaign and dismantling two countries to the extent that Americans would have to foot the bill for rebuilding them. It seemed to me then and it still does that it was an intelligence matter. What needed doing was a simple ultimatum to the Taliban, Pakistan, Iran, Libya and any government which sheltered Al Qaeda bases to either hand over Al qaeda or face massive airstrikes against those bases. At the same time members of terrorist organisations needed to undergo rendition as they were identified no matter where they were. I don't have a problem with terrorists experiencing terror themselves particularly if that means the vast numbers of ordinary muslims can be left alone to get on with their lives. | ||
| Swordsman |
S1joel, nice insight, though not very hopeful, unfortunately.  ~SM | ||
| Blake |
"Remember, the taliban never attacked us on our own soil. They simply provided a save haven for groups that were willing to conduct attacks outside of "Pashtunistan". Afghanistan is NOT Iraq." That's kinda like saying that Germany just provided a safe haven for the Nazi party. Let's be sure to include all the facts here. The taliban refused to turn over Bin Laden and his cohorts, and they allied themselves with al qaeda against us. They are our enemy. I don't think that winning the war entails imparting American or western culture into the region. It simple means ridding the al qaeda and the Taliban of the capacity to threaten the free world and oppress the people of the region. It means standing up a security force that will protect the non-nutjobs from the likes of al qaeda and the taliban. It means that folks there will be able to send their daughters to school if they so choose, it means that music an artwork will not be outlawed, it means that al qaeda and the radical taliban will be finished. I don't agree that they will always re-emerge. Freedom beats tyranny. Most folks want freedom. The tyrants, once relegated from power and scorned and killed off become a group that not many freedom loving folks care to support. History has proved that wars cannot be won by air-strikes alone. Especially not when the evil men purposely hide among innocent civilians, mosques, schools, hospitals. No, dealing with that kind of scum requires a more direct and dangerous confrontation. I don't see any way around it. Hang tough Joel and please let us know if there is anything we can do to help lift your spirits and maybe bring a tiny little bit of comfort from home to you way over there. I sure do appreciate your service! (Message edited by blake on December 03, 2009) | ||
| Reindog |
Check out Krauthammer's take on the Obama surge. Another home run for one of our finest commentators. Obama is a sheep in sheep's clothing. uncertain trumpet Uncertain trumpet By Charles Krauthammer Friday, December 4, 2009 We shall fight in the air, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields, we shall fight in the hills -- for 18 months. Then we start packing for home. We shall never surrender -- unless the war gets too expensive, in which case, we shall quote Eisenhower on "the need to maintain balance in and among national programs" and then insist that "we can't simply afford to ignore the price of these wars." The quotes are from President Obama's West Point speech announcing the Afghanistan troop surge. What a strange speech it was -- a call to arms so ambivalent, so tentative, so defensive. Which made his last-minute assertion of "resolve unwavering" so hollow. It was meant to be stirring. It fell flat. In August, he called Afghanistan "a war of necessity." On Tuesday night, he defined "what's at stake" as "the common security of the world." The world, no less. Yet, we begin leaving in July 2011? Does he think that such ambivalence is not heard by the Taliban, by Afghan peasants deciding which side to choose, by Pakistani generals hedging their bets, by NATO allies already with one foot out of Afghanistan? Nonetheless, most supporters of the Afghanistan war were satisfied. They got the policy; the liberals got the speech. The hawks got three-quarters of what Gen. Stanley McChrystal wanted -- 30,000 additional U.S. troops -- and the doves got a few soothing words. Big deal, say the hawks. But it is a big deal. Words matter because will matters. Success in war depends on three things: a brave and highly skilled soldiery, such as the 2009 U.S. military, the finest counterinsurgency force in history; brilliant, battle-tested commanders such as Gens. David Petraeus and McChrystal, fresh from the success of the surge in Iraq; and the will to prevail as personified by the commander in chief. There's the rub. And that is why at such crucial moments, presidents don't issue a policy paper. They give a speech. It gives tone and texture. It allows their policy to be imbued with purpose and feeling. This one was festooned with hedges, caveats and one giant exit ramp. No one expected Obama to do a Henry V or a Churchill. But Obama could not even manage a George W. Bush, who, at an infinitely lower ebb in power and popularity, opposed by the political and foreign policy establishments and dealing with a war effort in far more dire straits, announced his surge -- Iraq 2007 -- with outright rejection of withdrawal or retreat. His implacability was widely decried at home as stubbornness, but heard loudly in Iraq by those fighting for and against us as unflinching -- and salutary -- determination. Obama's surge speech wasn't that of a commander in chief but of a politician, perfectly splitting the difference. Two messages for two audiences. Placate the right -- you get the troops; placate the left -- we are on our way out. And apart from Obama's personal commitment is the question of his ability as a wartime leader. If he feels compelled to placate his left with an exit date today -- while he is still personally popular, with large majorities in both houses of Congress, and even before the surge begins -- how will he stand up to the left when the going gets tough and the casualties mount, and he really has to choose between support from his party and success on the battlefield? Despite my personal misgivings about the possibility of lasting success against Taliban insurgencies in both Afghanistan and the borderlands of Pakistan, I have deep confidence that Petraeus and McChrystal would not recommend a strategy that will be costly in lives without their having a firm belief in the possibility of success. I would therefore defer to their judgment and support their recommended policy. But the fate of this war depends not just on them. It depends also on the president. We cannot prevail without a commander in chief committed to success. And this commander in chief defended his exit date (vs. the straw man alternative of "open-ended" nation-building) thusly: "because the nation that I'm most interested in building is our own." Remarkable. Go and fight, he tells his cadets -- some of whom may not return alive -- but I may have to cut your mission short because my real priorities are domestic. Has there ever been a call to arms more dispiriting, a trumpet more uncertain? | ||
| Paw |
"I'm not crazy about the idea, but only because I think we really should have nipped it in the bud the first time around." A lot of you guys do not like Obama but he is trying to fix another of the long line of George W. Bush Fu<kup's. Nobody is giving him a chance he has not been in the white house a year yet...And everyone is saying this will nor work that will not work and it is all being said on projections. Give it all a chance and some time to work. If is does not then he will have one term and some other poor soul will have to try and fix Bushes F ups that Obama could not...Bottom line Bush F'ed up the day he went into Iraq and it has been a major tail spin ever since. | ||
| Paw |
"Has there ever been a call to arms more dispiriting, a trumpet more uncertain?" Yes there has. The day Bush decided to go into Iraq full force and let a tiny few try and find the man who was the master mind in killing thousands of Americans here on our own soil...That really pissed me off to think Bush thought Saddam was more of a threat than the a$$hole who after 8 years is still planning attacks on America...Did Saddam ever attacked us here on our own soil? If I was a soldier back in 2001 I would have questioned my Commander in Chief about his decission to invade Iraq and not get Bin Ladden first!!! Action speak louder than word...Bush's action were 100% wrong...Once again Obama is being judge on a projections. If I was in the service I would be thrilled that we are finally going into the country where the A-HOLES who attack the U.S.A. are hiding out and we're finally going after them the way we should have 8 years ago!!! Let's clear something up...Not saying people on here...Some people say it is wrong to send our young troop in to war...It is not Obama or any other leader who has decided to send them over there. The brave men and women who joined a branch of services are the ones who are sending themselves...The know about 90% they are going over there to fight and they still join. It was their choice, and one I have the utmost respect for. | ||
| Paw |
"Has there ever been a call to arms more dispiriting, a trumpet more uncertain?" Here is a couple more for you!!! The charge on little round top. The last few years of the vietnam war. There are more and there will be more to come it is something we have to deal with but...The fact our armed forces are finally going into Afgan. they way we should. makes the call to arms easier to take!!! Just like in WWII when the beaches were stormed!!! | ||
| Blake |
"Bottom line Bush F'ed up the day he went into Iraq and it has been a major tail spin ever since." The Bush admin definitely bungled the post invasion phase in Iraq. They did however contrary to your dim view of their efforts ultimately adjust and achieve success. With reinforcements and with getting the Sunnis on board against al qaeda, the coalition achieved the desired result; we defeated the mass-murdering terrorists and fascists thugs and helped establish a strong democratic Iraq which is able and willing to take on their own security. Iraq was a very tough battle, but the coalition won. How is that a problem? Better we had left in power, one of the world's worst mass murdering tyrant terrorist dictators who had:
Better we had left alone the mass-murdering, war-mongering, terrorist regime that openly threatened our nation while harboring relations with al qaeda and other islamist terrorist groups, after 9/11? After al qaeda declared Iraq the central battlefront in their war against us? No President, whose #1 primary responsibility is to ensure the security of America, would ever have tolerated allowing the terrorist regime in Iraq to continue. Congress by overwhelming majority agreed. Now some would like to rewrite history. They are liars looking backwards seeking political power. They are not looking out for America or freedom. The mass-murdering, warmongering terrorist regime in Iraq along with a large number of al qaeda, the terrorists who perpetrated the attacks of 9/11, have been eliminated from the planet, and freedom is taking hold in a place that had never before known it. That is HUGE. The Iranian mullahs are losing influence; freedom loving, reform-seeking Iranians are very unhappy, they've been rioting in the streets in fierce protest against their terrorist supporting islamist-fascist government. It will hopefully only be a matter of time until the freedom that the Iraqis have embraced will spread throughout the middle east. If you can pull back and look at the BIG picture, that cannot be anything but a very good thing. From an honest perspective, what transpired in Iraq was far from ideal, but it seems to have passed the tipping point, the Iragis have stepped up and met the challenge and the effort has in fact become a success. Especially if you are an Iraqi who for the first time is enjoying a strong democratic representative government, and are happy to have killed off and expelled the hordes of al qaeda that flocked to the country during the war. |
