?
Argued with my girlfriend about this tonight. She thinks it's brilliant as a military strategy (we create a situation wherein we can leave after credibly trying to make a functional state there). I say it's horse .
At least you can build Burger Kings in Iraq (not to mention stage wars against Iran). Afghanistan, on the other hand, is an impossible war. What a waste of good Americans.
imo afghanistan shouldve been finished off first b4 setting foot on iraq and its neighbors up north.....just wrong strategy planning imo...
wats the point of rebuilding afghanistan when they have nothing besides poppy crops...whats the incentive?
I'm out of the loop. Haven't listened to any news for a couple days now. Did that chicken Obama make a decision yet?
I want all Americans out of both countries immediately, but if Magic Negro really does get combat troops out in 2011, I think that's probably the best outcome possible of two inherited piles of Repug .
30,000 troops within six months, starting around Christmas.
I hope it's enough.
The question "should we be there" isn't relevant any more. Now that we are there, we need to win.
Ditto. The sell is very similar to the Iraq surge, except that Obama refuses to give any benchmarks for winning. There's no timetable, just a vague intention to complete our goals within three years, and then to hand off security to our weak, venal and inept Afghan partners.
BTW, is the US out of Iraq yet, or are we just waiting around for civil war to break out again?
I feel much the same. IT'S NOT WINNABLE. There's no tangible benefit for the USA at this point, but also no tangible off ramp. Obama seems to have pledged us to the Bush policy of endless war he promised to end.
Yet again, the motif is continuity rather than change.
You can do that from Afghanistan too. You can sit Pakistan's ass from Afghanistan, kinda like you can sit on Saudi Arabia from Iraq as well.
Damn it's like you guys have never looked at a map or something...and think our government tells us everything.
I gotta admit your girlffiend calling it brilliant is probably even funnier than it sounds...assuming she is an Obama supporter.
So should I start a thread for you guys to apologize for the past well, 4 years minimum...seeing as how even your guy isn't going to cut and run?
Anyway, I think it's pretty stupid to announce when he's going to be leaving...that is blatantly stupid unless of course, you aren't actually planning on leaving, in that case it makes sense and just buys time. Stalls if you will.
I'm glad Obama has reconsidered some of his positions on this, but I don't think additional troops on the ground is really going to change much.
Afghanisgtan is winnable but not in the conventional sense...in geographical boundary terms it's not winnable, and there's not really anything additional troops are going to accomplish with the problem areas. The best thing we can do to Afghanistan is start turning salvagable parts of it into a non- hole.
The real problem with this country is that there are literally only a handful of people that can remember when it wasn't a total hole. War does nothing to do them anymore because it's really all they know. It's going to take the opposite of war to have an impact there now.
Like I said...set up a base to provide shelter and education for the women and children.
They will go there, and once the guys realize they aren't getting laid anymore(not even from the young slave boys), they'll start to get it.
this 18 month timeline he gave is, IMO, not firm in the least bit. He prefaced it referencing "conditions on the ground". An 18 month timeline declaration achieves two things. 1. To make it more palatable to Dems and 2. To light a proverbial fire under Karzai's and NATOs ass.
When you take into account that 6 months of the 18 is going to consist of getting these assets in place, you realize even more how tentative the timeframe is. Whott, I think, is essentially right in saying that it's a stalling tactic. I find it very difficult to believe we would not have heard serious grumblings from top military brass otherwise.
Obama is right to do this. Now it's up to McChrystal to utilize them properly. If they saturate the the population centers in provinces from NE of Kabul extending south (along the Pak border) to Helmand then I think these troops can be successful. Any other NATO assets that Obama referenced vaguely can be used to quell other hotspots, train Afgh security forces, and to assist US troops where need be.
Hopefully there will be a lot of competent civilian assets ready to flood these areas the military can bring under control. I also hope they've come up with some way to combat the drug problem, which wasn't referenced last night very much at all. And finally, I hope the Paks continue to be active and determined on their side of the border, otherwise they need to give us the green light to go in there and strike right at the heart of the safe havens.
Winehole is right, the continuity between administrations is remarkable.
I support this strategy, and I support Obama & the troops, even though I disagree with almost everything else the pres has done. Go get em guys
In your rush to be condescending, you kind of missed the point, Whott.
At first sight, colossal waste of time, life and money. Unless we have some way to force Pakistan to get serious about cracking down on these guys within their borders (which we don't IMHO) we're not really going anywhere. Of course the 18 month deadline is bull. So is the 2011 Iraqi deadline. There's not even a clearly defined goal where you could say 'we win' (that's obviously by design). Call me a skeptic.
Obama's timeline is as meaningless as the rest of his words.
Middle East Hole. Without an infinite occupation, that region will always revert back to being a hole. Give Nukes to cavemen and look what happens
BTW, I don't want to be overly cynical here, but as I was watching last night part of his speech, one of the first things that crossed my mind was: "Is he doing this to garner national support"? Anybody else thought this might just merely be a political move?
this war should have been full engaged 8 years ago....he is doing his best to clean up the mess.
Hard to get broad national support when you have the far left that want immediate withdrawal and you have the other side that wants to give McChrystal exactly what he needs to get the job done. Under the cir stances, I think the strategy is pretty reasonable.
I don't think it is political simply because the outcomes from perceived neglect could be political K.O.s for Obama's career. I guess that makes it political in a sense, but indirectly.
This.
I have always felt that Bush (and others) carried out this war on terrorism much like a game of Risk. We have armies, let's attack, no thought of what needs to be done in the aftermath of war.
I don't get it why America has not finished the mission in Afghanistan after so many years. A government has been set up by election. Plus enemies don't get much help from outside like North Korea or North Vietnam.
No one has come up with a valid strategy that would have worked better than what we have been doing. If we did nothing in Iraq and focused all of our attention on Afghanistan, what would be different? We are a tiny Army, as far as soldiers on the ground. We don't have the man power to take out every terrorist. There would just be more soldiers to protect poppy fields. The Soviets tried that type of warfare on Afghanistan and lost.
It makes no sense to send a Heavy Mechanized Brigade to Afghanistan. They are useless. That is why Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld changed the army to be more mobile. Creating BCT's and switching some Heavy (tank) brigades to Strykers, which can be used in Iraq, Afghanistan, and others. Right now the only units going to Afghanistan have been light Inf brigades. Our Army, before Rumsfeld, was set up for cold war fighting with a huge amount towards tanks and artillery units.
Last edited by spursncowboys; 12-02-2009 at 04:09 PM.
it's bull . The war is bull and Obama doesn't have the balls to just pull out. The pulling out method worked for Vietnam, and the "don't tell your enemy" thing is bull because there isn't even a clear enemy! You can't get rid of them all and when you think you are done they will just regroup.
we are going after a guy who denies even having involvement in 9/11, and to this day hasn't been accused of it by the FBI. They took the court of public opinion to start a war with the Taliban which you can't win. You don't stop terrorism by going over there, you stop it with good police work in our own country.
Still no mention of it on his Most Wanted Page
http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/topten/fugitives/laden.htm
This is basic stuff we're talking here... What's the goal? How do we know we won and it's time to come back home?
I'll tell you a valid strategy that would work better than what we've been doing: GTFO...
because it was put on the backburner to earn cheney's former employer some more money.
now we have a dude in office who is making it a focus.
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