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  1. #76
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    Afghanistan isn't, wasn't, and never will be a threat to global order on the scale of Germany and Japan in the mid-twentieth century. Never.

    Nor Iraq, for that matter.

  2. #77
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    We propelled Al Qaeda to world historical significance they never deserved. Same thing is happening to ISIS.

  3. #78
    The Boognish FuzzyLumpkins's Avatar
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    13 years isn't enough? How long would be? And how would that serve the US national interest. Like, now?

    It's their hole. Let them manage it. We obviously can't do it for them.

    Well, we ed up this one. If you can't see that, you're the one who suc bed to the facile propaganda about it.
    If by propaganda you mean history then sure.

    How long did we occupy Japan and Germany following WW2? How long did we garrison South Korea?

    Quite a few US occupations have been successful. You keep on spewing out vitriol in the form of generalities. Infant mortality has gone down. Literacy rates particularly amongst women are up.

    If we would have just abandoned the country and left another vacuum then the only education in the country would have been from the madrasa and the taliban or another of it's ilk would have quickly returned. Then there is the ethic of taking responsibility for one's actions and finishing what one started.

    And you miss the point. My point was that those occupations were successful not the geopolitical significance you make of the country.

  4. #79
    The Boognish FuzzyLumpkins's Avatar
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    We propelled Al Qaeda to world historical significance they never deserved. Same thing is happening to ISIS.
    ISIS seized control of much of the Euphrates Valley. That propelled them into historical significance especially to someone with a sense of history. Go look up the Assyrians, Babylonians, and the Elamites. The political movement to establish a Sunni Caliphate isn't going to disappear because you stick your head in the sand. It's also a lesson that those who come after would be wise to note regarding political Islam.

    Quite frankly who gives a who or what you think deserves someone else's attention?

  5. #80
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    And you miss the point. My point was that those occupations were successful not the geopolitical significance you make of the country.
    Heard you the first time. It's still not persuasive re: Afghanistan.

  6. #81
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    2014 Deadliest Year for Afghan Civilians On Record


    On the cusp of 2015, the people of Afghanistan pass another grim milestone: this calendar year saw the greatest number of civilians killed and wounded on record.

    According to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), the devastation faced by Afghan civilians is the worst it has been since the global body began making reports in 2009. Civilian casualties overall are up 19 percent from 2013, rising to 33 percent among children.

    By November, 3,188 civilians had been killed and 6,429 wounded, according to UNAMA records, bringing the total number to 9,617—a number that has since climbed even higher.


    A majority of these killings and woundings are a result of "ground engagements between parties to the conflict, improvised explosive devices, and suicide and complex attacks,"


    http://www.commondreams.org/news/201...vilians-record



  7. #82
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    ISIS seized control of much of the Euphrates Valley. That propelled them into historical significance especially to someone with a sense of history. Go look up the Assyrians, Babylonians, and the Elamites. The political movement to establish a Sunni Caliphate isn't going to disappear because you stick your head in the sand. It's also a lesson that those who come after would be wise to note regarding political Islam.
    It appeared because the USA invaded Iraq and deposed Saddam. Saddam was a much more effective bulwark against political Islam than we've been in the last decade.

  8. #83
    The Boognish FuzzyLumpkins's Avatar
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    It appeared because the USA invaded Iraq and deposed Saddam. Saddam was a much more effective bulwark against political Islam than we've been in the last decade.
    It appeared because the Koran, about a millennium of Muslim history, and the fact that the Shia have their homebase. You are remarkably ignorant.

    As for me not being persuasive, we both know that given your current petulance, there is no way that I could persuade you of anything. Oh and again:

    Quite frankly who gives a who or what you think deserves someone else's attention?
    Applies here too.

    Moreso, ISIS rose because we left and then refused to give assistance until Maliki made political reforms. We were an excellent deterrant to it. Our puppet regime otoh was not. Try and keep up, boy.

  9. #84
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    dubya wouldn't sign SOFA because it excluded criminal immunity for US military and US mercenaries. All Barry did was withdraw according to the REPUG agreement to withdraw.

  10. #85
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    It appeared because the Koran, about a millennium of Muslim history, and the fact that the Shia have their homebase. You are remarkably ignorant.
    You're certainly not short of sweeping generalizations. Don't sprain your wrist patting yourself on the back for it.

    Moreso, ISIS rose because we left and then refused to give assistance until Maliki made political reforms. We were an excellent deterrant to it. Our puppet regime otoh was not. Try and keep up, boy.
    You give yourself way too much credit. Hand-waving,fiat reasoning and lazy generalization aren't hard to follow.

  11. #86
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    meanwhile, the Peshmerga are doing the heavy lifting:

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...-isis-war.html

  12. #87
    The Boognish FuzzyLumpkins's Avatar
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    You're certainly not short of sweeping generalizations. Don't sprain your wrist patting yourself on the back for it.

    You give yourself way too much credit. Hand-waving,fiat reasoning and lazy generalization aren't hard to follow.
    How am I giving myself credit? Obama is CiC, he does have fiat over the military. He was the one that refused to give him aid until he stepped down. He refused for weeks while jihadi poured down out of the Syrian plateau and took over much of the valley. The the Shia clergy turned on Maliki and forced him out. All of that are specific events that are independent of you and me. Only thing going on here is your fixation.

    Sweeping generalizations? There are specific verses in the Sunna that outline how politics works ie how leadership and judgements are determined. Since Muhammed there have been three Caliphates the last of which was toppled 100 years ago. Before that though one or another had existed for over 1000 years. Islam is theocratic. That is not a generalization. It's outlined in their dogma. Again that has nothing to do with me.

    And spare me your sanctimony. You have displayed no reason beyond your bad fiction from yesterday and do little more than whining negations. You don't even argue that the invasion wasn't justified. You have basically come down to complaining about the bill and been tepid at it at that.

  13. #88
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    Syria's version of the "Arab Spring" arising from US-provoked M/E instability:

    Syria Deaths Hit New High in 2014, Observer Group Says

    More than 76,000 people died in Syria’s civil war in 2014, including more than 3,500 children, a monitoring group reported on Thursday. The figures would make last year the deadliest in Syria since the conflict began in March 2011.

    The figures from the monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, put the total number of dead in the conflict as of Wednesday at 206,603.

    http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/01/02/world/middleeast/syrian-civil-war-2014-deadliest-so-far.html?_r=0


    Last edited by boutons_deux; 01-02-2015 at 10:02 AM.

  14. #89
    I am that guy RandomGuy's Avatar
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    It think the central issue is Salafist types like ISIS and Taliban having their own geographically autonomous area and national security. The length of time nearly a generation was all about propping up a regime which was necessary. They now have somewhat of a plurality and a comparatively well educated incoming generation. It's neocolonialism sure but I would argue the previous order had to be removed and held at bay anyway.

    The obvious concern is the Taliban coming out of the hills and retaking the country. This next year will be key.
    The amorphous group called "Taliban" will find it a lot harder to stage much when Pakistani's stop supporting them, which seems more and more likely given the internal backlash in that country to Taliban attacks like this one:

    http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/pak...ttacks-n280786

    Extremists tend to be their own worst enemy.

  15. #90
    The Boognish FuzzyLumpkins's Avatar
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    The amorphous group called "Taliban" will find it a lot harder to stage much when Pakistani's stop supporting them, which seems more and more likely given the internal backlash in that country to Taliban attacks like this one:

    http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/pak...ttacks-n280786

    Extremists tend to be their own worst enemy.
    He gets mad because someone snatches his wife so he goes and attacks a school. Hope they teach her to read.

  16. #91
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    Months after President Obama formally declared that the United States’ long war against the Taliban was over in Afghanistan, the American military is regularly conducting airstrikes against low-level insurgent forces and sending Special Operations troops directly into harm’s way under the guise of “training and advising.”

    In justifying the continued presence of the American forces in Afghanistan, administration officials have insisted that the troops’ role is relegated to counterterrorism, defined as tracking down the remnants of Al Qaeda and other global terrorist groups, and training and advising the Afghan security forces who have assumed the bulk of the fight.


    In public, officials have emphasized that the Taliban are not being targeted unless it is for “force protection” — where the insurgents were immediately threatening American forces.


    But interviews with American and Western officials in Kabul and Washington offer a picture of a more aggressive range of military operations against the Taliban in recent months, as the insurgents have continued to make gains against struggling government forces.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/30/wo...stan.html?_r=0

  17. #92
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    Thanks, dubya!

    Why can't the adored, omnipresent US $700B/year military win at least one ing war?

  18. #93
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    despite vast inferiority of numbers and continual bombardment by US forces, Taliban take Kunduz:

    Questions about how thousands of army, police and militia defenders could continue to fare so poorly against a Taliban force that most local and military officials put in the hundreds hung over President Ashraf Ghani’s government and its American allies.

    In the hours after Kunduz’s fall, Afghan officials said an overwhelming Afghan Army force was on its way to retake the city. But by the end of the day on Tuesday, only a few hundred had materialized at the airport — a small fraction of the number who had fled the city the day before. Many more traveling by road were said to have been slowed by ambushes and roadside bombs, in another sign of growing Taliban control in Kunduz Province and nearby areas.


    As the situation worsened on Tuesday, the Pentagon press secretary, Peter Cook, said in a news conference of the Kunduz fighting, “Obviously, this is a setback.” In addition to the airstrikes, he said, a number of coalition forces were with Afghan forces as advisers.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/30/wo...iban.html?_r=0

  19. #94
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    “We’ve ended two wars.” — Barack Obama, July 21, 2015, at a DSCC fundraiser held at a “private residence”


    “Now that we have ended two wars responsibly, and brought home hundreds of American troops, we salute this new generation of veterans.” — National Security Adviser Susan Rice, May 20, 2015


    “His presidency makes a potentially great story: the first African-American in the White House, who helped the country recover from recession and ended two wars.” — Dominic Tierney, The Atlantic, January 15, 2015, “America Will Miss Obama When He’s Gone”


    Report from Airwars, August 2, 2015, detailing civilian deaths from continuous U.S.-led airstrikes in Iraq and Syria:






    New York Times, today, headlined: “U.S. Planes Strike Near Kunduz Airport as Fight Rages On”


    American warplanes bombarded Taliban-held territory around the Kunduz airport overnight, and Afghan officials said American Special Forces were rushed toward the fighting. … The situation for the Afghan forces improved somewhat toward midnight: American warplanes conducted airstrikes at 11:30 p.m. and again at 1 a.m. on Taliban positions near the airport, an American military spokesman said. … Around the same time, soldiers with the American Special Forces headed out toward the city with Afghan commandos, according to Afghan government officials.

    How do you know when you’re an out-of-control empire? When you keep bombing and deploying soldiers in places where you boast that you’ve ended wars. How do you know you have a hackish propagandist for a president? When you celebrate him for “ending two wars” in the very same places that he keeps bombing.
    https://theintercept.com/2015/09/30/...he-ended-wars/

  20. #95
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    U.S. Analysts Knew Afghan Site Hit By Air Attack Was A Hospital

    Days before the Oct. 3 U.S. air attack on a hospital in Afghanistan, American special operations analysts were gathering intelligence on the facility — which they knew was a protected medical site — because they believed it was being used by a Pakistani operative to coordinate Taliban activity, The Associated Press has learned.

    It's unclear whether commanders who unleashed the AC-130 gunship on the hospital — killing at least 22 patients and hospital staff — were aware that the site was a hospital or knew about the allegations of possible enemy activity. The Pentagon initially said the attack was to protect U.S. troops engaged in a firefight and has since said it was a mistake.

    The special operations analysts had assembled a dossier that included maps with the hospital circled, along with indications that intelligence agencies were tracking the location of the Pakistani operative and activity reports based on overhead surveillance, according to a former intelligence official familiar with the material. The intelligence suggested the hospital was being used as a Taliban command and control center and may have housed heavy weapons.


    After the attack — which came amidst a battle to retake the northern Afghan city of Kunduz from the Taliban — some U.S. analysts assessed that the strike had been justified, the former officer says. They concluded that the Pakistani, believed to have been working for his country's Inter-Service Intelligence directorate, had been killed.


    No evidence has surfaced publicly to support those conclusions about the Pakistani's connections or his demise. The former intelligence official was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke only on condition of anonymity.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/...ushpmg00000003

    so the murdered Nobel prize laureates were just collateral damage.

    and US intelligence is a bunch of Keystone Kops.




  21. #96
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    Obama extends the US withdrawal to 2017. So much for ending costly, unwinnable wars.

  22. #97
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    14 Years After U.S. Invasion, the Taliban Are Back in Control of Large Parts of Afghanistan

    taliban areas in red






    http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...bile.html?_r=1

    The English failed, the Russians failed, and the Americans failed!


  23. #98
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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  24. #99
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    ...
    Last edited by boutons_deux; 11-13-2016 at 09:59 AM.

  25. #100
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    The United States has resumed operations of its B-52H Stratofortress strategic bomber in Afghanistan for the first time in ten years. The strategic bomber recently flew several operations, dropping 27 munitions in various counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan. The reintroduction of the bomber may highlight the United States’ expanding role in Afghanistan and the increasing instability in the country.
    http://thediplomat.com/2016/08/after...n-afghanistan/

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