Thoughts on Afghanistan

[stebo0728]

Hey dont get me wrong I was not trying to excuse the use of race as a motivator for a vote, I simple meant to relay that I understand the sentiment behind the action taken.

[IBCoupe]

You're right in saying he's not identical to GWB, but he's close enough on a handful of very important issues where voters wanted to see real change (e.g., this thread's topic).

Well, that's part of the problem with the slogan. One might ask, "is this the change you were looking for," and another might respond, "Yeah, that's about right." What made it an effective slogan is exactly what makes it a bad criticism.

[AZhitman]

Sounds like distractions and rope-a-dope tactics to me.

I could give a damn about his bogus slogans. What's interesting to me is that during the campaign, all his rhetoric and promises were vague, elusive, nebulous. Nothing specific. "Hope and change" are a PERFECT metaphor, because they're as effusive and vaporous as his promises. Now, we have a POTUS who floats with the tide, fails to make tough decisions (simply because he'd be "skewered", which represents a lack of conviction / leadership), and lets his trained apes run amok (Pelosi, Reid, Frank, Clinton) with little to no accountability.

Hell, Pelosi threw him STRAIGHT under the bus yesterday - hardly a blip on the radar.
Clinton pulls a shenanigan in Ecuador - No "come to Jesus" meeting for her either.
Napolitano screws the pooch on several occasions, says something ignorant, and gets a free pass.
Half the left is opposing his "lawsuit" against Arizona, seeing it as frivolous and a distraction.

As conservative as I am on most things, our military needs to come home. Like I said, if we're unwilling to vaporize an entire country, then we don't need to be there fighting.

[mattblancarte]

What made it an effective slogan is exactly what makes it a bad criticism.

Precisely.

I agree with you, Greg. We need to get our troops out of there now. We either have a declaration of war, or we don't.

[WDRacing]

if we're unwilling to vaporize an entire country, then we don't need to be there fighting.

THIS ^^^

I had typed out several posts that involved the use of either tactical nuclear weapons or bringing online all of our B52's and carpet bombing the entire region followed by precision UAV strikes for anything left breathing. Rinse and Repeat

point is that was their soul motivator.

I can't tell if that was a typo or a super-clever pun.

Or both.

I'm a ninja

[AZhitman]

My line of reasoning FORCES the next stage of the argument: "But even if we wiped Afganistan off the map, there are still cells within Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, Sudan, Venezuela, Ecuador, North Korea, etc etc etc who still wish to do us harm."

Right.

So, we fortify our holdings overseas, withdraw into a defensive position, and exercise gross, overwhelming responses when someone DOES attempt to harm Americans or American interests (here or abroad).

[stebo0728]

Dude they are like human c*** roaches, see 2 on the counter and theres a million in the wall ...

[stebo0728]

So, we fortify our holdings overseas, withdraw into a defensive position, and exercise gross, overwhelming responses when someone DOES attempt to harm Americans or American interests (here or abroad).

I seem to remember several terrorlst attacks, even a prior against the WTC, after which we were virtually responseless (some cruise missles? Come on!) Even a chance to have nabbed Obama long before 9/11 occured? The start of our international weakness maybe?

[WDRacing]

Even a chance to have nabbed Obama long before 9/11 occured? The start of our international weakness maybe?

[BusyBadger]

Freudian slip to the Nth degree.

[AZhitman]

Wow.

/thread.

[stebo0728]

Wow too me a few posts to realize what was so funny ... Ive been typing out Obama so much lately I just did it again out of habit ... LAWLS!!!

Obviously that should have read Osama

[AZhitman]

If this article had involved anyone else, I'd have glossed over it. But it warrants consideration:

http://afghanistan.blogs.cnn.com/2010/0 ... /?hpt=Sbin

[heliochrome85]

since when did you start reading the Cowardly News Network? Even I, the yellow bellied terrorlst loving surrender monkey cant stand to read one of their "articles"

[AZhitman]

I read a LOT of sources.

And as I've said before, if a media source is simply reporting facts, and you can separate their "spin" from the reported story, then what's the issue? Matters not if it's Fox, CNN, the BBC, The Podunk Morning Holler, or Al-Jazeera.

[IBCoupe]

Hey, man, don't knock the PMH.

[AZhitman]

I don't even recall typing that. You know the Alzheimer's has set in when you make yourself laugh a day later.

[diamond]

We should leave . only an imaginary face left to save at that .
alex the great couldnt take them , russia couldnt , and were breaking ourselves trying over propaganda hype by criminals running the country .Were just teaching soldiers that protecting opium is job one ! How many suicides and D.U. Babies before we will care at all about our kid's over there ? More than enough apparently. We shouldnt fight wars for israel and banker's ! I find it funny how we pay the taliban to play , lol. Cia even admitts alqueda is a fanatsy yep the aspartame head's still shake that rattle ready to kill in a racist frenzie . to funny . how brainwashed could a person be ? Very lol.
We have our own boarder that these people lobby to keep open that need's protection ..but then , it's not about the the littleman ..Same people lobby to take our gun's too . Were just serf's man .Get used to it or do something about it . Talk is cheap ! See in the 3rd world baby ..................on a good note , printing fiat money for war makes me money lol. Sad the healthcare bill taxes gold sales darno .lol.Yep , they want it all baby ..Body mind and soul , They spare nothing for this .

[heliochrome85]

We should leave . only an imaginary face left to save at that .
alex the great couldnt take them , russia couldnt , and were breaking ourselves trying over propaganda hype by criminals running the country .Were just teaching soldiers that protecting opium is job one ! How many suicides and D.U. Babies before we will care at all about our kid's over there ? More than enough apparently. We shouldnt fight wars for israel and banker's ! I find it funny how we pay the taliban to play , lol. Cia even admitts alqueda is a fanatsy yep the aspartame head's still shake that rattle ready to kill in a racist frenzie . to funny . how brainwashed could a person be ? Very lol.
We have our own boarder that these people lobby to keep open that need's protection ..but then , it's not about the the littleman ..Same people lobby to take our gun's too . Were just serf's man .Get used to it or do something about it . Talk is cheap ! See in the 3rd world baby ..................on a good note , printing fiat money for war makes me money lol. Sad the healthcare bill taxes gold sales darno .lol.Yep , they want it all baby ..Body mind and soul , They spare nothing for this .

try english sometime. its great.

[HashiriyaS14]

I kinda see it this way:

If we're not willing to eradicate an entire city or two, or effectively cripple an entire country's infrastructure, then we're really not at "war", and we need to question our role going forward.

The problem is that the Soviets already fought a war there like that, and it produced Afghanistan the way it is now, and now it's everyone's problem.

Every unstable nation will continue to be a thorn in the side of the developed world until it becomes stable and developed itself, no shortcuts. This means that the problem in Afghanistan won't go away until someone cleans it up. You can't wipe it off the map, you're never going to scare people with nothing to lose into being docile.

You have to make the alternative to Jihad be economic participation, new cars and flat screen TV's, because that's all anyone really wants. When people can't have that stuff, they go do silly things like grow poppies and shoot RPG's at helicopters. I'm not saying you can hand the Taliban keys to BMW's and have them chill out, but over a long period of time that's the gist.

Now, I've got NO idea how to make that work, certainly no more than anyone else. It's going to take decades and be difficult and expensive, and it doesn't HAVE to be us that does it, but my argument is that there is no alternative and SOMEONE has to do it, or they will keep growing poppies and blowing up buildings until the end of time.

[AZhitman]

...which plays perfectly into my proposal... Take all the money we would have spent on our "police action" over the next 10 years.

Divvy it up into lucrative bounties: $10 million for Osama's head. A million dollars for each head of a known Taliban / al Qaeda member / IED builder. Ten grand for known insurgent group leaders, five g's for known insurgents. A thousand bucks for every RPG, rifle and box of ammo they turn in.

Pack up our guys and all their crap and head for the States. Let's take some time off and let people hammer out their own issues. Besides, I'd rather see us forcing NK to sit down and shut up than keep playing footsie with the idiots in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

[HashiriyaS14]

^^
Sounds like as good an idea as any to me, honestly.

[bigbadberry3]

So what about that WIki leak...

[AZhitman]

Need more info.

I don't quite understand the implications of it yet, nor do I get a sense of whether these documents were legit, or just random and easily-accessible meaningless junk.