Devil505
Banned
- Joined
- Apr 13, 2009
- Messages
- 3,512
- Reaction score
- 315
- Location
- Masschusetts
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Moderate
I honestly don't know.
It's a little confusing.
After almost 9 years & a worsening situation in that god-forsaken country, is it time to declare victory & leave?
The difference between Afghanistan and Iraq is that Afghanistan was legitimate target after 9/11. We should have never left there and gone off to fight some retard war in Iraq. What should we do now? Well now it's hard to say. Can we make a difference? Maybe. Can we clear up the mess which led to the freedom the Taliban enjoyed in the country? Maybe not so much any more. It will be tough, I don't know how it would be done, and who knows we may get side tracked into a different war while doing it.
I'm not so willing to say Afghanistan wasn't our war, but we screwed the pooch hard on this one.
The difference between Afghanistan and Iraq is that Afghanistan was legitimate target after 9/11. .
I honestly don't know.
It's a little confusing.
All nations are legitimate targets.
Much as I hate to agree with 10, I think this is the best answer. I doubt any one here(with maybe 1 or 2 exceptions, you know who you are) really know enough about the situation there to make a call. I am really split on the issue, it's one where I can see both sides.
I usually agree with you but not this time. I think, on an issue as important as war, that we citizens have a moral obligation to reasonably educate ourselves to the best of our ability & then make our wishes known to our elected representatives.
The alternative is simply to relinquish all power to "people who know better" who....unfortunately.....don't often know better than we do.
Example:
If one wishes to contact his/her President/Senator...(whatever)
You could always word your correspondence with a bit of a disclaimer but still get your point across...ie
"If the news is being reported accurately, it appears that we are making more enemies than we are winning hearts & minds, killing more innocent civilians than Taliban/Al Quieda & wasting the lives of our GI's & our national treasure with no real exit strategy in mind. If I am wrong please explain where...... but if I am right, please get our troops out ASAP."
Maybe I'm slow today but I think politicians will always make decisions based upon your (above mentioned) determinants......but.....one of the major determinants to any decision (in a democracy.... that should be heavily considered by the policy maker) should be the wishes of the voters who put them in power in the first place.You misunderstand what I am saying. We can and should offer our opinions, and vote for those who represent those opinions. However, the politicians should make the final determinate based on the advice they get from those who actually know more than us.
Maybe I'm slow today but I think politicians will always make decisions based upon your (above mentioned) determinants......but.....one of the major determinants to any decision (in a democracy.... that should be heavily considered by the policy maker) should be the wishes of the voters who put them in power in the first place.
Experts can be wrong & if you get the views of 5 "Experts" on any subject you usually will get 5 different opinions.
In the final analysis, as messy & imperfect as democracy is, ..the collective wishes of the voters are more often than not correct & should at least be heavily considered by policy makers b4 a policy is implemented.
Good God no! The only reason Afghanistan began to go poorly in the first place was the lack of focus given to it by the military in favor of Iraq. Despite what you say, Devil, this is a war US and international forces are capable of fighting. If it weren't for the Bush administration's focus on Iraq I would have bet dollars to donuts that Afghanistan would be a fairly stable region (by middle eastern standards) by now.
Meh. We should devote more resources to developing infrastructure.
We almost went into another great depression......We need to spend our money on OUR infrastructure!!...Screw the caves of Afghanistan!
If we're going to "Nation Build" lets do it right here & rebuild ours!
We almost went into another great depression......We need to spend our money on OUR infrastructure!!...Screw the caves of Afghanistan!
If we're going to "Nation Build" lets do it right here & rebuild ours!
I agree that if we hadn't gotten hijacked into Iraq & had focused our attention on Afghanistan like we should have, 9 years ago, things would probably have turned out allot better.
BUT
The facts is that NOW, the Taliban has dramatically resurfaced, the Afghan people seem to be tired of us being there, Al Quieda is mainly in the untouchable tribal region of Pakistan & we are losing more & more U.S. troops every month. NATO doesn't really want to take the lead there & I just don't see a realistic way to "Win" over there.
If we can't "Win".....I say ...declare victory & get the hell out!
(maybe we could even find Bush's "Mission Accomplished" banner & use it again~!)
Considering that this mission does have international support and the fact that we really haven't lost that many troops in Afghanistan the situation isn't nearly as dire as make it out to be. With a shift in troops from Iraq to Afghanistan and a President who is willing to listen to generals rather than his Secretary of Defense I think Afghanistan will become a major feather in Obama's cap. Success here could definitely gain him the political capital to make further democratic gains in 2010 and 2012 and maybe get his health care plan pushed through.
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