We're talking an expansion of WAR. That means more death and destruction.

More kids dying in a puddle of blood. More grandmas crying as they lower the casket.

Are we so desensitized to what these wars are doing every day to our American troops, and the people of these countries we accidentally uproot with every improperly fired missile, or life-ending air drop, that we cannot see the dark path we're being led into, simply because it's being called an 'exit strategy'?

A man of peace goes against the warmongers, and stands up against what his government is doing, and says "things will change, and I will make them change". Not, "things will change in a few years after I add some more kindle to the fire". (See Dr. MLK Jr for clarification on what a peaceful man is supposed to behave like.)


Just one of the millions of victims of the B*sh wars that continue to rage on for however many years past their 2003 creation with the complicity of President Barack Obama -

As for ending the Afghanistan war in 2011, that's a strategic decision that has the backing of the Afghanistan government:

"Yet generally Afghan officials have commended the new strategy — much of which has already been in place since General McChrystal took command for six months — to lower civilian casualties, protect the Afghan people, train more Afghan forces and hand over more responsibility to them... those officials pitted on the front line against the Taliban insurgents, said a rapid surge of 30,000 troops this winter was desperately needed, since Afghan forces could not fight off the current insurgency on their own.

“It’s a very good idea,” said a senior security official who has been in the forefront of tracking Al Qaeda and Taliban since 2001. The United States had very good human intelligence on Taliban on both sides of the border in Afghanistan and Pakistan but they did not have enough good fighters in the Afghan army and police, he said.

“They need the Americans,” he said. A surge of extra forces could undercut the insurgency in six months since many of the Taliban were ready to negotiate and could be persuaded to swap sides with a concerted effort, he said."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=433&topic_id=34387&mesg_id=34387

At a Senate armed services committee hearing, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was asked whether the exit date was locked in. “I do not believe we have locked ourselves into leaving. It is intended to send a message about resolve and urgency,” she explained.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Pretense-of-an-Afghanistan-by-Ron-Fullwood-091203-797.html

BTW, I wouldn't trust a word Hillary says. She's been a gaffe machine since she became SoS.

We will begin to draw down troops in 2011... Doesn't say how many troops or how long it will take... Doesn't even say if there will be less troops there than when he begun his term.

If the Taliban tries to take the entire country, then past experience suggests catastrophic levels of violence and refugee flows.

Do you remember what happened during the long Afghan civil wars between war lords, and then between warlords and the Taliban, and between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance?

Whether the additional troops leads to more death and destruction than would otherwise have happened is unknowable.

In the late 80s and early 90s, during the South African semi civil war, black township activists began demanding that the apartheid government send the South African Army into the townships to replace the South African Police because (1) the police were violent, incompetent and biased and (2) the overwhelming firepower of the SADF ended the mutual slaughter of the political militias, some of which had become criminal gangs. The SADF actually became somewhat popular among Black South Africans for their competence at ending violence.

So it's possible, but by no means knowable, that a troop surge could lead to less violence than would otherwise occur.

more likely, than it isn't. Wouldn't you agree? I agree that it's not a certainy, yes, btw.

and the Taliban battle for Kabul were bloodier than anything that has happened to civilians since the Americans have been there.

It's unknowable what would have happened, but you're right, we could make good guesses based on history.

Another thing is that if we expand and then leave, and there's a battle for Kabul that would have happened anyway, then I would expect net deaths caused by staying to be higher than leaving right away.

We are busy creating more death and agony for the innocents in Afghanistan and the NATO troops that are there now.

:eyes:

back to where they should be.

they could be home. Remember that Katrina thing, man, woulda been nice if thousands of them weren't overseas being used as pawns for "Sure Shot" Cheney's WarGames.

War is hell. I've read enough of war atrocities to know that it will encourage thousands of those troops to end up doing something stupid, because the (insert racist term) just doesn't deserve to live. They're certainly not going to go around selling Girl Scout cookies over there.

You need to learn more about the responsibilities of soldiers, its not just fighting. Inform yourself before you continue to open your mouth.

What don't you take some anger management courses?

I'm sorry if your fragile sensitivities are heated up so badly by banter on these here Internetz. I've no tolerance for this kind of crap where people are being overdramatic and blowing the situation way out of proportion. I've even less tolerance for willful ignorance of the facts. I'm seeing a lot of that in regards to the reaction to this new Afghanistan plan and thus I choose to mock people who engage in such bullshittery as a means of venting. If you can't hang with that, perhaps you should consider turning off your computer for awhile.

place I would begin.

amazingly arrogant responses. Thanks for speaking up. I have an opinion, it is not mean-spirited, I think President Obama is an intelligent and kind man, but that he is making a horrid choice. We should be able to discuss it without someone screaming about shutting our mouths! lol... Again, you ROCK. :hug:

as fast as possible. Yes, let's just allow the Afgh/Pak area to go to hell. Yes, let's just allow the extremists to become the major factor in that region. It'll be loads of fun when they get control of the nukes in Pak.

That'll be a blast. They'll have the world by the nads and we'll all be in for a really really good time.

expanding the war, if we wanted to do something other than blow heads off, we would be sending the peace corps or humanitarian groups, not a huge fighting force.

It is possible that the improved superiority of force generated by extra military presence will result in an overall decline in violence if the insurgency is somehow defeated, or at least made less capable of imposing their will and committing acts of violence. It is also possible that an immediate withdrawal now will create total chaos and result in even more suffering.

I'm not saying either of those things are necessarily true either, but the idea of more troops = more violence does have some logical flaws.

If McCain had won the election he would have had the same advisers and would have reached the same conclusion. No different if Secretary Clinton were president. It only would have been different if Palin had been elected. She would have attacked Iran.

that President Obama would not have chosen this direction, even though he spoke about it in his campaigning.

The man campaigned on this and he has a legitimate reason from what I can see. Nukes in Pakistan and bastards in the Swat Valley that moonlight between Afghanistan. We leave now and we'll be back in that area in 2 years because of a probable Middle Eastern war with nukes going off all over the place. That's a brilliant idea to just leave. I see clear and present danger and the President trying his best to forestall the bloodletting that may follow. And would definitely follow if we were to leave.

Obama is the one most likely to have changed course and went against the status quo of military imperialism, but what small hope we had in him doing that are gone, however, hopefully Congress will stand up against this. He ran as the change candidate, after all. It's always more easy to send people into war zones than to go yourself. I hope for America this isn't a further continuation of another Vietnam.

absence of violence, it was the presence of JUSTICE.

I hate violence- and do not believe war is ever the answer for anything- I don't like the decision that President O has made, but I believe that he has chosen what he believes is the best way of getting our military out of Afghanistan and leaving the country with some measure of order.

There is really no 'good' way out of this mess- I've not heard anyone propose an alternative that would ensure that death and destruction will not occur for the people of Afghanistan no matter what 'we' do.

It was a mistake to go there in the first place. I believe Obama said (about removing the troops from ..Iraq?) that 'We need to be as careful getting out as we were careless getting in". I don't believe he has made this choice to add troops lightly.

I hope it proves to be the best way out.

When people use this argument I have to wonder if they don't realize that if we leave we're adding the same and more because we'd give these idiots in the SWAT valley the nukes on a silver platter and Afghanistan as a cherry on top. Keep advocating for it, obviously that's what people want and they want more death and destruction upon these people and probably complete annihilation and a bloody nuke war in the Middle East---that would be OUR fault.

there forever and police the world. Because you state that when we leave, we're giving them an open field. So, are we to never leave? How could we afford to continue this much longer? Aren't we so far in debt that we are essentially insolvent, and teetering on total collapse?

Most people are asking or an immediate removal. I myself will attest that I don't know what is the best answer to the situation we're dealing with. Bush left us a bad hand and all things all responses are wrong. We leave immediately and exactly what I stated will happen. We leave responsibly----the effort was there and we don't do to Afghanistan what we did to Pakistan 20 years ago (and in a way still do to that nation)---which makes our "relationship" as strained as it is.

We'll have made some headway. And in actuality it might prove to be more successful. However, not doing anything as so many are advocating is absurd. As I have said in the past on this it's like raping someone and then pissing on them for good measure. Or a less crude version, or more crude dependig on your take, immediate withdrawal is like what Bush did to this nation. It's the same thing.

So many on this site say Bush needs to pay and he has to take responsibility...however so many of us ignore our responsibility to this nation because we definitely added to their hell. Immediate withdrawal just seems inhumane. Yes our soldiers are dieing, we leave and even more civilians are dieing in this war and if that shit escalates what happens?

We as a respresentative of freedom and anti-terrorism will have to enter that country again. Do you se the problem? Take for instance immediate withdrawal. Fine, we allow Al Queda and the Taliban to grow and feed off of the poverty of so many in both nations. If these people have managed to take over the SWAT valley to me that shows the gov in Pakistan is weak. Those people have nukes. Pakistan has nukes---and then we've given it over basically to these people. Be prepared---for full scale war which we will be forced to enter anyway because of the imminent threat it poses.

If this push gives us chance to do something to try to hold off the overflowing dam then I say we tak it. Because leaving it as is is definitely going to set us back no matter what. I think people are missing a lot how problematic this situation is.

It's no black/white, and it's not even gray..it's just there and I don't think any answer is the right one but when I think of it, it's the best we got so far.

Not reaizing that if we leave now that the possibility of these people getting their hands on dangerous weapons increases and therefore threatens our national security and the safety of people within the region and dare I say the rest of the world.

or al Qaeda since we got all bad-ass with TWO invasions. How does that feel, Citizen of the Empire? :wow:

Let's say we leave immediately....what do you think will happen? Peace in the Middle East? These people are already in Pakistan----a nation with Nukes. If these peopl get their hands on the nukes---where do yhou think that puts us? Peace and harmony? Do you sincerely think there's an end? O said he's moving people out, but responsibly and after one last chance to get thngs done. However, you think everything will be dandy if we leave now?! How is that logical?

We leave, over time these guys get nukes and then they threaten both their neighbors and us with that...do you think we're staying at home? We'll be in a war again. I think O is trying to stop that and he's doing it by seeing if this last ditch effort will rectify a few things.

Why do they HATE the USA?

Could it be that it is because our troops OCCUPY two Muslim nations?

Do you honestly believe that al Qaeda wants to conquer the USA.

Stop occupying these two nations and help uncover CELLS across the world using the SF and/or good POLICE work.

We are helping recruitment of terrorism every day we keep our troops in THEIR COUNTRIES.

First off we are ending occupation in Iraq.

Actually, uh we weren't occupying two nations when the attacked us on 9/11. I mean seriously, if you're gonna use that argument make it clear. Because that doesn't make sense. However, I will say that our occupation is not making it any better---which I wn't deny. However, in Afghanistan we've fucked up.

I'm not saying they want to conquer the US. I didn't even imply that---but I do think they won't mind killing us.

Finally, I noticed that you gave weak points and didn't even answer my statements. So of course it's most likely we'll end up in a war if we leave immediately. They may not want to conquer the US but they don't seem to mind terrorising us and in Europe there is always a problem. Living in France---and when I lived in London/NYC---bomb scares were always going on. Rigt now, I live in an uppity neighborhood and cops and military are everywhere because of a sudden bomb scare. Which you don't hear on news in the states. So its not about conquering us but definitely making it known they are a threat. Further more....I'm sure they wouldn't mind conquering the middle east. And we have major issues if that is the case. I'm sure most of these people are not Israeli supporters and wouldn't mind taking out a few other nations that stand in their way.

You could ignore this---as I see you do. This is a problematic situation...there is NO easy solution and your solution is one of the worsts I've heard.

On a final note---you want to do to Afghanistan what Bush did to the US---- Yeah we fucked up, but you're on your own. Good Luck.

Yet you and so many others call for President Bush to prosecuted, to pay for his crimes, to take responsibility. And where or when do we take responsibility about Afghanistan? By your statements. Never.

hope always.