A defused mortar head is planted during a mine and unexploded ordnances awareness class for school boys in Qarabagh district about 40 km (25 miles) north of Kabul November 20, 2007.
REUTERS/Ahmad Masood
David Quigg at Huffington Post (hat tip Patterico and Missy):
It fundamentally harms the long-term cause of global peace if America permits itself to move through history in a remorseless, irresponsible cycle wherein a Bush-type leader launches reckless wars and an Obama-type leader yanks our troops out. No matter how much we want our troops home, it is immoral to throw a country into chaos and then walk away simply because we grow weary of that chaos.
Counterinsurgency — the broad, innovative, flexible portfolio of tactics aimed at keeping civilians safe and earning their trust and cooperation — offers the best hope I’ve seen for attempting to make things right in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, foreign fighters, emboldened by America’s self-doubt and leadership dithering, are pouring into Afghanistan with a surge of their own, to push the perceived Taliban momentum. By ratcheting up the violence, they hope to influence Washington and American public perception to their favor.
A former fetus, the “wordsmith from nantucket” was born in Phoenix, Arizona in 1968. Adopted at birth, wordsmith grew up a military brat. He achieved his B.A. in English from the University of California, Los Angeles (graduating in the top 97% of his class), where he also competed rings for the UCLA mens gymnastics team. The events of 9/11 woke him from his political slumber and malaise. Currently a personal trainer and gymnastics coach.
The wordsmith has never been to Nantucket.
Obama says:
He’s all for gay rights and he is committed to ending discrimination of gays but won’t say when.
He’s for ending “don’t ask, don’t tell” and has said he will but has not said when.
He says he wants all countries to abandon the use of nuclear weapons, but he won’t say when.
He says he’ll meet with our most disgusting adversaries, but he won’t say when.
He says he wants to work for peaceful resolutions of issues among and between belligerent nations, but won’t say when.
He’s for sending more troops to Afghanistan, but he says it will be weeks, and won’t say when.
He’s said he will end the embargo on Cuba and restore relations, but he won’t say when.
He’s said he will afford illegal immigrants a chance to become citizens, but he won’t say when.
He has previously said that he is for ending criminality associated with marijuana use, but he won’t say when.
He said he wants to close Guantanamo, but won’t say when.
(The above are exceedingly leftist positions.)
But why? Who knows? There is a song, however, Mexican mariachis sing quite often called La Negra, the Black One. The lyrics include these, “A todos diles que sí, Pero no les digas cuando …”
Loosely translated the lyrics say, “To everyone say Yes, but never tell them when.” Tee Hee.
Obama received the cheap Nobel prize, now he can have the “Flaming Taco” award.
I happen to think that after 8 years, we’ve given war enough of a chance to prove that it doesn’t work. I’m not sure exactly what we are trying to do now because with a corrupt government that Hamid Karzai is running, we’ll never make the necessary improvements with the overall population to ensure the Taliban doesn’t return to power.
I agree that we can’t just walk away but it would be folly to just load up on more troops and think that is the answer. We are at the point where there are no good options because at least with Iraq there was a semblance of a functioning central government whereas Afghanistan is made up of small minions controlled by powerful warlords.
War never solved anything…
Rebellion against the Crown: Freedom for idiot pacifists to now wring their hands.
Mediterranean Pirates: Freedom from paying Jizya to religious fanatics.
Slavery in America: Freedom for Blacks, (Other than from the Democrat KKK).
Ottoman hegemony: More freedom from Islamic terror, and nascent freedom for Jews.
Nazism: Freedom for France, Holland, Switzerland, Spain, Europe, etc.
Fascism:Freedom for Italy, N. Africa, etc.
Shintoism: Freedom for China, Korea, Philippines, Indonesia, etc.
Communist expansion (except here) Eastern Europe, S. Korea, etc.
Cuban military expansion: Grenada, numerous S. American countries.
Iraqi tyranny: Freedom for 26 million Sunni’s Shia, and Kurds.
Libyan acquiescence: Gave up atomic bomb programs.
James. You don’t know crap.
It’s too bad you damn liberals don’t care enough about humans beings you deem “lesser” than you, to fight for them. Are they not worth the time and effort YOU will NEVER expend to help them become the “enlightened” person you have become?
Or is throwing them back to the wolves OK with you?
More troops (as you so ignorantly claim) is NOT the sole method to Counter-Insurgency. The key is NOT ABANDONING THEM, as what we did to the S. Vietnamese, and Cambodians, and at Mogadishu. The population in-country must feel and KNOW that we will not leave them, and when that happens, we will be the “Strong Horse” (Osama’s term) in their eyes, thus turning them toward us.
We don’t need a strong government in Garza. We need to enable the small villages to survive independently of him, and the Ta lib first.
Or are they not “worth” it?
To THIS conservative all lives are worth defending from tyranny, and there are lot’s of options, if only your narcissist-god will get off his ass and let it happen, then publicly get on board with the funny little term we call: FREEDOM.
You and your ilk make me sick. You sit there protected by those who would die for your right to be so freakin wrong, but when those same Dawgs find themselves bringing that same gift of freedom and protection to those who are a different color than you, or speak a different language than you, or have a different culture than you, or don’t have the same education as you, or don’t have the same comforts as you, you look at them as less than you, and quickly discard them to the oft-repeated history of savagery.
Or maybe they just need lawyers and community organizers to fend off those who would shoot their women, rape their boys, and use their fields for drugs?
Sickly ironic is how fast you would crap on Christians, but say NOTHING about the scourge of militant Islam. I guess only lonely crosses in the desert are “worth” fighting over, huh?
One day when you choose to crawl out of your self-imposed ignorance, I can give you LOT’S of information about what’s going on in the Rock Pile, and what needs to be done.
@Patvan,
How much tyranny is taking place in the world today? How much of it we trying to end with our military? There is always a war that is morally worthy of fighting. But we don’t fight them all because we know that would be an exercise in futility and some do not raise to the level of being in our sphere of “political-economic interest”.
So the issue is with Afghanistan. We chose to fight this war for good reason. Now this issue is not about fighting for tyranny but ensuring our best interest are served in the region and that we are employing a strategy that would meet said interest.
I did not say we should pull our troops from Afghanistan and I stated that I did not believe we should just walk away. But my position is simple: what is the best strategy to meet our interest. And right now what we’ve been doing is not working so now its time for something else.
I won’t even address the rest of your rant because it doesn’t make sense.
@James
There is entirely too much tyranny in the world, and YOUR side of the political spectrum supports most of them. You side won’t speak against them, nor do you support those who might take action against them.
Green-flag-waving Iranians come quickly to mind. Honduras, another. Saddam killed an average of 40,000 of his own people per year, yet YOU still call our stopping that carnage “wrong”.
I don’t give a fig about our “political/economic interest”, because that changes as quickly as our elections. What’s needed is a focus on what is right and what is wrong, and a commitment to support what’s right, no matter the fookin political party is presently in charge. It USED to be that our political differences stopped at the shoreline. This changed to the myopic way of “thinking” started with Carter and now we have a historically-illiterate president apologizing for the freedoms we’ve brought the world, and blaming everything “bad” in the world on his own countrymen, primarily his predecessor.
Instead of doing what’s best in “our interests” why are you blind to doing what’s best for the AFGHANI’S interests, knowing full well that the two are NOT mutually exclusive? Hell if it was all about our interests alone, we could carpet bomb them all, and give the dirt to Disney.
It’s too bad the “rest of my rant” went over your head…as will this one.
@Patvann,
I think the problem with the Afghan war is that we have been thinking to much about our own interest and not enough about what is good for Afghanistan… in that light, I think it is clear that we should not have backed Hamid Karzai’s government after the fraudulent elections. But then, we don’t have much of a choice because that means turning the country back over to warlords and small factions. The difference with you and I is that I am not assuming that you are stupid as it is obvious that is your assumption with me. Moreover, you fail to grasp the notion that I have no firm position as to what to do with Afghanistan. It is far more complicated than adding and subtracting troops and despite your ranting about doing what is right or wrong, the United States will always calculate our best interest when it comes to engaging in other countries.
I don’t advocate leaving but I would like to know that decisions are being made in a very calculated way to ensure that we striving for an achievable objective. Turning Afghanistan into a Democracy is not on that list. It may not even be possible to keep the Taliban from establishing some governmental power. There are humanitarian issues that we should concern ourselves with as I would not want to see the most brutal sects of the Taliban return to power.
I remember watching TV in April 1975 and seeing all those hundreds of people trying to grab the skids of the helicopters taking off from the roof of the US embassy in Saigon Each one of those faces were full of fear. That was the day I no longer loved my beloved New Left. That was the day I began my journey toward conservatism.
Now 34 years later are we going to make the same mistake?
@James
I’ll ignore the juxtapositions between this post and the previous ones, and go ahead and assume that you are not stupid, but mostly a person looking for facts and information, and confused by what you may have heard from other sources.
I’m sorry for calling you names, but at my age, and my history, I’ve grown weary of trying to reteach the history of this planet and our country, that should have already been taught in highschool and college, and of correcting what people see coming from news and the government.
If I dump a bunch of sites here, that will inform you of what we are up against over there, (and KEEP you informed) will you promise to take the ESSENTIAL time it will take to learn, and really read through them?* I don’t want to waste my time attaching HTML codes to a bunch of links, if you are only going to look at a couple once or twice, then fall back to getting your info from John Stewart or any other mainstream media, (including Fox). My first advise would be to disconnect the cable, and keep the TV turned off for the next year.
*I promise neither Rush Limbaugh nor Beck is not on that list. 😉