How do you feel about that zoo?

it's bullshit..... we just need to leave that country already....

Yea, let the Taliban take care of that clustercuss. Taking responsibility is for losers.

We do need to get out. The financial burden will continue to put our country in further jeopardy.

Amusing how we can't afford healthcare or stimulus for ourselves, but can afford to wage war randomly (with no end in sight, or even a tangible "victory").

it's been what....8 years now..... should have taken 2-3years at the most...

your gonna tell me with all the super-technological equipment that our military has, that the u.s. can't take care of the job.....


i'm all about helping others, but when our country is still in need of healthcare/jobs/etc, this war is bullshit....... even my friend who has been on 3 tours already (and has seen his friends die in action) said that we shouldn't even be there.....

i think we're just kind of damned if we do, damned if we don't. if we leave, there is a high probability of the taliban and al qaeda taking over, and attacking us all over again. if we stay, we have to deal with paying for it in money and lives. unfortunately, we sunk a lot of unneccessary time and resources into iraq, when we could've been dealing with afghanistan.

Do we even know what we are after? I mean, between all the neighboring countries, what do we aim to achieve, long term? There are just too many places to hide, too many disparate factions, too many enemies that we continue to give new generations reasons to hate us.

I don't see how we win long term, regardless if we "win" or not. And this is not to mention problems with "real" threats, like Iran.


How can we win? What annoys me the most is when I hear people bitching about a few billion here and there, that we can't afford healthcare or small business tax cuts, but there is 0 discussion on how we can afford the $30 billion per year!!


I've lost all hope in politics, to be honest, on any side, given the recent priorities and ass backward favoritism and backroom deals (again, on both sides).

well, i think what we want is at least some semblance of stability in afghanistan, democratic or not, that can at least be influential enough to disallow the taliban from coming back. that we will never "win" is clear, but perhaps we can give enough room to them to rebuild some infrastructure and improve the quality of life for people there. granted, it is a lot more complicated than that.

i hear you though. it's been what now, eight years? still, i think if we leave the terror networks will just reconstitute themselves in afghanistan, and in 10 years we'll be going back all over again. three cups of tea provides some interesting reading on afghanistan and pakistan, and what is possible there, and the guy who's working there is an american.

this was inevitable, though. it's just silly that they gave an american president the nobel peace prize. obama was probably always going to send more troops to afghanistan, he promised that in his campaign. i can't figure out why people are so surprise. at one point he talked about attacking pakistan for god's sake.

it seems like there would be a cheaper way than spending a million bucks per soldier per year. why not just pay the anti taliban alliance, you know the one that helped oust the taliban initially? to fight off the taliban. i see no reason to occupy that country. we are trying to prop up an idea of a democratic government in a place where there is as far as i know, no history or even desire for a democratic government. it is an area that is clan based and should be administered as such by them not us. if we are going to prop up governments like saudi arabia, kuwait, and egypt it doesn't really matter if the taliban runs afganistan. as long as we can keep al qaeda out of there, which we can do just as we did before. just make a cash payment to afghanistan for the damage we've done and get the hell out. i am tired of this imperialism. oh i forgot we need a base to invade pakistan.

Do you lot actually believe the taliban or al'quida exists??

You must be joking, 10's of thousands of troops over there would wipe out any enemy in days.

How is the supposed taliban getting guns and ammo? It would have run out long ago.

9/11 wasent by al'quida or the taliban.

the taliban is still using equipment that we gave them in our little cold war standoff with the soviets. and yes i do believe al qaeda exists. and your conspiracy theory isn't worth a response.

The only thing you lot have to worry about is the people in the white house. They are ending your life as you know it, if they havent already.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6933284.ece

ruh-oh! we have a truther in our midst. now everything you say or said is bunk.

Yeah mate, you just keep hoovering up the lies.

If the gov took the notion they could have you lot believing michael jordan is white within a week, and you'd all swear you always knew it.

Maybe I'm cynical, but I think this was a political calculation on the part of the Obama administration. I believe that what they really wanted to do is walk away from the war, pull our troops out.

However, the majority of Americans (and certainly the right-wing war fanatics) would then accuse them of "losing the war, supporting the terrorists" and all that nonsense. They would lose the next election, and all of the other items on Obama's agenda would fail.

So, they calculated that staying in the war, with a timeline, would possibly allow Obama to accomplish everything else on his agenda. It was a Faustian bargain.

That's my take.

farwest,

I think your reading too much into this. These politicians are all the same, following the same agenda.

derek

zooey, perhaps you should listen to your inner voice more:

"I'm pretty sure there's a lot more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good looking. And I plan on finding out what that is."

"Well I guess it all started the first time I went through the second grade. I caught my reflection in a spoon while I was eating my cereal, and I remember thinking "wow, you're ridiculously good looking, maybe you could do that for a career."

so what look are you going with today?

Yes, farw, I agree. I think he did the "I am not a quiter!!" and used this to show his dedication and determination. He will, for better or worse, be someone that has stuck to what he said he would do (sans the economy and jobs, of course, which no one in power seems to care an ounce about).

I just want jobs and a strong economy again. We'll see what they say at this "job summit", most likely nothing.


zl - I do believe that you are more or less correct. Slightly different priorities/views, but more or less same game, different players. Makes me nauseous.

There are two agendas in the states: One inside the beltway, and one not.... Goes for both parties.

Trace, for what it's worth, I've read the impartial CBO reports that say the jobs situation would have been considerably worse if Obama hadn't taken the steps he did. It's still bad, of course, but could have been worse.

Also, by the metric of many economists, Geithner has done the right things to keep the economy from going into the abyss. I know he's the current scapegoat and object of hatred, and I fundamentally dislike how attached to the banking industry he is. But, on the other hand, we're not in the middle of a depression right now.

I'm not saying they couldn't do more. But with all of these issues, Obama is caught between a rock and a hard place. Everything he does is equally hated by the progressives (the left-wing) and the crazies (right-wing.)

So he can only appeal to the middle, where I find myself. I'm skeptical but hopeful. I think this is where the majority of Americans are regarding this administration.

By the way, if you want some really crazy conspiracy theories from zoolander, go read the climate change thread.

and since he knows more about this than me, i think i'll defer to him.

the majority of americans don't support the war in afghanistan. even some conservatives are developing negative opinions of the war. i can't see what is in this for obama. it is an incredibly risky move and it alienates the majority of americans who want the war over with, not to mention his entire constituency, which he needs behind him to win the next election. if it were political, he'd probably be sending the minimum number of troops, as opposed to 30,000.

just an aside....the battle of antietam in 1862 had combined union and confederate casualty count of over 23,000. one day of fighting.

I just want to go on record as saying alex jones is a crazy person. and a nimrod.
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A couple things I dont think have gotten enough attention in the public about this. First, is this shit is fucking hard. There is an incredibly complex geopolitical chess game being played behind the scenes, we have to box Iran and Israel into backing down, which means getting the europeans on the same page, playing Medvedev against Putin and Wen Jiabao against Hu Jintao to stir up enough internal debate and conflict to get Security council votes. It means schmoozing India and Pakistan to settle down so the Pakistani army can take people off the border and start fighting the taliban. It means squeezing Netanyahu in all the ways that are possible. And I dont think anyone is giving the administration credit for just how fucking impressive a job theyve done at this so far. I also dont think progressives have as much to grumble about as they think. The genuine central motivation and strategy here seems to be to increase global cooperation, and decrease antagonism. All the moaning that Obama hasnt brought peace to the middle east in his first 9 months seems more than a little greedy.

Central to this whole program though, is convincing the Pakistani people and army we arent just going to abandon them across the border, that in 3 or 5 years they arent going to have the taliban striking them from Afhganistan. It sucks, and I think no one is more aware of this than Obama, but if genuine stability and peace is the goal, I dont see another way to get there.



The second thing I dont think people have quite gotten a grasp on, is just what kind of man Barack Obama is. He isnt Al gore. He isnt Mike Dukakis. He didnt come from nowhere to beat the clintons and the republicans by accident. Behind that big smile and all the hope and change, Barack Obama is a ruthless motherfucker.

And its actually kind of remarkable hes been able to keep the secret. You dont see it very often, you really have to catch him when hes speaking to staff or when the cameras arent on. But I think some eyebrows finally started to raise this spring after the somali pirates incident. These guys are not fucking around. As far as theyre concerned, there is the promise in the next 10 years of a stable, cooperative relationship between the middle east and the rest of the world, and they are going to do what needs to be done to get there. Period. I honestly think they could give a flying fuck about Bin Laden at this point. If hes even alive, hes hiding in a hut in the mountains in a burka right now trying to be not-dead. Obama and Petraeus and McCrystal want 30,000 troops because they want Mullah Omars head on a stick. If we can push the Taliban out of southern afghanistan and into northern pakistan, it gives pakistan the impetuous to finally take care of business in Quetta. Its not a bumper sticker strategy, its expensive, its bloody, but its the only solution I see here that can work. I think we can be well assured if we do the opposite, if we just yank everyone out, in five years the war between the taliban and the pakistani army will be the bloodbath of the century.

oe summed it up for me.

one more thing, faux news seems to be annoyed that the President was not ebullient enough? what, more jingoistic, nationalistic rah-rah, go-get-em guys and girls is going to get the job done? men and women will die in this, and this is not the time for cheerleading, but somber reflection. it's not GTA or some other ridiculous game.

uh oh...sounds like somebody has been wandering around dunwalke manor again


although it's really not hope in politics that should be lost but rather hope in the federal government of the united states...now dominated by a washington/wall street "axis of evil"

those are very interesting points, oe. i would pretty much say that for me, that was spot on.

Thank you oe, I think you have hit it pretty squarely.

yes, interesting points. Thanks for the thoughts.

My gripe is simply that our country is a mess. No question the rest of the world is a mess, too, nor do I question the insane power struggles I could never begin to comprehend.

But I am still selfish and want my friends to get jobs, want my clients to stop going bankrupt and pay their bills.

It just seems like priorities are not where they should be. No argument everything needs to get done, I just wish the order was a little different.

agreed.

but we do have some things to be thankful for. we don't have to go to afghanistan if we don't want to. the people who will be there, in large part, will be the people who want to be there. my dad had to go to vietnam because he flunked an economics course his senior year in college. that's a pretty shitty letter to get in the mail. the bullshit we have to deal with isn't always as bad as the bullshit our parents had to deal with.

Obama, in a move disrespecting anti-war democrats moves to increase troop levels in Afghanistan.

“I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank.”

- Barack Obama


What, another lie? Yet the masses rally to support another saviour.

Zoolander: the idiocracy is composed of liars and thieves and their leader, Obama, is merely an extension of themselves.

IT is really, really obvious that History is about to repeat itself.

The particular owners of the banks and the media and the government and the academia and the judicial system don't like XYZ and want them "liquidated" (I don't know what the term is in yiddish but it likely translates to something close to "final solution" ironically enough).

So, bring on the recession, then the depression, then the "war" to "get us out of" the economic funk.

It was Germany in 1939.

Iran is next. The exact year???

Rest assured these master social manipulators have been laying the groundwork for years.

What will be the final match that sets the tinder box they've created ablaze? Perhaps another "kidnapping" of ostensibly European or American "tourists" in Iran?

Nice work Hollywood. Your scripts and special effects are astoundingly effective at hypnotizing the sheeple with your spectacular displays of illusion.

When I want attention I like to wave my hands in the air and whine and whine and flail around! It works pretty good.

If you want to win the war, we need to send another 150,000 troops. Otherwise, at this point, 30,000 is just more occupation like we've seen in the past. Send the troops in blazing, let them do their job unempeded and then we can go home.

There is no-one to fight in Afghanistan,

Talk to the troops, there is no enemy.

They are chasing a ghost.

Ghosts don't use IED's.

True, but agent provocateurs do...


Face it, the enemy is your government

uhh.....ok

if'n you say so.

Im sure McCrystal would have loved 150,000. Unfortunately, 150,000 troups dont exist. Theres actually no one left to send. Most of the real policy criticism from the top is that even at 30 weve sent just about every last man, so if theres a natural disaster in the states or conflict with Iran or anywhere else were completely overextended and fucked. So, unless youre talking about a draft, it just isnt a possibility.

uhh...ok

if'n you say so.

Just so we are on the same page here.

In 1991, when I participated in the Persian Gulf War, we sent about 550,000 troops to Kuwait/Saudi Arabia.

Today, we have about 100,000 troops in Iraq and 30,000 - 60,0000 troops in Afghanistan. A total of 260,000 deployed. Are you saying that we have, since the Persian Gulf War, reduced our military by half?

Actually, during the clinton years, we did reduce forces a great deal. Remember that was the standing force for the cold war. As scary as terrorism is, it isnt the existential threat that the soviet union was thought to be.

More important than that though is troop rotation. Its easier to put 500,000 guys in the desert for 100 days than it is for 9 years. Im sure youre aware how strained these guys are as it is. Cutting down further on their on-leave time seems kind of unconscionable at this point.

Many more factors are involved here. Point is that if you want to be in afghanistan with little chance of success, send 30,000 troops. We will leave in 18 months or 5 years from now with the same outcome. Or you can send in 150,000 or more troops and increase that chance of success greatly while reducing the timetable as well. In the end, it is all about the numbers and how we decide to fight the war. As it is now, 30,000 more troops and the manner in which we fight provides a pretty predictable outcome and it ain't pretty.

Im totally with you on the frustration here. I think obamas a pretty smart guy, but even Im not sold we made the right move. I know a lot of people have made the comparison to LBJ in vietnam, or on the other side to Bush II sending inadequate forces to Iraq. Both criticisms are fair. But the closest comparison I think is to Gorbachev in afghanistan in the mid 80's. They surged, pulled out, left a corrupt weak government, which battled a civil war for another 3 years and eventually fell.

The really terrible reality is, even if you sent 300,000 or 600,000 troops, (like the soviets did) youd still have little chance of success. The only leg up we have is that where about 80% of afghans hated them, about %50 hate us. At some point Patraeus and McChrystal (remember, including new Nato commitments Obama basically gave them exactly what they asked for) decided our only real option was to do our best to cut down the middle. Work around Karzai, break the Taliban coalition, and take it to Mullah Omar. It will probably still fail. But given the tentative trust we have with most afghans, its actually more likely to succeed than flooding every village with half a million guys.

It's hard... this is a mess which Bush/Cheney created by going awol and unilaterally invading Iraq without provocation and alienating the UN and our allies. None of this would have been an issue if we had taken care of the situation with the widespread support of the international community which we had at the beginning, before Bush/Cheney basically squandered it, took their eye off the ball, created a strategic, diplomatic, and fiscal disaster with Iraq, and left Afghanistan to the Taliban, allowing the real radical islamic movement to build in Pakistan, a country which *really does* have nuclear weapons... It sucks but somebody needs to clean up this mess while being strategic and fiscally responsible, dealing with the dire economic challenges on the home front at the same time...

The only time Bush went AWOL was went he was in the army.

This is all a big plan, don't think that the UN and USA arn't in this together.