Afghanistan - Why Are We There?

[Archangel M]

Eh. We don't imprison or kill homosexuals here do we?

 

[Blade96]

I have no idea what the Brits and Canadians are doing there. The Yanks are there because...

1. After 911 something drastic had to be done. Osama Bin Ladin had to be caught, and an example had to be made!

2. Now, we can't pull out. Osama is still out there, so is Mullah Mohammed Omar and the Taliban. If we leave without killing Osama, Mullah Omar, or at least establishing a "stable democracy", we might as well admit our impotence. And any president who allows that to happen will be out of office and relegated to the same doghouse of shame as Jimmy Carter (who famously failed to nuke the Iranians).

I've often thought that americans might know where he is and its to their advantage not to catch him.

Then they could do all sorts of who knows what and say "yeah but...Osama's still out there!"

Did you know GW Bush is very popular in certain parts of Africa thanks to the AIDS relief efforts he pushed? Say what you want about Iraq, but it would take a true cynic to say that Bush didn't have his heart in the right place with regard to humanitarian efforts.

Ever hear of the global gag order? reagan put it into effectI believe, it was repealed, then GW Bush put it back.

Africans could have help, but they could go die if heaven forbid they mentioned anything about abortion or condoms or anything like that.

 

[Sukerkin]

Will you really need help with Argentina anyways? Seems like ya'll made swift work of them the last time.

Not that I'm in the political loop with my finger on the pulse of the diplomatic channels but Argentina's political classes almost have to raise the issue of the Falkland Islands every year. It is a 'touchstone' for them to prove their commitment to their country.

Sadly, they know that {thanks to Maggie again} we don't have the capability to pull off an operation {the liberation of the Falklands} of that scale again. Happily, we do keep a more serious presence there now than we used to.

For those interested in a thumb-nail of the background history to the islands and why they are British territory, this site is concise:

http://www.mysterra.org/webmag/falkland-islands/history.html

For those after more detail:

http://www.falklands.info/history/hindex.html

 

[dancingalone]

I've often thought that americans might know where he is and its to their advantage not to catch him.

Then they could do all sorts of who knows what and say "yeah but...Osama's still out there!"

Good lord, Blade. You are out there, aren't you?
:barf:

Ever hear of the global gag order? reagan put it into effectI believe, it was repealed, then GW Bush put it back.

Africans could have help, but they could go die if heaven forbid they mentioned anything about abortion or condoms or anything like that.

I suspect you're misinformed about this as well. Bush blocked US funds from going to agencies worldwide that promote or offer abortion services. That is the essence of the so-called 'global gag order'. At the same time, he pushed billions of dollars to Africa for HIV treatment and economic development, but it's easy to forget about the good parts, isn't it.

 

[dancingalone]

Sadly, they know that {thanks to Maggie again} we don't have the capability to pull off an operation {the liberation of the Falklands} of that scale again. Happily, we do keep a more serious presence there now than we used to.

That is also surprising to me. You still have one of the mightiest navies and air forces on Earth, regardless of any military cuts made. You truly cannot conduct an invasion/liberation of the Falklands if it came to that?

 

[Sukerkin]

The key loss is that we no longer have any amphibious assault ships.

We could ferry troops and equipment there but we couldn't get them ashore under anything but unopposed and leisurely circumstances.

Of course, we do have an airfield there now, which gives us some options that weren't available first time around. As a flip-side, we don't have the Vulcan's anymore that were able to attack and deny the operational use of the runways that the Argentinians built for themselves {I am a contributor to the charity that is trying to keep the last Vulcan airworthy and flying}.

EDIT: Oops, I stand corrected: http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/operations-and-support/surface-fleet/assault-ships/

 

[chrispillertkd]

Ever hear of the global gag order? reagan put it into effectI believe, it was repealed, then GW Bush put it back.

Africans could have help, but they could go die if heaven forbid they mentioned anything about abortion or condoms or anything like that.

Yeah, because abortion has a ton to do with preventing the spread of AIDS.

Sure, George W. Bush was the devil and all but can you please just stick to actual facts when talking about a topic, viz. the fact that W. does, in fact, enjoy quite a bit of popularity in some African nations for his AIDS prevention assistance.

Pax,

Chris

 

[James Kovacich]

It will be a much more difficult process to turn Afghanistan around than was Iraq. And Obama’s cutting the request the generals gave for troops and supplies hurt! They wanted 40,000 he gave 30,000, and changed the rules of engagement, ROE, making them much more restrictive and costly, and that hurts are efforts quite a bit.

It would be over much sooner if he did a REAL SURGE, as President Bush did in Iraq.

And that is why we are in Afghanistan and why it will take a while to finish this.

Deaf

How did we not see this coming??? Bush is the one that said "we won the war" so he could justify invading Iraq, a country that Alqueda was not in until after us.

Not very smart invading a country "without" finishing the the "first war' first.

 

[Deaf Smith]

How did we not see this coming??? Bush is the one that said "we won the war" so he could justify invading Iraq, a country that Alqueda was not in until after us.

Not very smart invading a country "without" finishing the the "first war' first.

James,

Kind of hard to hurry up and finish one war while hoping the other situation does not go nuke. Now it turns out Saddam had 500 tons of uranium ore (they captured that) AND newest intel says Syria was shipped Saddam’s other 'weapons' when we attacked to keep them out of our hands (just as alot of his jets were moved to other nearby countries.)

Part of being a President is to make hard decisions fast while knowing some of the decisions will not turn out right. Fighting a second war while still being in the first one is not uncommon. Cases abound though out history.

And what is more, every President leaves problems for the next. There has NEVER been a president that gave a perfect economy, perfect foreign policy, perfect finances all to the next President.

And thus the problems and failures as well as successes are passed on. And it's bad for a President to say they inherited the problems. For you see, every President did that from the previous (if not from several previous Presidencies.)

Deaf

 

[Deaf Smith]

The more combat veterans you have, the more tired and weary troops you have. The longer it drags out, the more casualties, the less you get people enlisting.

We are having no trouble with recruiting. Not at all even after years of war. That is what the volunteer army has done.

Or casualties where painful, are no where near Vietnam and way way less than WW2 or Korea. And that is why we still get plenty of recruits.

Deaf

 

[Ken Morgan]

We are having no trouble with recruiting. Not at all even after years of war. That is what the volunteer army has done.

Or casualties where painful, are no where near Vietnam and way way less than WW2 or Korea. And that is why we still get plenty of recruits.

Deaf

You have plenty of recruits because the US and much of the economy of the world is still crap. There are no more high paying manufacturing jobs left in the west anymore, hence the potential recruits see the military as one of the few places that provides a stable job, with good career prospects. If the US was a power house of high paying manufacturing jobs like it was decades ago, there would be a serious issue in getting people to sign up.

 

[Blade96]

I suspect you're misinformed about this as well. Bush blocked US funds from going to agencies worldwide that promote or offer abortion services. That is the essence of the so-called 'global gag order'. At the same time, he pushed billions of dollars to Africa for HIV treatment and economic development, but it's easy to forget about the good parts, isn't it.

Yeah, because abortion has a ton to do with preventing the spread of AIDS.

Sure, George W. Bush was the devil and all but can you please just stick to actual facts when talking about a topic, viz. the fact that W. does, in fact, enjoy quite a bit of popularity in some African nations for his AIDS prevention assistance.

Pax,

Chris

The organizations involved (with abortion and contraceptives too and lifesaving procedures) who found it hard to operate when the gag order was on them also found it harder to receive and distribute lifesaving condoms (and other contraceptives (condoms being instrumental in helping stop the transmission of aids from person to person). That didnt help the situation a whole lot.

Im not misinformed.

 

[Bruno@MT]

Eh. We don't imprison or kill homosexuals here do we?

No but they are not allowed to join the military because being openly gay in the US military is 'bad'. Thus them fighting for that right it is ironic.

 

[Tez3]

Of course Tony Blair is a socialist, that's what being in the Labour party means. Labour are the Socialist Party.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Party_(UK)

Blair will go down in history here as a - well I can't say in polite company, certainly an idiot, weak, useless and as Bush's poodle. We're well rid of him. You only see what the spin doctors want to see about him, try having him as your leader, not that anything better was out there.

Our Navy and RAF is small, we have less than 250,000 regular forces all in, that's army, navy, RAF and Royal Marines. The army has stopped recruiting for the infantry, could be September before they recruit again. No money for the forces or anything else actually, I may not even have a job this time next year.

Woman aren't any better off in Afghan, no one is much being honest nor will they ever be until the people there have a massive change of mind. It's not going to happen because the Allies are there however much we'd like it to and however much we do for the people. Better to leave. To get rid of terrorists send in whoever is needed to do that work.

Every time you read of a service person being killed out there by a bomb remember there will also be more service people injured by that bomb. many Afghans are also being killed by their own people, if this is happening doesn't it show that there is no sanctity of life out there and we will never have a democratic and stable system in place there, it has to be done by the people themselves.

 

[dancingalone]

Of course Tony Blair is a socialist, that's what being in the Labour party means. Labour are the Socialist Party.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Party_(UK)

So all the buzz we heard over the Atlantic about 'New Labour' was just propaganda? I had understood that Blair deliberately moved towards the center to broaden his party's appeal. As recently as 2009, Blair is on record as opposing Gordon Brown's 50% top tax rate on the wealthy in Britain. That doesn't seem like the typical socialist line I would expect.

 

[dancingalone]

The organizations involved (with abortion and contraceptives too and lifesaving procedures) who found it hard to operate when the gag order was on them also found it harder to receive and distribute lifesaving condoms (and other contraceptives (condoms being instrumental in helping stop the transmission of aids from person to person). That didnt help the situation a whole lot.

Im not misinformed.

Blade, if a organization is denied funding due to one aspect of their operations, obviously that has major repercussions for the entire group as well. That's rather the point of the executive order to begin with.

Nonetheless there were other groups that continued to receive American funding to continue their mission there in Africa. The Red Cross and the WHO are two notable orgs I can think of off the top of my head and the WHO definitely is a distributer of condoms.

 

[Mark Jordan]

I also don't know why we are there. This "war" was launched with expectations of a quick, decisive victory but whoever started this operation misinterpreted the nature of the conflict.

From what I heard, American soldiers are there to make sure that terrorist groups cannot use Afghanistan as a safe haven for launching attacks against us. But now that our troops are there they don't have to go far to kill Americans.

I hope it's not too late to change course.

 

[chrispillertkd]

The organizations involved (with abortion and contraceptives too and lifesaving procedures) who found it hard to operate when the gag order was on them also found it harder to receive and distribute lifesaving condoms (and other contraceptives (condoms being instrumental in helping stop the transmission of aids from person to person). That didnt help the situation a whole lot.

If the organizations involved couldn't try to help people prevent AIDS without spreading abortion then they should have examined their own motivation. How about they give ot information on preventing AIDS if that's what they're trying to do. Maybe something like this: "Here's a way to prevent or decrease the likelihood of spreading the HIV virus..." Not "Here's how to procure an abortion..." Yeah, those things are hard to distinguish.

Im not misinformed.

If you say so.

If these organizations were interested in preventing AIDS instead of promoting abortion they could do so.

Pax,

Chris

 

[chrispillertkd]

I also don't know why we are there.

We are there because we were interested in destroying al-Qaida's base of operations in Afghanistan. That was largely accomplished, as was over throwing the Taliban.

This "war" was launched with expectations of a quick, decisive victory but

whoever started this operation misinterpreted the nature of the conflict.

The two primary goals I just mentioned were accomplished fairly quickly, as was the election of a pro-west government. Full on natinal building, as far as I know, was never a goal. Nor is it, IMHO, possible.

From what I heard, American soldiers are there to make sure that terrorist groups cannot use Afghanistan as a safe haven for launching attacks against us. But now that our troops are there they don't have to go far to kill Americans.

The troops remained in Afghanistan in order to prevent a return of the Taliban and al-Qaida. That fact is itself going to draw a certain amount of aggression when those elements do try to return to their former influence.

The current rules of engagement while not completely hamstringing the troops have certainly not helped. Then again if you can shoot at them and then walk into a house and not be followed lend themselves to it's amazing we don't have more casualities (nearly half of which have been suffered in the last two years).

Every American death is a trajedy. But the fact is over 9 years we've had less than 1,200 of them (and a little over 300 British deaths over the same period). I believe we had about 300,000 deaths in WW II between Dec. 1941 and June, 1944. Things in Afghanistan could be so much worse.

I hope it's not too late to change course.

That really depends on what you mean by "change course."

Pax,

Chris

 

[Tez3]

We are there because we were interested in destroying al-Qaida's base of operations in Afghanistan. That was largely accomplished, as was over throwing the Taliban.

This "war" was launched with expectations of a quick, decisive victory but

The two primary goals I just mentioned were accomplished fairly quickly, as was the election of a pro-west government. Full on natinal building, as far as I know, was never a goal. Nor is it, IMHO, possible.



The troops remained in Afghanistan in order to prevent a return of the Taliban and al-Qaida. That fact is itself going to draw a certain amount of aggression when those elements do try to return to their former influence.

The current rules of engagement while not completely hamstringing the troops have certainly not helped. Then again if you can shoot at them and then walk into a house and not be followed lend themselves to it's amazing we don't have more casualities (nearly half of which have been suffered in the last two years).

Every American death is a trajedy. But the fact is over 9 years we've had less than 1,200 of them (and a little over 300 British deaths over the same period). I believe we had about 300,000 deaths in WW II between Dec. 1941 and June, 1944. Things in Afghanistan could be so much worse.



That really depends on what you mean by "change course."

Pax,

Chris

Oh well that's alright then, we've only had a few deaths, that makes it all so much better doesn't it? that's 1500 people we really don't have to worry about anymore, after all what are they to you? How many thousands injured, maimed and wounded? Oh right of course that doesn't matter either does it, all in the 'greater good' of course.
Bandy figures around all you like, your skin is safe sat beind your computer. And don't tell me this is what they joined up for, they didn't deserve to die because of self serving politicians.
How easy it is to pontificate about low numbers of deaths and wounded when one doesn't have to see the coffins lined up, speak to grieving widows and children, distraught mothers etc all asking 'WHY?'

They need a better reason than that they were betrayed by politiicans and people who say oh it could be so much worse. Now excuse me while I go throw up, such sentiments make me sick to my stomach.

Get our troops out NOW.