Archangel M
Senior Master
Eh. We don't imprison or kill homosexuals here do we?
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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).
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.
Will you really need help with Argentina anyways? Seems like ya'll made swift work of them the last time.
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!"
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 reagan put it into effectI believe, it was repealed, then GW Bush put it back.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.
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.
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 reagan put it into effectI believe, it was repealed, then GW Bush put it back.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.
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.It will be a much more difficult process to turn Afghanistan around than was Iraq. And ObamaĀs 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.
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
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
Eh. We don't imprison or kill homosexuals here do we?
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)
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.
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.
I also don't know why we are there.
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.
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