How about you don't tell me what or how to post? That'd be a really good idea. Even though it was sprinkled with emotions I had a point to make. Which was that I'm disappointed that some feel the way he does because many service men and women paid high prices yet do so for him to have the opinions he does. It wasn't an argument. It was an opinion much like his. There are many posts, or parts of posts in this thread that could be labeled as emotional responses which is to be expected on topics such as this and you picked mine because we have butted heads in the past, most likely. I see by your rep, you have many friends here. There's just as much red as green. And your post was informative and useful? Okey then. Grow up, thanks for the advice and for worrying about my panties. Oh and 3 days off for telling a mod what to post and where.
You're like a whoopee cushion at a Shiva call. Our own little fart-like reminder to lighten up. When you say that we shouldn't even be there, do you mean that we should no longer be there, or that Afghanistan was initially a poor choice for invasion? As has been mentioned, A-stan is a historically difficult country in which to fight a ground war, and no one can intelligently question the resolve of their citizenry to repel an invading army. In your opinion, if the U.S. had hypothetically limited its total ground troop commitment to those small SOF units you talked about earlier, would it have been sufficient in the long term? Do you believe this will be our primary strategy going forward, inasmuch there seems to be widespread disillusionment with these large, expensive, public wars?
From personal experience it seems like a lot of legs like myself are getting out after doing a tour in Afghanistan. The general sentiment between the guys I talked to was "fuck that place, it's not worth another year of my life". Guys that have been to Iraq, reenlisted and wanted to make a career putting in dex statements after coming back from 'ghan the whole deal. A question for BrianH: How's morale in your community? Is there a similar trend, or has the bullshit factor of Afghanistan not affected you guys as much. *note: I understand this might not be a topic you want/can discuss but I figure it's worth a shot.
I think that whoever leaked these documents would have been better off using his time and energy to get every country in the world to sit down together with some popcorn and ice cold Coca-Cola to watch War Games. Utopia, here we come! Focus: I'm of the mindset that if we're going to go to war we should just fucking do it, get it over with as soon as possible, and get home. We haven't done that since WW2 as far as I know. We killed a fuck load of people, lost a fuck load of soldiers, but the job got done at least. The problem is that when you're fighting pockets of terrorists in a shitty mountain country (My perception of it. No clue as to the reality) you can't just go bomb shit like the good ol' days (more assumptions). We're not losing as many soldiers and our kills are a lot more purposeful and exact, but shit doesn't seem to be getting done. I guess I'm kinda torn on the whole Afghanistan war. On one hand we need to try to keep crazy religious fuckholes from killing us again. But on the other hand I think that spending billions of dollars over the course of a decade and losing thousands of soldiers might not be worth keeping a couple dozen people from blowing up a building or two. And I haven't heard anyone, politician or military, explain to me what "winning" means as far as this war goes. If winning is getting a government in place that will police its own country, then we're probably fucked even if we're there for 100 years, and we're certainly fucked with the Afghan leaders that are in place now. Hopefully we figure out what the fuck we're doing there and hopefully the Afghan people are capable of self governing, or else we'll probably learn was Soviet Russia learned.
I mean that we fought a war to rid the world of Al Qaeda and, in the context of Afghanistan, accomplished that mission. If we are serious about the Global War on Terror (or whatever they are calling it now), the next logical stop would be Pakistan, followed by the Sudan. Sitting around dying fighting an enemy that had nothing to do with 9/11 is foolish in the extreme. There will never be a Western-developed democracy in Afghanistan and we need to stop spending money on one. It's not great. A lot of guys have decided that deploying 7 or 8 times--to the detriment of their families--to fight a war the US isn't prepared to even establish a victory criteria for probably isn't the best use of their time.
Realistically, isn't Afghanistan just this generation's Vietnam, swapping ideology for religion and jungle for desert? The more it dragged on, the murkier it got. I know when Australian troops returned home, they were boo'ed at the docks. I know I've commented on the media earlier, but I think they are a contributing factor to how a country feels about its armed forces. Vietnam is apt, because it was the first heavily reported war; especially for film. My disdain would be less if I had confidence in more than a handful of media outlets to be anything be sensationalists and spruikers. And that's not related to this topic, I feel that's media across the board (and I've had my run ins with them). I've seen it time and again: falsehoods make front page, retractions get buried. I also think the notion of forward defence is a hard sell. As Supertramp noted, this isn't an invasion on American soil. The impetus that started it was in direct response to just such an act, but BrianH has already stated we've moved beyond that. If I remember my history right (and I'm old, and high school modern history was nearly 20 years ago), the last commencing act of war on US soil was Pearl Harbour. We were taught that until then, America was not involved in WWII. Likewise, there was no involvement in WWI until a direct act against America was perpetrated (I think it was something about a ship carrying gold being sunk). Since then, Vietnam, Korea, the Gulf War and Iraq have been a case of "we're not going to wait for you to come attack us" or "we're being big brother and coming to the rescue". I'm not going to say whether that's good or bad, it's not as simple as that. But what I've seen is that these sorts of actions are more likely to be unpalatable to the public, and the longer it takes the worse it gets.
After watching The Battle of Algiers, I would say that the Algerian War of Independence is the closest analogue to the War on Terror. In fact..... It was a wonderful and clarifying experience watching The Battle of Algiers. I remember thinking to myself a number of times throughout the movie - "Well, we're fucked."
I knew we were fucked once they came out with the name "War on Terror". What kind of vague shit is that? Why don't we just call it "War against Bad Guys". Time to shit or get off the pot, US. This middle ground shit is old. Although, I do find it ironic that a thread about leaked military intel has turned into a debate on the war. As if the media gives us enough info to make an informed decision.
It's a shitty situation either way. What do you do, wait and cross your fingers that nobody attacks us and then if they do fight back, or preemptively seek out potential threats (where all the shit that happened in Vietnam and is happening now in the ME happens)? It's hard to find a middle ground there.
Sanctions? I'll wait for you to stop laughing and get up off the floor. You're exactly right, it's a shitty situation. Any middle ground seems to be ineffective in practice. The majorly shitty aspect of it is that pre-emptive striking is only ever based on a prediction of what may happen. Unfortunately, the alternative is to wait for what might happen and realise that when it does it's too late. Unless we get some Minority Report shit going on, there's always going to be the capacity for getting it wrong. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't type of situation. Either way is going to have argument and detractors. If you go in first, people bitch and complain. If you wait to be invaded, people bitch and complain you didn't do something about it earlier - that's human nature. It's all nice and fine and safe for people who live in a safe little bubble where the most danger they see is getting a steam burn off their cappamochalatte or whatever. There's a ton of people in the world who will happily walk all over their liberty, jam a gun up their ass while drinking their bullshit drink and pull the trigger. The whole reason that doesn't happen is because of the hard decisions made about defence (and, I'll add, that's internally and externally). I find it sad that the very rights and lifestyle that let people bitch and moan about the conduct of the armed forces is protected by the conduct they're bitching and moaning about. I learned very early on in life that after all the reasoning, the warnings, the bargaining, the cajoling, threats or pleadings is ineffective; all people understand is violence. Ignore it or disbelieve it all you may want to, but it's nature. Prove to me that there is no person left in the world that has the intent to do harm to another, and I'll believe different.
See and this is my little hair brained idea of how to cure the world ills. We have to somehow, Im thinking strong economic growth by pushing hard for industrialization of these dirt holes, will create the same self absorbed atmosphere we have in the western industrial powers. After only a handful of generations we have become so concerned with our petty daily lives that we'd jump off a building if facebook went down for half an hour. I haven't been outside of Shanghai yet but this city is super modern. The youth here are just as self centered as the Americans, they love their electronic gadgets and being on the edge of fashion (they don't buy the fake shit they make), even with the huge cultural and political differences. You get Afghan kids more concerned with Apples next iPhone and you'll see that suicide bombings drop way off.
I like your thinking, but there's a problem. In China, they all but abolished religion. I'm not going to start an argument about any denomination, and I'm not going to name names. But when you have a strong theological presence, and the young are indoctrinated into that without choice, the cycle will not break. This is especially the case where any dissenters are removed. In China, if anything, the religion has become money. It's always been in their blood, they were credited with creating the stuff. They're demonic gamblers and hustlers too. It's genetic for them. I am actually starting to think that China, for all its faults, might be the safest bastion left in the world overall.
SGEDIT: Off topic. And for the recond per your rep, Nettie, I have never banned anyone for neg repping me. Only for being a total fuckwit, going against a warning or telling a mod or admin how to post. Not that I owe you any explaination at all.
With Frylock's permission I wanted to re-bump the old Wikileaks thread in lieu of Julian Assange's latest release of some 400,000 new documents, this time covering the war in Iraq and subsequent walk out of a London interview with CNN's Atika Shuber. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...n_interview_when_asked_about_rape_charge.html http://www.wikileaks.org Re-Focus Truth journalist? Role Model? Revolutionary? Traitor? Where do you sit with all of this? Personally, I cannot agree with somebody that indiscriminately toys with others' lives under the guise of a transparent government that is not his own. By releasing the names of Afghani tribal leaders and civilians that helped the United States, he has put them on the chopping block for insurgents. Al Qaeda has already stated that they are using Wikileaked information and will continue to do so and Assange has handed them US tactics on a silver plate. Following the conclusion of the war, yes I want to see the documents. In the middle of an ongoing conflict with lives at stake, no. At the least, the U.S. should put him on the no-fly list.
Not to derail any arguments that might follow but just an interesting tidbit: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Euro...ussia.-But-will-Russians-get-to-read-about-it
Although I support the USA in this conflict, I do not trust the USA. The USA have committed terrible crimes in the past and I don't trust that their intentions are fully honest. That is why, for a supporter of the war such as myself, something like Wikileaks is so important. It re-assures me that the US/Brits whoever aren't just killing civillians left right and center. As it seems, their conduct has been on the whole commendable.
The thing that pissed me off the most about that interview is that whether you support him or hate him, what Assange is doing is unarguably important. It is legitimate news with serious impact on the world we live in. And this total hack journalist who looks like she fucked her way through j-school less than a year ago is more concerned about "winning" the interview than actually illuminating the issues raised by wikileaks actions and the documents they've released. Assange could have fucked a school full of toddlers and it still wouldn't have any impact on the vast import of the events taking place. It's a sad commentary on our media that it is so fundamentally crippled that this woman likely doesn't even understand that she messed up, much less how. I'm willing to bet she legitimately sees the questions she asked as important, and their answers relevant to how we should view the leaking of documents. "Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people." The media is full of small minds and it is pathetic to watch. Ironically enough, her "tenacity" in getting answers about the rape accusation strengthened the argument that the accusations are an orchestrated political hit, because it demonstrates just how easily and reliably the media can be led by its nose and made to do the dirty work. No conspiracy is necessary; if you want to close a beach you don't need a dozen sharks in on the plan, just chum the water and they'll be too stupid to realize they're chewing on boogie boards.