On the whole, I have been supportive of the president’s plan for Afghanistan. My main quibble is that he wants a timetable for U.S. withdrawal, signaling to our enemies that they just need to wait us out. In an interview with the AP’s Kathy Gannon, a Taliban commander admitted as much:
The Taliban commander, who uses the pseudonym Mubeen, told The Associated Press that if military pressure on the insurgents becomes too great “we will just leave and come back after” the foreign forces leave.
Later, in the article, Ms. Gannon wrote:
It is difficult to measure the depth of support for the Taliban among Kandahar’s people, many of whom say they are disgusted by the presence of both the foreign troops and the insurgents. Many of them say they are afraid NATO’s summer offensive will accomplish little other than trigger more violence.
Wonder what was her source for Kandahar public opinion. The Taliban commander perhaps? She references no other source in the article.
On the whole, I have been supportive of the president’s plan for Afghanistan. My main quibble is that he wants a timetable for U.S. withdrawal, signaling to our enemies that they just need to wait us out.
How is trying to plan an endgame to an 8 year old war a weakness? There will always be someone in Afghanistan that is waiting us out. How do you think an Afghan government is ever going to take responsibility for the country if we’re promising to stay there with pretty much no conditions? Bush’s leadership in these countries was absolutely terrible because he had no exit strategy, it is no exaggeration to say that this has caused us more problems in the Middle East than anything else, and you’re basically saying that Obama should continue with that failed ‘strategy.’
Smart military commanders like to know the way out before they go in, but that wasn’t the objective for Bush, and I guess this hasn’t dawned on you yet, either. What you’re asking for is never-ending war, no matter the cost, no matter the consequences. And Republicans are supposed to be national security experts? The deficiencies in your argument are blatantly obvious.
Good thing we’ve had an exit plan for Europe, Japan, and Korea…
oops.
Has anyone else noticed that the Left is only interested in “exit strategies” when it comes to war, but if we’re talking about the economy, the deficit, the national debt, and trillions of dollars in unfunded entitlements, their strategy is pretty much a “fly by the seat of our pants” approach?
Good thing we’ve had an exit plan for Europe, Japan, and Korea…
oops.
Are you seriously comparing our wars in the Middle East with WWII?
Do you want a serious response to that kind of nonsense?
If I did want a serious response, I’d not ask a socialist and serial liar such as you, Levi. I’d ask someone serious.
Meanwhile, Levi, the problem here is that you’re trying to spin out of your usual pants-wetting statements.
Now, little Levi liar, since you say a US military presence in a country is bad and prevents a local government from developing and taking responsibility for the country, explain Japan, Germany, and South Korea.
You can’t. That’s because you are an ignorant and amoral child whose only response to anything is a knee-jerk bash Bush, and you keep getting caught in these traps because you lack the intelligence to realize and deal with your own prejudices and bigotry.
NDT, Levi’s just upset that he has to lie and we won’t let him enjoy brown people killing each other.
But we’re used to Levi ignoring reality.
You two idiots go right ahead and play stupid if you want. Fourth graders understand the differences between our situations in the middle east today compared to germany and japan in the post war era. Why don’t we save some time and have you guys explain how they are similar in any way, shape or form?
Shorter Levi,
Once again you’ve shown I can’t defend the statements I make and I’m going to ignore you.
God help me that I (to some point) agree with Levi.
The continuing Afghan war is pointless – it became pointless when the punitive part of the war was done.
I believe we should punish severely any regime that sponsors terrorism and I think any effort to hunt down and kill terrorists (with no apologies) is worthwhile but nation-building isn’t working (it seldom does).
How many more dead and horribly maimed soldiers is it worth? As they say, everything has its price and I think Afghanistan has cost us more than it’s worth.
Staying in Afghanistan until the end of time is a poor option. Anything written in the last few years by John Derbyshire pretty will explains my thoughts.
You two idiots go right ahead and play stupid if you want. Fourth graders understand the differences between our situations in the middle east today compared to germany and japan in the post war era. Why don’t we save some time and have you guys explain how they are similar in any way, shape or form?
And, as expected, Levi can’t explain his argument that US military presence always prevents a local government from “taking responsibility” when confronted with the examples of Japan, South Korea, and Germany, so he starts screaming and throwing a tantrum.
It just shows that Levi’s argument is a failure. But that’s typical; liberals like Levi are so blinded by their bigotry and prejudice that it’s really expecting too much for them to be cogent or coherent.
When you can start thinking like a grown up and stop misrepresenting my positions, we can talk. Your understanding of my position is that I believe that us military presence in any country is always bad, despite my having never said any such thing. Our presence in germany and japan were undoubtedly worthwhile for all involed, but those are entirely different countries than iraq and afghanistan, with different cultures and different perspectives that do not compliment a continued us military presence. The biggest difference here is obviously the fact that we are the invaders and occupiers this time, which was not the case during world war 2. These countries also had industrial and modernization ambitions and were shamed by their defeat, and were therefore amicable to being rebuiltby the most industrial and modern country, the united states. This is lacking in the middle east.
Again, the differences couldnt be more extreme or numerous, but here you are, seemingly iinsisting that us military presence is always a good thing in any situation, like we radiate some kind of divine purity that cleanses corruption and evil inherently. Its an age old imperialist attitude that only porves how unlearned you are about history. The story of human civilization is rife with empires beleiving in their inherent goodness and infallibility, and the story always ends with them on their backs. If your thesis is that us military presence is always good and always effective, then why don’t we invade Russia or Cuba or Mexico or Europe? Obviously, we don’t do these things because they would be catastrophic. He use of ones military should always be a last resort and it should always be undertaken with he utmost sense of urgency; get in, get it done, and get out. How is it possible that this is an alien concept to you? How is it possible that you can be cheering for the continuation of a war that has taken early a decade already and cost us huge amounts of resources, and we don’t even have Osama to show for it?
Your understanding of my position is that I believe that us military presence in any country is always bad, despite my having never said any such thing.
Wrong. My understanding of your position is clearly spelled out here:
And, as expected, Levi can’t explain his argument that US military presence always prevents a local government from “taking responsibility” when confronted with the examples of Japan, South Korea, and Germany, so he starts screaming and throwing a tantrum.
And is perfectly consistent with your statement here:
How do you think an Afghan government is ever going to take responsibility for the country if we’re promising to stay there with pretty much no conditions?
You are dodging and spinning because you don’t have an answer to what you were confronted with, which are the examples of countries that, despite a US military presence, have managed quite nicely to have local governments take responsibility.
And then in your desperation, you resort to what can only be called flat-out racism.
These countries also had industrial and modernization ambitions and were shamed by their defeat, and were therefore amicable to being rebuiltby the most industrial and modern country, the united states. This is lacking in the middle east.
Excuse me? Have you ever been to the Middle East? It’s not a land of savage goatherders who hate anything modern. Indeed, if you ever actually listened to Osama bin Laden, you would have realized that one of the things the man denounces is the rapid pace of modernization and change in the Middle East.
It’s always the same; every single liberal position is built on flat-out racism.
why does Levi hate brown people?
Levi, you’re one to talk about misrepresenting positions. Despite our pointing to evidence undermining allegations you have leveled against us, you continue to cling to your prejudiced beliefs an inaccurate assumptions.
#12: “He use of ones military should always be a last resort and it should always be undertaken with he utmost sense of urgency; get in, get it done, and get out. How is it possible that this is an alien concept to you? How is it possible that you can be cheering for the continuation of a war that has taken early a decade already and cost us huge amounts of resources, and we don’t even have Osama to show for it?”
Levi, please stop embarrassing yourself. Out of every issue ever discussed on this blog, this is the one where you have the least credibility (actually, NO credibility). We are not fooled. The fact is, there are NO CIRCUMSTANCES in which you would support US military action to defend and protect this country’s interests. Period. You did not support the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq then and you don’t now. And it isn’t because Bush handled it the wrong way, or pursued the wrong military strategy, or didn’t have “an exit strategy,” or for any of the other bullshit reasons you and other leftists claim to be concerned with. “Exit strategy” is nothing but leftist code for “no entry strategy.” Even if wars were capable of being meticulously planned, executed, financed, and concluded in the way that you claim they are and should be, the estimates and projections would NEVER be used by the Left for any purpose other than arguing that such action should NOT be taken. If the military issued public reports stating that a proposed war’s duration would be “A,” and its cost would be “B,” and the military casualties would be “C,” and the civilian casualties would be “D,” your response would ALWAYS be that such action cannot be taken (no matter what the circumstances) because such action would (gasp!) lead to A, B, C, and D.
You do not and will not EVER support the US going to war for any reason, Levi. If you dispute this, then you’re lying, and lying badly. Any sliver of a chance you had to get away with implying that you would support a hypothetical war if it were “a last resort” and “undertaken with he utmost sense of urgency,” was foreclosed by your pious, ignorant ramblings about “divine purity” and “imperialist attitudes” and misguided notions of “infallibility” and blah, blah, and “invaders and occupiers,” and “why not invade Mexico?” and yada, yada, etc., etc. We’ve heard it all before–we can’t invade Iraq because there’s no WMDs; if there are WMDs we can’t invade because Saddam might use them; we can’t invade because people might be killed; it’s a quagmire because Iraq’s infrastructure is destroyed and the people were better off under Saddam when they had electricity and running water; the whole thing was plotted by war profiteers like Haliburton because that evil corporation is making money restoring electricity and running water to the people of Iraq; and on and on and on. You don’t sound reasonable or informed when you make these statements. You just sound like a stupid leftist that hates this country, so stop pretending that you have legitimate objections related to (bwahhahahahahaha…) strategy, cost, duration, casualties, etc. You don’t care about any of it.
I suppose the UN rape machine would be better. How come we can’t be the world’s police, but we have to be the world’s EMTs?
Levi,
In the future, you could save a lot of time by dispensing with the interminable filler about Iraq and Afghanistan being “different cultures” with “different perspectives” and the US not being “inherently” good. We already KNOW that you’re a moral relativist and that all of your opinions concerning foreign relations and national security depend upon the rejection of objective standards of good and evil. So, next time, just make your point and skip all the superfluous advisories and disclaimers about how inscrutable and bewildering it is to tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys. Your concerns on that point are noted (and as always, dismissed out of hand).