Alright, I’ve thought about Afghanistan for the day, and here is where I am right now. I understand the country is a mess, and I understand that many believe the real problem is what is going on in Pakistan. I understand that Obama has always thought this is the good war, and to the extent that Al Qaeda is who hit us, I still agree with that sentiment.
But here is where I am now- in my gut, I just don’t think there is much of anything we can do. We could send 150k more troops there for ten years, and all it would do is bleed us and run our military further into the ground and cost billions and billions more (and this doesn’t go in to the money we need to spend on our injured and dead and the annual budget). As soon as we leave, the same folks will come back and re-assert their authority. Just like they have for centuries.
Now I know this is not drinking the American exceptionalism kool-aid, and thus makes me a traitor, but at this point I believe that Obama and his commanders honestly believe they might turn it around, but in reality, it just strikes me that what we are doing is very much like the surge in Iraq. We’re going to calm things down, declare victory, pretend we have won, and leave.
Although we aren’t really leaving that quickly from Iraq, now, are we? I’ll support the troops and the President, and I’ll keep paying my taxes, but I have no faith in what is about to happen and am prepared for a lot of American and Afghan dead to no good end.
Politically, I expect the neocon right to continue to offer back-handed compliments while the rest of the right slowly starts to undermine the mission by suggesting withdrawal might be the best option, while the liberal hawks cheer and the political left fights Obama every step of the way (for good reason). Then, as 2011 approaches, and nothing has changed but the cost and the body count, and the commanders on the ground have been given their chance but the facts didn’t change, Obama will begin to withdraw. At that point, expect every Republican to call him a quitter and an appeaser (the ones siding with withdrawal will switch in a NY minute), the left will tell him “I told you so all along,” the country will be sick of war and disillusioned, and we’ll just have nothing to show for it but more dead and wounded, a continued expense, and a dead domestic agenda.
And that is where I am today. Maybe I am completely wrong and talking out my hindquarters as I am prone to do, but I am just not very hopeful right now.
Jim
Actual significance of this hypothetical aside, Obama could really use an Osama capture right about now.
Kennedy
This.
David in NY
Anybody else here remember 1966? I’ve been having these flashbacks. Yuck.
Kid G
I think Osama’s dead, hence the lack of mention in last night’s speech. There hasn’t been a credible recording of him in at least 3 years, possibly more.
Jody
“We’re going to calm things down, declare victory, pretend we have won, and leave.”
At this point if we can do that I’ll be frigging delighted.
Mako
what we are doing is very much like the surge in Iraq
Well, except the surge in Iraq worked because the ethnic cleansing, er, moving, had already happened. This is better, we get to go up against hardened mountaineers with flintlocks and rpgs. Come’n man, you live in wva, you know those type people. This is easy peasy.
Lisa K.
Well, there are far *worse* things that could happen.
The Moar You Know
Obama has let himself get good and rolled on this. That’s the second time (first was the banking industry). I’m not a happy Dem at the moment.
I wish Dems had the courage of their convictions regarding the military, but we seem to have this strange inferiority complex when questions of military action and priorities come up – probably as a result of Vietnam and the party getting bogged down with the hippie movement.
We let ourselves get rolled over and over again, and the righties fuck us into electoral defeat every goddamn time with it. It happened to Carter, it happened to Clinton, and now it’s happening to Obama.
The last Dem president to have the courage of his convictions with regards to the military was Harry Truman – and that was far too long ago.
danimal
@Jim: I suspect the U-turn in Afghan will take place in a matter of hours after OBL is captured or killed. I’m guessing that Obama is placing a bet that OBL can be caught within the next 18 months, at which point Obama can declare victory and withdraw to wild applause from left and right.
uri
This sums up my fears. I hope Obama’s decision is the right one but I have very little faith that it is.
Fuck Osama, fuck Bush, fuck Rove, fuck the medieval-minded zealots that destroy everything they touch and fuck me for having so little power to change any of this.
Lincoln
Just want to say ditto.
This exactly where I am.
Jager
If Petraeus and McCrystal don’t get the job done in the next year and a half after getting what they asked for (and sooner) they need to retire or be retired. If Petraeus has or had any politcal ambitions he should have retired 6 months ago. I would have sacked McCrystal based on the Tillman e-mail he sent. As a Viet Nam Vet…I’ve seen this movie before!
Makewi
Harry Truman used the bomb on the Japanese, and is currently crucified by many on the left for it. The problem with Democrats and war is that so many of the base on the left seem to believe that humanity has moved past a need for it, and all you have to do to win is to stop playing.
JMC in the ATL
Yep, pretty much.
JK
@Jim: @Kid G:
I don’t believe that Osama Bin Laden is dead. If he was, I think Al Qaeda would have released an audiotape or videotape eulogizing him and praising his accomplishments.
Even if Bin Laden were dead, capturing Ayman Zarahiri wouldn’t hurt. As Al Qaeda’s number 2 guy, he’s not exactly chopped liver.
General Winfield Stuck
I have heard Obama talk of Afghan many times during the campaign and after where it was obvious that he was hopeful we, or he, could make it a success. I didn’t get that vibe the other night. The speech was good, and largely pro forma Imo.
But his tone and body language was droll and did not project hope for a success to pacify that country. Just my perception, and it might be why so many were calling it an uninspired speech. And that the exit date, albeit not firm, was the highlight. That and some sense that we have to try, to maintain some shred of national honor by giving the Afghans a better shot at taking up the fight.
And I don’t think we will be leaving the region completely, but that at around the 18 month mark, most troops will start coming out, and the mission will change drastically to counter terrorism from counter insurgency.
Obama wants to get reelected, because he is a politician who can’t afford to severely piss off his base, add that to what I think is his personal skepticism, and we will start to our soldiers depart to a large degree. I think and hope.
dr. bloor
@The Moar You Know:
I’m not convinced Obama has gotten rolled in either case (Afghanistan or Wall Street). I think this is just who he is, who he has always been–ultracompetent but not particularly bold and certainly not particularly progressive.
To the extent he might have come across as ambivalent last night, it might be because he’s less optimistic about the prospects for success than he was when he pledged to take on Afghanistan while campaigning, but I don’t think he’d be making this decision if he didn’t believe in it.
MobiusKlein
100 years from now, the AfPakRaq wars won’t matter one whit.
The only thing they will care that Obama did or not do, will be the C02 level in the atmosphere.
Mako
@Kid G:
Sad innit? I really would have enjoyed his trial. We coulda rerun all those pictures of him as a young man in his hip and happening bellbottoms with his rich-ass saudi parents- some hippy, al gore or michael moore or tom friedman- coulda mentioned a gas tax to starve those bastards out, and then, when it was all over, we could go back to trampling children in walmart for a cheap-ass plasma tvs. Such good times we coulda had.
Kennedy
@The Moar You Know: I’m slightly less inclined to say he was rolled on this the way he was with the whole Wall Street debacle. The release of the remaining TARP funds was insisted upon as an urgent, must-happen-overnight event. At least he took his time making the decision on Afghanistan, regardless of if it ends up being the right or wrong one.
I think at this point the situation looks so bleak, both domestically and abroad, that being pissed at Obama just makes things worse. I really hate the ‘lesser of two evils’ notion that seem to dominate our national politics, but we really did dodge a bullet last November, and I’m glad that he is president.
Butch
I was pacing around the kitchen last night after the speech trying to make supper and realizing I need to detach myself a little from current events; I can’t spend all my time obsessing about the wars and health care and the right and everything else, but sometimes they kinda consume me. (Why am I making Chinese chicken salad and thinking about, well, whatever it was I was arguing with myself about?) I try to reassure myself when I watch folks like Hillary and Obama that at least I feel like the grownups are in charge again, after the last 8 years, even when I don’t agree with them.
rob!
Maybe I’m just an Obamabot, but I can’t believe that Obama is “letting himself get good and rolled” on this–how many times since he announced he was running that the CW was he was wrong, he needed to do this or that, and he ended up being right?
This war is just too complex for me to have any sort of coherent opinion, so I don’t know–maybe he is wrong on this. But if he says we’re leaving in 2011, then–for right now at least–I believe him.
Maybe I’m a fool, but I can’t fathom that a guy like Obama would allow himself to be trapped in a situation so bad that he stands a chance of not getting re-elected. And that means, by election day 2012, we’re out of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Bob In Pacifica
In the December Harper’s on their great factoid page, the intelligence estimate has one hundred al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
100.
99 + 1.
When McChrystal mouthed off we all got a glimpse of our government. What would Truman have done? Well, with a bigger figure than McChrystal, that would be MacArthur, Truman fired his ass.
That’s what changed. Obama had no choice. He doesn’t run the military. They run him.
jlo
This whole thing is predestined. The American empire is in decline and it must crash on the rocks. For us to fight a war there because a bunch of Saudi’s planned 9/11 in Europe is so nonsensical that the only plausible explanation is that Zeuss has decided that Afghanistan is where we fall. End of story.
SGEW
Where I’m at on the escalation:
The Criticism: It’s risky – and gambling with a war to this extent can be seen as ethically irresponsible, no matter how calculated the risk. I also suspect that the COIN experts’ and the State Department’s assumptions are deeply flawed. And using the fight against “al-Qaeda” at this point to justify the occupation begs the question of whether revenge is a legitimate national objective.
My Hope: Obama is smarter than I am, and has access to more and/or better information. This very well may be the wisest, most prudent course to take, and I will wind up greatly appreciating his decision in hindsight.
My Fear: Too Little! Too Late! Too Bad! And Obama knows it; I can see it on his face.
The Bottom Line: He’s the Commander-in-Chief. He will (presumably) have Congressional authority for the escalation of ongoing hostilities. What he says, goes for now: it’s not just the Constitution; it’s a good idea (I think). And I voted for him knowing all this, anyway, so I can’t really complain.
Mako
@The Moar You Know:
the party getting bogged down with the hippie movement
You sound young. Sure we baby boomers are an irritant now, all on about how wonderful was Woodstock and how there really hasn’t been any good music since Felix Pappalardi caught a bullet and remember your first acid trip, but hippies shut that miserable war down. Ever get disappointed about your generation’s gigantic apathy?
srv
The problem is that the COINdanistas (Petraeus, Nagl, McChrystal to a lessor degree, etc) really believe they made Iraq turn around (although the leadership has to know a lot of what they did was not part of the surgomemeosphere – ie, paying off ‘terrorists’ to behave, no political reconciliation, etc), and the cadre of soldiers that follow them have really drank the Kool Aid.
There isn’t one more Pashtun speaker today than there was six months ago, and McChrsystal and Petraeus’ own bible doesn’t match up with anything they’re saying:
http://www.thedemocraticstrategist.org/ac/2009/10/military_strategy_for_democrat_1.php
So as long as you don’t really expect anything different in 18 months, ie:
1) OBL will still be AWOL
2) Afghanistan will be just as messed up politically and security-wise
3) Pakistan will be less stable
4) More dead troops
5) More dead civilians
Then this is a great plan.
JoyceH
I think Obama really does think Afghanistan can be turned around. I don’t agree, I think we lost the war when we stabbed in the back the people who came to the Loya Jurga believing all our talk about freedom and democracy and ready to build an exciting new democratic government.
I often disagree with politicians, but Obama is the only politician in years where I’ve experienced realizing later than he was right and I was wrong.
So I’m not opposing him yet. With this administration I’m willing to accept – for a while – that the decision makers really might know more than me and be smarter than me. I also assume that they’re doing more that just increasing the troop numbers.
And as others have said, a Bin Laden get would sure come in handy. But the Obama bashers would criticize THAT, I guarantee. If he’s killed, he should have been captured. If he’s captured, he should have been killed. Remember, these are people who can spend days criticizing Obama’s choice of burger condiment. But for the sane among us, getting Bin Laden would be a good get, and also a logical time to start pulling out.
Jorge
The equation between this and Iraq is tempting but I think a bit superficial. This surge in Afghanistan seems to me to be entirely about Al Qeada. It has nothing to do with ensuring that secular, westernized opium dealers run the country instead of fundamentalist, asian-centric opium dealers.
The plan seems to be to kill off or push Al Qeada and their allies into the mountains of Pakistan. Our military can do that in 2 years. Then maybe by 2011 the occupational, military side of Bush’s folly will be over in Iraq and Afghanistan. We’ll still have a huge military pressence filled with CIA agents and special forces ostensibly protecting our embassies in the region, but with no role as occupators.
We can then fight fundamentalist terrorism with whatever new fussion of military/law enforcement/intelligence is necessary with out the added expense of the Project for a New American Century’s little escapades.
BombIranForChrist
Basically, soldiers are going to die because the Democrats don’t want to be perceived as weak on the military. Soldiers are going to die because of optics.
Are the Democrats really better than the Republicans? I just don’t think so. Some are, for sure, but most are willing to sacrifice soldiers as part of their party’s overall marketing campaign.
Same shit, different day.
jlo
Second, we will work with our partners, the U.N., and the
AfghanAmerican people to pursue a more effective civilian strategy, so that the government can take advantage of improved security.This effort must be based on performance. The days of providing a blank check are over. President
Karzai’sObama’s inauguration speech sent the right message about moving in a new direction. And going forward, we will be clear about what we expect from those who receive our assistance. We will supportAfghanAmerican ministries, governors and local leaders that combat corruption and deliver for the people. We expect those who are ineffective or corrupt to be held accountable.MikeJ
Bullshit. Cronkite convinced the Archie Bunkers it wasn’t worth it. Hippies probably dragged it out for a few extra years and helped elect Nixon.
Pity more of you weren’t clean for Gene.
Mako
@Makewi:
This. Neutron bombs.
Look just make me supreme ruler for a couple of days, give me half a dozen neutron bombs, and it’s sorted. That’s the problem with today’s democratic party, no balls to drop the bomb and scare the soviets.
General Winfield Stuck
@MikeJ:
Though one of those hippies. I think you are likely right.
TJ
Well, FWIW, Col. Lang agrees with you.
Lang
Obama got rolled.
Ruckus
Cole
Sounds about right.
I don’t see any good coming from staying, not in the short or long term. I also see from a practical side that we can not just walk away tomorrow. The whole situation was/is so bad that there are no good answers. People who have been there say we are making a difference. But I don’t see it. The military does not want to loose another war. But they never could have won this in the first place. We have been chasing our tails for what feels like forever and all we have gotten is nowhere. Because we never defined what we are doing, nor why we are doing it. Iraq and Afghanistan are the sound bite wars. And other than the hundreds of thousands dead, and the trillions that it took for them to get dead, there is no upside. Never has been.
JK
COIN Reading List
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/images/091202_IWnov09.pdf
Mako
@MikeJ:
So sad, kids today got no sense of history. Cronkite was a hippy.
Elie
srv
How would you suggest changing those points that you lay out? What strategy or process could be realistically laid on those points that would change any of those to:
1) OBL will be found alive and apprehended
2) Afghanistan
will be just as messed up politically and security-wisewill be peaceful and fixed politically3) Pakistan will be
lessstable4)
MoreFewer dead troops5)
MoreFewer dead civiliansIf we pulled out tomorrow, would any of these happen? Are your sure?
Ruckus
@Ruckus:
Edit, Edit, Edit…
Ok that last part of the last line sounds like I approved of the stinking war. I did not.
I meant that there never was an upside for us to start these wars and there will never be an upside for us to stay.
Should have been …for them to get dead, which of course is no upside, there is only more downside. Never has been an upside.
Makewi
It isn’t apathy. It’s just that when you compare it to the massive narcissism of baby boomers it looks like apathy.
JK
For people who can’t resist slamming baby boomers, read The Greater Generation: In Defense of the Baby Boom Legacy by Leonard Steinhorn
Zifnab
@Bob In Pacifica:
That’s what has been gnawing at me for a while. I just don’t know if the President is even in charge anymore. I can just see the generals marching into Obama’s office, shutting the door, and giving him the “How it works” speech.
We’ve been funneling hundreds of billions of dollars into the big black bag that is the US military for so long, should we be surprised it’s been corrupted to sin? We’re going to see more military contractors going into Afghanistan than troops even.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/12/so_how_many_private_contractors_are_there_in_afgha.php
Guess who gets to foot the bill for all of that? It’s government by Blackwater now. Economy run by the banksters. State governments slowly drowning in the bath tube in the midst of a tax revolt. And what’s left of the money going into prisons and cops and the endless wars on things that make old rich white men insecure.
I’m kinda with you, John. This country is in it deep. Really deep.
Martin
Fallows (as always) has something interesting to report here. Statement from Adm Mullen to Congress:
What’s interesting about Fallows’ report is how Mullen’s statement departed from what he had written earlier in the day.
I’m having difficulty being critical of a decision that has the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs putting forward such a statement. In the category of ‘shit other people know better than me’, there aren’t many bigger examples than Mullen vs any of us on a situation like Afghanistan. Granted, the Joint Chiefs don’t normally speak out of turn with the Prez, but nothing in that statement needed to be said. He could have left it out completely and had a very successful meeting with Congress.
So, I’m inclined to go along for the ride here. At the very least, it sounds like these guys have the process down as it should be. I’m a big fan of process – a good process makes sure nothing gets fucked up too badly, and makes it far more likely to get a successful result. That’s pretty much where all my chips lay with Obama – I was hoping he’s a process guy. Maybe some of that fell apart early on with the financial stuff, I don’t know, but I like the sound of what I’m hearing here. It also sounds like the Asia trip got all the parts right as well.
Elie
To those who say Obama got “rolled” (I guess cause we have a withdrawal strategy over 18 months?)
What does “rolled mean” to you?
What is the earlies that we could have withdrawn and not have it be termed “being rolled”?
The Grand Panjandrum
If Obama had requested the draft be reinstated and that he was raising taxes to pay for the war I would feel better about his decision. In light of the fact that we live in a country protected by less than one percent of the population and don’t want to pay them life long benefits when the come home horribly maimed I say we as a nation have failed. Utter and complete fucking failure.
I say draft the children of EVERY person in Congress who is between the age of 18 and 55 then we’ll see who fucking supports the war. Put them all in combat arms specialties just for grins.
General Winfield Stuck
@JK:
Thank you.
Cain
I’m not sure I agree that is going to happen. If they want to lay low, that gives us more time to work our civilian magic. The idea is to start local businesses going, farmers producing crops, and what not. I’m not sure if two planting seasons is enough mind you but that’s what we got.
If we can change status quo such that they want to go back to Taliban days then they’ll want to support the government to keep what they got. What it really hinges on is a competent government.
Right now the government is so small and weak you could kill it in a bathtub.
cain
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
The only thing which makes me mildly optimistic is that I don’t think the increased troop levels really are needed to deal with the Taliban, much less coral what is left of AQ in Afghanistan. The troops are needed to displace the warlords. The central govt circas 2002 to present never had a chance, because until now we kept doing deals with the warlords either out of preference or because we had little choice due to force constraints. If the central govt is to displace the warlords, the only chance they are going to get is while our troop levels are high enough that the warlord militias aren’t the only game in town so far as local security is concerned.
The Taliban resurgence is a symptom. The warlords are the disease.
JK
@The Grand Panjandrum:
Excellent points. When you’re not gloating about the NY Yankees, you make a lot of sense.
Martin
@The Grand Panjandrum:
How about a compromise: For those making over $100K per year, a 15% increase in income taxes or enlist a child to waive the tax increase.
At least that way we could see where their real priorities lie.
Martin
@JK:
It’s not worth it. FTFY.
:)
JK
Wingnuts didn’t show any love for Obama after his speech, because he failed to channel his inner bloodthirsty, warmonger in chief persona. He needed to quote Arlo Guthrie: “I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill, KILL, KILL” and deliver his speech while a giant movie screen behind him displayed violent images such as the Vietnamese police chief shooting a suspected Viet Cong member dead on the street.
Zifnab
@Martin:
Yes. Child slavery. That’s the ticket.
I know a few asshole parents who would happily sell out their kids in a heartbeat for another 15% off the top. They’d cry about it all the way to the country clubs and wear those yellow ribbons proud, though.
Quicksand
You monster! My child isn’t even two yet!
Elie
Also
The consequences of this decision have been largely described in terms of the effects on Afghanistan. Has there been an anlysis or insight about what this time to withdrawal gives us in relation to the Pakistani situation?
I for one, believe that the massive planet pulling this whole decision was not/is not Afghanistan but Pakistan. In planetary terms, Afghanistan is the White Dwarf star circling a black hole mass. None of the antis have addressed this and its nuclear risk (Lord knows I have been whipped many times for my so called “hysteria” and admonished that this would “never” happen cause shut up!)
The Grand Panjandrum
oy.
Martin
@Zifnab:
Ah, see, but that’s the brilliance of it. You can’t actually force someone to enlist. All across America, overpriced dining tables would be subjected to the enlightening discussion of why Junior should go be a Marine so Mom and Dad can keep their country club membership. The kids can thank me later.
fraught
JC: Sorry but sounds a little concerntroll-ish. I trust that this President did the hard work of looking at this decision from every side and is fully aware of all of the potentials-good and bad. This will not turn out perfectly for anyone but after Rumsfeld and W and darkside Dick fucked it up it was always going to be a broken object for Obama to put back together.
I also suspect that Osama is going to get his ass captured which would turn everything around. If we pulled out tomorrow we’d see pictures of OBL laughing and declaring victory everywhere and even Michael Moore would eventually start asking why we couldn’t get him. BTW: MM is a propagandist and his commentary Monday was shameless, hyper-emotional, sentimental and manipulative.
Zifnab
@JK:
Fix’d.
Now Bush, there was a drug addled alchey drop out who’d poll dance for a split nickel.
gex
@Mako: Thank you!!!! I am not a boomer, but I really hate the reflexive hippie insults that the right has installed into our culture.
One of my GIANT pet peeves about our discourse in this country is that the hippies must always be the problem. So when people talk about organics, the environment, fitness – whatever crunchy hippie thing they are into – they first have to bash the hippies to demonstrate that although they agree with hippies on this, they definitely are not a hippie (shudder).
I wish I could think of an example sentence that I’d heard recently, but I can’t. But you can see it in the way we joke about it on this blog. DFHs. The impression is that they are usually right but they are right about it so far before everyone else comes around.
The main thing I disagree with hippies about, as far as I can tell, is the frequency with which one should shower.
eemom
Count me among the Obamabots who are convinced he’s doing the best he can in a fucking no-win situation.
He looked grim last night. I don’t think he’s being rolled, played, cowed by the military, Bush-ed or any of the other epithets our smug-ass armchair “progressives” love to hurl at him. I think he hates doing this, but he’s believes it’s the best that can be done. And that he reached that conclusion after a whole lot of painful consideration.
JK
@The Grand Panjandrum: @Zifnab:
Wins. Congrats guys and well-played.
gex
@MikeJ: Interesting to blame the hippies for leaders reacting to opposition to the war among the population by extending it. Because the assholes in charge just needed to stick it to the hippies rather than do what was best for the men in uniform or the country, doesn’t transfer the responsibility for those decisions to the people who made those decision.
If I decide to go kick a puppy because I don’t like you – that would not be your fault.
Gwangung
@eemom: Which doesn’t mean he’s not wrong. He can still ne terribly wrong but I trust the process more than the last few years.
Karen
Ok, I'[m gonna get it now, but I have to wonder:
1. Biblical reference to Islam is they will never know peace. Seems that’s the truth.
2. Compares closely to Vietnam.
3. Russia was there for 10 years & did no good.
4. What’s the point?
Zifnab
@Martin:
I’d say it’s so crazy it might actually work, but you had a bunch of grouchy Vietnam-Era folk voting for Reagen. How Nixon Plus got elected just six years after Nixon the Original was run out of office blows my mind.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
I’m pretty dismayed at the comments here.
Obama did not get “rolled.” He made a very tricky and difficult decision, and I have never seen one person here whose ability or judgment I would rate as being superior to his, and that includes mine, and yours, John Cole. Not one, not even for one day.
This decision is not about hippies, or Vietnam, or weak Democrats, or any of that other bullshit. It’s about the realities of the situation in Afghanistan, and whether I agree with the exact assessment profferred by the president last night (and I don’t know whether I do or not) I certainly would not consider for a second that I have enough information or enough good advice from other people who do have enough information to overrule Obama’s decision.
Here’s the bottom line for me. The war in Afghanistan was voted for by all but one member of Congress, between the two houses, back in 2001. Most people supported it. I am pretty sure John Cole did. I know I did. I didn’t know anyone who didn’t.
So, we made a bad call back then, as a country. The whole country, not a defective few. Basically, almost all of us. We didn’t forsee the mess we are in there now. We were blinded by anger over 911 and wanted to go do something, and that is what we chose to do.
And as a country, we sat by and let this war turn into a trainwreck over the years, and then we hired a new guy to come in and try to get things back on track. And that new guy has shown himself to be pretty competent and pretty careful, and this is the course he has chosen to take under the authority we gave him.
Okay, I support his decision and I hope that this new course produces a beneficial result for all stakeholders to the greatest possible extent. That’s a tall order, but I am willing to get behind it and give it a chance to work.
The amazing thing about this decision and situation is that they are not the biggest problems on our plate right now. Economics and other domestic issues are bigger, in my view. We must stabilize the situation in Afghanistan in order to give ourselves space to move ahead, just as Obama stated that we need to give Afghanistan room to make progress. We have a lot of things that need to be done and fixed.
As for the whole war/antiwar thing in general, I’ve been generally antiwar consistently for just about 5 years here, and continue to be so. But that is not license to just pull the plug on an ongoing war situation, running away, Sarah Palin style, because it’s too hard. That’s a fucked response and I won’t support it.
I agree with you, Cole, that this is a sobering moment we have here, but I tend to be bullish on the prospects for America, not a gloom and doomer. So we’re a flawed country. We are also the best country on the planet, so that tells you a lot about the rest of the world out there by comparison.
If they gave me one rub of the magic lamp to get one thing changed in this context, just one, what I’d ask for is that the US go back to the Constitutional version of declaring wars and being honest with ourselves about wars before we get into them. This weasely way of getting a war going without a formal declaration of war, and the protocols that go with that, gives us the opportunity to fall sideways into these trainwrecks (Vietnam, Iraq, to name two) that just become quagmires. This quasi-state-of-war thing that we try to do is dishonest, and destructive to our system and its core principles. Fuck the warmongers for letting us get into that condition.
Little Dreamer
Are you SURE you used to be a conservative? Didn’t attitudes like this create a problem in bonding with that demographic? What’s this about you wanting to spend money on injured soldiers? And can you seriously suggest funding for disposal of dead people? They’ll never know, they are DEAD.
Whew! I’m so glad to have you on our side, John!
valdivia
yes Obamabot reporting for duty here thinking he did the bes he could do in a really bad situation. I am waiting til the 18 months are up to see.
Elie
Gwangung
I agree with your point but I would term it less his being “wrong” than that the likelihood that the outcome is going to be an unqualified success is probably small. But that outcome was always going to suck once we were there. The outcome/s could never be anything BUT wrong — just what he could work out best — crossed fingers for as small a negative fall out as possible. Hell in a handbasket could always be the possibility but would be if we pulled out tomorrow too. No extra points for early exit…we are stuck to this thing and the process for unstiking will be painful and messy
Mako
@Makewi:
Nah, it’s apathy. Like seriously dude, you’re not even registered to vote?
Makewi
Well, that and the turn to violent behavior and rhetoric that the movement took. Burning down libraries, seizing administration offices and killing cops just convinces everyone that you are an asshole. Pretending hippies were only about non violent dissent in the model of King or Ghandi misses the point that the movement only started this way. It ended much, much darker.
Hence the bad rap. Deservedly so.
Rick Taylor
Yup, that’s where I am. I’ll just add, for something like this to succeed, there needs to be a legitimate local force we can ally ourselves with. It’s one thing if we go in to help a local power that’s been invaded. It’s another thing where we set up the local power, which turns out to be corrupt, then try to fix it and keep it in power. I don’t know that that’s ever worked. Frankly I think we had a better chance in Iraq; there were more agencies to work with.
Again, I hope to be proven wrong.
Realistically though, no mainstream candidate would ever have started withdrawing us from Iran at this point. There’s too much invested, and it’s not just us who’s been there, but our allies have been shouldering the burden as well. To withdraw unilaterally now would have been as radical as Bush’s unilateral invasion of Iraq. If Obama really does start drawing troops down in 2011, it will be about the best result we could have realistically hoped for.
Makewi
@Mako:
If so, it’s because the pot is so much better these days. Plus Xbox.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
.
Fixed.
Anybody here who’s thinks that generals march into the Oval Office and tell the President “how it is” have *never* been around flag rank officers. It doesn’t work that way. When I worked for the J2 in the Pentagon, I briefed not only him but the Chairman and the SecDef. *Nobody* tells the President “how it is”. These people are trained to obey the chain of command and that chain starts with the President.
Have a little faith in the system for once. I do because I’ve seen how it works.
JK
@Karen:
That’s what I said to myself last night when CNN had more fucking pundits on their set than the number of clowns who exit a car at the circus. I’m surprised that the Earth didn’t fall out of its orbit due to the massive weight (body weight + ego weight) of all those damn pundits sitting inside a single CNN studio.
Elie
AngustheGodofMeat:
Couldnt have said it better. Or with more umph. Thanks
eemom
@AngusTheGodOfMeat:
wow. That’s a pretty insightful analysis coming from a moo-cow.
You guys are seriously underrated.
Mako
@The Grand Panjandrum:
Nixon ended the draft. Greatest president ever imo.
JK
@AngusTheGodOfMeat:
You make a lot of a sense for a side of beef.
Elie
JK —
What a hoot! Still laughing at your clown mass physics observation! Have you thought of writing a paper?
Makewi
@Mako:
How is it you were able to edit your comment. I am so registered to vote.
jacy
Speaking as someone who has a 20-year-old kid who’s a Marine preparing to ship out to Afghanistan, I don’t know what to think. I think Afghanistan is a lost cause, and I hate to see anything thrown away, whether it be life, money, whatever, on a lost cause.
But I voted for Obama, hell, I canvassed door-to-door in fucking rural Louisiana for Obama, and while I consider myself a smart and well-informed person, I’m not in any way smart enough or strong enough to make these decisions.
So I leave it up to the president, for better or worse. I worked to get a grown-up in the White House, and now I’m going to let him do his job and hope that he takes all this shit as seriously as he ought to.
Mako
@Makewi:
Wow, you are young, and not really that well read.
The hippy movement died of big hair.
Xanthippas
I agree with this. Obama didn’t get rolled. He’s doing what he feels he has to do, and there isn’t a one of us who would like to be in his shoes right now.
Personally, I support sending more troops because I don’t think we’ve completely lost the war yet. I think it’s still worth fighting. At the same time, I know that I could be wrong, and that John Cole could be write. Hell, the chances are great that I am completely and utterly wrong. Honestly, that’s as certain as I can be about it. That’s as certain as anyone can be about it, from the President of the United States on down to the lowest blogger on the totem pole. I’m also willing to admit that there’s a kind of inertia to these wars that makes them all but impossible to end even when they’re quite obviously going badly to all but the most ignorant right-winger. So I understand why people aren’t behind this escalation of the war.
I wish we had better circumstances, but this is what eight years of barely paying attention to to a war gets you.
Montysano
@The Moar You Know:
I think that 8 years of the Unitary Executive has left everyone a bit addled. Do you really think that Obama could march into the Oval Office and make the Wall Street juggernaut execute a quick change in direction? For all I know, Goldman Sachs has a Crash NOW! button that can send the economy into a tailspin, and told Obama that they weren’t afraid to use it. So for now, I’ll be patient. Last week, Obama decreed that lobbyists shall no longer sit on federal advisory boards; it was a fairly significant move that got little attention in the MSM.
As to Afghanistan: the religious fanatics can’t fight off the modern world forever. The lure of the iPod and the Twitter and the Lindsey Lohan can’t be resisted. So: if the stars align, the timing is right, and Obama catches a few breaks, he might actually be able to make a positive difference in that miserable place, which would be huge. I’m as much of a dove as most, but there’s no room in the world for assholes who stone women to death for infidelity.
General Winfield Stuck
@Makewi:
Oh fuck me Makewi. The sometimes violence from some didn’t represent the movement. Which was by and large peaceful. And India with Ghandi and anywhere else where peaceful means was used to force change also had elements that committed acts of violence.
It was mostly the drugs and changes in long established Victorian mores on everything from sex to race relations to stereotypical roles of a whole assortment of people that blew the minds of older folks and caused them to vote wingnut Nixon into power. Not the war so much, as most of them had begun to realize they had been sold a big shit sandwich from their government about Vietnam.
The 60’s was just a big social convulsion for more justice and freedoms that had been simmering below the surface for years and decades before. We were kids, and dumb in that way, but seeing so many of our friend come back in boxes was an understandable motive for rebellion imo, .Especially when the lies were so deep you had to grow wings just to stay above them. Very few folks resorted to violence, and most of them had their own agendas that were not ours.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@AngusTheGodOfMeat:
BillinPortlandMaine (the C&J guy) over at Teh Orange calls this Obama’s Kobyashi Maru scenario. He’s right. Just another big heaping pile of shit left by the Cheney Adminstration for us to deal with.
Bill also summarizes things this way: “The plan sucks. Let’s do it.”
Our options are all bad. As someone who worked in the “Asia Division” of the J2 at the Pentagon which covered AfPak, I know our current options all suck hind tit. I have no idea if Obama’s made the right choice. I can say that he’s analyzed it to death and has some good people advising him. So, we’ve picked our shitty option from the buffet of shitty options left to us by the Worst President Ever.
Mako
@Makewi:
Well, you got me there. Touche.
JR
I remain convinced that the real purpose here is to give Pakistan a chance at hitting the Taliban while we provide a wall blocking their escape back into Helmand and Kandahar. We know Pakistan is willing to hit at the Taliban militarily, and we know that we aren’t in any position to use our own troops to attack Taliban militants inside Pakistan (a few drone strikes just ain’t going to cut it). What we need is a way to aide Pakistan without putting our boots in their country, and I think the best way to accomplish that is to give the Pakistani military a chance to squash the Taliban up against the 7th Marines. Meanwhile, we’re going to build up the Afghan military and police so that they can perform this role in the years ahead.
I don’t want to sound like I don’t care about the Afghan people, but right now my major concern is with removing a major destabilizing factor in an already unsteady nuclear state. Given his past focus on proliferation issues, I think that’s largely where Obama’s coming from, too.
JK
@Elie:
I’ll leave it Alan Sokal and the Bogdanov brothers.
Cain
@Makewi:
It’s spelled “Gandhi”. Thanks.
cain
Makewi
@Mako:
No, your confusing the hippy movement with the glam rock movement. Easy mistake.
Just Some Fuckhead
Who cares about the supposed merits of the making the ninth circle of hell as cushy as the eigth? We’re out of fucking money, running almost a 2 trillion dollar yearly deficit. I don’t know about you assholes but when the Fuckhead family is over budget for the month, we stop warmaking until we get back in the black.
As long as everyone is so het up on examining every fucking dollar in spending, fruitless and glorious wars of conquest are on the cutting block.
Having said that, I’d be willing to bomb Afghanistan with teabaggers.
Mako
@Makewi:
How is it you were able to edit your comment.
Wisdom comes with age, grasshopper. Also punctuation.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@JR:
Booman23 over at Teh Orange sat in on a conference call the Adminstration held last night after the speech and a lot of what you just said was spelled out during that call.
The focus here is more Pakistan than Afghanistan, at least in the strategic sense. From an operational standpoint, yes, we can put boots on the ground in Afghan which should help the Pakis do the right things from their end.
The big question is whether or not this can be done, effectively, in 18 months.
Xanthippas
Yep.
Mako
@Makewi:
I really don’t have time to explain history to you right now, youngster, i got bonghits to take and neighborhood kids to chase off the lawn, maybe General Winifred can help.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Just Some Fuckhead:
You sir, are today’s winner of the internetzes.
JK
Leave the Hippies Alone
I’m not a drug user, but love the music of San Francisco from the late 1960’s. It’s possible to debate the merits of Obama’s plan without descending into a rabbit hole of historical analogies.
Fern
@Elie: I agree that this is largely about Pakistan. And that an unstable, nuclear-armed Pakistan is a disaster waiting to happen.
Makewi
@Mako:
The general isn’t much help at anything really. The point remains true, despite the numbers or lack of them. When people who were not there think of hippies, it is the Manson and Ayers sort that they think of.
I’m not spouting some new theory, and having been a well traveled deadhead for a couple years, I am not unfamiliar with actual hippies.
NYT
If Obama really plans to start leaving in 2011 he made no preparations for it in this speech.
He made no mention of a war tax, so war (and bailouts) are still free, healthcare and everything else pay cash. A war tax would split the neocons from the tax cutters in the Republican party and allow for some bipartisan cover for withdrawal.
eemom
@jacy:
Your take on this issue has more weight than anyone’s. Thank you to your son or daughter for his or her service, and best wishes for his or her safety.
Elie
@Fern:
And I think this is where the “success” or “failure” of this strategy will probably be measured — wherever the hell and the status of this stuff when we pull out of there…
Montysano
@jacy:
Best wishes for your child’s safety. And rest assured: he takes the shit very seriously.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
Right there with you on that.
America, the idea, is a dichotomy. On the one hand, we love being able to tell our government what we think it should do. No kings for us, please.
On the other hand, there are times when the country functions best when it can get behind something, even, or especially, when that something is hard, and very imperfect.
I think this is one of those times. We were pretty unified as a country as we walked, dicks in hand, into Afghanistan, with a pretty silly view of what we were going to accomplish. We can best clean this up by being somewhat unified now behind the best of many possible, and mostly lousy, courses of action. Not because we are Dems, or Obamabots, or Republicans, or whatever. Just because its the best thing to do, it needs to be done, it will be hard, and we can best do it working more or less together. After we get it done, we can resolve to never let ourselves get into this kind of muck again.
And another thing I didn’t say in my earlier post: Obama is taking basically the approach to Afghanistan that he seemed to be talking about as a candidate. A war of necessity, requiring new and better direction. So here we are. It seems to me totally dishonest to come along now and say, oh, I am only going to support this guy if he handles it exactly as I would if I were in his shoes. For one thing, there isn’t one person here who knows exactly what he or she would do in his shoes, despite the glib rhetoric you hear on the ‘Tubes. For another, even if one did know, it doesn’t matter, because he has the job, and we tasked him with getting it done. So, let him do it.
As a country, we basically erred badly by going into Afghanistan with a juvenile and simplistic view of our goals and prospects. I don’t see the point in compounding that screwup now by trying to undermine the guy we hired to straighten out our mess. It’s our mess, not his, he didn’t create it. But he obviously is willing to do his level best to clean it up. That’s what I voted for him to do.
FlipYrWhig
I feel like what’s going on in the Afghanistan policy is a merger between the “counterinsurgency” theory and the somewhat disused term “humanitarian intervention,” which was disparaged as “nation-building” in the 2000 election.
Do you intervene? If you get involved, can you exit? I feel like liberals were having a version of this same debate in the 19990s, about Bosnia, Kosovo, Haiti, Somalia, Rwanda, etc. Is there such a thing as “humanitarian intervention” or is it all just imperialism? These are intractable questions that pit liberals against one another. Incidentally, one person who’s tried to think them through is… big-time Obama-ite Samantha Power.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Fixed. Otherwise, we’re cool. :)
FlipYrWhig
@JK:
One pill makes you larger, one pill makes you small…
General Winfield Stuck
@Makewi:
You really are a crass fool.
Leelee for Obama
@JR: This is good analysis. We need a pincer movement with the Pakistanis that keeps kicking the Taliban and Al Queda back into the grinders until they are gone. To do that, we need to be present. I would love to see Afghanistan join us in the 21st Century, but I think they’d be willing to settle for the early 1950s, our style. They will benefit from getting rid of their extremists, and they probably want that, but it can’t be the first priority for us. Our priority has to be killing those bastards that are screwing around with the rest of the world, and their being enabled by backward extremists like the Taliban. I left a post on the Afghanistan thread from earlier about the hearings today, and the NATO Sec. Gen.’s presser. It was good to watch, all of it. I would put it here, but I don’t know how to cut and paste from thread to thread.
Elie
@jacy:
Yes, our best to you!
Also, some cohones you have to go doorbelling for Obama in LA!
I was so sad after reading Douglas Brinkley’s account of Katrina and had stupidly hoped that the Louisianans would kick Republican bootie but alas, they voted red again…sigh
John Cole
I’m not sure why it is being attributed to me that I think Obama got rolled. I think he went in and is trying to make the best of a bunch of bad options.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@FlipYrWhig:
Yes and no. The original attack on Afghanistan was, at one level, the lashing out of a wastrel man with a juvenile outlook on the world advised by refugees from the Nixon Administration and their ideaological successors. In that case, it was neither humanitarian intervention nor imperialism. I’d posit that our intervention in the Balkans throughout the 90s was about as close to humanitarian intervention as it gets in this day and age.
Now, Iraq was imperialism. Okay, neo-imperialism if you want to get all academic on my ass. I mean think back a generation. US military bases in the Middle East? The Soviets would have shit themselves and the Cold War could have easily gotten rather warm quickly.
And yet, here we are with a massive military presence where most of the world’s oil reserves are located. Scratch the surface and you get a 21st century version of 19th century imperialism.
Makewi
@General Winfield Stuck:
You really are a know nothing ass.
Elie
@AngusTheGodOfMeat:
Man, you are on fire!
Svensker
The whole thing is depressing. And Karl Rove has the nerve to go on the teevee and complain about how Obama’s handling this. The only thing Karl should be able to complain about is that giant wedgie the orange jumpsuit is giving him.
General Winfield Stuck
@Makewi:
Simmer down Scarlett. Must. Pace. Yourself>
At least 3 and likely 7 more years of this. Then Hillary, and I will have to pace myself.
Elie
@Svensker:
He HAS the wedgie, but he LIKES it…
Elie
@Svensker:
Sorry — jumped too quickly —
Rove is not yet in the orange jumpsuit that I/we would like, but he has a wedgie all the time in whatever he wears…he just likes the pressure where his scrotum used to be.
Leelee for Obama
@AngusTheGodOfMeat: You have been quite the good analyst tonight, Angus. I couldn’t find anything that we could argue about.
Like you, I knew who Barack Obama was and liked what I saw. He would be calm, deliberative and circumspect, most of the time. I voted for him knowing that he said was was an imperfect vessel and we shouldn’t put all our desires on HIS wishlist, but our own, and then fight to get what we wanted, and convince him to fight with us when he agreed. A grown-up, a mensch. I’d let him be President for Life if that was possible, just because I think we’d be safer in his hands than in the hands of someone who promised us everything and delivered nothing.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@John Cole:
I don’t attribute that to you, but it’s in the comments.
Etc.
bernard
Watch Bill Moyer’s program on LBJ and you’ll see why this is Vietnam all over. All about getting elected. Plain and simple
oh War is very profitable for certain Corporations. Thank Nixon for these endless wars by getting rid of the draft.
Having the draft, everyone knew someone who was affected by the Vietnam war.
The media stopped showing wars due to Vietnam. Not a good way to win support for killing your sons and daughters by having them die on television.
all about power making money off of death of someone’s else children. and making YOU pay for it.
smart smart people
Mako
@General Winfield Stuck:
Sigh. First a self proclaimed cow doesn’t like you and now this young prat. Personally, I find you a bit tedious too, what with the constant commenting, but whatever. Rock on oldtimer.
keestadoll
@The Moar You Know:
Yep.
Makewi
@General Winfield Stuck:
It’ll be 3. Then Jeb Bush.
General Winfield Stuck
@Mako:
and personally, I don’t give a shit what you find tedious.
Rock on whatever.
Ming
I think one reason Obama has some confidence that there IS something productive we can do with a surge can be found in his speech — in his historical mini-overview, he pointed out that before our attention was diverted to Iraq, our efforts in Afgh. were working quite nicely, and that AQ and the Taliban were largely beaten down. So we’ve done it before. But like a cockroach problem that has been left unattended, they (that is, the AQ, the Taliban, and their warlord buddies) are now a sufficiently large problem that nothing short of a major effort is going to make a dent.
JR’s observation that putting enough troops in Afgh will enable the Pakistanis to squeeze the AQ up against a hard, and exceedingly unfriendly wall makes a lot of sense to me. Otherwise, the Pakistanis can pursue the terrorists as much as they want, and AQ will just disappear into the mountains of Afghanistan for a few days until it’s safe to go back. (You can’t fumigate the house and let the roaches all run into the nice, heated, unfumigated garage.)
So the idea is we’ve got a roach problem that’s increasingly out of control and a genuine threat; if we coordinate with Pakistan, we can fumigate all the places the roaches can go, and while there will be undoubtedly a few roaches left afterward, they will be few enough for the Afghans to deal with them with their own modest resources. This makes sense to me.
Is Obama getting rolled? Maybe but I doubt it. Obama is known for knowing how to ask hard questions and get to the real bottom of things (see Cass Sunstein’s article in HuffPo “The Obama I know”). He excels at this.
And finally, is Obama just expending American lives and treasure to cover his butt in case of another 9-11/ or to look tough on defense? Seriously? Would you really accuse that of someone who came out *against* the Iraq war at a time when the entire country and both houses were in red-eyed, slavering heat to rip the guts out of someone, anyone, for 9-11?
I’ve read some Bacevich and I think he’s brilliant. I think Obama is brilliant too, and has looked at this problem in depth, and considered it from as many angles as possible. I’ll put my money on him.
Mako
@General Winfield Stuck:
heh. Hippy.
YHABT
robertdsc
@NYT:
With thanks to Booman, Teagan Goddard has a bit on withdrawal groundwork:
Break out the chisel, Gibbs.
This is nice to hear.
Elie
@bernard:
All due respect not knowing you, Bernard, but its like Vietnam only in the way that we got in it not knowing what we were really doing..and even that is diffirent…our decision in Afghanistan was emotional while Vietnam was about “domino theory” and cold so called logic.
Strategically, it is not like Vietnam much. We donot have an organized insurgency under one leadership but fragmented opposition. We perceived ourselves in Afghanistan as being attacked. Even in the most rabid Vietnam partisan’s mind, we were not attached. The geopolitics are quite different : a secular, ideological movement in Vietnam; two or more very orthodox, religion based, factions in Afghanistan/Pakistan ( I know that I am not being precise enough, but that would take a lot more words)
So how about some other way to think about this? Vietnam is just old…its an old war wound and spiritual wound for us but it doesnt fit anymore — at least not for this situation
General Winfield Stuck
@Mako:
comments this thread
Mako – 12
GWS- 7
Noonan
The surge business reminds me of a shady Craig’s List deal: Dude duct tape’s his muffler to the belly of his car, makes the sale and then splits before the thing falls apart.
/ lame analogy
Elie
@Noonan:
Naw man…thats what we got with W and the Iraq business. Remember Weapons of Mass Distruction that existed only long enough to get us into Iraq and then could never be found..
Nice try. What else ya got.
Mako
@General Winfield Stuck:
Girlfriend, you went back and counted? That’s awesome. Thanks. Can you go back over the last 50 threads and count? Cuz that would be cool and show what a tool you are.
Now don’t make me come over there and berate you again.
Seriously, relax, this ain’t rollerball, just kidding around.
General Winfield Stuck
@Mako:
You say something stupid and false and someone checks. That is how it works.
JK
@FlipYrWhig:
Thanks for that and Feed Your Head.
Mako
@General Winfield Stuck:
Sigh. Here’s the thing , what I’ve been noticing is you comment a lot on every thread and are easily trolled. You will probably disagree, but that’s the way it looks from the peanut galleries. If you got a problem with my assessment and would like to continue this pointless argument and prove my point then have at it.
HumboldtBlue
Yeah, I am so glad Obama appeared grim and serious as he announced that Americans will be sent to kill more foreigners.
I am glad he was a very serious person while he announced that more death is the answer to ensure that energy-centered businesses will still be able to reap massive profits and pretty much keep all they earn.
I am so glad the serious President treated the ongoing deaths of our fellow human beings with respect while not wearing a clown nose and honking a horn, because when it comes to protecting America’s corporate profits, one must be verrrrry serious.
I am so happy that our serious President has decided that by offering up billions in public dollars to crooks on Wall Street, to mercenary outfits hired to kill the foreigners our soldiers miss we will make the world safe for democracy for all time.
I am so glad our very serious and intelligent President has decided that blood is worth paying for oil. Thank God Obama weighed all the options about bringing death and destruction to an iron-age society because what would we do without our fancy iPhones and new computers and shiny new cars!
Put your money on the smart man, he’s studied these issues to death and asked all the hard questions, and now human beings get to provide the answers with their lives, limbs and sanity.
He’s a fucking warmonger, plain and simple. He offered no good reason we are in the place where empires go to die and there’s a reason for that — he can’t. He can’t come out like T Boone Pickens and state baldly that Americans shed their blood for that Iraqi oil so now we are entitled to the oil contracts.
He just announced that the smartest fucking man on the planet has no fucking clue about what to do other than do what the stupidest fucking man on the planet already did.
General Winfield Stuck
@Mako:
I have commented a fair amount today on several threads, so the fuck what, so have others. Tomorrow I may not. What beeswax is it of yours. You made a smart ass remark and I responded with a fact. If that is your idea of “trolled” then maybe you need to brush up on your internet traditions.
My only notice of you is that you are often a smartass, looking from the peanut galleries.
Corner Stone
@HumboldtBlue:
I’m afraid I do not understand your analogy. Would you care to expound on that a little?
Mako
@General Winfield Stuck:
You sound fat.
Corner Stone
I find it curious that a lot of people here who are expressing concern, or doubt that this may not have been the best decision available, did not show up anywhere until Cole threw it down that he wasn’t too sure either.
Corner Stone
@Mako:
I think you mean he “sounds dense”. Please don’t schmear myself and my high cholesterol brethren and sistren.
Corner Stone
And for the record – I am so scared right now.
Elie
@HumboldtBlue:
“He can’t come out like T Boone Pickens and state baldly that Americans shed their blood for that Iraqi oil so now we are entitled to the oil contracts”
Frankly with due respect, I dont think we are in Afghanistan for oil.
You seem to know the score. Archly, tell us for real WHY we are in Afghanistan, not Iraq?
Corner Stone
Ohhhh – Amb. Susan Rice! She’s impartial! And delicious!
Elie
@General Winfield Stuck:
Mako’s just yankin your beard.
Certainly no one would be commenting on comment frequencies for anyone here, right? Isnt that kind of the reason we come here? Err — to comment?
Corner Stone
Disrupt! Dismantle! Defeat!
Mako
@Corner Stone:
Back off, fatso, I’m trying to help out a brother.
General Winfield Stuck
@Elie:
Maybe I was yanking his back.
The Moar You Know
@John Cole: LEAVE JOHN ALONE!
I said it, not you. Didn’t think it would stir up this much of a shitstorm, but the overwhelming butthurt response to my comment makes me think I’m probably right.
Corner Stone
@Mako: I can’t. My scooter ran out of battery juice.
Elie
@Corner Stone:
I think you are right. And so? Your point for insisting on Obama leaving Afghanistan right now was that the people who will be asserting authority that you are afraid of in your comment are deeply angerered at us being there so we should leave. But if you are afraid that they will assert themselves after we leave, why are you afraid if you think we should leave sooner than the 18 months that Obama proposed?
Man, you are meeting yourself coming and going. Do you realize that? Do you realize that you are basically saying that you are afraid that the folks who were running things in Afghanistan could run things again, but you criticise Obama for trying to mitigate that even as you admonish him for not letting them get to do that even sooner?
JK
@Corner Stone:
Keep it up. You’re on a roll tonight.
HumboldtBlue
Elie, the map gives us the answer. Oil and energy profits are the driving reason. Afghanistan borders Iran and a nuclear armed Iran along with a nuclear Pakistan on the other side does not bode well for American energy interests. We are in Afghanistan for reasons tangential to Iraq, but the underlying goal is the same — protect American energy interests.
What other explanation is there? These decisions are being driven by the same forces who sagely read the tea leaves more than two years ago — here comes the smartest dude to ever run for office so let’s make sure we get our claws in quickly, he’s going places and we need to go along with him.
Wall Street got their billions, the defense and weapons industries continue to get their billion dollar contracts, energy interests have gotten their billions and they want that cash cow to keep on producing that sweet, sweet American drink — profit.
Who cares if more human beings are dismembered by a misdirected bomb filled with deadly bomblets that fail to explode until some child walks along and starts to play ball with it.
Who cares if some yokel from Chigger Creek Tennessee loses two legs and an arm after his vehicle is shattered by an IED, he volunteered, right?
We aren’t defeating the Nazi legions who scarred the European landscape for five long years, or the Imperial Japanese Army that rolled through the far East for nearly a decade. We’re using American force to ensure that American corporations continue to make money, this is closer to the Banana wars than anything else.
And Corner, think Obama-Bush and it’ll come clear.
General Winfield Stuck
@The Moar You Know:
Everybody gets rolled in a semi healthy democracy with separation of powers and a free media. Obama ain’t king, doing shit by decree, he gets rolled and we roll along too, hopefully to a better place in the end. He just points the general direction is all.
Bush started this particular journey, Obama jumped in on the downhill toward the cliff. We haven’t gone over it before, when things were tough, I doubt we do this time. But will come out bruised and cut.
Too much Zen. Mako may be right. Time to step away for awhile.
Just Some Fuckhead
Can I just say how much I’m loving everyone tearing everyone apart? We used to have much more of this back in the day before the site was overrun by elderly cat people.
General Winfield Stuck
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Meow
Corner Stone
@Elie: Elie –
Ummm, in case I was not clear enough for you – I am afraid because John Cole and I agree on an issue for a change. And he’s been wrong consistently since 2002. So…if I think his stated viewpoint has merit, then I am scared to death of what that says about my decision making.
It was snark. We understand you have a hard time recognizing complex and/or non-straightforward posts.
Corner Stone
@JK: Mmmmm, buttered rolls…
Mako
@HumboldtBlue:
Too long. Please shorten. May I suggest: “Iran, Afghanistan, America, Tennessee, Nazi, Wall Street, Ninjas, Banana”?
Thanks, dude, don’t have much attention span for the overwrought, know what i mean? heh…
Corner Stone
@HumboldtBlue: Do you mean to suggest that Obama had the opportunity to make a set of decisions that were not locked into the Bushian paradigm? But for some reason he chose a “surge”, or escalation?
Elie
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Ha,ha,ha….
You know there was a movie in the 80’s named Cat People with Isabella Rosellini as the lead…
A little bloodletting is ok. Your context was different when Bush was in office — no hope for anything but the same shit. Now we have policy leader change in our direction. Too often for some, its not hard enough, far enough. That our guy is in charge makes it more serious, less carefree, impulsive anger and the like..Things ARE pretty serious these days and I dont think that it will get better soon. Do you?
Comrade Luke
@HumboldtBlue:
Bush broke it
Obama bought it
General Winfield Stuck
@Corner Stone:
Thank Gawd we have you to show us the way.
Elie
@Corner Stone:
Well ya know, that may be true…It is not always remarkably easy to pick up snark and other more sophisticated asides among people who have been in an ongoing communication that a third party (myself), may not be up to full speed on.
Sorry.
I withdraw any unintended insult on my part and retreat to the corner with the dunce’s cap for people who “donot understand long, complex posts among those with a history of previous interactions too subtle for the uncool to known anthing about”
I leave it to my betters
Corner Stone
@General Winfield Stuck: You are the lamest motherfucker that ever breathed.
This non-rejoinder is only surprising in that you didn’t post 4 or 5 paragraphs to say the same thing. You’re losing your touch Stuck. Anything less than pontificating through 4 paras to say the same things others have already said better is beneath you.
Corner Stone
@Elie:
We thank you.
General Winfield Stuck
@Corner Stone:
You could at least come up with your own insult phrases, rather than stealing those of others. DIAF motherfucker.
Mako
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Blow me.
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
@HumboldtBlue: Oil.
In Afghanistan.
Dude, before you spout off, do ten minutes on Google, OK? From one in-depth and citation-full blog post:
Which references this document. The reason the North is ref.? Because the South Afghanistan region has Even Less. Of everything.
There’s not enough oil in that country to power itself for a year if it had a proper industrial base, much less export anywhere else. Most notably, if there was, indeed, Oil in Afghanistan, we’d already be drilling the fucker.
Mako
@General Winfield Stuck:
oh, i see, you and CornerStone are the same person, a lonely old person with nothing else to do than talk to yourself on blog comments. Took me awhile to catch on. Sweet. Count me in. Now about those zombies…
The Moar You Know
@Just Some Fuckhead: I’ll shove my cat straight up your ass, you fucking worn-out useless old hippie.
General Winfield Stuck
Man, there are some weird people hanging out here in recent times. I may have to re-open The Funhouse.
Corner Stone
@Mako: This is the worst thing anyone has ever said to me.
Texas Dem
You lefties who are eagerly tearing down Obama should give some thought to where we would be right now if we had a President McCain, or, Heaven forbid, a President Palin. However disappointed you are in Obama, remember that things could be much, much worse. So long as we do not have a sane opposition party, Obama and the Dems are the only game in town, no matter how badly they screw up. The alternative is unthinkable.
fraught
@HumboldtBlue: Drafty, way over there?
Joe Beese
If you support the President even if he’s killing people for no reason, what does that say about you?
Scamp Dog
@Mako:
The problem with your idea is that neutrons get absorbed by air before traveling all that far (rocks are even better at stopping them). If you had looked some info on neutron bomb, you’d know the effective range against personnel out in the open is about 1.5 km (not even a mile).
I seem to recall Afghanistan being more than 12 miles across, so even going full wingnut (with bombs we don’t actually have any more) won’t do the trick. It will lose us what friends we still have, and convince the people already pissed at us that we deserve whatever we get, though.
Corner Stone
@Texas Dem: And if the Sliders TV show were real we’d be…well shit, I don’t know where we’d be if that were the case.
And neither do you given your stupid scenario.
matoko_chan
But that is Obama’s 11-dimensional chess move.
The 34,000 troops are a hail mary pass for the generals…its what McChrystal asked for. Obama said he would change focus to Afghanistan, and listen to the generals in his campaign, and that is what he is doing. If McChrystal succeeds, booyah!…..but if he fails, Obama has cover for the withdrawal.
The bad thing is more young soljahs are going to die in the Graveyard of Empires. 800 have died so far.
If I could do one thing I’d embed videographers with the troops…that is what killed Viet Nam…when the electorate had to watch american kids bleeding and dying on the small screen.
There aren’t any good moves here….there are only less bad moves….he said that.
11-dimensional chess is a long game.
matoko_chan
This is a pattern with Obama….he gives the right what they demand, but not in a way that is going to help them.
He is setting them up.
DADT and DOMA are the same thing. Obama understands the left side of the bellcurve is highly permeable to fearmongering and demagoguery……he knows full well SSM is going to have to be mandated by judicial fiat, just like Loving v Virginia and Brown v Board….it is just the same. Obama understands human nature very well. So he is not going to spend political capital on it right now.
He is parsimonious of his political capital, and chooses deliberately where to spend it.
He is spending it now on healthcare….will it be enough?
I think so.
Makewi
@Mako:
I would have suggested lonely, not fat.
MBSS
@HumboldtBlue:
thank you , sir/madam, for stating what is obvious to me.
has john cole moved left of his audience? he is a political variation of benjamin buttons; instead of becoming younger, he becomes more and more lucid with time.
Raincitygirl
HEY! I resemble that remark.
And I would also much rather talk about JSF poking fun at the commentariat than talk about the actual subject, which is kind of depressing no matter which side a person falls on.
The Raven
Have you noticed the way it looks like it’s all going to come unstuck during the next presidential campaign? The war, the economy? Who can rescue us? Sarah Palin, Barbarian Heroine?
Croak!