Hard to argue with anything in this Greenwald rundown. I know that this will now cause two distinct flame wars- Greenwald lovers versus Greenwald haters and also those who fail to see team Obama doing anything wrong versus those who refuse to acknowledge team Obama does anything right. Le sigh.
This ACLU report is distressing, too. I just sent them another 50 bucks. You should too.
Corner Stone
Why would you consider those categories distinct groups?
I say we bust out the Venn diagram.
Spaghetti Lee
I’m mostly neutral in all the Greenwald crap, but for him to say the “Democratic House” voted for something when a little over 40% of Democrats voted against it is a little word-twisty in my opinion.
Stan
John,
You amuse me. As much as you criticize the firebaggers, you always eventually come into their corner on the issues. Better late than never.
Corner Stone
And shit like this:
Afghans riot in Kabul after deadly NATO crash
Mobs of people in Kabul were chanting:
Rick Taylor
@Spaghetti Lee:
That would mean that not quite 60% voted for it. Seems fair enough to me.
Corner Stone
And BTW, overly long thread titles are irritating.
MikeJ
@Rick Taylor: Could it have passed with zero republican votes? If the answer is no, it’s one of the few truly bipartisan bills to pass recently. Which would mean “Democratic house” is a bit disingenuous.
Teak111
Want to get out of Afghanistan, what about the girl with a missing nose and ears courtesy of the Al Quida hiding Taliban?
jl
Cole not only trolls his own site, but leave explicit instructions regarding the flame war he expects.
And he can’t even grow zucchinis, zucchinis for goodness sake, in his garden. Yet no one has taunted him about this.
Has he no shame?
Svensker
@Teak111:
Let’s quote Greenwald again, shall we:
Because if the Taliban doesn’t occupy America real soon, Mel Gibson might just beat the shit out of his wife again And we might have people on death row who are innocent. I, for one, welcome our new Taliban overlords!
mantis
Well, as someone who likes most of what the Obama administration has done, and very much dislikes some of the things they have done, I guess I’m somewhere in the Venn crossover.
And as valuable as I find Greenwald to be, I must take issue with this:
While it’s true that WikiLeaks should have been much more careful in redacting the names of Afghan sources, watching Endless War Supporters prance around with righteous concern for Afghan lives being endangered by the leak is really too absurd to bear.
What about those of us who are not endless war supporters, who nonetheless find ourselves contemplating very difficult decisions about what to do with these wars we’re stuck in, but find the leaking of informants’ names by Wikileaks to be a horrible thing to do, that warrants response that rises way above “well, they should have been more careful.”
You know what endangers innocent Afghan lives? Ten years of bombings, checkpoint shootings, due-process-free hit squads, air attacks, drones, night raids on homes, etc. etc.
You know what else endangers Afghan lives, Glenn? Taliban rule and Al Qaeda headquarters being located in the country. These aren’t easy choices the way you make them out to be.
Numerous government officials are predictably threatening not only WikiLeaks’ sources with criminal prosecution, but WikiLeaks itself. That, of course, would be a major escalation of the Obama administration’s war on whistle blowing leaks, which already easily surpasses the war waged by the Bush administration.
Whistleblowing should not include helping the Taliban identify and kill Afghans. Just fucking despicable, and quite possibly treasonous.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@Teak111:
> Want to get out of Afghanistan, what about the girl
> with a missing nose and ears courtesy of the Al Quida
> hiding Taliban?
I heard her mother was one of the pregnant women who was missing some bullets fired into her belly courtesy of the U.S. Army because our honest and brave soldiers cut said bullets out of said pregnant belly with their G.I. knives in order to escape their responsibility for her criminal murder. Want to get out of Afghanistan?
Corner Stone
@Teak111: This is some pretty weaksauce amigo.
Bring it harder.
wmd
@jl:
Greenwald hates zucchinis, that’s why.
Michele Obama has zucchinis growing in the whitehouse garden. Who is getting the presidential zucchini? There is way too much for Michele.
D-Chance.
I just sent them another 50 bucks. You should too.
But… Cole… there are so many hard-up twenty-somethings out there who could better use those funds.
burnspbesq
@mantis:
Nuance is not allowed in Greenwald-land.
Help us, Obi-Wan Lederman. You’re our only hope.
Erik
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
“You heard”. Powerful supporting evidence, there.
El Tiburon
@mantis:
What is there to contemplate? What more information do you get off the pot and make a decision? I mean this in the most serious way I can muster. What is it exactly you are waiting for to decide if A) we should stay and continue on, or B) we should leave, or C) None of the above.
What I find frustrating with people like you is that you are too scared (or something) to take a stand. By almost any rational metric and with all the credible evidence, there is no reason to stay and every single reason to leave.
And the response being what? Arrest and conviction and prison terms? Censorship? Torture? So you want to contemplate our options, but you definitely want action to be taken against Wikileaks?
burnspbesq
@El Tiburon:
The people who leaked those docs may have done a great public service. That can be taken into account in the sentencing process.
If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.
El Tiburon
@Spaghetti Lee:
Or almost 60% voted for it. Or put another way: A clear majority of Democrats in the House voted for it.
Yeah, very ‘word-twisty’ indeed.
By being “neutral in all the Greenwald crap,” you clearly mean you will find something to nitpick about that in no way refutes what Greenwald wrote.
Stillwater
wrt foreign policy, the US is economically and politically weak. But we love us some hegemony (I like mine with cashews and paprika, btw), so that leaves fire-power and freedom bombs. I say to anyone who writes comments on this blog (and by saying that I’m crediting the commenters with above average intelligence and reading comprehension skills) that if you thought Obama would roll back any of the Bush-era military-police state expansions, you were being willfully ignorant.
mantis
@El Tiburon:
What is there to contemplate? What more information do you get off the pot and make a decision? I mean this in the most serious way I can muster. What is it exactly you are waiting for to decide if A) we should stay and continue on, or B) we should leave, or C) None of the above.
It’s not a question of whether to leave or not, but how. Is it your assertion that we should pick up sticks, and bug out immediately, and let the chips fall where they may? I for one worry about all of the arms and equipment we leave behind with the terribly flawed fledgling Afghan government, as the chaos we leave in our wake will likely lead to that government’s collapse and the restoration of power to a now much-better armed Taliban. Sounds great!
What I find frustrating with people like you is that you are too scared (or something) to take a stand. By almost any rational metric and with all the credible evidence, there is no reason to stay and every single reason to leave.
What I find frustrating about “people like you” is that you start from the position that no one who disagrees with you could possibly have any rational reasons, and go from there. Also known as “assholes.”
And the response being what? Arrest and conviction and prison terms? Censorship? Torture? So you want to contemplate our options, but you definitely want action to be taken against Wikileaks?
I was just saying I think some of Greenwald’s outrage, of which he has a plentiful supply, could be directed towards the assholes that put the people helping us in extreme danger. I never said anything about action being taken, let alone torture. Asshole.
El Tiburon
+1
You do receive a card in the mail, so laminate it and carry it around and flash it wherever you see injustice.
Stillwater
What about those of us who are not endless war supporters, who nonetheless find ourselves contemplating very difficult decisions about what to do with these wars we’re stuck in, but find the leaking of informants’ names by Wikileaks to be a horrible thing to do
It’s not Greenwald’s fault you vacillate between subservience to power and a desire for transparency. Eat some Wheaties.
apnea
I’m pleasantly surprised. There are more Balloon Juice commenters arguing the actual points of the Greenwald column, than are scrutinizing his tone or his haircut or something.
That’s a step.
mantis
It’s not Greenwald’s fault you vacillate between subservience to power and a desire for transparency.
If you do not subscribe to my exact views you are a subservient Obot. Got it, asshole #2.
JCT
@El Tiburon:
LOL, my husband props his up on the dinner table when we go visit his sister and her husband the fascist bigot. For years he just sort of sat there and simmered but as he has aged his frontal lobe has degenerated and wheeee, it’s been lots of fun since!
apnea
@mantis:
If I needed more than 30 dead bodies’ dead fingers to count the amount of collateral damage that the good ol’ US of A had visited upon my own neck of the wood for the last year alone, you can be sure that ‘subservient’ would be the gentlest thing to go the way of war-ambivalents like you.
Stillwater
@mantis: If you do not subscribe to my exact views you are a subservient Obot. Got it, asshole #2.
No, it’s not this at all. You’re falling for the second oldest trick in the book. The first is to not get baited into a land war in Asia. The second is to make moral and political concessions to the architects of that war once the fiasco is underway.
El Tiburon
Yes. Bug out begins at daybreak tomorrow. Get the fuck out now. After almost 10 years nothing is going to improve. By staying you are guaranteed that: more Americans and Afghanis will die, more money wasted, more young men radicalized.
The Afghans have their own arms and equipment. They’ve had it since we gave it to them back in the 80s.
What government are you talking about? I don’t want to question your intelligence on this issue, but there is no government to speak of. Oh yeah, the Taliban. They were such a great threat to our freedoms what with all of their missiles and Jedi mind tricks.
eemom
jeez, talk about buzz-kill.
I will not be taken for granted.
Glenn Greenwald is a fine man, an esteemed colleague, a lover of all that is right and just, a zealous guardian of our liberties, and a voice for the voiceless. Moreover he treats all those who disagree with him with fairness and respect.
His opinion on the present matter is presumably correct. However, I shall be pleased to consider any contravening points of view.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@mantis: If the Afghan people can’t protect their own democracy and rights, then its their fault. Or George Bush’s. Or Barack Obama’s. But not the ‘get out now’ brigade. Their Moral Superiority is infalliable.
Its all about them. The innocent dusky Muslims only count when they can use them against the Military-Industrial Complex(tm).
K. Grant
@El Tiburon:
Fine, but how you leave is a rather important thing to get right. So, how do you leave without making a wretched situation worse? You seem to be arguing that all we have to do is leave, wash our hands of the dreary affair, and never look back.
I am a constructive kind of guy, give us a good five to ten point plan that actually does what you want and doesn’t make things worse. And no, I am not being a smart-alec, I want to know how to do this, because I do want us out – but not in such a way that we make things even worse. Do you not see that that is a distinct possibility? We have a responsibility to get out the right way.
Nick
@Stan:
don’t flatter yourself, like most of us, we never disagreed on issues, it was more tactics that was the object of scorn
apnea
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
And of course, those fine ‘dusky Muslims’ that we want democratize by way of cruise missiles and drone-killers are never quite to be taken at their word, ya know?
Like, when every possible polls conducted amongst the population returns a resounding ‘GTFO’, it’s not quite the Democracy thing for them, yet.
For their own good, ya know?
/white man’s burden
Spaghetti Lee
Or almost 60% voted for it. Or put another way: A clear majority of Democrats in the House voted for it.
Yeah, very ‘word-twisty’ indeed.
By being “neutral in all the Greenwald crap,” you clearly mean you will find something to nitpick about that in no way refutes what Greenwald wrote.
Yes, I “clearly mean” that. I couldn’t simply be expressing an opinion-I must have something against Greenwald. God, I love blogs where people can read my mind.
Here’s a question for you and Glenn: why is overwhelming Republican support for war not a factor here? The way Glenn is acting, the 150-odd Dems who voted yes are solely responsible for the bill’s passage.
My theory is this: most everyone on the left has written the Republicans off as not worth dealing with, which is true rhetorically speaking. But, in an “out of sight out of mind” sort of way, it leads people to underestimate the actual power the still wield, and blame on Democrats things that couldn’t happen without Republican support.
Comrade Luke
True. And right now the process being undertaken to leave right now is what exactly?
You’re debating the how of something that’s not even remotely close to happening to begin with.
ETA: As far as I can tell, a withdrawal would mimic the stimulus package: go big right away, because you might not get another chance otherwise. Do you really want a decade of Republicans calling Democrats weak every time they try to remove a few more troops?
Just name a date, or let’s say three. Then remove a third on each date and move on to the next bogus war.
replicnt6
@wmd:
Am I the only one here adolescent enough to snicker at this? This is balloon-juice, right? I didn’t stumble into the wrong blog, did I?
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@apnea: Wow, way to prove me right in the first response. Its all about America Fuck Yeah, and not a peep about what happens if/when we leave.
When the Taliban is back in charge and stoning harlots, I’m sure you’ll be the first to go ‘oops’, right?
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@Erik:
And “some say” you’re a poultice. In either case, it doesn’t matter, now does it?
ruemara
What if I neither care nor hate greenwald, think leaving Afghanistan sounds perfect, yet think that there’s some valid questions about how to accomplish a pull out? Is that Obot-y? Everyone with a pen seems to have a solution, if you don’t think unintended consequence x isn’t a problem and all their supporters think if you don’t support said solution thou art an __bot. Whatever. Sounds like this is a complicated situation where an informed populace has to decide if it’s better to get themselves and some Afghans killed while bleeding money and democracy all over the landscape or if it’s better to save our blessed skins and turn an even more destroyed country back to some seriously newly improved assholes while just letting Afghans get killed as they slide back into a fundy crazy terror training wonderland.
Let’s not even get started on trying to scale back the police state Americans were so damned happy to create after 9/11. Or let’s do. Point me in the right direction. Which of our congress critters are proposing any check on presidential power? Oh right, both parties think it’s just A-OK because they’ll be in power some day. Then who’s suing them or working on some citizen driven legislation? This is the only thing I’d like to know, what sort of action can we do to correct this.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
And there you go. There are no easy solutions.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
On the other hand, if the U.S. leaves then the cutting of bullets out of unarmed murdered pregnant women’s bellies will happen far less frequently. Or do you want that to continue, balloonbagger? I think you just might.
HumboldtBlue
They do that now, and when harlots aren’t being stoned they’re being killed by drone-fired missiles at their weddings. This is actually laughable. I have yet to hear a coherent argument for why we have been in the country for nearly a decade, but to declare we are done and to leave would be even worse!
Did I just see an underwear gnome rush by?
What the fuck are we doing there that is preventing the place from being the sectarian shithole of backwards ass tribesmen?
apnea
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
Dodge that thing, baby.
Not a peep on what the actual human beings residing there want, eh?
No, must be all too complex for them. Better we keep the steering wheel for a while still.
They might hurt themselves.
And don’t let up on that false dilemma either. It’s all :
A) Let the Pentagon loose, brutalizing and infantilizing whole populations, enriching our fine defense contractors ;
Or
B) Ignore the maya to find true peace.
Allison W.
let me know when Greenwald cares what I think.
apnea
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
Hey Sheriff, what’s that I hear?
Is that a false dilemma being proven the undiluted bilge it certainly is?
Atrios :
“If We Cared About The Women And Children Of The World
It would be far better to spend $100 billion per year granting them political asylum and paying for their transport and relocation to the US than invading their countries and caressing them with our freedom bombs.
Or you could come up thousands of other ways to spend $100 billion all of which would be almost infinitely better than invading their countries and caressing them with our freedom bombs if we cared about the women and children of the world.”
http://www.eschatonblog.com/2010/07/if-we-cared-about-women-and-children-of.html
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@apnea: And not a peep out of you as to what happens to them if we bug out now.
All they are is a wedge issue. You couldn’t give two shits about them.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
> All they are is a wedge issue. You couldn’t give two shits about them.
I call balloonbagger projection first!
apnea
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
Seriously now, and I’m dropping the sarcasm as a gesture, the undeniable issue is military occupation.
From this occupation stems all manner of other, subordinate issues : torture, assassination, radicalization, censorship, secrecy, financial costs, etc.
The issue you’re talking about, women’s rights around the world, is at best peripheral, and not particular in any way to Afghanistan. As an argument for occupation, it fails at all intellectual levels, since there are a thousand other manners to spear-head and organize international instances and initiatives to tackle a problem which remains international. Do you get that?
Or, in your mind, should we invade other countries for mistreating their women? You think soldiers are the right solution for this problem?
And do you think this line of argument has any real weight outside circles of liberal war-apologists?
You’re mouthing PR, man. Sad, I know.
mantis
A question for the “there are no complicated questions” crowd:
Does the United States of America bear responsibilities for its actions, even though the president who initiated them is no longer in office?
Follow up question:
If you answered yes to the above, how does your proposed policy of immediate and total withdrawal square with that belief?
jwb
@replicnt6: “Michele Obama has zucchinis growing in the whitehouse garden. Who is getting the presidential zucchini? There is way too much for Michele.” Did you detect the presence of BoB in this comment?
jeffreyw
I’m in for 50
fasteddie9318
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
Good lord, we certainly wouldn’t want to leave and watch the Taliban start stoning harlots. I mean, if we left, they might even cut the ears and noses off of women. Good thing we’re there to prevent stuff like that from happening.
wmd
@jwb:
Sometimes I just can’t help myself. zucchini being a terrorist weapon and all.
fasteddie9318
@ruemara:
That’s a tough dilemma, until you realize that the country is being turned over to the assholes and sliding back into fundy crazy land whether we’re there or not. Also too, those Afghans that are getting killed via our bombs are just as dead as if they’d been killed by the Taliban.
Gen. Jrod and his Howling Army
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-: Please explain how our troops in Afghanistan will transform the country into a Jeffersonian democracy where human rights and equality for women are respected. Your tools are guns and bombs. Just what the hell is the plan? Does it involve a wacky Genie? Making wishes with a monkey’s claw? What?
If we gave even the tiniest of a shit about people being oppressed in Afghanistan, we’d offer unlimited asylum and American citizenship to anyone in Afghanistan who wanted it. Instead, the plan is to keep flinging bombs around and shooting people. Isn’t it?
John S.
Yeah, that happened BEFORE we occupied Afghanistan, it happens DURING our occupation and it will continue to happen AFTER we leave. So what’s your fucking point?
fasteddie9318
@John S.:
Um, that kind of was my fucking point.
Catsmeat
Yes, if we leave now, all sorts of bad things will happen. So what, exactly, is the plan to prevent this? We have to leave sooner or later. It’s. Not. Our. Country.
mantis
@Gen. Jrod and his Howling Army:
Please explain how our troops in Afghanistan will transform the country into a Jeffersonian democracy where human rights and equality for women are respected.
Strawman. No one outside of neo-con wingnuts say this is possible, and I don’t think even they say that anymore. There is something between Taliban rule and Al Qaeda haven and idealized democracy.
Your tools are guns and bombs.
A gross and insulting mischaracterization of what we are trying to do there. We are employing more than just weapons over there and you know it. See here and here for a taste.
Cacti
@burnspbesq:
At times, it seems the current generation has forgotten that acts of civil disobedience are supposed to come with the expectation of prosecution or possible punishment of the actor.
mantis
Yes, if we leave now, all sorts of bad things will happen. So what, exactly, is the plan to prevent this? We have to leave sooner or later. It’s. Not. Our. Country
Development, training, and a establishment of a stable security/military structure, to establish self-reliance and prevent a backslide into the old Taliban-controlled failed state. A lofty goal, to be sure, but certainly more attractive to me than “fuck em, it’s not our country.” Then again, I’m a liberal. What the fuck are you?
Catsmeat
@mantis: You don’t have to be nasty about it, I just asked simple question. My second question would be: How much longer is this supposted to take? It’s been over eight years already.
Brachiator
I was listening to NPR today, Morning Edition or one of the other news programs, and as Greenwald, and others, have noted, the story was all about the possible impact of the leaks, and whether other nations might trust us, and how Defense Secretary Gates was alarmed, etc.
But this is where I part company with Greenwald’s simpering. The information is out there. People can read it and debate it if they want. Greewald’s panties are in a perpetual twist over civil liberties violations.
But the sad truth is that if the people don’t care, if they decide to ignore what it happening, then the activists can scream and shout all they want, and it will not make a dime’s worth of difference.
And by the way, it is not about Greenwald hate. I just weary over how some people treat him or Rachel Maddow or others as though they are oracles who must be consulted before making a move.
mcd410x
@mantis: Who am I? I’m Jean Valjean.
Great to have goals, but it’s just not going to happen, is it? We can’t even keep the lights on in Iraq which had infrastructure. To the tune of billions and billions of dollars.
apnea
@mantis:
Liberals. The only people capable of the same unblinking wartime self-righteousness as conservatives.
One day, maybe, there’ll be enough unaligned Americans for the true nature, and the obvious continuity, between both ruling factions to appear clear as day.
John S.
@fasteddie9318:
Well why didn’t you fucking say so?! I was starting to think you were one of these nuts who puts a rock on their lawn to keep the tigers away.
Mnemosyne
@Cacti:
I’ve noticed that, too, and I really don’t understand it. Jail was good enough for Dr. King and many, many others, so I don’t know why today’s activists whine about the prospect of it like they can’t believe they’re going to be punished for breaking the law.
Nut up, people. Going to jail for your beliefs is supposed to be a badge of honor, not something you drag your feet about like a whiny two-year-old.
mantis
You don’t have to be nasty about it, I just asked simple question.
Ahem.
It’s. Not. Our. Country.
As if we don’t know that.
My second question would be: How much longer is this supposted to take? It’s been over eight years already.
Admittedly, too long. Years. More than likely, there will be at least some form of NATO force there for decades. I would love to be more optimistic, but I can’t be. That place is fucked up.
CalD
On the brighter side, last I knew we’re still on schedule to end combat operations in Iraq on Aug. 31. One down, one to go.
HyperIon
It’s easy….
We are screwed if we stay and we are screwed if we leave.
But the Afghans are more screwed if we stay and more screwed if we leave.
mantis
@mcd410x:
Great to have goals, but it’s just not going to happen, is it?
It isn’t? Why not?
We can’t even keep the lights on in Iraq which had infrastructure.
We destroyed their infrastructure. It takes time to rebuild.
Corner Stone
@replicnt6:
I enjoyed it as well but I’m scared to death to reply to him/her because I don’t want to increase the chances that the NSA will discover we have wmd at BJ.
Because you know who else had wmd?
That’s right.
Cacti
@Mnemosyne:
“My cause is righteous, therefore I am above the law.”
Call it Civil Disobedience for the special snowflake generation.
Corner Stone
@mantis:
I can not believe you actually said this.
Catsmeat
It takes time to rebuild.
Eight years and counting. . .
The Marshal Plan took less than six.
mantis
@Catsmeat:
The Marshall Plan was not the end of rebuilding in Europe, did not happen on an active battlefield, and I probably don’t need to remind you that we still have troops in Germany, 65 years later.
Cacti
@Catsmeat:
Plus the 6 years that the Axis and Allied Powers were at war.
And the military expansionism of the Axis that started in the Pacific in 1931 with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, and in 1935 in Europe with the second Italo-Abyssinian War.
So, really the build-up, conflict, and post-war period of WWII covered about 20 years. And we still left bases behind in Germany and Japan that exist to this day, some 65 years after the last shots were fired.
wmd
@Corner Stone:
You know my one of my exes? Debbie?
General Stuck
We are not leaving completely Afghanistan. Obama did not promise that nor should he have. We will be withdrawing from primary active combat to advising Taliban units likely with small US teams something like what was done in Iraq. Which btw is close to on schedule with about 70 or 80 thousand troops on the ground, from about 150 thousand when Obama took office. Despite cries from the left he wouldn’t do it.
Now we have the same cries on Afghanistan and some dubious tea leaf reading by Froomkin and Cole building a straw man that we won’t be out of that country for 4 more years. Which Obama never promised we would. There will be long term relatively small units of US soldiers, deal with it. The overwhelming majority in this country will, long as casualties stay very low.
This pack up and go home position is irresponsible given the likely hood Afghanistan will revert to it’s former self. And the fact that we helped break that country, and to just pull up stakes and wish them luck is an assholes position.
The American people will not tolerate us pounding the ground war like we are now. They care about one thing, and one thing only. How many GI body bags are coming home. That is pretty much it for the vast number of Americans and likely a majority of democrats as well.
Catsmeat
@mantis: Excellent point. We also gave a shit about the people and nations of Europe. We were willing to make sacrifices that we just are not willing to make anymore. Perhaps if we started up the draft, we could put enough boots on the ground to do the job. Maybe we should raise taxes so we could afford to do a complete job of rebuilding. If we were really serious about this thing, we could do it, but we won’t. We just don’t do big things any more.
Catsmeat
And while we’re at it, let’s all start buying War Bonds and growing Victory Gardens. Let’s start recycling and conserving energy. And let’s start prosecuting war profiteers.
Yes, my comparison to the Marshal Plan was rather naive. That was a United States that doesn’t exist any more.
Ruckus
It’s a war.
I repeat it’s a war.
You either stay and win or you put your tail between your legs and get the fuck out. Anything else is wasting time,lives, money, lives…
Now the problem with trying to win this unjust war is that the only way to win is to bomb the place into dust. As that would be the absolutely stupidest thing to do there is only one other choice. Get the fuck out. As fast as one can possibly move. Everything else is looking for excuses not to leave.
Staying there in any other fashion gets us nothing. It does not honor the people who have died or been wounded. It does not stop/is not stopping the people we supposedly went there to get. The response is always it would be worse if we leave too soon. How? How does staying help? It only makes us look like the incompetent fools we were for not doing this long ago and finding out that we should have gotten out, long ago. Vietnam was supposed to have taught us this lesson but it obviously did not. But long term and short term we were/are better off for just leaving there. And this is no different.
The age of imperialistic power has been over for a long time, many of our politicians and political bullshitters just don’t know this yet. But if you added up all the things most of this class don’t know or understand but should, I’ll bet that pile would reach the moon.
Corner Stone
@wmd: Actually we were looking for your mom. Your mom was the answer.
Speaking of which, where is she? She owes me some change from that $20.
apnea
A. Cockburn on liberal war-apologists :
“So one can conclude pessimistically that exposure of war crimes, torture and so forth, often leads to intensification of the atrocities, with government and influential newspapers and commentators supervising a kind of hardening process. “Yes, this — murder, torture, wholesale slaughter of civilians – is indeed what it takes.” Even though this pattern is long-standing, it often comes as a great surprise. A friend of mine was at a dinner with the CBS news producers, shortly before they broke the Abu Ghraib tortures. Almost everyone at the table thought that Bush might well be impeached.
The important constituency here is liberals, who duly rise to the challenge of unpleasant disclosures of imperial crimes. In the wake of scandals such as those revealed at Abu Ghraib, or in the Wikileaks files, they are particularly eager to proclaim that they “can take it” – i.e., endure convincing accounts of monstrous tortures, targeted assassinations by US forces, obliteration of wedding parties or entire villages, and emerge with ringing affirmations of the fundamental overall morality of the imperial enterprise. This was very common in the Vietnam war and repeated in subsequent imperial ventures such the sanctions and ensuing attack on Iraq, and now the war in Afghanistan.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/
wmd
@Corner Stone:
My sisters hauled her ashes to Northern Indiana and scattered them. Too late for your claim on her estate too.
She did saddle me with these initials – guess you could say she produced WMD.
Ruckus
@mantis:
If you answered yes to the above, how does your proposed policy of immediate and total withdrawal square with that belief?
Of course the answer is yes. Even it you didn’t vote for the asshole. This is still being done in your name.
So on to the second part.
These people are dying. They are dying at our hands and because we are there. Removing us from the picture will not stop the taliban. The US being there is not stopping the taliban, it is only killing more innocent people, both Afghans and Americans, as well as making the people hate us more. How is this of any value?
Unjust wars are just that. They have no place in the world and normally when someone wages one the strong are supposed to intercede. When it is the strong arm bully waging an unjust war the only ones to stop them are themselves.
General Stuck
@Ruckus: When we pull back, a lot more of them are going to die than when we were there. If the Aghan people hated us so much, even with our bonehead trigger happiness that gets far too many of them killed, then we would be fighting much more than just the Taliban. We would be fighting the other half of the country as well. Afghans are very insistent that unwelcome visitors leave their country, or else.
As for the Afghan war being unjust, about the whole world disagreed with you when we went in. It was sanctioned by the UN and practically every country even other Muslim countries, so that is just BS on it’s face. The methods and strategy with which we have fought that war are open to being unjust and not moral, such as drone attacks on occupied buildings, but that is a different question.
And even with all the fail from Bush and accidental killing of civilians, most of the non Taliban likely now do want us to stay. And we can tell that because they are not fighting us, which otherwise they surely would be. They understand the bloody reckoning that awaits if the Taliban gets back power.
I want us to quit fighting the ground war there, because i think long as we are willing to fight their war, the Afghans ,like most sane people, will let us. They know well how to fight and will when they have to. But not before.
Xanthippas
Greenwald haters mostly seem to confuse his tone for his argument. Also, they’re dumb.
What’s really infuriating is how all of this is just the new normal for us. Try not voting for a Democrat and see if it gets any better.
But what the hell else are we supposed to do? Blog about it some more?
Brien Jackson
What’s kind of funny is watching the same people who normally complain that everyone else are DLC-sympathizing, hand-wringing panty-waists be totally unable to just agree that Wikileaks fucked up by not redacting names without any sort of “but…” attached to it.
Brien Jackson
@Ruckus:
Seriously, how does anyone expect to get taken seriously by calling the Afghan conflict an unjust war?
General Stuck
Greenwald is a pathological liar. Otherwise, he is spot on.
General Stuck
@Brien Jackson:
Forget it Brien, it’s BalloonBorg Town.
NobodySpecial
I’d love to have seen what people clamoring to stay in Afghanistan because of the children! were saying back in Vietnam. Provided they were old enough for that one.
Ruckus
@General Stuck:
You are correct in that a lot of people including me thought we should be in Afghanistan. In hindsight either we should not have gone or we should have handled the situation much differently. That doesn’t change where we are today. That doesn’t change where we will be if we stay or go. This has been going on this way for 10 years and I see absolutely no progress nor end other than us leaving. Do you? And if that is so why put it off? What can possibly be gained by staying?
I don’t see us changing the situation by staying or going, except that more die because of us staying. We can change that. And should.
Some have said that my views are simplistic. And maybe they are. So what? Not everything is 11 dimensional chess, somethings really are simple when you break them down. That’s not to say that the consequences will be good, but on balance my opinion is that leaving gives us the best set of them. And if that is so then leaving as fast as possible is much better than trickling out, because that trickling out is very similar to the trickling down of wealth of reaganomics. It’s BS and it doesn’t work.
I agree 100% with your last graph. If there is to be an Afghanistan civil war I even think we could help that. But I don’t see civil war as a very high probability. What I do see is the same thing that has been going on in Afghanistan for, well seemingly ever, is localized fighting among tribes for land and power.
Gen. Jrod and his Howling Army
@General Stuck: Yet again, Stuck tells us that the only possible reason anyone could ever fail to fully agree with him on eeeeeeeeeverything is that they’re part of some hive-collective, incapable of independent thought.
Only Stuck is a clear-minded free-thinker. The last true man, really.
Ruckus
@Brien Jackson:
Because it never should have been fought as a war in the first place. And now that it has been for 10 years with little to no success what do you purpose?
Is this the next 7 year war? Oops too late. How about the next 100 year war? You ready for that? If it doesn’t end now, when? And how?
Corner Stone
@NobodySpecial:
Not that it is relevant in any way but I sometimes wonder what it would be like to never be able to pick up a toy. Never sure if it was really a booby trap.
ETA – I meant those children who actually survive conflicts. How it would be to never trust the near universal symbol of childhood.
Brien Jackson
*facepalm*
Brien Jackson
@Ruckus:
It’s fair enough to argue that the war was a mistake, but that doesn’t mean that an action that was perfectly legal under international law and explicitly sanctioned by the UN and NATO is unjust. Big difference.
Ruckus
@NobodySpecial:
I was old enough for that one and had the same ideas then. Get the fuck out.
So for those that want to stay, how did that work out?
History has shown that getting out and fast worked pretty good, much better than if we had stayed until everyone who wanted us gone was dead.
mclaren
Yeah, well, it’s pretty depressing. In a select few ways, Obama really is worse than the drunk-driving C student. Obama is spending 6% more on two losing wars than the drunk-diving C student ever did, and the ex-cheerleader from Texas never ordered American citizens assassinated.
On most of the rest, Obama represents a distinct improvement over the drunk-driving C student, let alone the wacko from Wasilla and her sideckick, Mr. Bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb Iran.
You just have to sit back and ask yourself, “In retrospect, which of the Menendez Brothers would you rather have voted for?”
General Stuck
@Ruckus: This isn’t Vietnam and there are alternatives to staying full on fighting a ground war and staying for support and making sure AQ doesn’t set up shop again. I think we have legitimate but limited interests in both Afghan and Pakistan. So long as the Northern Alliance faction of the population does not want us out, then staying in a different profile is possible with few American casualties and providing material support for the Afghans if they choose to fight for themselves, and they will. The opportunity to nation build, in a limited way was closed off after a couple of years when the Taliban reconstituted itself as a viable fighting force. The NA will fight if we get out of their way and let them do it their own way, with some support from us like weaponry and such. Otherwise, the better funded Taliban will likely take over, and a blood bath will ensue. I don’t want that on my countries conscience and think it is just as amoral as doing what we did in Afghanistan by starting a war there and not seriously try prosecute that war with all of our power, not just military.
When we left Vietnam, there was no chance they would start training camps again for more 9-11’s, and the blood bath that didn’t happen in Vietnam will in Afghan if we leave completely. That is my opinion, YMMV.
General Stuck
@Gen. Jrod and his Howling Army:
Naw, there are still a few left on this blog, but the infestation of brain dead morons like you marches on. I figure BJ will be completely assimilated in a few months, give or take. So hang in their grasshopper.
Ruckus
@Brien Jackson:
So now war is down to semantics?
It’s not body counts and statistics. It is brutal, bloody, life long injuries and just plain deadly. Not to mention the mental issues. You don’t do it until it is a last resort. We have made a point in this country of shooting first and never asking questions.
So to answer you. All war is unjust.
Some you have to do anyway. I don’t think this is one of them. And just because the people in charge wanted this doesn’t make it just. It just makes it justifiable. And you have accepted that justification. I have not.
Gen. Jrod and his Howling Army
@General Stuck: Don’t feel obligated to hang around until then. We in the collective know how much it pains you when people refuse to acknowledge your 100% record of being correct. We of the one-mind empathize, and we do not wish to see you suffer any more.
So say we all.
mclaren
@Gen. Jrod and his Howling Army:
Actually, General Crackpot Fake Name is telling us that everyone who doesn’t agree with him is “off his meds.”
I’d like to know exactly what’s in those meds. What precisely is it that makes General Crackpot Fake Name see that glorious light in the end of the tunnel in a long-since-lost misbegotten third-rate war in a third-world hellhole?
You know, I betcha if we got our hands on some of those meds Crackpot Fake Name says we haven’t been taking, we’d see Bog and all his angels come down to the Korova Milk Bar for a visit. Maybe we’d even become Obots.
American casualties just hit a new all-time daily record in Buttfuckistan, genius. And it’s only going to get worse. Re-read Thucydides’ description of the failed Athenian expedition into Sicily for a preview.
Those meds General Crackpot Fake Name says we all need…boy, those sound like a plan. Got to be more entertaining than watching this daily rerun of Somalia 24/7/365. Wake me when the Afghan locals start dragging American troops out of the helicopters and setting ’em on fire.
General Stuck
@Gen. Jrod and his Howling Army:
Oh, I won’t totally withdraw. Sometimes the rats will need fucking and somebody has to do it.
Brien Jackson
@Ruckus:
There’s nothing wrong with finding all war unjust, but if that’s what you think, then you should say that that’s what you think upfront.
Ruckus
@General Stuck:
Probably our major differences of opinion are that I don’t see our being in Afghanistan militarily stops the terrorists. It does not turn everyone there against us but it does enough. Had it been seen as much more of a policing type of action at first it may have had a chance of success. I feel that is what you are saying as well. I never said we have no interest, we have a major interest. We are just not supporting our interests in a very positive way. And keeping on the path we are on will not change that. And as always YMMV.
General Stuck
@mclaren: See what I mean.
Drop yer drawers, Time for your rabies booster.
Ruckus
@Brien Jackson:
It’s a fucking blog, not a 2000 page manifesto.
General Stuck
@Ruckus: I agree we have to stop the insane game of whack a mole with the Taliban. That is the height of absurdity. But just pulling up stakes and letting history repeat itself is that also too.
Gen. Jrod and his Howling Army
@mclaren: I think I am an Obot, in that I think Obama is a better President than the American people actually deserve.
Why are we still in Afghanistan? Because the American people love war, and will punish the party in power severely if we take it away from them. Bush learned this lesson from his father well: Senior refused to prolong the First Gulf War, or the Panama invasion for that matter, and lost his reelection. Junior started two wars and kept them going, and won reelection.
I don’t blame Obama for staying in Afghanistan. I blame all Americans.
mclaren
@Gen. Jrod and his Howling Army:
I blame him. If Obama was any kind of a leader, he’d go on TV and say “You people are deeply stupid. I’m ordering all American troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq tomorrow. If you don’t like it, impeach me, but the American people are too dumb and too incompetent and too crazed with bloodlust to manage to even get that right, so I’m not going to lose any sleep over the possibility. This has been another episode of representative democracy where the elected representative tells the people they’re out of their collective fucking minds and need to be bitch-slapped. Lincoln did it with the Emancipation Proclamation, FDR did it when he set up the RFC and the CCC and social security, now I’m doing it by getting us the hell out of two lost pointless foreign wars. Deal with it, bitches.”
Gen. Jrod and his Howling Army
@mclaren: I’d be in love with the man if he said that. Sadly, if he was remotely the type of person who’d say that, he’d have finished the primaries with fewer delegates than Kucinich.
mclaren
@Gen. Jrod and his Howling Army:
You have a point. Still, good leaders change their minds. FDR actually campaigned against Hoover’s stimulus plan, then once in office FDR turned around and did the exact opposite.
When facts change, a smart person does a one-eighty. Obama’s supposed to have this great Harvard-trained mind. Why can’t he change it?
As for Kucinich, well, old Dennis has his heart in the right place, but he couldn’t administer a 7-11 store in Craters of the Moon, Idaho, let alone the White House. I think a lot of people picked up on that and that was why he never had a shot at the Democratic nomination.
Nick
@mclaren:
Hmm, so you’re mad because Obama isn’t insulting the American people? Because that’s going to help him, how? YOU’RE ALL IDIOTS, VOTE FOR ME IN 2012!
Nick
@mclaren:
In America, we have a term for it…called flip-flopping and it destroys political careers.
Nick
@General Stuck:
Well, there was that whole Cambodia thing.
Ruckus
@General Stuck:
You know life is not as simple as I sometimes make it sound, but it also is not near as complicated as a lot of people try to make it.
I want to pull out militarily. To stop making war. We have interests in many parts of the world and making wars out of them has not done us much good in my lifetime. Some think we are helping a civil war in Afghanistan, but this is tribes fighting over local power issues, not a country torn apart over ideals. Well it wasn’t until outside countries keep moving in and trying to make it something more. Once again we are interfering in the politics of another country trying to manage a better outcome through force without looking at the long term consequences. Since WWII we have been acting the bully in many parts of the world, in many ways. We tell ourselves that we are better and we are just in our actions. How many of these interferences have had some form of backing from the rest of the world? How many of those interferences have turned out well? A pretty crappy long term record. Not 100% wrong by any measure but still we keep doing the same things and expecting different results.
Now maybe I am oversimplifying and we really do need to stay. If this is so I’d like to see some convincing evidence other than it might get worse. I can’t see the future any more than anyone else and the past is not always indicative of the future but we seem to be repeating it way too much. I don’t think it will be good if we leave Afghanistan militarily, but I think it would be better than staying the course.
mclaren stated above “When facts change, a smart person does a one-eighty.” Nick of course comes back, that destroys a political career. That’s sure the standard that I want used for continuing a war, someone’s political career will be ruined. So again I ask, how are our long term interests as a country met by us staying in Afghanistan?
We really are fighting for the right to exist as a country that deserves respect in the world. You don’t get respect by force, you get it by earning it. We haven’t been earning respect, we have been trying to cram it down throats. It is catching up with us.