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RedditYesterday morning, at a meeting of the neoconservative Foreign Policy Initiative, a former top US military officer suggested that General Stanley McChrystal might resign from his post if President Obama doesn't go along with his pending request for more troops for Afghanistan.
Brig. Gen. Mark T. Kimmitt, a former Bush administration official and Centcom officer, in answer to a question from the panel's moderator, said that he hoped that the differences between the White House and its generals didn't escalate to such a dramatic level. But, he said, if Obama doesn't give McChrystal the resources he needs, then the four-star general might quit. "Most commanders would offer their resignation" if they perceive that the commander-in-chief isn't giving them what they need, he said. In that case, McChrystal might have to say: "I'm not capable of doing it. Maybe somebody else is."
At the conclusion of the panel, I asked Kimmitt about his comments, and he emphasized that he isn't predicting that McChrystal might quit. McChrystal, he said, is presenting Obama with three choices: a maximum option, that would involve up to 40,000 more troops, a middle option, and a low option. Under all three, Kimmitt said, McChrystal believes that he can do the job. On the other hand, if he doesn't get the low option, probably something like an additional 15,000 troops, the general might consider quitting.
Needless to say, the resignation of McChrystal, who's been elevated to near-hero status by the Republican right, would be a frontal challenge to the White House. So far, in a sign that the White House isn't playing patsy for the military, the administration has resisted bringing McChrystal back to Washington to testify, Petraeus-style, before Congress. And they've downplayed the significance of McChrystal's role, saying that his input is just one of many sources that are providing information to the White House as it considers the next phase of its failing Afghanistan strategy.
At least one report today suggests that Obama might refuse to support additional forces in Afghanistan, instead relying on targeted Predator-type attacks on Al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan and Pakistan:
"President Barack Obama's strategy against al-Qaida may shift away from more troops in Afghanistan and toward more drone strikes against terrorist targets."As the war worsens in Afghanistan, Obama could steer away from the comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy he laid out this spring and toward a narrower focus on counterterror operations.
"Two senior administration officials said Monday that the renewed fight against al-Qaida could lead to more missile attacks on Pakistan terrorist havens by unmanned U.S. spy planes. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because no decisions have been made."
The Wall Street Journal reports today that the administration has ordered McChrystal to delay submitting his call for more forces:
"The Pentagon has told its top commander in Afghanistan to delay submitting his request for additional troops, defense officials say, amid signs that the Obama administration is rethinking its strategy for combating a resurgent Taliban."
And the paper adds:
"One senior administration official involved in Afghan policy acknowledged that the White House and Gen. McChrystal's headquarters may not yet be on the same page on the way forward in Afghanistan."But the official said Mr. Obama needs to take a much broader view than the Afghan commander when deciding whether to send more forces.
"'Stan McChrystal is not responsible for assessing how we're doing against al Qaeda,' said the senior administration official. 'He's not assessing how the Pakistani military is doing in its counterinsurgency campaign. That's not his job. So Stan's report is a very important input into this overall strategy, but it's not the only input.'"
The New York Times, in its news analysis piece today, notes that McChrystal is a potent force:
"Even as the president expresses skepticism about sending more American troops to Afghanistan until he has settled on the right strategy, he is also grappling with a stark reality: it will be very hard to say no to General McChrystal."
But, like the Journal, the Times notes:
"Administration officials said that the general's assessment, while very important, was just one component in the president's thinking."
It's clear that, for Obama at least, the catastrophic election in Afghanistan is a game-changer. Now, not only is the US fighting an uphill battle in Afghanistan, but it's fighting on behalf of an obviously corrupt, unrepresentative government that is hardly a model of democracy.
In fact, however, no democracy will be unfolding in Afghanistan anytime soon. As we exit, we'll have to leave that country to the tender mercies of its warlord-ridden, tribal based fiefdoms, including the pro-Taliban ones, and let them fight it out. As I've written before, Obama will have to sit down with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Pakistan, and ask them to use all their influence with the Taliban to get them to make a deal, at least one that excludes Al Qaeda from the mix. They'll have to sit down with Russia, India and Iran to get them to persuade their friends and allies, including the non-Pashtun Afghans that made up most of the Northern Alliance, to cut a deal with the pro-Taliban Pashtuns. And it will have to bring China into the package, too. It's a huge and complex diplomatic undertaking, and it will require the United States to give each of those countries some concessions in other areas, a price that they can extract for cooperating with Washington on its Afghan exit.
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Robert Dreyfuss
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McChrystal was the one behind the Pat Tillman hoax....he'll do whatever is in the best interest of....McChrystal.
Posted by Mask at 09/22/2009 @ 10:05am
DREYFUSS: "The New York Times, in its news analysis piece today, notes that McChrystal is a potent force:..."
I can't wait for McChrystal to throw BHO under the bus!
Gotta love our CIC........so Commanding in getting the Legacy Media to give him face time, so "In" with his Kool-aid Drinkers, so Chiefy when he wants to make the tough decisions like granting Holder his Pursuit of Dumbness.
Posted by Happy at 09/22/2009 @ 10:08am
Truthfully,my first and only impression of McChrystal came after watching all three of Obama's command appointees for Latin America,Iraq/Afganistan and NATO before congress. McChrystal's name is the only I remember not because I was impressed. Out of the three,the former commander for Latin America and now NATO blew me away. There wasn't a question congress asked him that he didn't respond to impressively. McChrystal's responses were disturbing. Once considered I would think he would be allowed time and resources to study basic facts and statistics reletive to the region which he would have responsibility for. The most critical region at this time? I had recently read S,Hersh's Chain of Command and Jon L. Anderson's Fall of Baghdad. Disturbing.
Posted by djayns at 09/22/2009 @ 10:28am
I can't wait for McChrystal to throw BHO under the bus!
Posted by Happy at 09/22/2009 @ 10:08am | ignore this person | warn this person
Maybe a military coup Hap? Some say it has already happened - long ago.
Posted by OneVote at 09/22/2009 @ 10:43am
"As the war worsens in Afghanistan, Obama could steer away from the comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy he laid out this spring and toward a narrower focus on counterterror operations.
Does anybody see this as a drastic get out of jail free card in US strategy? It seems to me like an inevitable doom, so shouldn't we be looking at this, rather than fixating on McChrystal's inevitable call for more troops? More troops = more fighting. More fighting = more record casualties. More pictures of flag draped coffins = the complete dissolution of the American (and World's)support for the fight. If A=B and A=C, A=D. Thus, this strategy is only delaying, and thus as a result, reinforcing the inevitable shift in US policy that will occur due to a shift in political climate.
Posted by DerrickM at 09/22/2009 @ 11:11am
The real bottom line here is this...
If Obama turns down request for more troops, then it means that..
1. Obama thinks we can not win...
2. We already lost...
3. Obama is worried about his support for re election and the kook left anti war everything...
The result would be a win for the Taliban, Afganistan returns to a play ground and haven Bin Laden types to plan ther further weakening of the West that has begun under Obama.
We will have to go back there again when they attack us again..
or
Obama grants the request for more troops, but...
1. Runs the war like Johnson and McNamara and never plans to win but doesnt want to lose especialy before election...
2. The kook left sand bags Obama and they lose the midterms for the Dems and Repubs win control..
3. The troops arrive and win..but we are there for 50 years and begin to chew away at Pakistan...
Either way the price is high in dollars and blood.
Viet Nam revisited.... by another Dem President with no clear idea on which direction to go but the political direction.
Posted by YourJomamma at 09/22/2009 @ 11:16am
Posted by YourJomamma at 09/22/2009 @ 11:16am
Maasch, tell us SPECIFICALLY what a "plan to win it" entails?
Posted by Mask at 09/22/2009 @ 11:25am
this is perhaps the most striking issue that reflects the charge by conservatives during the campaign that Obama was too inexperienced to be president.
His inability to lead on this critical decision shows that he is perhaps actually another Carter. That is bad news for our troops, but good news for conservatives and the 2010 and 2012 elections.
And Mr Dreyfuss, your concluding paragraph is completely unrealistic, with one proviso. You accurately stated that the concessions by the US would be significant. I would add significant to a degree that seriously undercuts our national security and US interests.
Posted by antisocialist at 09/22/2009 @ 11:40am
Leaking the story of a few days ago- boxing in Obama-was not something the Gen Staff did during Bush and the Iraq scenario or during the 7 years already spent in Afghanistan. On the face of that action Mchrystal should be asked to resign not given a chance to play the victim.
Posted by blackjedi47 at 09/22/2009 @ 11:58am
Gotta love our CIC........so Commanding in getting the Legacy Media to give him face time, so "In" with his Kool-aid Drinkers, so Chiefy when he wants to make the tough decisions like granting Holder his Pursuit of Dumbness.
Posted by Happy at 09/22/2009 @ 10:08am
I would have to say the new CIC is an exponential improvement over the last guy who instead of being open with the American people, refused to do interviews and went on vacation after vacation. You know that cattleless "ranch" would not need so much brush clearing if he actually ran a few head on it.
If McChrystal quits it sure says alot about his character would be a great example to the troops. I think this is a bit of a underhanded character assasination by the nation to even suggest that he would resign if he does not get what he wants.
Posted by Extraneous at 09/22/2009 @ 11:59am
Let's remember that McChrystal was Obama's choice after he fired the previous general.
Posted by abell12ct at 09/22/2009 @ 12:00pm
Maasch, tell us SPECIFICALLY what a "plan to win it" entails?
Posted by Mask at 09/22/2009 @ 11:25am
I would think that having a strong Afgan government in charge of the battles with the Taliban would be the definition....
and I am not sure, since I am not privy to any of the "hard info" from there, if it is possible...
....and from reading the articles written here, I can only surmise the Nation authors have no useful hard info either, so we are left with the usual lefty "lets go home and never fight..they might like us if we ask them what we did wrong."
In a "plan to win," it might look like the area of Wisziristan be sealed off as a no mans land...and destroy anything that moves mentality..dead zone so to speak.
in the end I am not sure Pakistan survies as a nation today...perhaps it get split into a Taliban no entry zone and the other half the Indians finish off....
I really don't any positive results that have us out of there any time soon...nor do I see the UN have any value since they cant even help embargoe Iran and trade there.
"Mask, tell us SPECIFICALLY what a "plan to win it" entails from your view.?
Wnquiring minds demand to know.
Posted by YourJomamma at 09/22/2009 @ 12:00pm
Viet Nam revisited.... by another Dem President with no clear idea on which direction to go but the political direction.
Posted by YourJomamma at 09/22/2009 @ 11:16am | ignore this person | warn this person
Well well. Reminds me of a game I would play as a kid. Where one kid would finish a can of soda and then toss it to another kid. Saying "you touched it last!" with the assumption that whoever touched it last was repsonsible for disposal of it.
Same game you playing here, GW handed Obama a crappy economy and two wars that had both gone on longer than WW2, with a wink and a nod said "good luck with that, sucker!" and went home to his ranch where he could play cowboy... well minus the cows.
Don't forget who got us into the quagmire we are in.
Posted by Extraneous at 09/22/2009 @ 12:13pm
So, YourJommama, basically your ideas are to do the exact opposite of whatever the president decides, since anything he decides is, by default, wrong, and your only actual solution is to bomb portions of the country into the stone age with an open ended commitment to a non-existant "strong" Afghan government, which, presumably, will be all the "stronger" since a troublesome portion of its population will no longer exist?
Ah, the brilliance of the conservative mind, who bring us Bush, Limbaugh, Hannity, and Palin! Who's "free market" is anything but, and who's foreign policy inevitably consists of bombing the hidden enemy - kind of like their domestic policies.
Posted by Dwight Wall at 09/22/2009 @ 12:16pm
the kook left anti war everything...
Posted by YourJomamma at 09/22/2009 @ 11:16am
a REAL man love REAL war!
Posted by frosty zoom at 09/22/2009 @ 12:18pm
Presumably, neocon chickenhawks would have U.S. soldiers sacrifice their lives to ensure the corrupt Karzai government survives.
Obama is correct in focusing upon what is the mission in Afghanistan, and then deciding upon what force structure if any should be deployed.
Personally, I think we ought to consider an orderly withdrawal.
Are American soldiers to lose their lives in furtherance of some halfbaked scheme focused upon an accommodation between various Afghan tribes, or to foster an environment where women are accorded more rights..even if it contradicts the prevailing value system among Afghans?
How utterly presumptuous of us.
The original mission was to root out and destroy Al Qaeda.
Let us remain true to the mission, and not go off on naive and simpleminded schemes to reorganize the Muslim world more to our liking.
Posted by jerabaub at 09/22/2009 @ 12:22pm
Moments later, Frodo stood on the edge of the Crack of Doom, but was unwilling to destroy the Ring, claiming it for himself and putting it on. Gollum struck again, and struggled with the invisible Frodo. Finally, Gollum bit off Frodo's finger and seized the Ring. He gloated over his prize, dancing madly, but stepped over the edge and fell into the fires of Mount Doom, taking the Ring with him with a last cry of "Precious!"
Posted by ficheye at 09/22/2009 @ 12:23pm
Don't forget who got us into the quagmire we are in.
Posted by Extraneous at 09/22/2009 @ 12:13pm
I dont for a minute leave Bush out...
He started the country down the path of spending and did indeed get us into Afganistan, and Iraq...I have no problem with the entry into either of these hot spots...
what I constantly say is they entered into both places without a vision(no not timetable, which only aids the enemy) of how to get out ...and as govt does forever, mismanaged everything....
as is Obama...
he is spending more than Bush and despite campaign horseshit...has no plan and no idea what to do and never did( comes from setting a record for voting "PRESENT" )
and you shouldn't let Congress off the hook...after all only they can spend the money...
Posted by YourJomamma at 09/22/2009 @ 12:24pm
Sorry, but all of this is based on an allegedly "leaked" memo about Afghanistan?
So if the "leaked" memo is a trial balloon then everything that follows it - up to and including Obama's suspected reaction to the "leaked" memo, are equally suspect.
We should be concentrating on real news at hand and not inventing drama.
Posted by kingharvest at 09/22/2009 @ 12:28pm
Posted by Dwight Wall at 09/22/2009 @ 12:16pm
Seal off, not bomb into the stone age...they are already in the stone age...and thats the problem...
And as far as your Limbaugh, Palin, et al, rant,...and I don't know why you brought entertainers into the discussion, but, for these hang ups of yours, ..you can get help.
Posted by YourJomamma at 09/22/2009 @ 12:31pm
and you shouldn't let Congress off the hook...after all only they can spend the money...
Posted by YourJomamma at 09/22/2009 @ 12:24pm
I am not giving Obama a free pass, I am becomming more dissatisfied daily. He needs to threaten to veto a few bill from our "democratic" congress, and start troop withdrawals from Iraq (which I heard yesterday we won, because of the surge).
We need to stop playing whack-a-mole in Afhanistan with conventional troops, we have been there for 8 years and have not finished/won, lets stop wasting American money and American lives and work on a policy of containment for the Taliban and Al Qaeda instead of trying to herd cats or decapitate the hydra.
Sure congress spends the money, but you and I know well that no one on the left or right with any hope of winning their next election would cut funding for the troops.
Posted by Extraneous at 09/22/2009 @ 12:36pm
It is an inevitable verity of American military history that commanders want more resources for their field of action. Tell me one instance where they didn't? Anyone who knows American history could predict this "leaked" report.
This is no knock on the general - like all generals, he's just doing his job. President Obama shows real leadership by not immediately reacting and giving the general what he wants - a mistake repeatedly made by Johnson during Viet Nam.
I personally know of no way that a massive "nation building" effort will suceed in Afghanistan without a long range, huge commitment of resources. MyChristal seeks the troops to switch to a "protect the population" stance - an admirable goal. Its just not sustainable in the long haul. The real goal should be containing any global terrorist activity out of this region. That can be accomplished with a more targeted, limited strategy than nation building.
Posted by Dwight Wall at 09/22/2009 @ 12:37pm
Posted by jerabaub at 09/22/2009 @ 12:22pm
in a way I tend to agree here....
But what would you do when the Taliban renters, takes over, stones the women and throws them out of normal society, and allows AQ to live and plan more death and destruction in a friendly place like Kandahar?
Posted by YourJomamma at 09/22/2009 @ 12:38pm
#
DREYFUSS: "The New York Times, in its news analysis piece today, notes that McChrystal is a potent force:..."
I can't wait for McChrystal to throw BHO under the bus!
Gotta love our CIC........so Commanding in getting the Legacy Media to give him face time, so "In" with his Kool-aid Drinkers, so Chiefy when he wants to make the tough decisions like granting Holder his Pursuit of Dumbness.
Posted by Happy at 09/22/2009 @ 10:08am | ignore this person | warn this person
Making light of the POTUS, in WARTIME?
Why do you hate the troops?
Posted by schnellerheinz at 09/22/2009 @ 12:40pm
Posted by Extraneous at 09/22/2009 @ 12:36pm
I am inclined to agree with you here.
Posted by YourJomamma at 09/22/2009 @ 12:40pm
Hmm, more meanderings on how to play the neocon game. The chickenhawk/neocons created a situation where the only people who win are the wealthy elite. McChrystal is only a bitter spice in the taste of the poison that this war and foriegn policy is. The facts are billions are angry with the US. Not because of one president. Not because of a course of action in one war. They're angry because of 200 hundred years of US foriegn policy. Because of several hundred years of European foriegn policy. The war in Afghanistan (war of conquest) cannot be won. It was lost before it began. It's not a war against a nation but humanity. Until our nation changes it's foriegn and environmental policies we will continue to loose the 'war'.
Nice post Ficheye. How long do we dance on the edge lusting over power?
Posted by annakis at 09/22/2009 @ 12:40pm
Read Tom Englehardt's "Is America Hooked on War".
Posted by annakis at 09/22/2009 @ 12:48pm
Posted by annakis at 09/22/2009 @ 12:40pm
Mindless nonsense..comrade.
Posted by YourJomamma at 09/22/2009 @ 12:49pm
"Mask, tell us SPECIFICALLY what a "plan to win it" entails from your view.?
Posted by YourJomamma at 09/22/2009 @ 12:56pm
We tend to make mistakes in military affairs by pursuing the strategies that were sucessful in a previous engagement. The counter-insurgency strategy conducted by Petreous in Iraq has been somewhat sucessful, paradoxically in a war that was unnecessary to begin with. One of the reasons this strategy acheived marginal sucess was because the troops can be concentrated where the population is - in urban areas. "Marginal" because it is only sucessful as long as it can be sustained, which, IMHO, isn't much longer.
Afghanistan is both larger in population than Iraq, and less urbanized. Its difficult to see how a similar strategy would work without a massive increase in troops beyond anything seen in Iraq. Otherwise, any insurgent group can simply disappear into the surrounding terrain. The idea of using drones/bombing is equally mistaken - such tactics would inevitably lead to accidental civilian casualities, which is what MyChristal's current proposals are designed to prevent.
Dreyfus in his article hits the nail on the head - the only possible solution is political: talking with our friends and, yes, our enemies. Otherwise, this "war" is unwinnable. We need to get beyond either/or concepts of "winning" and focus on the larger strategy: containing global terrorism.
Posted by Dwight Wall at 09/22/2009 @ 1:12pm
Posted by YourJomamma at 09/22/2009 @ 12:00pm
So, we can't leave until the Afghani government is strong enough to fight for itself....even if that takes years and years and years and years?
Posted by YourJomamma at 09/22/2009 @ 12:56pm
Get out ASAP. And so will any guy (or gal) you'd want elected in 2012.
Posted by Mask at 09/22/2009 @ 1:23pm
agree with Dwight Wall above. "winning" and "losing" are arbitrary concepts that are appropriate to competitive sports and, possibly, to the kinds of armed conflicts between nation-states that characterized the earlier part of the 20th century. We live in a new reality where winning and losing will be defined in different ways. To think that Al Qaeda will be defeated in the same way that Hitler was defeated is to risk taking our eyes off the ball completely (to borrow another, more appropriate, metaphor from competitive sports). In fact, a misplaced obsession with military victory will ensure our defeat in the ME in exactly the same way it did in Vietnam.
Posted by canaro71 at 09/22/2009 @ 1:23pm
Anakis is also spot on in some of her comments. It has been disturbing to watch the enemy morph from the Soviet Union into an array of current "threats", thereby justifying a never ending expansion in the military industrial complex since 1989, at a time when it conceibably should have shrunk. Bush/Cheney's wars were more related to the enrichment of their cronies through the perpetuation of war and its associated industries - just look at the obscene examples of Halliburton and Blackwater/Xe.
This is a case where the capitalist system (a system I support) is being distorted via normal "free market" incentives to create a negative social outcome: war is profitable, therefore, it must be perpetuated. The federal government that YourJomma loves to trash from a pure ideological stance is - as currently constituted - simply the bagman for this flow of profits. It is the ultimate connected "customer" for these war "services", fueled by corrupt campaign laws and a population kept in a perpetual state of fear by an equally connected media. There is nothing inherently incompetent about government's ability to do anything - the incompetence comes from those who want it to fail and who profit from that failure.
If "containing global terrorism" becomes a source of profit, it will never be "contained".
Posted by Dwight Wall at 09/22/2009 @ 1:28pm
200 years of US foreign policy have very consistantly, (but not perfectly,) supported the ideas of freedom an democracy. From our great victory in WW2, we annexed NOTHING, unlike just about every other "Great Power" of History. Much nonsense is written pretending, despite the obvious, as tho America had turned Imperialist. When you see this, you know that that writer is exquisitely clueless,. and does not deserve consideration as serious
Perhaps we should become expansionist, but the truth is that our last annexation was the Virgin Islands in 1917, (94 years ago!) If we tried, we could have done much bigger and better than that.
Note to annakis:, re "chickenhawks". I served a year in Viet Nam, with the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, and remained with the National Guard, until, at 15 years, I was forced out by medical problems. John D. Froelich
Posted by balataf at 09/22/2009 @ 1:31pm
this is perhaps the most striking issue that reflects the charge by conservatives during the campaign that Obama was too inexperienced to be president.
His inability to lead on this critical decision shows that he is perhaps actually another Carter. That is bad news for our troops, but good news for conservatives and the 2010 and 2012 elections.
And Mr Dreyfuss, your concluding paragraph is completely unrealistic, with one proviso. You accurately stated that the concessions by the US would be significant. I would add significant to a degree that seriously undercuts our national security and US interests.
Posted by antisocialist at 09/22/2009 @ 11:40am
You mean because he doesn't just listen to one mans idea of what to do? I would call being a leader not bending to the will or every general if you don't think that it is in fact the proper tactic to win. This isn't a mater of not being a leader this is a matter of assessing McChrystals recommendations in respects to all the other recommendations on the region he is receiving. The point about the general not having to worry about the situation in the rest of the region when he makes his recommendations is a fair one indeed. It's the generals job to lead the war. It's the Presidents job to assess the impacts of that war and it's strategies and deteremine if that will in the end make us safer or not. A leader is one who can stand up to even his own generals if neccesary. A pawn is someone who gives his generals everything they want without ever questioning if what they want is what the country needs.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/22/2009 @ 1:52pm
Seal off, not bomb into the stone age...they are already in the stone age...and thats the problem...
And as far as your Limbaugh, Palin, et al, rant,...and I don't know why you brought entertainers into the discussion, but, for these hang ups of yours, ..you can get help.
Posted by YourJomamma at 09/22/2009 @ 12:31pm
Wait is Palin now relegated to entertainer?
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/22/2009 @ 1:56pm
Balataf, I agree with your comments to a point. We have much to be proud of in our 200 years of history, particularly in relation to Europe, and Japan. We have less to be proud of in Latin America, Africa, and areas known as the "Third World". For such a great power, the United States has, for the most part, been decidedly non-Imperialist in the 19th century sense of the word. The story changes somewhat when we look at it from an economic standpoint (for example, the United Fruit Company and the wars we have fought for it). I think what gives annakis comments some validity (I don't agree with everything she said) is the reminder of how things look when you are on the receiving end of our policies. I personally think Iraq was a naked war of imperialism carried out by a criminal regime. Afghanistan, less so. In neither case are we exactly being welcomed with open arms.
Thank you for your service to our country.
Posted by Dwight Wall at 09/22/2009 @ 1:57pm
Let's remember that McChrystal was Obama's choice after he fired the previous general.
Posted by abell12ct at 09/22/2009 @ 12:00pm | ignore this person | warn this person
That's true.
He dumped McKiernan for being too conventional, I guess. Now, THIS guy is the one who wants more boots.
Go figure.
Posted by schnellerheinz at 09/22/2009 @ 2:02pm
If Obama wants to get reelected, he should give the resources needed to win the war in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan is the most God awful place on earth to wage war. Without the necessary manpower and resources, BHO would be wise to either re-deploy or pull out altogether and go down as the second President to lose a war. Nixon was the other one.
Just don't tell our troops who are presently deployed that you are the CIC but you don't have the cajones to fight the war to victory.
Now everybody knows that war Presidents usually do get reelected so I feel strongly that Obama will do what's necessary to prolong the war into the next presidential election cycle. He is a politician after all.
Posted by gunslinger1 at 09/22/2009 @ 2:03pm
Wait is Palin now relegated to entertainer?
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/22/2009 @ 1:56pm
for some this is true...for others, not true...
Posted by YourJomamma at 09/22/2009 @ 2:32pm
You mean because he doesn't just listen to one mans idea of what to do? I would call being a leader not bending to the will or every general if you don't think that it is in fact the proper tactic to win. This isn't a mater of not being a leader this is a matter of assessing McChrystals recommendations in respects to all the other recommendations on the region he is receiving. The point about the general not having to worry about the situation in the rest of the region when he makes his recommendations is a fair one indeed. It's the generals job to lead the war. It's the Presidents job to assess the impacts of that war and it's strategies and deteremine if that will in the end make us safer or not. A leader is one who can stand up to even his own generals if neccesary. A pawn is someone who gives his generals everything they want without ever questioning if what they want is what the country needs.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/22/2009 @ 1:52pm
No, you misunderstood my comment (and I'll take responsibility if it wasn't really clear).
I'm saying that he's showing indecision rather than being decisive. that is what I took from his responses on the talk shows Sunday.
The strategy decision is the president's to make. The military has already given him their assessments that he requested along with their own proposals for going forward.
It is Obama who appears to be delaying as he ponders the political ramifications of his decision on the strategy.
Posted by antisocialist at 09/22/2009 @ 2:40pm
No, you misunderstood my comment (and I'll take responsibility if it wasn't really clear).
I'm saying that he's showing indecision rather than being decisive. that is what I took from his responses on the talk shows Sunday.
The strategy decision is the president's to make. The military has already given him their assessments that he requested along with their own proposals for going forward.
It is Obama who appears to be delaying as he ponders the political ramifications of his decision on the strategy.
Posted by antisocialist at 09/22/2009 @ 2:40pm
Or maybe he is pondering the ramifications for the region? Making rash decisions when you are dealing with potentially millions of peoples lives is not a good idea.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/22/2009 @ 2:52pm
As we all sit here, safe and sound in front of our computer monitors, I can only suggest that you all go to GlobalPost.com and read their extensive information about Afganistan and Pakistan. At least that will give all of you context about what is really going on there.
It is easy for all of us to try and pronounce that we know...from the right is more war, from the left is get out now.
If there is a corrupt govenment running that country, all the men and money that we send to them will not help the actual people. Having lived thru the Vietnam debacle, I would hate to see us re-live that nightmare...so many lives lost for nothing!
Isn't time that we recognize that we can't do everything for everybody. None of us want another terrorist attack, but playing whackadoodle with all those nations that allow terrorist to train in there is a foolhardy proposition.
Posted by afisher at 09/22/2009 @ 2:54pm
If the definition of "winning" requires that Afghanistan be turned into a united country with a democratic government, then we should get out now because that is not a realistic goal. Afghanistan is not, and never has been, a cohesive country. It is a conglomeration of tribal areas, and many of those tribes historically have been adverse to each other.
If the definition of "winning" requires that the Taliban be eliminated, or that they be denied any power, that also is an unrealistic goal. They are too much a part of the Pashtun to be denied any role. However, it may be possible to minimize their future actions that are inimical to the safety of the United States.
If the definition of "winning" requires the destruction of Al Qaeda by means of actions taken in Afghanistan, that also is an unrealistic goal if for no other reason than that Al Qaeda is more in Pakistan than in Afghanistan, so actions taken in Afghanistan can have only a limited impact on Al Qaeda.
Therefore, McChrystal's claim that he can "win" in Afghanistan with sufficient additional troops is meaningless without a definition of what he means by "winning." Similarly, any statement by Obama regarding "winning" in Afghanistan also is meaningless unless it is accompanied by a clear definition of what it means to "win" there.
Posted by taikan at 09/22/2009 @ 3:03pm
I would like to take this opportunity to clarify some misunderstandings in this article. In my comments on stage, I was asked by the moderator if General McChrystal should resign if his recommendations are not embraced by the president. Rather than speculate on the current situation, I merely noted that it is the responsibility of any commander to consider resignation if he has lost the trust and confidence of his superiors. To my knowledge, I made no connection between resources and resignations, nor did I predict that General McChrystal should or might resign if his resource requests are not met. Any commander knows that if he loses the trust and confidence of his commander, it is often best to pass the mantel of leadership to someone who can do the job.
As for the post-session conversation, I made it clear- as Mr. Dreyfuss points out- that I do not think General McChrystal should or will resign, as it is typical for commanders to offer recommendations that are likely to be accepted and consistent with mission accomplishment, and I expected that to happen in this case. Additionally, I cited no numbers (as suggested by Mr. Dreyfuss), nor did I suggest that he would quit if his low option was not accepted.
Mark T. Kimmitt
Posted by MarkKimmitt at 09/22/2009 @ 3:05pm
It's funny that acting quickly and without proper thought to the gravity of what you are deciding is considered leadership instead of giving a neccesary amount of though to the situation.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/22/2009 @ 3:08pm
"At least one report today suggests that Obama might refuse to support additional forces in Afghanistan, instead relying on targeted Predator-type attacks on Al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan and Pakistan"
This is a false choice, and a dangerous one at that. What it means is expanding the war in South Asia, either through more troops in Afghanistan or through more attacks on Pakistan. I guess the thinking is that Pakistan will go along with drone attacks by a foreign country on its territory and the civilian causalities that will surely result. There will be an inevitable political fallout in Pakistan. Anti-Americanism will spread like wildfire and coup and countercoup will result in Pakistan. A pro-Taliban government will likely come about in Pakistan. Either that or a destabilized and dangerous country with nuclear weapons. India will be drawn into this destabilized vortex, so too the rest of Asia - China, Russia, etc. Seems like the real objective is to create chaos and disorder in Asia. I wonder if the political theorists have thought this through carefully. Or is it a risky adventure, or perhaps madness - Columbus on a new voyage of exploration.
Posted by trueleftist at 09/22/2009 @ 3:14pm
"It is Obama who appears to be delaying as he ponders the political ramifications of his decision on the strategy."----Posted by antisocialist at 09/22/2009 @ 2:40pm
Good time for a reminder...
"Because when it comes to National Security, I believe every president, Democrat or Republican acts to preserve the Nation.
Bush, Obama, Clinton, or whomever, will take action to preserve our safety and the Union. And I don't need to know how they do it. I just want to know they will."----Posted by antisocialist at 04/20/2009 @ 10:07pm
Posted by Mask at 09/22/2009 @ 3:20pm
Afghans have to figure out their government, but I do not want to see our military hung out to dry as they were in Iraq. They need to be properly supported and equipped, otherwise get them out of there. Our only real business in Afghanistan is al-Qaida. I think we have to work with those countries which supported the Northern Alliance, along with Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia on the other side. Arab fears of Iran, and the mutual fears resulting from the Pakistan/India divide will present problems. I don't think anyone in Washington, regardless of party, has a clue how to do anything.
Posted by pjcasey at 09/22/2009 @ 3:21pm
Posted by MarkKimmitt at 09/22/2009 @ 3:05pm
Thank you for clarifying. I suspected that the Nation's article was not completely forthcomming.
Posted by Extraneous at 09/22/2009 @ 3:22pm
Anyone who knows American history could predict this "leaked" report.
Posted by Dwight Wall at 09/22/2009 @ 12:37pm | ignore this person | warn this person
And the amazingly coincidental arrests by FBI of 'al-quaeda' linked terrorist suspects that is still in the "investigation" stage on American soil, with alerts already disseminated by Homeland Security.
Sound familiar?
Posted by OneVote at 09/22/2009 @ 3:32pm
I don't think anyone in Washington, regardless of party, has a clue how to do anything.
Posted by pjcasey at 09/22/2009 @ 3:21pm
Exactly.
Posted by YourJomamma at 09/22/2009 @ 3:33pm
Bush, Obama, Clinton, or whomever, will take action to preserve our safety and the Union. And I don't need to know how they do it. I just want to know they will."----Posted by antisocialist at 04/20/2009 @ 10:07pm
Posted by Mask at 09/22/2009 @ 3:20pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Priceless!
Posted by OneVote at 09/22/2009 @ 3:36pm
I don't think anyone in Washington, regardless of party, has a clue how to do anything.
Posted by pjcasey at 09/22/2009 @ 3:21pm
Exactly.
Posted by YourJomamma at 09/22/2009 @ 3:33pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Now we are getting somewhere.
Posted by OneVote at 09/22/2009 @ 3:37pm
Now we are getting somewhere.
Posted by OneVote at 09/22/2009 @ 3:37pm
I would love to see the effect on our country if in the next 2 election cycles, EVERY INCUMBANT REGARDLESS OF PARTY WAS VOTED OUT.
Of course one way to rid ourselves of all these vermin is to make the position for rep and sen..a duty with no salary...
imagine how short the sessions would be....
Posted by YourJomamma at 09/22/2009 @ 3:41pm
I would love to see the effect on our country if in the next 2 election cycles, EVERY INCUMBANT REGARDLESS OF PARTY WAS VOTED OUT.
Of course one way to rid ourselves of all these vermin is to make the position for rep and sen..a duty with no salary...
imagine how short the sessions would be....
Posted by YourJomamma at 09/22/2009 @ 3:41pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Right now that is my voting strategy going forward. Enough!
Term limits and public financing of campaigns. NO ifs ands or buts.
Posted by OneVote at 09/22/2009 @ 3:47pm
Term limits and public financing of campaigns. NO ifs ands or buts.
Posted by OneVote at 09/22/2009 @ 3:47pm
Count me in.
Posted by YourJomamma at 09/22/2009 @ 3:52pm
So...how much more proof do you need before you're convinced that Obama is a failure?
The pork-laded stimulus bill that was supposed to keep unemployment from going over 8 percent...but didn't = failure.
The mishandling of the situation in Honduras = failure.
HR 3200, a 1,000-plus-page disaster = failure.
Baucus trotting out his bill with NO Dems in visible support = failure.
Meddling in New York State politics = failulre.
Meddling in Massachusetts politics = failure.
Stabbing McChrystal in the back with the dagger of indecision = failure.
Thanks for the mess, Obamatons!
Posted by JackDavis1 at 09/22/2009 @ 4:17pm
Or maybe he is pondering the ramifications for the region? Making rash decisions when you are dealing with potentially millions of peoples lives is not a good idea.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/22/2009 @ 2:52pm
Obama announced his strategy for Afghanistan March 27, 2008. As noted in the Washington Post editorial 9/22/09
<Wavering on Afghanistan?
President Obama seems to have forgotten his own arguments for a counterinsurgency campaign.
IT WAS ONLY last March 27 that President Obama outlined in a major speech what he called "a comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan" that, he added, "marks the conclusion of a careful policy review." That strategy unambiguously stated that the United States would prevent the return of a Taliban government and "enhance the military, governance and economic capacity" of the country. We strongly supported the president's conclusion that those goals were essential to preventing another attack on the United States by al-Qaeda and its extremist allies.>
http://tinyurl.com/mcsm56
I don't think that it is rash when you are dealing with a strategy you announced 1 1/2 years ago and youve now been in office for 8 months.
Posted by antisocialist at 09/22/2009 @ 4:17pm
<Wavering on Afghanistan?
President Obama seems to have forgotten his own arguments for a counterinsurgency campaign.
IT WAS ONLY last March 27 that President Obama outlined in a major speech what he called "a comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan" that, he added, "marks the conclusion of a careful policy review." That strategy unambiguously stated that the United States would prevent the return of a Taliban government and "enhance the military, governance and economic capacity" of the country. We strongly supported the president's conclusion that those goals were essential to preventing another attack on the United States by al-Qaeda and its extremist allies.>
http://tinyurl.com/mcsm56
I don't think that it is rash when you are dealing with a strategy you announced 1 1/2 years ago and youve now been in office for 8 months.
Posted by antisocialist at 09/22/2009 @ 4:17pm
Those are goals. Not the strategy. What we are talking about is the strategy to achieve those goals which some to the question of do you go with massive troop increases or surgical strikes?
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/22/2009 @ 4:41pm
The solution is to use the Powell Doctrine - massive, overwhelming force to root out every last vestige of al-Queda/Taliban influence
Re-institute the draft, no exemptions (if you are a CO, lots of rear area support jobs available), raise a "citizen" army of 1.5 - 2 million troops and deploy them for a year.
Simple result - politician eager to bring their sons/daughters home quickly, and troops crawling into every village and cave, disarming the population and enforce a democratic transition.
Never happen in the real world, but afterwards, keeping this force stationed in the US permanently (great opportunity for all kids 18-19 years old to learn some civic responsibility/earn college credits,etc) as a threat to any country or group that threatens to harm the US interests, would change the dynamics
Posted by ProudLibertarian at 09/22/2009 @ 4:50pm
Posted by ProudLibertarian at 09/22/2009 @ 4:50pm
Indeed.
Posted by YourJomamma at 09/22/2009 @ 4:54pm
Posted by Mask at 09/22/2009 @ 3:20pm | ignore this person |
--LARRY...PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO ME!
Posted by urmygyro at 09/22/2009 @ 4:58pm
>>>Needless to say, the resignation of McChrystal, who's been elevated to near-hero status by the Republican right, would be a frontal challenge to the White House.<<<
McChrystal doesn't have that kind of power over Obama. Instead of making threats he should focus on developing a STRATEGY that has some chance of success. Endless calls for more troops without a success strategy is a recipe for disaster, and Obama clearly has the oratory skills to explain this to the American people.
Military solutions alone have no chance of "defeating" insurgency. If McChrystal doesn't understand this, maybe he should step down.
Posted by Metteyya at 09/22/2009 @ 5:00pm
Posted by Metteyya at 09/22/2009 @ 5:00pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Not exactly true, half-assed military solutions have no chance of defeating an insurgency. I have little doubt if our elected leaders felt this effort was critical to the safety of this nation (I doubt Afganistan meets this criteria), that we could summon the amount of force that would be required to snuff out the life of every combatant (along with the lives of those unfortunate enough to be in the way).
Its a matter of political will, for both the leaders and the population of this country. For god sake, we nuked tens of thousands of civilians to bring WWII to a close (a decision that was correct, given the nature of Japaneese resistance to that point, a land invasion of the Japaneese mainland would have cost millions of lives, both US and Japaneese). A brutal calculation that a true commander in chief needs to make. this CIC doesn't have the guts to make that call
Posted by ProudLibertarian at 09/22/2009 @ 5:13pm
Military solutions alone have no chance of "defeating" insurgency. If McChrystal doesn't understand this, maybe he should step down.
Posted by Metteyya at 09/22/2009 @ 5:00pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Even the military has said this.
McChrystal's idea is to protect every fricking village from Taliban reprisal for US paid pledges of allegiance to the corrupt Karzai government. And, we can't even trust Karzai.
Ask Putin/Medvedev on how things are going in Chechyna.
This is a GD mess. Out now.
Posted by OneVote at 09/22/2009 @ 5:15pm
Those are goals. Not the strategy. What we are talking about is the strategy to achieve those goals which some to the question of do you go with massive troop increases or surgical strikes?
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/22/2009 @ 4:41pm
So, Obama misspoke when HE called it a strategy?
And the Washington Post likewise didn't understand that Obama was referring to a goal rather than a strategy? Are you also going to then criticize the WP for misunderstanding Obama's words and taking them literally as I did?
Posted by antisocialist at 09/22/2009 @ 5:26pm
And the Washington Post likewise didn't understand that Obama was referring to a goal rather than a strategy? Are you also going to then criticize the WP for misunderstanding Obama's words and taking them literally as I did?
Posted by antisocialist at 09/22/2009 @ 5:26pm
Absolutely.
"enhance the military, governance and economic capacity"
Look at that statement for a second and tell me what that actually means. How do you achieve that? The details are the strategy. That is the goal. How do you enhance the military, governance and economic capacity. I will criticize both Obama and the Washington Post for presenting a goal as a strategy.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/22/2009 @ 6:06pm
What that essentially is saying is we plan the stabilize the country by stabilizing the country.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/22/2009 @ 6:06pm
I don't think anyone in Washington, regardless of party, has a clue how to do anything. Posted by pjcasey at 09/22/2009 @ 3:21pm Exactly. Posted by YourJomamma at 09/22/2009 @ 3:33pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Are you kidding me?
Lobbyists, lawyers, pundits, assorted hangers-on, prostitutes ---they all cash in.
THAT'S the permanent bureaucracy.
Posted by schnellerheinz at 09/22/2009 @ 6:21pm
It is Obama who appears to be delaying as he ponders the political ramifications of his decision on the strategy.
Posted by antisocialist at 09/22/2009 @ 2:40pm
What you are saying that unlike Bush, Obama is using his head, rather than his gut to make decisions about national security and foreign policy?
Shock horror, the sky is falling!
Posted by Shingo at 09/22/2009 @ 6:39pm
"Contain" the Taliban?
The Taliban is evil. The US is good.
The US can destroy the Taliban, so it has no need or reason to compromise with evil. No need or reason to enslave Afghan women, to abandon Afghanistan to a brutal civil war, or to let the Taliban again take over and directly and indirectly kill hundreds of thousands and leave millions at risk of death by starvation.
The Taliban are the scourge of the earth. I'm glad coexistence with these mass murdering, genocidal, racist, woman-hating butchers is not possible. Its about as desirable as a "peace-loving" coexistence with Hitler.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 6:47pm
The Taliban is evil. The US is good.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 6:47pm
Put away your comic books little boy.
If the US could have destroyed the Taliban, it woudl have done so by now. The fact is that the Taliban are the local Pushtun population and can't be destroyed without killing all Pashtuns.
Reagan and the right in general, have never had a problem with enslaving Afghan women, or women in general.
"Its about as desirable as a "peace-loving" coexistence with Hitler."
Bush's grand daddy thought it was a good idea.
Posted by Shingo at 09/22/2009 @ 6:57pm
"What you are saying that unlike Bush, Obama is using his head, rather than his gut to make decisions about national security and foreign policy?"
There is no reason a truly intelligent person, as opposed to a pseudo-intellectual, would have to manufacture tangential and largely irrelevant complexities in deciding if the Taliban should be defeated. It's just like in 2003: the self-evident moral distinction between the democracy of the US under the great man George W. Bush and the genocidal totalitarian dictatorship that killed 2 million people and ran concentration camps led by Saddam Hussein in Iraq is SO OBVIOUS that only deluded insane left liberal quasi-Socialists with no grasp whatsoever of the basic facts of reality and without any either intellectual curiosity or honesty could fail to see it or worse yet imply that the moral distinction was that Bush, not Saddam, was the Hitler of the equation. It's a DUH!, common-sense, clear-cut truth. There is no need to ponder it; it should be a no-brainer, if you are intellectually honest and courageous and morally principled and heroic like George W. Bush.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 7:00pm
What we really need is a president who has a pair - so far we don't. The wishful thinking of the left has no effect on the Taliban and AQL other than to encourage them. As usual our president will probably vote "present" - God, what a whimp! That being the case, history will merely repeat itself and we will be back in 10 or 15 years after enduring another massive hit. If Obama loses Afghanistan and Iraq, it will be the left and the dems that will wear that yoke for generations - enjoy...
Posted by pyeatte at 09/22/2009 @ 7:02pm
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 7:00pm
The only self evident thing in 2003 was that Iraq was a sitting duck, with no defenses and no WMD, that looked like it could be easily invaded and occupied, which is why Bush and the neocons pushed to go in there. We love dictators, and don;t care how brutal they are, until they outlive their usefulness to us and we suddenly decide we care about human rights.
In the 80's Regan loved the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Clinton even used Osama in the Kosovo.
In the 80's Regan loved Saddam, armed him, financed him and gave him loans.
if Hitler were alive today, the Bush administration woudl have called him a man of peace, the way they did that other war criminal and butcher , Ariel Sharon.
Posted by Shingo at 09/22/2009 @ 7:09pm
George W. Bush and the genocidal totalitarian dictatorship that killed 2 million people
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 7:00pm
According to the State Department, the number is 300,000, which is even less than the number of Iraqis the US forces have killed in 7 years.
Posted by Shingo at 09/22/2009 @ 7:12pm
I do not really care whether McChrystal quits or not. We shouldn't have been in Afghanistan or Iraq in the first place. Al Qaeda and the Taliban and Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with The World Trade Center controlled demolitions !!! I will tell you one thing. If a country bombed the hell out of my country to get one guy and killed hundreds of thousands of my fellow citizens and some of my relatives then I would be hell bound to destroy that country in anyway shape or form !!! That is what the Bush Administration has put upon us. The people that supported the Bush Administration policies deserve what ever they get from the so-called terrorists !!! The rest rest of us that didn't better hope that we don't become collateral damage. Those people in other countries that 'Our Terrorist Organization' (The C.I.A.) has in the past inflicted assassinarions and coups on and the biggest one of all (The Atomic and Hydrogen Bombings) of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are deserving of their anger and hatred of us !!! Who do we think we are? The greatest country on earth? We are not !!! We are the most powerful country on earth !!! When we stop a never ending and most convenient war on terror that feeds into the military industrial complex acruing moe and more power and start helping these countries instead of destroying them, then we will begin to deserve to be identified as the greatest country on earth. So get a grip on the rule of law and bring the Bush Family and their former administration and their cohorts to JUSTICE!!! Then we will become the country we are suppose to be. As for McChrystal and anyone else in the military, come home and protect our country. We will be better off. Thank you, Sincerely, Tony L. Cogburn From The Best Coast Santa Clara, CA.
Posted by roostertlc at 09/22/2009 @ 7:21pm
Sincerely, Tony L. Cogburn From The Best Coast Santa Clara, CA.
Posted by roostertlc at 09/22/2009 @ 7:21pm
A nutcase from the Socialst Republik of Santa Clara, CA
Posted by antisocialist at 09/22/2009 @ 7:34pm
Posted by antisocialist at 09/22/2009 @ 7:34pm:
No kidding...
Posted by pyeatte at 09/22/2009 @ 7:37pm
"According to the State Department, the number is 300,000, which is even less than the number of Iraqis the US forces have killed in 7 years."
Shingo, you are a crazed pathological liar. I've been keeping track of how many times I've asked you to show me this so-called document. This is the ninth or tenth time. EVERY TIME I'VE ASKED, you've either ignored or refused to answer the question. Obviously, you know you are lying, so why don't you just SHUT UP?!?
Of course, we've counted more than that many individual corpses whose cause of death was execution by the Saddam Hussein regime, but you've argued America could have planted the bodies. Of course, we've been able to confirm, according to the Documental Center for Human Rights in Iraq, that Saddam executed over 600,000 people. It is clear that his two genocides killed about 250,000 people, meaning the total he killed is about 850,000. That 600,000 figure is backed up by The Weekly Standard's estimates of how many Saddam was killing in 2002 (over 20,000, though at the height of his tyranny it was over 25,000 per year: not counting his manipulation of the sanctions regime). The New York Times and Iraqi government say these estimates are too low! Note I can provide links to back up any of these assertions if you ask, though I ALREADY HAVE to Shingo in past conversation, but he is in denial.
The rest of the 2 million figure comes from the Iran-Iraq war and Saddam's manipulation of the sanctions regime.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 7:39pm
A nutcase from the Socialst Republik of Santa Clara, CA
Posted by antisocialist at 09/22/2009 @ 7:34pm
In other words, your own mirror image.
Posted by Shingo at 09/22/2009 @ 7:40pm
Shingo, both gunslinger1 and antisocialist have questioned you on these grounds, so let's be clear: Do you or do you not support global jihad?
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 7:45pm
What we really need is a president who has a pair - so far we don't.
Posted by pyeatte at 09/22/2009 @ 7:02pm
We had one of those and he turned out to be the worst president in modern history.
I know you wingnuts have your homo erotic fantasies about tough guy presidents who thing with their crotch and not their intellect, but the last one let the worst terrorist attack in our history happen on his watch, let the perpetrators get away, started 2 wars he couldn't finish and turned this country into a financial basket case.
What better war to encourage the Taliban that to take the eye off the ball and let them re-group while we get distracted with an illegal and unnecessary war?
What better war to encourage the AQ than to let the leaders get away?
Our last president thought that God spoke to him, which was probably just traces of his halcion days with the bottle and cocaine revisiting him.
The wingnuts here want it both ways. When 911 happened, they blamed in on Clinton, even though Bush had been in office 8 months, yet if another 911 were to happen today, they would blame Obama becasue he'd been in office 8 months.
Where would the wingnuts be without their motorized goal posts?
Posted by Shingo at 09/22/2009 @ 7:48pm
Shingo, both gunslinger1 and antisocialist have questioned you on these grounds, so let's be clear: Do you or do you not support global jihad?
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 7:45pm
No.
Antisocialist called me a jihadist for correcting his revisionist history.
So tell me rightwingnutcase, you or do you not supoprt pedophilia?
Posted by Shingo at 09/22/2009 @ 7:50pm
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 7:39pm
I'm sure you're capable for looking up the State Department webt site.
We have NOT the number of individual corpses in Iraq (we don;t do body counts remember?) and we certainly have NOT ascertained that the cause of death was execution by the Saddam Hussein regime,.
I have NEVER claimed that America could or would have have planted the bodies.
We haev NOT been been able to confirm, according to the Documental Center for Human Rights in Iraq, that Saddam executed over 600,000 people. If that were the case, eh woudl have been charged with more than the murder of 140 Kurds at his trial.
It is clear hwo many he killed, but the State Department estimates about 300,000.
The Weekly Standard is a neocon propaganda tabloid that has been factually wrong about everything with reagrds to Iraq.
The New York Times does not do body counts.
The Iraqi government might say these estimates are too low, but they could be lying, seeing as they didn't have sufficient evidence to prove this at Saddam's trial.
Your links have been easily debunked.
The US has already claimed responsibility for the 2 million figure comes from the Iran-Iraq war and Saddam's manipulation of the sanctions regime.
Posted by Shingo at 09/22/2009 @ 7:57pm
So you don't have the link I asked for, but I should take YOUR dishonest, lying word for it over THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE IRAQI GOVERNMENT, INDICT, THE US GOVERNMENT, and THE WEEKLY STANDARD? I frankly don't trust you. And yes, that is the number confirmed by the Documental Center for Human Rights in Iraq, and they have a mountain of evidence to back them up.
"The US has already claimed responsibility for the 2 million figure comes from the Iran-Iraq war and Saddam's manipulation of the sanctions regime."
What? Are you saying that the US is to blame for Saddam Hussein's invasion of Iran? Why do leftists have to blame America for EVERYTHING? Don't we ever do anything right? The toll from those factors is probably only about 1.1 million, not 2 million. I estimated Saddam killed 2 million total. He killed between 1.7 million and 2.4 million, roughly.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 8:23pm
"So tell me rightwingnutcase, you or do you not supoprt pedophilia?"
I do not.
You argued yesterday that US foreign policy has "led to the deaths of tens of millions". Given that you honestly think America is worse than Nazi Germany, do you see jihad as a lesser evil?
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 8:26pm
"The wingnuts here want it both ways. When 911 happened, they blamed in on Clinton, even though Bush had been in office 8 months, yet if another 911 were to happen today, they would blame Obama becasue he'd been in office 8 months.
Where would the wingnuts be without their motorized goal posts?"
Shingo, according to the US military, over 41,000 terrorists have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq (over 22,000 in the former and over 19,000 in the latter: by the way, over 90% of those in Iraq were there before we were). According to the US government's annual Patterns of Global Terrorism, the number of terror attacks worldwide dropped dramatically the year following both the invasion of Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq. Polls show further that the percentage of people in the Islamic world who support or have sympathy for AQ has gone done measurably as a result of the Iraq war militarily defeating and discrediting them and fully exposing their utter wretchedness. Presumably, this means AQ PROBABLY will gain less recruits as a result of the Iraq war than it would have without the war.
If killing over 41,000 terrorists isn't what prevented another 9/11, what did? Waterboarding? Notice that the left doesn't favor that either.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 8:40pm
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 8:23pm
if the NYT, the Iraqi govt., INDICT, the US Govet, and the Weekly Stadnard had evidence, it woudl have been presented at Saddam's trial.
It wasn't becasue it wouldn't have held up. End of story/
I don't care if you don't trust me. I think you're a deranged and ignorant fanatic, so I would be concerned if you did.
If the the Documental Center for Human Rights in Iraq had evidence of any kind, it woudl have been presented at Saddam's trial.
"Are you saying that the US is to blame for Saddam Hussein's invasion of Iran?"
They gave him their blessing so yes, they share some of the blame.
"Why do leftists have to blame America for EVERYTHING?"'
They don't, they just blame America when America is to blame. The right wants to believe that whatever America doesn it is pure as the driven snow and America can do no wrong.
Yes, America do some things right. Bush did some good stuff with regard to aids in Africa.
I am not interested in your estimates of how many Saddam killed. By your own admission, you're a wingnut and wingnuts never let fact gets in the way of propaganda.
Posted by Shingo at 09/22/2009 @ 8:40pm
You argued yesterday that US foreign policy has "led to the deaths of tens of millions". Given that you honestly think America is worse than Nazi Germany, do you see jihad as a lesser evil?
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 8:26pm
Over 70 years yes. that does not make us worse than Nazi Germany, who only had 4-5 years to unleash their carnage.
Posted by Shingo at 09/22/2009 @ 8:42pm
"has gone done measurably"
Down.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 8:43pm
So Shingo, everything Saddam wasn't tried for, didn't happen? The gassing of the Kurds, 1991 massacre, assault on the Marsh Arabs, Iran-Iraq war, Abu Ghraib under Saddam, the invasion of Kuwait, ect., is all a myth?
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 8:47pm
Shingo, according to the US military, over 41,000 terrorists have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq (over 22,000 in the former and over 19,000 in the latter: by the way, over 90% of those in Iraq were there before we were).
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 8:40pm
the US Military have no credibility. They have been caught planting shovels and guns net to dead bodies to frame them as "terrorists" planting IED's.
Teh US military also said it did not do body counts, so how do they know how many "terrorists" have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq?
According to all polls, the number of terror attacks worldwide sky rocketed following both the invasion of Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq.
Polls show that suport for Bin Laden also increased.
Michael Sheur, head of the Bin laden unit at the CIA for 8 years, has said that the invasnios of Iraq and Afghanisatn have been teh most powerful recruiting tool to al Qaeda we could have created.
"If killing over 41,000 terrorists isn't what prevented another 9/11, what did? "
Killing 41,000 people doesn't mean there are less terrorists in the world. They are not a finite number, but killing civilians, and wedding parties, creates hundreds at a time.
90% of foreign fighters caught entering Iraq were shown to have been moderate Muslism who were radicalized by the invasion on Iraq.
"Waterboarding? Notice that the left doesn't favor that either."
Because it doesn't work.
Posted by Shingo at 09/22/2009 @ 8:48pm
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 7:45pm | ignore this person | warn this person
''To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction: or the forces of two bodies on each other are always equal and are directed in opposite directions''.
Newton
Ponder that they could at least be comparable evils, and that you will not change the laws of nature. Action and Reaction. Haven't the Zionists used Holocaust to justify their atrocity? Hasn't the US used 9/11 to justify killing innocents in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Posted by OneVote at 09/22/2009 @ 8:49pm
"By your own admission, you're a wingnut"
I'm unapologetically on the far right. I firmly believe that liberalism is a logical fallacy and a product of pure mental delusion and collective hallucinations that simply cannot stand up to empirical evidence. George W. Bush is my hero.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 8:51pm
George W. Bush is my hero.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 8:51pm | ignore this person | warn this person
This man who thought Taliban was a rock band?
What was that about mental delusion????
Posted by OneVote at 09/22/2009 @ 8:55pm
(a decision that was correct, given the nature of Japaneese resistance to that point, a land invasion of the Japaneese mainland would have cost millions of lives, both US and Japaneese).
this is by no means true, nor is it accepted by many a lot closer to the events than you or I.
Posted by emile duBois at 09/22/2009 @ 8:55pm
Posted by ProudLibertarian at 09/22/2009 @ 4:50pm | ignore this person | warn this person
grr, kill, kill
you're just a joke, a vicious caricature.
Posted by emile duBois at 09/22/2009 @ 8:58pm
I'm unapologetically on the far right. I firmly believe that liberalism is a logical fallacy and a product of pure mental delusion and collective hallucinations that simply cannot stand up to empirical evidence. George W. Bush is my hero.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 8:51pm
If George Bush is your hero, then you are impervious to empirical evidence. His presidency was such a failure, that the McCain campaign ran on a ticket of change and distancing themselves from the Bush Administration.
For example, you argued that the number of terror attacks worldwide dropped dramatically the year following both the invasion of Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq, yet they actually increased 600%.
http://tinyurl.com/yt6g3m http://tinyurl.com/l42nkp
And seeing as the Democracts control both houses and the WH, it's clear that liberalism is far from dead.
Posted by Shingo at 09/22/2009 @ 8:58pm
Obama told us that Afghanistan was "THE CENTRAL WAR ON TERROR". Now he may refuse to give the Commanding General in the field the troops and support he needs to defeat the enemy and leave our current troops there to be picked off by resurgent terrorist. Obama needs to support our troops or bring them home. If the TERRORIST take over Afghanistan and Pakistan with its nuclear weapons fall to them the responsiblity will be Obama's!
Posted by valwayne at 09/22/2009 @ 8:59pm
"Killing 41,000 people doesn't mean there are less terrorists"
When you call them "people," after saying "the US Military have no credibility," are you suggesting that the number of dead terrorists that they've put out is a complete fabrication?
See, this is the problem, Shingo. I put out a factual claim like over 41,000 terrorists have been killed by the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and you deny it without a source. How can I debate with you?
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 9:00pm
http://markhumphrys.com/who.is.winning.html Patterns of Global Terrorism 2002 The statistics are in, and the Afghan war reduced, not increased, Islamic fundamentalist terror. Terrorist incidents fell from 355 in 2001 to 199 in 2002, a 30 year low. This could change, but it looks promising so far. After Sept 11th people agonised over the best way to end Islamofascist attacks. To address their supposed "grievances"? To "solve" the "Israel problem"? To give them money? So far it seems that the best way to end Islamofascist attacks is to aggressively attack them in their home countries.
Patterns of Global Terrorism 2003 The statistics are in, and the Afghan and Iraqi wars reduced, not increased, Islamic fundamentalist terror. Nothing succeeds like success. Contrary to the claims that these wars would "inflame" the Arab world, and breed a new generation of hatred and suicide bombers, the opposite has happened. The Arab world is either: (a) afraid of the west, or: (b) silently hoping that the west wins, or: (c) the militants of course still hate the west and want to fight it, like they did before, but the difference is they are now being killed in vast numbers. 307 persons were killed in terrorist attacks in 2003, a huge drop on the 725 killed in 2002. The number of separate terrorist incidents also fell, to the lowest level recorded since 1969.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 9:01pm
When you call them "people," after saying "the US Military have no credibility," are you suggesting that the number of dead terrorists that they've put out is a complete fabrication?
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 9:00pm
Considering that the military have been caught planting evidence next to those they've just killed, once woudl have to conclude that the military are fabricating information.
Every time the US military has been caught bombing a wedding party, they claimed they were striking Al Qaeda, only to admit they got their intelligence wrong. It logically follows that when they are not caught lying, that thy stick with their lies.
In Vietnam, the US military was using body counts of all the Vietnamese they killed to argue they were all Viet Cong.
You see, there is nothing "factual" about the claim that over 41,000 terrorists have been killed by the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. How do we know they were terrorists and not insurgents, or just civilians?
Posted by Shingo at 09/22/2009 @ 9:04pm
Posted by balataf at 09/22/2009 @ 1:31pm | ignore this person | warn this person
it's not about territory, it's about power, military and economic. that explains troops stationed all over the world, and meddling in other countries' affairs.
Posted by emile duBois at 09/22/2009 @ 9:06pm
ttp://markhumphrys.com/who.is.winning.html Patterns of Global Terrorism 2002
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 9:01pm
Huh, you call that statistics? Some hockey blog with no data or graphs? The guy can't even design a web page.
That's so sad. Is that all you have? Really? Is this a joke?
Global terrorism rose 600%since the Iraq and afghan invasions.
Posted by Shingo at 09/22/2009 @ 9:08pm
So, you think the Iraq and Afghan wars have created more than the over 41,000 terrorists they've killed? This is clearly impossible. Even the Iraq war, which has killed nearly 20,000 terrorists, even if we accepted that it created terrorists, though empirical evidence (which liberals hate) suggests that AQ has less recruits because of it than it would have without it from the Muslim world, could not have created more than it killed. Obviously, both wars have decreased terror attacks worldwide and decreased the possibility of another 9/11. It's a matter of simple statistical probability.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 9:10pm
In a "plan to win," it might look like the area of Wisziristan be sealed off as a no mans land...and destroy anything that moves mentality..dead zone so to speak.
just absurd. you know nothing. quite pathetic.
Posted by emile duBois at 09/22/2009 @ 9:10pm
"Huh, you call that statistics? Some hockey blog with no data or graphs? The guy can't even design a web page.
That's so sad. Is that all you have? Really? Is this a joke?"
The page linked to both the US State Department 2002 and 2003 Patterns of Global Terrorism reports. Read them for yourself.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 9:13pm
But what would you do when the Taliban renters, takes over, stones the women and throws them out of normal society, and allows AQ to live and plan more death and destruction in a friendly place like Kandahar? Posted by YourJomamma at 09/22/2009 @ 12:38pm | ignore this person | warn this person
re-enters? they've been there all along. and the bloody shirt of the women again?
whattabunchofcrap.
Posted by emile duBois at 09/22/2009 @ 9:14pm
Massive increase of terrorism since Iraq invasion http://tinyurl.com/l42nkp
Iraq War Increased Terrorist Attacks 600% http://tinyurl.com/yt6g3m http://tinyurl.com/l42nkp
How the war on terror made the world a more terrifying place http://tinyurl.com/3ho76b
"The study compared the period between 11 September 2001 and the invasion of Iraq with the period since the invasion. The count - excluding the Arab-Israel conflict - shows the number of deaths due to terrorism rose from 729 to 5,420."
Posted by Shingo at 09/22/2009 @ 9:15pm
The page linked to both the US State Department 2002 and 2003 Patterns of Global Terrorism reports. Read them for yourself.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 9:13pm
2003 Patterns? So the study (if there is one) ignores the Iraq and Afghan invasion then.
Too funny.
Posted by Shingo at 09/22/2009 @ 9:20pm
Terror attacks worldwide dropped. Only in Iraq, were Saddam harbored tens of thousands of jihadists, did attacks increase, because the jihadists wanted to defeat us. We killed 20,000 of them, and attacks are down in Iraq. Further the rise in terror attacks was more noticeable because the number of terror attacks dropped to a low not seen since 1969 following the Iraq invasion.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 9:24pm
"2003 Patterns? So the study (if there is one) ignores the Iraq and Afghan invasion then.
Too funny."
The 2004 report on 2003 terror proved that terror attacks fell to a low not seen since 1969 following the Iraq war. The 2003 article on 2002 terror attacks showed a dramatic decrease since the Afghan war.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 9:26pm
Shingo, you still haven't answered: So, you think the Iraq and Afghan wars have created more than the over 41,000 terrorists they've killed?
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 9:28pm
Terror attacks worldwide dropped.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 9:24pm
Rubbish.
Since the Iraq invasion, there were major attacks in Bali, London and Madrid.
The 2006 Senate Rerport revealed that Saddam never harbored jihadists.
Attacks are down in Iraq becasue of enthnic cleasing and the sunni awakening, which started a year before the surge. We killed over 300,000 Iraqis, some of whom might have been terrorists, but the Pentagon does no do body counts and the military have been caught planting evidence.
Global terrorism rose 600%since the Iraq and afghan invasion, not just Iraq, which is which is why the report says "Global Terrorism"
Posted by Shingo at 09/22/2009 @ 9:31pm
The 2004 report on 2003 terror proved that terror attacks fell to a low not seen since 1969 following the Iraq war. The 2003 article on 2002 terror attacks showed a dramatic decrease since the Afghan war.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 9:26pm
Global terrorism rose 600%since the Iraq and afghan invasion, not just Iraq, which is which is why the report says "Global Terrorism"
Posted by Shingo at 09/22/2009 @ 9:32pm
Shingo, you still haven't answered: So, you think the Iraq and Afghan wars have created more than the over 41,000 terrorists they've killed?
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 9:28pm
They've created more than than many who hate America and want to attack us, yes.
The term terrorists is arbitrary anyway. We've reduced the meaning to those we simply don't agree with. I read the other day that the British Government used anti terrorism laws to freeze the funds of investors from Iceland.
Does that make them terrorists?
Posted by Shingo at 09/22/2009 @ 9:34pm
The war has killed less than 150,000 people. Almost none of them by Americans. By 2010, Saddam would have killed 140,000 people. The war has saved 25,000 Iraqi children due to better healthcare. The anti-war movement claimed that Saddam was killing 60,000 a year through his manipulation of the sanctions regime. Probably not, but he sure was killing a whole lot of people. There is no telling how many lives we've saved by killing 20,000 terrorists in Iraq.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 9:36pm
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 9:36pm
The war has killed less than 1.2 million people, one third of them by Americans.
So even if by 2010, Saddam would have killed 140,000 people, that means more 1 million Iraqis would have survived.
The anti-war movement has not claimed that Saddam was killing 60,000 a year through his manipulation of the sanctions regime. Madeliane Albright claimed responsibility for that on Americas behalf.
There is no telling how many lives we've saved by killing 20,000 terrorists in Iraq, because we don't know hoe many terrorists we killed, All we know is that the US military killed 300-400 thousand Iraqis.
Posted by Shingo at 09/22/2009 @ 9:41pm
While there has been a net decrease in the number of terrorists thanks to the Iraq war, I grant that the decrease would have been greater without the hysterical pro-jihad Lancet fabrication. The liars who produced it may well have blood on their hands, though their evidence is so thin and so weak and so obviously fabricated that only those predisposed to hate America could choose to convince themselves to believe in it.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 10:09pm
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 10:09pm
The only party that has blood on it's hands were the liars who took us to an illegal and unnecessary war of choice based on lies about WMD, Al Qaeda connections that never existed and false claims about Iraq being uninvolved with 911.
The Lancet was a service to humanity.
Posted by Shingo at 09/22/2009 @ 10:12pm
It is amazing and amusing, if frightening, just how FAR out of touch with reality left liberal quasi-socialists are. In 2004, Osama bin Laden desperately pleaded for a truce with the US, saying that any state that voted for Kerry over Bush would not be attacked by AQ and hence need not attack AQ. Meanwhile, everyone William Shawcross met when he visited Iraq expressed joy and delight and cheered in celebration and relief when Bush won. Palestinian terrorists were photographed in dismay and anger and fear watching on their TV Bush win the election. The genocide-state of North Korea bemoaned Kerry's loss - "The loss of [the dictator's favourite consort] was a blow. But John Kerry's loss in the US election was a harder one. These are now very worried men," said a foreign diplomat. The Iraqi democrat The Mesopotamian erupted in delight. Iranian democrats and Iraqi Kurds cheered. As a leftist blog put it: "Just ponder this a little. Try and digest it fully. The victims of a terrible, murderous oppression in the Kurdish area of Iraq, and those now yearning for a democratic breakthrough against theocratic tyranny in Iran, do not look for solidarity and support to the massed ranks of the marching left, the "peace" movement, as it flatters itself to be; no, they look to a right-wing Republican president. By your own lights, friends and comrades, is that not a truly extraordinary state of affairs? If it doesn't cause you some troubling doubts, will anything ever?" And about 1/3 of atheists voted for Bush, to take on the Islamofascists. At the time of the election, one site put it best: "All over the world, jihadis, Islamists, mullahs, communists, dictators, anti-semites, racists, religious fascists and all America-haters are gutted today."
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 10:42pm
Of course, when Bush won, the left, deluded, proclaimed that the election was stolen, Bush was worse than Hitler, and the terrorists were GLAD.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Crazy liberals!
If Kerry had won, by the way, the Lancet would never have been made up, fabricated, and published in the first place.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 10:45pm
In Washington Obama dithers.
In Afghanistan men die.
In Manhattan democrats blame Bush.
In Pakistan and in Queens, al-Qaida plans its next attack.
Shame.
Posted by blackmage at 09/23/2009 @ 12:14am
I thought Obama said this was a "war of necessity" ?
Digby has it right,
"Escalation is a bad idea. The Democrats backed themselves into defending the idea of Afghanistan being The Good War because they felt they needed to prove their macho bonafides when they called for withdrawal from Iraq. Nobody asked too many questions sat the time, including me. But none of us should forget that it was a political strategy, not a serious foreign policy.
There have been many campaign promises "adjusted" since the election. There is no reason that the administration should feel any more bound to what they said about this than all the other committments it has blithely turned aside in the interest of "pragmatism."
http://bit.ly/nDktv
Dems should never be left in charge of our national defense.
Posted by dualdiagnosis at 09/23/2009 @ 03:41am
Even if Obama increase the US forces in Afghanistan, this war is going to be a disaster.This is a losing war and it is clear the Taliban emerged stronger than ever. They cleverly use the IEDs against the coalition troops and they get the "results". It is better to withdraw the troops, sooner the better. The innocents killed by the drone strikes there, makes the Taliban recruitments easier.The same happens in Pakistan also.
Posted by Dastu11 at 09/23/2009 @ 05:09am
All ye know, all ye need to know...about rwnutcase-
"George W. Bush is my hero."----Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/22/2009 @ 8:51pm
Posted by Mask at 09/23/2009 @ 07:51am
grr, kill, kill
you're just a joke, a vicious caricature.
Posted by emile duBois at 09/22/2009 @ 8:58pm | ignore this person | warn this person
No sense of humor, eh....
The plain truth is that the military has one purpose - to break things and destroy its target. If the commander in chief makes the decision to unleash this (which is the power that "we the people" have vested in him/her), then the only "humane" tactic to to utilize the maximum possible force to bring the conflict to the swiftest conclusion based on the objections set forth by the CIC. War is hell (take this from someone who has been there and seen and smelled the burnt, bloated corpses of the dead and had to load them on semi-trailers for mass burial in the first Gulf War). Prolonging conflicts with half assed application of military force only increases the suffering on both sides.
I do not advocate using this power lightly and for purposes that aren't clearly in the nation's self preservation interests. I have a son who is currently in Afganistan, so I have more reason than most to want this conflict resolved and for him to come home safely, but peace without ensuring security (remember where the 9/11 attacks were originated), is not peace, its surrender. In this world, you cannot build walls high enough to protect us from those who would seek our destruction.
In the end, you misinterpret the point, but I would expect that from someone who has never made a sacrifice for others and hides behind the efforts of other to provide the protection for you to spout nonsense
Posted by ProudLibertarian at 09/23/2009 @ 07:58am
you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall....
it's a moldy oldie that you're peddling. the Taleban did not, repeat did not attack us.
Madrid, London did not originate in Afghanistan, and neither did 9/11.
if you have no problem sacrificing your son, don't expect to be applauded for it.
I have experienced first hand the effect of war on my country, something that americans have not experienced. I am talking about the criminal bombing of civilians.
Posted by emile duBois at 09/23/2009 @ 08:19am
then the only "humane" tactic to to utilize the maximum possible force to bring the conflict to the swiftest conclusion based on the objections set forth by the CIC.
based on the objections? hahahahaha. objectives is what you meant. get someone with a command of the English language to proof read for you, Dummkopf.
Posted by emile duBois at 09/23/2009 @ 08:21am
Dems should never be left in charge of our national defense. Posted by dualdiagnosis at 09/23/2009 @ 03:41am | ignore this person | warn this person
quick, who was in charge during WW2?
Posted by emile duBois at 09/23/2009 @ 08:23am
War is hell (take this from someone who has been there and seen and smelled the burnt, bloated corpses of the dead and had to load them on semi-trailers for mass burial in the first Gulf War).
what you mean is war is hell for other people. the ones who actually do the dying, instead of loading in the corpses, you hero you.
Posted by emile duBois at 09/23/2009 @ 08:36am
Posted by emile duBois at 09/23/2009 @ 08:23am | ignore this person | warn this person
Golly jeepers, you're so smart, you can even type in German....I'm impressed
Argue the point if you can, not a spelling error...or would that be too hard for you?
Posted by ProudLibertarian at 09/23/2009 @ 08:37am
Sorry to be selfish, but better them than me.......
Posted by ProudLibertarian at 09/23/2009 @ 08:39am
Posted by emile duBois at 09/23/2009 @ 08:36am | ignore this person | warn this person
Roosevelt was the last Democratic president with a spine.....
Quick - Who started Korea and Vietnam????
Posted by ProudLibertarian at 09/23/2009 @ 08:41am
Argue the point if you can, not a spelling error...
it's not a spelling error.
I am bilingual, with reading knowledge of French and some Italian.
Vietnam was started by Eisenhower. Korea was started by North Korea.
Posted by emile duBois at 09/23/2009 @ 09:02am
'The only Jewish Republican in Congress and one of Israel's staunchest defenders on the Hill, Cantor said he was heartened by Tuesday's meeting between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
But he continued to express his opposition to Obama's "disproportionate focus" on halting the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank instead of adopting a policy geared toward eliminating the "existential threat" posed to Israel by Iran's nuclear program.
"If you look at the policy that this White House has followed, it certainly does not seem as if we are dealing with a true friend" of Israel, Cantor said.
Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor declined to respond to Cantor's comments but said that securing a lasting two-state peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians was "how you can be a true friend to Israel."
Cantor and Obama have found common ground on one area -- Afghanistan -- with Cantor saying he will lead the House minority in supporting requests for additional troops to fight the Taliban if the White House and military leaders make the request.
But even there, Cantor expressed frustration, saying no one on the White House power grid -- from Obama to chief of staff Rahm Emanuel -- has contacted leadership to coordinate a bipartisan Afghanistan strategy.'
Cantor: Pelosi 'in another world' Excerpt from Politico
Will AIPAC continue to destroy the United States for the sake of Israel?
Stay tuned.
Posted by OneVote at 09/23/2009 @ 09:08am
As I was printed stating in a letter-to-the-editor of the New Haven (CT) Register before the election: No matter how much you dislike war and want to bring the troops home in your campaign rhetoric -- once you win and look at yourself in the White House bathroom mirror -- and see the new Commander-In-Chief of the Army and Navy -- you want to bring it on, baby.
I was an army infantry sergeant in the early days of Korea...and I hate war...and I was so happy to get the hell out of there in one piece -- but if I were elected POTUS and ordained the CIC -- I would say let's bring it on, baby.
That's human nature.
Posted by ps90 at 09/23/2009 @ 10:40am
the latest research has found an hereto undiscovered speech by George Washington, our first republican president.
he clearly states that anywhere in the world, where there are women or girls endangered,the US will unleash its war machinery for years and even decades, until these women have all the privileges of our modern civilization.
Posted by emile duBois at 09/23/2009 @ 10:43am
THE AFGHAN WAR WILL BE A LONG ONE. WE DO NOT NEED MORE TROOPS, INSTEAD WE NEED TO TRAIN AND SUPPORT WITH LOGISTICS THE AFGHAN MILITARY FORCES. WE NEED TO INCREASE PAY AND TRAINING TO THE AFHAN MILITARY, AS WELL AS SUPPLY THEM WITH LIGHT WEAPONRY THAT WILL GIVE THEM BETTER MOBILITY AND AN UPWARD EDGE IN THE BATTLEFIELD. COIN AIR FORCE PLANES TOGETHER WITH HELICOPTERS, LIGHT ARILLERY AND SNIPER CAPABILITY WILL DO THE JOB MILITARILY. ALSO WHAT IS NEEDED IS A BETTER DIPLOMATIC APPROACH SEEKING PEACE WITH THE TALIBAN. ALSO INTELLIGENT SUPPORT IN ORDER TO SUPPRESS THE INFLOW OF MONEY TO SUPPORT THE TALIBAN. THIS MUST END OR AT LEAST SUPPRESS IT IN ORDER TO WEAKEN THE TALIBAN
Posted by ramiron1 at 09/23/2009 @ 11:37am
AFGHANISTAN IS THE PLACE WHERE EMPIRES GO TO DIE.IT IS THE HISTORY.
Posted by Dastu11 at 09/23/2009 @ 11:41am
THE AFGHAN WAR WILL BE A LONG ONE.
it's already obscenely long, with nothing to show for it.
how long did you have in mind, 30 years?
just another grrr, kill, kill armchair Rommel.
Posted by emile duBois at 09/23/2009 @ 12:09pm
If Gen. McChrystal resigns or steps down or "retires" early to spend more time with his family over the upcoming flag (Afghanistan: win, lose, or draw w/o more troops), then the new buzzword for Mr. Obama will be, <b>"He was McChrystalized."</b> IMHO... ~ dan francis
Posted by Eyepublius at 09/23/2009 @ 1:31pm
So, if killing over 41,000 and counting terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan has only created more terrorists and made us less safe, and waterboarding has only created more terrorists and made us less safe, why haven't we been hit since 9/11? And why do I not doubt that we will be hit again with Obama as President? I doubt AQ will ever recover from the blow we've dealt them through the Iraq and Afghan wars.
Iraq attempted to carry out a terror attack against an American target in 1998, after getting involved in the 1993 WTC attack and attempting to assassinate GHW Bush. He did it, unlike with regard to his financing of the deaths of hundreds of Israelis through jihad, for secular reasons (though with the added bonus of being seen as a Saladin standing up to the West in the eyes of the Arabs). He did it as revenge for the sanctions, which he manipulated to kill hundreds of thousands of children, and for the unsustainable no-fly-zones which were all that prevented further genocide in the north and south of Iraq. He believed he could use terrorism to intimidate America into backing down. Think of HOW WEAK America must have seemed when Bill Clinton was President: Saddam thought Clinton would surrender if only he tried to carry out enough terror attacks against the United States! Bush had the right idea. He said, if you harbor terrorists, we are going to destroy your regime. Period. Saddam harbors AQ terrorists, BAM, he's gone. Its about time America showed it was willing to stand up for itself as it had failed to ever since the shameless surrender in Vietnam...
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 3:22pm
...And low and behold, the whole Middle East has decisively repudiated and turned against AQ because of the Iraq war. Its support throughout the Muslim world is way down. The Arabs have embraced freedom and America. AQ in Iraq, there before we were, has been militarily destroyed and discredited in the eyes of and with the help of an Arab and Muslim people in the heart of the Middle East. Never again will any Muslim country use terror against America to intimidate it as Saddam had the hubris to try to! Saudi Arabia suddenly is cooperating with us more than it was ever willing to and has turned over dozens of AQ terrorists to us. If it offered us this cooperation before, it would have prevented 9/11. It didn't because, before Bush, America was weak. Syria refused to hand over any Baathist jihadists it harbored before the war. It handed over every terrorist it could after the war in Iraq. AQ is in disarray. Its been brutally massacred, it has no support, it has less recruits, countries that once harbored them now are afraid to. Zarqawi, funded and armed by Saddam to assassinate Kurdish leaders with help from Saddam's jihadist Fedayeen, is dead. Egypt and Saudi Arabia introduced new freedoms in time for the 2005 Iraqi elections. Libya gave up its WMD and Osama pleaded desperately for a truce.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 3:39pm
The plain truth is that the military has one purpose - to break things and destroy its target.... Posted by ProudLibertarian at 09/23/2009 @ 07:58am | ignore this person | warn this person
Not being critical--really--just trying to pin down the libertarian ethos on this thing:
In your view, then, nation-building is out-of-bounds as a military role?
Posted by schnellerheinz at 09/23/2009 @ 3:39pm
I just wish Bush had toppled the Sudanese government, responsible for nearly 3 million deaths and an ally of Saddam and Osama.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 3:40pm
Vietnam???? Posted by ProudLibertarian at 09/23/2009 @ 08:41am | ignore this person | warn this person
I believe our very first advisors in Vietnam came in under Ike.
Posted by schnellerheinz at 09/23/2009 @ 3:42pm
...BTW, sacrificing for other ain't part of the libertarian mantra...
...at least last time I checked.
Posted by schnellerheinz at 09/23/2009 @ 3:44pm
Sorry.
"others"
Posted by schnellerheinz at 09/23/2009 @ 3:45pm
http://www.brainyhistory.com/events/1955/february_12_1955_116498.html
February 12, 1955
{President Eisenhower sends first U.S. military advisors to Vietnam}
Posted by schnellerheinz at 09/23/2009 @ 3:48pm
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 3:40pm
Why didn't he?
And I guarentee you'll come up with an excuse that either contradicts what a "strong leader" he was ("Blocked by Dems")....or how "popular" he was ("No public support for that")....
or admits he didn't care ("More important issues at hand and not enough time!").
Posted by Mask at 09/23/2009 @ 3:52pm
Roosevelt was the last Democratic president with a spine.....
Quick - Who started Korea and Vietnam????
Posted by ProudLibertarian at 09/23/2009 @ 08:41am | ignore this person | warn this person
"Proud Libertarian" - trying to find a definition for that. Sure this isn't NEOCONSERVATIVE?
Posted by OneVote at 09/23/2009 @ 3:58pm
(remember where the 9/11 attacks were originated), is not peace, its surrender. In this world, you cannot build walls high enough to protect us from those who would seek our destruction.
Posted by ProudLibertarian at 09/23/2009 @ 07:58am | ignore this person | warn this person
your evidence please that 9/11 originated from Afghanistan?
Posted by OneVote at 09/23/2009 @ 4:03pm
it wasn't just the advisers. it was the welching on the promised elections which were to have unified the country. Ho would have won these elections easily, he kicked the french out and kicked the Japanese mighty hard. that betrayal of our values and incidentally his, set the stage for the war.
Posted by emile duBois at 09/23/2009 @ 4:40pm
Vietnam???? Posted by ProudLibertarian at 09/23/2009 @
ignorant sot.
Posted by emile duBois at 09/23/2009 @ 4:40pm
your evidence please that 9/11 originated from Afghanistan?
Posted by OneVote at 09/23/2009 @ 4:03pm
Khalik Sheik Mohammad and a man called Ossam Bin Laden
Posted by antisocialist at 09/23/2009 @ 7:34pm
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 3:22pm
There's no way to verify if 41,000 terrorists were killed gioven that the military makes no distinction between terrorist and cilians anyway.
The reason why we haven't we been hit since 9/11 is simpy becasue 9/11 did happen. It's the same reason lightning doesn't strike twice. 9/11 was a fluke, made possible by a government that let it happen.
Iraq never attempted to carry out a terror attack against an American target in 1998. There's no evidene of that.
Iraq was not involved in the 1993 WTC attack and certainly never attempted to assassinate GHW Bush.
Saddam never harbored AQ terrorists. Not only did you admit he didn't but the 2006 Sneate Report debunked any sugegstion of hsi involvement with AQ.
Of course, you've been arguing that we invaded to save Iraqis, but we no one believes you mean that. You're just an islamophobe.
Posted by Shingo at 09/23/2009 @ 7:44pm
Khalik Sheik Mohammad and a man called Ossam Bin Laden
Posted by antisocialist at 09/23/2009 @ 7:34pm
None of the highjackers were from Aghanistan and the FBI doesn't even consider OBL a suspect in the atatcks.
In fact, how ironic is it that the Bush Administration supprted KSM's old gang, the jhdist group, Jundulla?
Posted by Shingo at 09/23/2009 @ 7:47pm
As I've written before, Obama will have to sit down with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Pakistan, and ask them to use all their influence with the Taliban to get them to make a deal, at least one that excludes Al Qaeda from the mix. They'll have to sit down with Russia, India and Iran to get them to persuade their friends and allies, including the non-Pashtun Afghans that made up most of the Northern Alliance, to cut a deal with the pro-Taliban Pashtuns. And it will have to bring China into the package, too. It's a huge and complex diplomatic undertaking, and it will require the United States to give each of those countries some concessions in other areas, a price that they can extract for cooperating with Washington on its Afghan exit.
posted by Robert Dreyfuss on 09/22/2009 @ 10:01am
So here's the dreamteam: A Special UN Security Peacekeeper Force - made up of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Pakistan, Russia, China, India and Iran!
And NOT the USA. We work like mad in the background to catalyze this Peacekeeping Force,
which serves as the vehicle to incentivize non-Pashtun Afghans into developing a working relationship on security and infrastructure with pro-Taliban Pashtuns, sector by sector.
Posted by winyahn at 09/23/2009 @ 7:55pm
The Arabs have embraced freedom and America. AQ in Iraq
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 3:39pm
Apparently not. Iraq is becomming a police state, which the US government love.
You yourself justsaid that you expect anotehr terror atatck to happen against the US, so can you say that "Never again will any Muslim country use terror against America"?
Saddam never used terror against America. Never,
Saudi Arabia is not cooperating with us anymore than ususal. It stil supporters AQ and the Taliban.
Because fo Bush, america is weakertoday than it has ever been. The Iraqi government rejected our demands for 50 military bases and is kicking us our of Iraq. We are losing a war against a rag tag militai in Afghanistan.
AQ is incidental. it was never a major player and nevr controlled a state.
The 2006 Senate report proved that Saddam had nothign to do with Zarqawi, and that they were enemies.
Saddam's Fedayeen were a miltia and had no connection to jihadist.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia are dicatroships that we contine to support, and arm as we have alaways doen with dictatorships.
Libya was tryign to gave up its WMD as early as 1993.
Posted by Shingo at 09/23/2009 @ 7:58pm
"You yourself justsaid that you expect anotehr terror atatck to happen against the US, so can you say that "Never again will any Muslim country use terror against America....""
...To intimidate us for political ends, as Iraq tried to. Those who just have fun killing Americans for pleasure cannot be deterred and must be killed.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 8:06pm
"Libya was tryign to gave up its WMD as early as 1993."
Not according to Gaddafi, in private conversations with the leaders of Italy. He explicitly said he didn't want to get what Saddam got.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 8:07pm
"the Saudi foreign minister, who by remarkable coincidence goes by the name of Prince Saud, told Newsweek that women would be voting in the next Saudi election. "That is going to be good for the election," he said, "because I think women are more sensible voters than men."
Four-time Egyptian election winner - and with 90 per cent of the vote! - President Mubarak announced that next polling day he wouldn't mind an opponent. Ordering his stenographer to change the constitution to permit the first multi-choice presidential elections in Egyptian history, His Excellency said the country would benefit from "more freedom and democracy". The state-run TV network hailed the president's speech as a "historical decision in the nation's 7,000-year-old march toward democracy". After 7,000 years on the march, they're barely out of the parking lot, so Mubarak's move is, as they say, a step in the right direction.
Meanwhile in Damascus, Boy Assad, having badly overplayed his hand in Lebanon and after months of denying that he was harbouring any refugee Saddamites, suddenly discovered that - wouldja believe it? - Saddam's brother and 29 other bigshot Baghdad Baathists were holed up in north-eastern Syria, and promptly handed them over to the Iraqi government.
Why is all this happening? Answer: January 30. Don't take my word for it, listen to Walid Jumblatt, big-time Lebanese Druze leader and a man of impeccable anti-American credentials: "I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, eight million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world. The Berlin Wall has fallen."
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 8:12pm
Not according to Gaddafi, in private conversations with the leaders of Italy. He explicitly said he didn't want to get what Saddam got.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 8:07pm
He was worried baout being atatcked yees, but even Bush stated that the Lybia deal had nothig to do with Iraq.
Posted by Shingo at 09/23/2009 @ 8:14pm
"In order to believe that Zarqawi is or was innocent of al-Qaida and Baathist ties, therefore, or in order to believe that he does not in fact represent such a tie, you must be ready to believe that:
1) A low-level Iraqi official decided to admit a much-hunted Jordanian--a refugee from the invasion of Afghanistan, after Sept. 11, 2001--when even the most conservative forces in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia were keeping their distance from such people and even assisting in rounding them up.
2) That this newly admitted immigrant felt that the most pressing need of the holy war was the assassination of Kurdish leaders opposed to the rule of Saddam Hussein.
3) That a recently arrived Jordanian, in a totally controlled police state, was so enterprising as to swiftly put himself in possession of maps, city diagrams, large sums of cash, and a group of heavily armed fighters hitherto named after the Iraqi dictator--the Fedayeen Saddam." http://www.slate.com/id/2108636/
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 8:17pm
State of the Union Address, January 20, 2004 (after toppling Saddam): "9 months of intense negotiations involving the United States and Great Britain succeeded with Libya, while 12 years of diplomacy with Iraq did not. And one reason is clear: For diplomacy to be effective, words must be credible, and no one can now doubt the word of America."
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 8:19pm
"the Saudi foreign minister, who by remarkable coincidence goes by the name of Prince Saud, told Newsweek that women would be voting in the next Saudi election.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/200
Saudi Arabia is still a tyrrany that we support.
Mubarak is a major tyrant who outlawed opposition parties. He won a higher percentage of the vote during a so called "fee election" then in the voadmitted to rigging.
Assad had no control over teh border with Iraq, and the US faield to secure it, so anyone crossing that border could have done so without Assad's knowledge. After all, Syria absorbe most of the regfugees created by the invasion.
The Druze are hardly anti-American and are Isaeli puppets. Nearly all the Arabs in the IDF are Druze.
Posted by Shingo at 09/23/2009 @ 8:20pm
"Of course, you've been arguing that we invaded to save Iraqis, but we no one believes you mean that. You're just an islamophobe."
Either way, the evidence is so overwhelming as to be indisputable that the war has saved many, many Iraqi civilians.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 8:21pm
State of the Union Address, January 20, 2004 (after toppling Saddam): "9 months of intense negotiations involving the United States and Great Britain succeeded with Libya, while 12 years of diplomacy with Iraq did not. And one reason is clear: For diplomacy to be effective, words must be credible, and no one can now doubt the word of America."
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 8:19pm | ignore this person | warn this pers
"The Qaddafi regime has been trying to come in from the cold for more than a decade, as I detailed in a recent article, "Libya Is Not Iraq: Preemptive Strikes, WMD and Diplomacy," published in the summer 2004 issue of The Middle East Journal (www.mideasti.org). Informal Libyan overtures, which began as early as 1992, were rebuffed by the first Bush administration and later by the Clinton administration. At the time, Libya indicated that it was willing to discuss a renunciation of terrorism and the abandonment of WMD programs in return for talks aimed at ending sanctions and normalizing relations.
Posted by Shingo at 09/23/2009 @ 8:24pm
Either way, the evidence is so overwhelming as to be indisputable that the war has saved many, many Iraqi civilians.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 8:21pm
On the contrary. You calimed that by 2010, Saddam woudl have killed 140,000 people, but the war has killed 1.2 million.
So with saddam in power, more than 1 million would still be alive.
Posted by Shingo at 09/23/2009 @ 8:29pm
http://www.slate.com/id/2108636/
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 8:17pm
all debunked by teh 2006 Senate Report which concluded that:
1) Saddam was an enemy of Zarqawi 2) The Saddam tried to kill Zarqawi 3) That Zarqawi's camp was in the Kurdish region of Iraq, beyond Saddam's reach.
Furthermore, Bush turned down at least 2 opportunitioes to kill Zarawi before the Iraq invasion. He wanted zarqawi there to use his rpesence for propaganda purposes.
Posted by Shingo at 09/23/2009 @ 8:35pm
"Why didn't he?
And I guarentee you'll come up with an excuse that either contradicts what a "strong leader" he was ("Blocked by Dems")....or how "popular" he was ("No public support for that")...."
I think he figured that our military was too strained to handle another war and that moving resources to Sudan might slow down progress in Iraq, which the Dems would use in an appeal to the short attention span of America to surrender to the jihadists unilaterally. Also, the Dems might have lost the Sudanese war or used fighting it as a pretext to abandon the Iraqis to genocide and tyranny. Alternatively, maybe Bush only went to war with national-security interests in mind, and didn't feel war with Sudan was neccessary with those criteria.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 8:38pm
Shingo, you should have mentioned, as you usually do, that Hitchens is a liar and an alcoholic.
"Furthermore, Bush turned down at least 2 opportunitioes to kill Zarawi before the Iraq invasion. He wanted zarqawi there to use his rpesence for propaganda purposes."
Nonsense.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 8:39pm
I think he figured that our military was too strained to handle another war
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 8:38pm
Yuo mean, our military was too busy goign to war with a country with more oil.
"Alternatively, maybe Bush only went to war with national-security interests in mind, and didn't feel war with Sudan was neccessary with those criteria."
Which debunks your claim that the war was to bring freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people.
In fact, Bush was opposed to free and open election and only agreed to them when Sistani mobilized 300,000 Shiites in a demontrsaiobn demanding them. Bush wanted to airlift Chalabi into the country to lead it, thus installing another puppet dictator.
Posted by Shingo at 09/23/2009 @ 8:42pm
Also, since Iraq would have devolved into a genocidal anarchy ruled by jihadist warlords without the intervention, it is important to remember (and not be ashamed) that the war may actually have prevented a worldwide economic crisis through Iraq's oil.
"As things stand now, the world will soon reach a maximum level of sustainable daily oil output, followed by an inevitable contraction in available supplies. Many experts believe that the peak in conventional (liquid) oil output is likely to occur in the very near future, perhaps in the 2010-2015 timeframe, with global output topping out about 5 to 10 million barrels per day higher than today's 85 million barrels.
Hitting the peak moment in that timeframe, and at that level, would prove devastating to the world economy, as global energy demand is expected to climb far higher, thanks to rising consumption patterns in China, India and other dynamos of the developing world. It's not hard, then, to do the math. An addition of perhaps 6 million supplemental barrels per day from Iraq would make a striking difference in the energy equation. In fact, it might prove the difference between squeaking by and a catastrophic worldwide shortage."
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 8:45pm
Nonsense.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 8:39pm
Sorry to break to to you.
"But NBC News has learned that long before the war the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself -- but never pulled the trigger."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4431601/
Posted by Shingo at 09/23/2009 @ 8:45pm
Also, since Iraq would have devolved into a genocidal anarchy ruled by jihadist warlords without the intervention, it is important to remember (and not be ashamed)
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 8:45pm
This is a basless consipracy theory that has no credibility.
"An addition of perhaps 6 million supplemental barrels per day from Iraq would make a striking difference in the energy equation."
Thus proving that the Iraq war was about oil.
Thanks rightwingnutcase.
Posted by Shingo at 09/23/2009 @ 8:48pm
According to that article, his terror camp in Iraq was plotting worldwide attacks, mainly in Europe and his camp was attacked at the start of the invasion but he got away.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 8:49pm
So Shingo, we should have unilaterally attacked Iraq before we attacked Iraq to wipe out the terror camps but left Saddam in power? Zarqawi got away because we lost the element of suprise by trying to win UN support.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 8:57pm
Khalik Sheik Mohammad and a man called Ossam Bin Laden
Posted by antisocialist at 09/23/2009 @ 7:34pm
Oh you mean the guy that was waterboarded 200 times, and the guy on the FBI's most wanted list but isn't linked to 9/11?
Thanks Larry. Clear as a bell.
Posted by OneVote at 09/23/2009 @ 8:58pm
Why isn't this journalist referring to TPOTUS as President Obama? The president should not rely on McCrystal's view. I do not trust what he conveys. In my opinion Afghanistan if we do not leave will be another Vietnam. Get out NOW!! Don't buy the hype from nutcase Rove, Cheyney, or old man McCain. They are only using scare tactics as they always have. What a sad time we are living in!!
Posted by rasil at 09/23/2009 @ 8:58pm
According to that article, his terror camp in Iraq was plotting worldwide attacks, mainly in Europe and his camp was attacked at the start of the invasion but he got away.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 8:49pm
He got away because Bush gave up multiple opportunities to get him. so much for the faux "war on terror".
As you can see, he had no supoprt from Saddam either.
Posted by Shingo at 09/23/2009 @ 9:01pm
"In April 2007, former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet released his memoir titled At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA. In the book he reveals that in July 2001, an associate of Zarqawi had been detained and, during interrogations, linked Zarqawi with al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah.[62] Tenet also wrote in his book that Thirwat Shihata and Yussef Dardiri, "assessed by a senior al-Qa'ida detainee to be among the Egyptian Islamic Jihad's best operational planners," arrived in Baghdad in May 2002 and were engaged in "sending recruits to train in Zarqawi's camps."[63]"
Shingo, terrorists throughout the Middle East were coming to Baghdad to coordinate attacks with AQ. Baghdad was under Saddam's control.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 9:13pm
So Shingo, we should have unilaterally attacked Iraq before we attacked Iraq to wipe out the terror camps but left Saddam in power? Zarqawi got away because we lost the element of suprise by trying to win UN support.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 8:57pm
Why play dumb?
We already controlled the air space above Zarqawi's camp, being underneath a no fly zone, and were bombing almost every day. It would have gone un noticed by Saddam. He woul have probably thanked us.
We had the element of suprise when Bush had the chanc to attack his camp. Zarqawi Zarqawi got away because Bush let him get away, as he did with Bin Laden.
Posted by Shingo at 09/23/2009 @ 9:13pm
In May 2007, President Bush declassified a U.S. intelligence report that stated that bin Laden had enlisted Zarqawi to plan strikes inside the U.S., and warned that in January 2005 bin Laden had assigned Zarqawi to organize a cell inside Iraq that would be used to plan and carry out attacks against the U.S. "Bin Laden tasked the terrorist Zarqawi ... with forming a cell to conduct terrorist attacks outside of Iraq," the president stated in a commencement address at the Coast Guard Academy. "Bin Laden emphasized that America should be Zarqawi's No.1 priority."[71]
According to the 2004 Senate Report of Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq, "A foreign government service asserted that the IIS (Iraqi Intelligence Service) knew where al-Zarqawi was located despite Baghdad's claims that it could not find him."page 337 The Senate Report on Prewar Intelligence also stated "As indicated in Iraqi Support for Terrorism, the Iraqi regime was, at a minimum, aware of al-Zarqawi's presence in Baghdad in 2002 because a foreign government service passed information regarding his whereabouts to Iraqi authorities in June 2002. Despite Iraq's pervasive security apparatus and its receipt of detailed information about al-Zarqawi's possible location, however, Iraqi Intelligence told the foreign government service it could not locate al-Zarqawi."page 338
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 9:17pm
Two dozen extremists based not in the no-fly-zones but Baghdad worked with Zarqawi, who was given funds, weapons, city maps, and a bunch of fighters from the Fedayeen Saddam.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 9:19pm
"In April 2007, former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet released his memoir titled At the Center of the Storm:
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 9:13pm
George Tenet was a lying propaghandist for George Bush.
Abu Zubaydah was also tortured to tryi and link Saddam with al Qaeda.
None of Tenet's fictional and delusional accounts are supoprted by teh 2006 Senate Report.
When he asid that proving Saddam has WMD woudl be a slam dunk, Tenet violated his oath of office and made the CIA into a propaganda machine.
Tenet will go down in history as a liar, a fraud and a political whore.
Posted by Shingo at 09/23/2009 @ 9:19pm
Two dozen extremists based not in the no-fly-zones but Baghdad worked with Zarqawi, who was given funds, weapons, city maps, and a bunch of fighters from the Fedayeen Saddam.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 9:19pm
Debunked by the 2006 Senate Report.
Posted by Shingo at 09/23/2009 @ 9:21pm
CENTCOM's Deputy Commander, Lieutenant General Michael DeLong, has revealed the real reason we didn't take Zarqawi out was that the Pentagon feared that an attack would contaminate the area with chemical weapon materials: "We almost took them out three months before the Iraq war started. We almost took that thing, but we were so concerned that the chemical cloud from there could devastate the region that we chose to take them by land rather than by smart weapons."[104]
Granted, with the benefit of retrospect it was a mistake, but Bush didn't let him go for political reasons.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 9:25pm
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 9:17pm
"In May 2007, President Bush declassified a U.S. intelligence report that stated that bin Laden had enlisted Zarqawi to plan strikes inside the U.S"
And Bush still let Zarqawi get away, becasue he wantd to use him for pre war propaganda.
"According to the 2004 Senate Report of Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq, "A foreign government service asserted that the IIS (Iraqi Intelligence Service) knew where al-Zarqawi was located despite Baghdad's claims that it could not find him."page 337 "
Debunked by the 2006 Report.
"The Senate Report on Prewar Intelligence also stated "As indicated in Iraqi Support for Terrorism, the Iraqi regime wasat a minimum, aware of al-Zarqawi's presence in Baghdad in 2002 because a foreign government service passed information regarding his whereabouts to Iraqi authorities in June 2002."
Also by the 2006 Report, which concluded that Saddam had no idea.
" however, Iraqi Intelligence told the foreign government service it could not locate al-Zarqawi."page 338"
Supported by the 2006 Senate Report.
Why do you think Bush let Zarqawi get away?
Posted by Shingo at 09/23/2009 @ 9:27pm
Also, more evidence that war with Iran would be a catastrophe:
"A document found in Zarqawi's safe house indicates that the group was trying to provoke the U.S. to attack Iran in order to reinvigorate the insurgency in Iraq and to weaken American forces in Iraq.[49][50] "The question remains, how to draw the Americans into fighting a war against Iran? It is not known whether America is serious in its animosity towards Iran, because of the big support Iran is offering to America in its war in Afghanistan and in Iraq. Hence, it is necessary first to exaggerate the Iranian danger and to convince America and the West in general, of the real danger coming from Iran ..." The document then outlines six ways to incite war between the two nations.[51]"
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 9:29pm
"Why do you think Bush let Zarqawi get away?"
CENTCOM's Deputy Commander, Lieutenant General Michael DeLong, has revealed the real reason we didn't take Zarqawi out was that the Pentagon feared that an attack would contaminate the area with chemical weapon materials: "We almost took them out three months before the Iraq war started. We almost took that thing, but we were so concerned that the chemical cloud from there could devastate the region that we chose to take them by land rather than by smart weapons."[104]
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 9:31pm
CENTCOM's Deputy Commander, Lieutenant General Michael DeLong, has revealed the real reason we didn't take Zarqawi out was that the Pentagon feared that an attack would contaminate the area with chemical weapon materials:
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 9:25pm
It was Bush who rejected the attack on Zarqawi's camp, not DeLong,
Bush need Zarqawi alive in Iraq to argue that Saddam was supporting Al Qaeda. Indeed, Powell used this argument in his presentation to the UN.
Even that was a lie, because as you pointed out, Zarqawi only became part of AQ in 2005.
Posted by Shingo at 09/23/2009 @ 9:31pm
The document then outlines six ways to incite war between the two nations.[51]"
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 9:29pm
It looks more and more like Bush and Zarqawi were allies. They both wanted the same thing.
Posted by Shingo at 09/23/2009 @ 9:34pm
Saddam clearly had terror camps plotting global jihad that he funded and harbored. I do certainly wish Bush had done more to take them out before the invasion, because the fear of chemical weapons materials was clearly misguided. But, Bush's plan to get Zarqawi was actually successful. We captured him not long after the invasion, but inexperienced Iraqi forces let him go in 2004.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 9:38pm
I also admire Bush for preventing a planned Israeli attack on Iran despite pressure from the lunatic-right, represented by the crazies like the foriegn policy nutcases at Capitalism Magazine (whose views are so sensible on domestic policy) as much as I admire him for saving the Iraqis from genocide despite the hysterical calls for defeat from the lunatic-left. Going to war with Iran, Bush recognized, would be truly nonsensical.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 9:42pm
"Thus proving that the Iraq war was about oil."
It wasn't, but I do certainly regard it as a nice bonus that getting Iraq's oil may actually have prevented a worldwide economic catastrophe that would otherwise be imminent.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 9:47pm
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 9:38pm
"Saddam clearly had terror camps plotting global jihad that he funded and harbored"
Rubbish. No such camps were even found.
also, the argument that they didn't hit Zarqawi's camp because the fear of chemical weapons materials , proves that the Bush adminitration knew Iraq had no WMD.
As with Bin Laden, Bush had plan to get Zarqawi. They kept saying they'd killed him until they got lucky.
Posted by Shingo at 09/23/2009 @ 9:48pm
I also admire Bush for preventing a planned Israeli attack on Iran despite pressure from the lunatic-right
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 9:42pm
That's the one thing he got right, though he could hardly afford to start a 3rd war.
Posted by Shingo at 09/23/2009 @ 9:49pm
It wasn't, but I do certainly regard it as a nice bonus that getting Iraq's oil may actually have prevented a worldwide economic catastrophe that would otherwise be imminent.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 9:47pm
Of coures it was. Worlfowitz admitted it to Vanity Fair. the reason we wnt afterIraq and not North Korea is because Iraq swam on a sea of oil.
Posted by Shingo at 09/23/2009 @ 9:51pm
Or maybe it was because, with WMD, North Korea could kill a million people before going down.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 9:54pm
Or maybe it was because, with WMD, North Korea could kill a million people before going down.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 9:54pm
Or maybe it's because North Korea had WMD and Iraq didn't?
Posted by Shingo at 09/23/2009 @ 9:59pm
"Or maybe it's because North Korea had WMD and Iraq didn't?"
Yes, I agree. That is the main reason, not oil. The other reason would be that Saddam's intelligence and military organization was at the very least harboring numerous AQ terrorists, whereas North Korea is a secular state.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 10:03pm
Yes, I agree. That is the main reason, not oil. The other reason would be that Saddam's intelligence and military organization was at the very least harboring numerous AQ terrorists, whereas North Korea is a secular state.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 10:03pm
That lie was debunked by the 2006 Senate Report.
Posted by Shingo at 09/23/2009 @ 10:19pm
"Korea was started by North Korea."
Does this mean you think the US was right to liberate South Korea, emile?
If you just thought that things would have been better if we hadn't gone into Vietnam, you'd probably be right, and I wouldn't be suprised. But I am because your views on US foreign policy in Iraq and Afghanistan are so extremist that I thought you were one of those "US foreign policy since WW2 is comparable to the crimes of Nazi Germany" types.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 11:11pm
Well, I waded through it all, and it was a mighty battle between the Frogs and Mice. I think the Mice won.
Posted by donpolly at 09/23/2009 @ 11:46pm
Not to cut into Shingo and rightwing's "bromance" but....
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/23/2009 @ 8:57pm
RWN...how do you "surprise invade Iraq"?!??!??
Posted by Mask at 09/24/2009 @ 11:34am
Well, I waded through it all, and it was a mighty battle between the Frogs and Mice. I think the Mice won.
Posted by donpolly at 09/23/2009 @ 11:46pm
Does that mean the Frogs croaked?
Posted by Dwight Wall at 09/24/2009 @ 12:04pm
Don't let the door hit either one of you in the ass on the way out..and good riddance.
Posted by Winski at 09/24/2009 @ 12:56pm
General McCrystalmeth and General Betrayus need to go. They've led us down the wrong path. They are going to lead us down a path we don't want to go, with more loss of our children to a fruitless war ! People whose primary business is waging war, does not want peace ! These so called educated men only view your children as pieces on a big game board. They could care less if your child gets his head completely blown off. They'll tell you that he died defending his country. That would be good except the war is needless. All the kids have died in vain and the Generals love it.
Get out and get out NOW !
Posted by william_a_13 at 09/24/2009 @ 1:01pm
Our troops die because our leaders are moral cowards.
Over the decades, political correctness insinuated itself into the ranks of our "Washington player" generals and admirals. We now have four-stars who believe that improving our enemies' self-esteem is a crucial wartime goal.
And the Army published its disastrous Counterinsurgency Manual a few years back -- doctrine written by military intellectuals who, instead of listening to Infantry squad leaders, made a show of consulting "peace advocates" and "humanitarian workers."
The result was a manual based on a few heavily edited case studies "proving" that the key to success in fighting terrorists is to hand out soccer balls to worm-eaten children. The doctrine ignored the brutal lessons of 3,000 years of history -- because history isn't politically correct (it shows, relentlessly, that the only effective way to fight faith-fueled insurgents is with fire and sword).
The New York Times lavished praise on the manual. What does that tell you?
A few senior officers continue to push me to "lay off" the Counterinsurgency Manual. Sorry, but I'm more concerned about supporting the youngest private on patrol than I am with the reputation of any general.
As a real general put it a century ago, "The purpose of an Army is to fight." And the purpose of going to war is to win (that dirty word). It's not to sacrifice our own troops to make sad-sack do-gooders back home feel good.
We need to recognize that true morality lies in backing our troops, not in letting them die for whacko theories.
The next time you read about the death of a soldier or Marine in Afghanistan, don't just blame the Taliban. Blame the generals and politicians who sent them to war, then took away their weapons
Posted by BigPasture at 09/24/2009 @ 1:32pm
BigPasture, read "Fiasco" by Thomas Fricks. It outlines quite clearly the failure of traditional military strategy in Iraq. It actually led to the promotion of General Petreaus, whose counter insurgency strategy was the only bright spot in an otherwise dismal record of tactical sucesses and strategic blunders.
But we're jumping the gun. The military never should have entered Iraq to begin with, and they should leave both Afghanistan and Iraq as soon as possible. Armies are not "nation builders" - on that we agree. Follow the path you outline and you will wind the battle and lose the war.
Posted by Dwight Wall at 09/24/2009 @ 1:51pm
what did you expect? this is what generals do. they lobby for more war. that's where they get their promotions and the medals. whether it's good for the country, ours, is beyond their pay grade.
Posted by emile duBois at 09/24/2009 @ 1:53pm
But emile, I'm sure you said the same thing about Petraeus before the surge saved Iraq from a massive, genocidal civil war. If you leftists had your way in Iraq, the Holocaust that would have followed might have rivaled what happened to Cambodia as a result of your actions, and AQ would now run Iraq, and it would have gotten a boost to its ranks like no other.
The generals say that Afghanistan will sink into civil war and the Taliban may conquer it if we don't wage "more war" because that is what the facts on the ground tell them. Clearly, liberals don't understand the first thing about military strategy and deny the facts on the ground because they are inconvient.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/24/2009 @ 7:08pm
But emile, I'm sure you said the same thing about Petraeus before the surge saved Iraq from a massive, genocidal civil war.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/24/2009 @ 7:08pm
But rightwingnutcase, the Surge did not save Iraq from a massive, genocidal civil war. it came at the end of the massive, genocidal civil war, which had already killed 1.2 million Iraqis by that stage.
In fact, the Sunni awakening had already taken care of Al Qaeda before the surge was even on the table. The drop in violence was also due to the fact that Baghdad had already been ethnically cleansed of Sunni's by the Us backed death squads.
We've been in Afghanistan for 9 years, sand if we can';t stave of a civlian war in 9 years, then we have no power to stop it.
Clearly, the right wing Bush administration never understood the first thing about military strategy, who, thinking we'd already won in Afghanistan, took their eye off the ball and started an illegal an unnecessary war with Iraq. and no Iraq is showing signs of returning to chaos, because the surge was nothing but a bandaid anyway.
Posted by Shingo at 09/24/2009 @ 7:14pm
The Lancet is debunked. It estimated in 2004 that between 8,000 and 200,000 Iraqis had died. The 2006 estimate is a lie. One of the authors has admitted as much and the Lancet is trying to distance itself from the study.
Iraq is not an inaccessible backwater. It has a modern communications infrastructure, as well as hospitals and morgues. It is simply unfeasible that 600 civilians could die everyday from violence without the morgues, news media, or the police knowing about it. One might also wonder why millions of others would decline to seek medical treatment for the serious injuries that they are alleged to have suffered (according to another part of the same report), since they never showed up in hospitals. Taken at face value, this would be about 1 in 3 residents of the Sunni triangle who are supposed to have been maimed.
During all of 2006, one of the worst years in Iraq, less than 200 Iraqi civilians were killed by American bombs and bullets.
Death rate of military personnel in Iraq, 2003-6: 3.92 deaths per 1000 people per year. Death rate for African American men age 20 to 34 in Philadelphia is, unbelievably, higher: 4.37 deaths per 1000 people per year. For a young black man in Philadelphia, it is safer to go to Iraq than to stay at home.
Somehow I doubt that the violence in Iraq has killed more than 12 Hiroshimas.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/24/2009 @ 7:31pm
The Lancet is debunked. It estimated in 2004 that between 8,000 and 200,000 Iraqis had died.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/24/2009 @ 7:31pm
Wrong. The British Government's leading scientist said it was sound. Furthermore, it was supported by the British ORB, which came up with the 1.2 million death toll figure.
Iraq does not have a communications infrastructure, let alone hospitals and morgues. It still can't deliver fresh water, electricity and sewage services to mast of the country. It's also more than likely that not all of those who dies made it to the morgues in Bagdhdad, who were exposed as hiding the true number of dead.
US Forces have killed one third of the total dead, which comes to 300-400 thousand.
The Hiroshima bomb took place over 1 day, the war in Iraq has raged for 8 years. of course it's feasible that the violence in Iraq has killed more than 12 Hiroshimas.
Posted by Shingo at 09/24/2009 @ 7:40pm
http://www.logictimes.com/antiwar.htm
"Saddam Hussein became president of Iraq on July 16, 1979 and was deposed in April of 2003. Over that twenty-four year period, Saddam Hussein killed between 600,000 and 1,000,000 Iraqi civilians, was responsible for the deaths of between 250,000 and 550,000 Iraqi military personnel and over 700,000 Iranians and Kuwaitis (here and here). Utilizing ONLY the Iraqi civilian numbers, this is an average of between 25,260 and 42,108 civilians a year, or between 2105 and 3509 Iraqi citizens a month."
So, by their count, between 175,000 and 294,000 Iraqis would have been killed absent our intervention, which has killed about 130,000 people.
That's actually higher than I estimated, but plausible based on the New York Times estimate of deaths under Saddam.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/24/2009 @ 7:44pm
"of course it's feasible that the violence in Iraq has killed more than 12 Hiroshimas."
But, but.... Death rate of military personnel in Iraq, 2003-6: 3.92 deaths per 1000 people per year. Death rate for African American men age 20 to 34 in Philadelphia is, unbelievably, higher: 4.37 deaths per 1000 people per year. For a young black man in Philadelphia, it is safer to go to Iraq than to stay at home.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/24/2009 @ 7:52pm
So, by their count, between 175,000 and 294,000 Iraqis would have been killed absent our intervention, which has killed about 130,000 people.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/24/2009 @ 7:44pm
Given that 1.2 million have been killed by the war, the estimates of how many Iraqis would have been killed absent our intervention, would have to have been more than 1.2 million for any lives to have been saved.
Instead, we have a net loss of 1 million.
Posted by Shingo at 09/24/2009 @ 7:55pm
But, but.... Death rate of military personnel in Iraq, 2003-6: 3.92 deaths per 1000 people per year. Death rate for African American men age 20 to 34 in Philadelphia is, unbelievably, higher: 4.37 deaths per 1000 people per year. For a young black man in Philadelphia, it is safer to go to Iraq than to stay at home.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/24/2009 @ 7:52pm
By that logic, there was no need to go after AQ, because we more people die on the roads in 1 year than were killed on 911, instead of wasting 4000 lives to go into Iraq.
Posted by Shingo at 09/24/2009 @ 7:59pm
But if the scale of the violence in Iraq was worse than Rwanda and Darfur combined, why was the death rate of the US military in Iraq in 2006 lower than the death rate of young black men in Philadelphia?
"the estimates of how many Iraqis would have been killed absent our intervention, would have to have been more than 1.2 million for any lives to have been saved."
Which is precisely why these crazed numbers were fabricated.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/24/2009 @ 8:36pm
But if the scale of the violence in Iraq was worse than Rwanda and Darfur combined, why was the death rate of the US military in Iraq in 2006 lower than the death rate of young black men in Philadelphia?
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/24/2009 @ 8:36pm
Wow, that's desperate. Are you comparing America's military with the rag tag army of Darfur? Last time I looked, the Rwandan and Sudanese armies didn't have F-16's, Bradly fighting vehicles, Apache helicopters and aircraft carrier fleets.
"Which is precisely why these crazed numbers were fabricated."
The only numbers that are being fabricated as the ones based on events that never happened.
Posted by Shingo at 09/24/2009 @ 8:54pm
By the way, Shingo, the State Department estimated that Saddam killed 180,000 Kurds and 60-90,000 in 1991. After the war, it was estimated that at least 61,000 Iraqis were killed in Baghdad alone by Saddam. Based on that, we could estimate Saddam killed a minimum of 300,000, true, as you suggested, but that would not be counting a more likely estimate of 150,000 Kurds and 150,000 in 1991 (HRW says between 90-230,000 died). This would give you 600,000 dead as a minimum total. However, if estimates vary from 600,000 to 1,000,000, then 800,000 is the most likely estimate. Based on what I've seen, most human rights organizations say Saddam killed 500,000 not counting 300,000 in genocide. That gives you an average of 33,333 per year. However, since there is no way of knowing if Saddam would have committed genocide again, we can only know for sure that he would have killed 500,000 divided by 24 every year absent our intervention. This gives you 20,833 every year, supported by The Weekly Standard's estimates. By 2010, he would have killed nearly 145,831 people. However, this number would go sharply upward if you counted the sanctions.
I only say this for the sake of intellectual honesty.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/24/2009 @ 9:36pm
When calculating lives saved by the Iraq war, you should keep in mind the following from Connect World.
"Under-5 mortality in Iraq fell by 62% between 1997 and 2006 according to UNICEF figures [Table 5]. This equates to 71,000 lives.
At 1997 child mortality rates, 114,000 deaths would have been recorded in 2006. The actual figure was 43,000. The number of births was up by 156,000 to 937,000 in 2006 but the number of under-5 deaths was down by 52,000 to 43,000 - less than half the 95,000 deaths recorded in 1997 (2006 birth and child mortality data [PDF], UNICEF; 1997 birth and child mortality data [PDF], UNICEF, p.95).
Had Saddam stayed in power, a civil war may have been postponed rather than avoided. The risk was high because despite Iraq's apparently secular nature, power was divided along sectarian lines, with the minority Sunni Baath party dominant. The situation was unsustainable, and any transfer of power to the Shia majority ran the risk of generating fear and resistance among the Sunnis, even if they had nothing to do with the Baath party. (It was a risk that could have been foreseen by the Pentagon in 2003 before it combined rapid de-Baathification with a push for early elections)."
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/24/2009 @ 9:54pm
This means that an extra 70,000 lives a year are being saved because Saddam and sanctions are gone according to UNICEF. That is probably exaggerated, but even if we took half that number, 35,000, that would give you over 140,000 saved by the end of 2009. Thus, I would conclude that about 300,000 Iraqis have been saved by the war and that the war has killed less than half that number.
As a side note, I really do hate how estimates of deaths are constantly manipulated for political reasons. Between 250,000 and well over 1,000,000 were killed by Saddam? Between 300,000 and 1,500,000 died in the Iran-Iraq war? Saddam's manipulation of the sanctions killed between 200,000 and 1,000,000 people? Obviously, someone must be lying. It is estimated that Stalin killed 3-60 million people.
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/24/2009 @ 10:12pm
"Thus, I would conclude that about 300,000 Iraqis have been saved by the war and that the war has killed less than half that number."
And that's probably an underestimate. Let's say 50,000 are being saved by better healthcare each year, that means about 200,000 have been saved in addition to 150,000 that would have been killed by Saddam. But, Saddam could have lasted many years more and his son's might have ruled for decades before Iraq inevitably descended into a civil war worse than what we saw following the invasion. Meanwhile, healthcare in Iraq will continue to improve, saving more lives. Also, how many lives have we saved by killing over 19,000 terrorists in Iraq?
Posted by rightwingnutcase at 09/24/2009 @ 11:44pm
I wonder if we would have used a trillion dollars on alternative energy "systems" if that would have been a better investment of American lives and psyches. Are we going to be the beloved Americans when we leave the 21st century nation building experiments. I think not for the surrounding countries are not our friends either. To discuss loss of life and to use numbers in the hundreds of thousands in discussing Saddam tells me you are worried about other things than America.Please don't equate health care in Iraq to explain your position. The scandal of this war and the loss of American life will not go away for years. Think how we can use this lost money to improve American lives.
Posted by whatozz at 09/25/2009 @ 05:42am
Blame the generals and politicians who sent them to war, then took away their weapons----Posted by BigPasture at 09/24/2009 @ 1:32pm
Uh....RIO?....What "politician" is chiefly responsible for "sending them to war" in Afghanistan?????
Posted by Mask at 09/25/2009 @ 07:59am
Tiny Estonia is being overlooked by the U.S.
Trying to demonstrate its credentials as a reliable member of NATO, Estonia has kept 300 troops in Afghanistan's most violent areas. With six combat deaths out of a population of 1.3 million, Estonia's casualties as a proportion of its population are nearly twice those of the U.S.
But Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of North Atlantic Treaty Organization and U.S. forces in Afghanistan, appears to have been unaware that Estonia even belongs to the alliance. In his "initial assessment" report on strategy in Afghanistan, McChrystal listed Estonia among "U.S. sponsored non-NATO nations" such as Mongolia and Bahrain. Estonia joined NATO in 2004.
Asked about the characterization, Capt. Elizabeth Mathias, spokeswoman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said that it was "just a mistake." Estonia's representative in Kabul, Tanel Sepp, also said this must have been a mistake, and that he is looking into the matter.
Many Estonians view the commitment of troops to Afghanistan as an insurance policy that would guarantee NATO help against any Russian threats in the future. Estonia, whose independence was restored in 1991 after being annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940, remains wary of an assertive Russia.
"The main idea of NATO is Article 5," said Sepp, referring to the alliance's view that an attack on one member-state is an attack on the entire alliance. "For us, participation in Afghanistan is a duty, and part of the burden-sharing among all NATO member countries."
September 24, 2009, 3:06 PM ET U.S. Overlooks Estonia's Effort in Afghanistan WallStreet Journal - Washington Wire
Well if McChrystal doesn't quit, he should be sacked immediately.
Posted by OneVote at 09/25/2009 @ 09:42am
Whether Mr.McChrystal quits or not, it not going to help to win this war on Afghanistan.A troops increase won't also help to win this war. The NATO forces are failing against the Taliban, and the losers are going to train Afghan forces.What a joke?
Posted by Dastu11 at 09/25/2009 @ 11:04am
Estonia has been used by the Soviets and has as much hatred as do all of the former" satellites"towards Russia. By sending 300 troops they put a poker chip in a bigger game. On the other hand, where on McChrystal's order of priority do the Estonians lie,32nd? Is he the only one who worked on this report? Who was supposed to check that part of the document?
Posted by whatozz at 09/25/2009 @ 11:08am
The problem is there is no coherent strategy even from the military side.
The Army and Marines are using concepts and techniques learned in Iraq that simply do not fit the counterguerilla warfare they are now facing-in fact it is extremely similar to the Columbian environment of narco terrorism which was fought mainly with SOF/DEA units and FID.
The Army for example can no longer correctly patrol by foot and does not understand the battle tactics of the Taliban which are predicated on ambushing and fortified villages-the current training models of the Combined Training Centers are glossing over that main problem.
While Afghanistan is not Vietnam---the battle tactics of the VC and NVA are being completely ignored. Silence of the population is an extremely effective weapon and the Taliban are using it to stifle our massive amount of intelligence capabilities.
It is great to protect mainly populated areas from the Taliban but allowing their complete freedom to roam, rest and rearm in areas that are lowly populated and have no military presence is a plan that is doomed to fail---allowing rockets to be smuggled in, slowly carried to the outskirts of a major town and then fired into that town cannot be what the COIN is going forward.
Posted by rb0618 at 09/25/2009 @ 11:12am
So are you suggesting that we are conducting live training exercises as we speak of it. We are not exactly in friendly territory here. How many of our troops speak the language or local dialects? It was a mistake made at the highest civilian level of our government. The military has some how to make it work or advise the latest civilian military experts how to leave with dignity.
Posted by whatozz at 09/25/2009 @ 11:26am
Curious...what exactly is the difference (besides claimed ideology) between what McChrystal is doing...
and what the Russian generals in the 1980s tried?
Posted by Mask at 09/25/2009 @ 11:27am
Is he the only one who worked on this report? Who was supposed to check that part of the document?
Posted by whatozz at 09/25/2009 @ 11:08am | ignore this person | warn this person
No matter how you slice and dice it, McChrystal owns it.
'Other challenges to unity of command lie in the variations of each troop contributing nation's Order of Battle Transfer of Authority (ORBATTOA) report. Since there is such variation in the ORBATTOA reports) it is difficult to achieve a common command authority structure throughout the theater.
Another challenge comes from U.S. sponsored, non-NATO nations that deploy forces using U.S. Global-War-on-Terrorism (GWOT) funding under U.S. Code Title X. These nations include Georgia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Mongolia, Bahrain, and others. The unique challenge created under this process specifies that Title X funding is tied to a direct command relationship with a U.S. commander.'
McChrystal's Assessment
Note that this "mistake" is clearly included ANOTHER CHALLENGE, a challenge presumably that is rationale for more resourses for the Afghanistan War. And do note that Title X non-Nato nations are directly under US Command. Now, one must the General, why he or his commanders don't even know who is under their direct command.
Maybe the assessment should address McChrystal's overall command incompetence which is the source of these challenges.
Further note that Estonian troops are deployed in "most violent" areas, as opposed to beer drinking German troops who are getting beer bellies rather than Taliban.
Nice work Stanley. Garbage in, Garbage Out. No confidence sir!
Posted by OneVote at 09/25/2009 @ 1:17pm