Let's talk war!!
OnTheEdge
Posts: 1,300
Just wondering what some peoples out takes are on the war. I find it kind of sad you don't see much news on it. Death toll is very high and the number of civilian deaths is at an all time high. Not sure what to make of it. We can't just leave, because then they win, and the taliban will see that as vulnerable and attack us again....if they don't again anyways. What do people think? All the news lately is on health care and economy while we have americans fighting for there lives over sea. From what I hear they're kicking our asses in the mountains.
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Just my $0.02.
As for these current wars, all I can do is hope and wish that this will resolve soon. I have two cousins over there(1 in Iraq, 1 in Afghanistan) right now, one who just left from his R&R from his fourth trip this week(we partied like hell all weekend!) and my close buddy is leaving tomorrow. I've heard far more than I've wanted the last seven years and seriously, it's pretty sickening to watch 'experts' play around with this like it's a game. Those in charge are away from the human element which makes decisions much easier for them to continue on.
I guess you're right as for it not being apart of the hot topics currently being reported. Maybe it's just been beat into many peoples heads and those not connected don't care, and those that are connected get it elsewhere anyway so there's not much demand for it? I'm not sure.
Lets just end it and start building houses and schools. Here and there. Shit. We have the ablity to help, so quit holding it back.
When it comes to war people have very narrow view points. Its one side or another, no inbetween, and thats why people have a hard time understanding it because the nature of it isn't black and white. Its a tricky thing to define.....
Backing out of A-stan is the worst thing we can do right now. Iraq has shown great improvement and is on a path for eventual peace, even though plently of people wanted to see it fail. No one said this was going to be a short conflict.
Some pretty big names have gotten in... and ran out if that place. Genghis Khan did that... so did Alexander The Great... big fucking military names. More recently, The British and in current history, the mighty Soviet Union. There is no 'backing out' occupied nations... only running out. Like we had to do in Viet Nam, the Soviets had to do in Afghanistan and the Israelis had to do in Lebennon.
I used to support the war in Afghanistan... but after 7 years of neglect, it has digressed into a real fucking mess. It's time to re-assess the pros and cons of that war and decide. I say, time has expired and we will eventually repeat the mistakes made by great military leaders... so, instead of more of our guys dying over there... let's bring them home.
Hail, Hail!!!
I find it sad, that everything I thought about Obama came true. I didnt vote for him, based largely on the fact he had no plan to pull out troops from either Iraq or Afghanistan and in fact wanted to amp up and escalate the wars. This has come true 100 percent.
I find it disgusting how there is no difference, no difference whatsoever between the democrats and republicans in this war. Both sides are bloodthirsty and the democrats continue, under Obama to cow tow to every single bill that asks for more money and more troops. Its gross.
For me, I will never truely comprehend the mentality, and by the way this is a mentality both Bush and Obama share, that wars, or terrorism specifically can be eradicated through the use of brute military force. The prevailing "wisdom" professed by Obama is that, terrorism can be stopped and that this war can be won, which of course is as mad a delusion as Bush ever had.
I will never comprehend the totality of millions of Iraqi cilivilians who have died in this war as a direct result of our bombing and our war.
I will never comprehend the fact that the troops that are lucky enough to come home alive, are our age, 18, 20's, early 30's. And they are missing arms, legs. They are paralyzed. They have trouble sleeping.
Rolling Stone profiled a returning vet, 25 years old, and he said, he wishes he was dead already, that its hard for him to sleep, or to go out in public, because every little sound, reminds them of the war.
And I will never understand the mentality of every politician in washington Obama included, who has kids, yet, without a care, without a thought, needlessly sends other parents kids off to die in a foreign land, all so the U.S. can shore up some oil interest? I mean really?
Obama, would never let Sasha and Malia sign up, yet other peoples kids, thats fine with him.
I feel it now, more than I ever have felt it ever. This was is wrong. We lost it, and it can never be won. And the troops, all of them, need to come home, yesterday.
What constitutes the eradication of terrorism in the middle east?
And isnt the so called enemy now ordinary citizens?
If soldiers came to your home, spoke in a different language, were waving guns and bombs, and behaved in the way those soldiers did at Haditha and Abu Gharaib, wouldnt you become an insurgent?
The mindlessness of those who are in control, amazes me to no end.
At a certain point, the troops need to come home. What surprises me, is the lack of spine of many of our elected officials, who have done nothing, or have actively aided in the prolonging of the war, either for personal/greed issues or for fear of being branded antiamerican or antitroop.
Bush has blood on his hands, no doubt, but so does every single democrat in office, who refused, and continues to refuse to jack squat about the war and bring the damn troops home.
To be honest, I have never understood this argument. If you mb are serving thats one thing, If not, you are suggesting other people, other people our age, die in the longest war in American history, all because we wont admit a mistake and wont bring the troops home.
For me, as a radical anti war some time activist, I have noticed, in many cases those who are pro war, who are our age, and of drafting and fighting and enlisting age, most support the war, and never sign up and enlist.
If you are going to support a war, I say, if you are of age, and physically healthy, I say sign uo. It really hurts your cause if you are supporting something with words, but not deeds
round of applause....
Oh come on....you can do better then that. :roll:
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
cosmo nailed it.
Kind of weak, I admit.
but milllions said neither should have been a conflict at all. but in our democracies the people were lied to, made to feel fearful and then ignored. and for what???
and if you want to go the saddam is evil and had to be removed route in regards to iraq then i will say he could have been removed without an all out invasion.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
But, it was a FUCKING GREAT Photo Op...
IF...
the war had gone as originally scripted.
Greeted as liberators... insurgency crushed in its final throes... troops come home... ticker tape parade in new York... solemn speach at Ground Zero.
...
Too bad those fucking Iraqis blew their lines and shot the whole thing to Hell.
Hail, Hail!!!
It's not surprising that things have quietened down a bit after you've murdered over 1 million civilians, and driven 5 million of them out of the country.
yeah we know and mores the pity.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
that's what.
Although in all fairness it's generated a few decent movies - and video games. :ugeek:
the US has no right to be in afghanistan.
like in september when two fuel tanker trucks were stopped by desperate afghani civilians. crowds of people had gathered to syphon fuel from the stopped trucks. instead of letting them, coalition forces dropped bombs on the scene....igniting the fuel and killing over 100 innocent people, many burned alive.
a just war. sure.
You're former military, right? You know how it goes.
It is easier to go in and kick some ass.. but, it is extremely difficult to get out. When you occupy a country, it make it 100 times harder.
We have a command and control that we will not relinquish because there is no way in hell that we will place our troops under the command and control of Iraqi leadership. We supply all of the air support since we blew up all of their planes. We provide the inteligence, logistical support, communications, armored divisions, medevac and combat surgical hospitals. We can't withdraw our support troops and leave our combat troops without the support they need... and we can't withdraw our combat troops and leave their support personel unprotected. If we take a Phased approach, all they have to do is wait until we evacuate the majority of our forces and equipment... and hit the last guys to leave. What are we gonna do? Go back in? Like we did in Viet Nam?
The Iraqis have squat. Their security forces travel in the open beds of Toyota pickup trucks. When we leave, we're taking all of our hardware with us. That leaves Iraq open to hostile attacks. And with a growing Shi'ite population (from Iran)... it only makes sense that the Shi'ites of Iraq join forces with the Shi'ites of Iran to form a Shi'ite Bloc to protect themselves from the neighboring Sunni dominated Arab states. It makes sense to them because Iraq has the oil resources and Iran has the military forces already in place. They get money for oil to build their bloc. It makes sense... if you are a minority (Shi'ia) in a neighborhood dominated by Sunnis.
The Bush Administration created this scenario by not taking into consideration that anything other than their predicted outcome would come to pass. HAD the Iraqis greeted us as liberators... yeah, things would be different today and the exit would have been easy. But, they didn't greet us as liberators and saw us for what we actually were... occupiers.
You may think things have gotten better there, but there are still so many scenarios that are very real possibilities. Muqtada al Sadr is STILL out there and now has a seat in the Iraqi government. Al Sadr is of the same mindset of the Fundamentalist Islamic Revolution of Ayatollah Khomeini. An alliance with like minded fundamentalists in a Shi'ite bloc with oil revenues, a standing military and nuclear capabilities is his fucking wet dream.
So... yeah, you're right... we will probably stay there for a long time. Not because we want to, but because we HAVE to. And the whole time we are there, they will be sending our troops home in flag draped coffins two or three at a time. We will just be sitting on a simmering powder keg that will eventually blow up.
We have to decide what it is worth. All they have to do is wait us out.
Hail, Hail!!!
OH YEAH STARWARS!!!!!! :ugeek:
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
Absolutly, but the only thing I don't see eye to eye with you is their future. It will be a long process, but I can't think of any post conflict thats was cut and dry and pulled out with out any problems. We've stayed in every country we "occupied" for some time after the fact, the only thing that will fix the situation is time and MONEY. I hate to say it, but its what brings stability in the long run.
There is a very big difference between us and prior empires that have control A-stan, we make the effort to work with the country and get it back on its feet and become independant. We lost Vietnam not on anything tactical, but the inability to work and support the South Vietnamese people and the lack of support at home.
Most of you wont believe this because all you read and see (and want to believe) is that its completely a hopeless situation, and there isn't any hope.
Its eight years later, I'm sure as hell tired of talking about it, thinking about it, and sending friends and family over there. I want a peaceful future, I want to for this to be over with yesterday, but I know that its in the world's best interest that we see this through. If not, it will be worse then what we have now, its not speculation. There is no way to go back in time now and change anything, we have a responsibility to see it through. If you think we fucked them over by occupying the region, we will really fuck them over twice by leaving now.
it's sole purpose in afghanistan and iraq is to make people MONEY - that is all it's ever been about ... don't swallow the propaganda about freedom and democracy - the leaders of western nations do not care about those things as you can see in places like Myanmar and Sudan ... it's only ever about making sure people make a shit load of money at the expense of the defenceless and poor ... it's all about the billion dollar no bid contracts taxpayers fork out ...
No matter how long we stay... even if we can change their government... change their leadership... we can never change their culture or religion. The same way an Islamic military force occupying the United States could never be able to change our culture or religion (i.e. Religious Freedom). There is a reason why it remains a capital offense in Afghanistan to convert out of Islam. Because that's what they want.
If we think democracy is the way... who do you thing they will vote for? If they hate us... as former President Bush stated... because of our way of life, wouldn't they vote for someone who is like minded? We see that when Democracy in Lebannon when they bring Hezbollah into their government... Hamas into Gaza. Give the people who hate Israel the power to elect someone... it is most likely that they will elect someone who hates Israel.
Our fundamrnetal mistake is the belief that if they were more like us... they would no longer hate us. We fail to even try to understand their point of view. We use historical events from our perspective and try to apply it to their lives. Historical events may remain the same, the viewpoint differs depending upon where you stand. Viet Nam, for example... their text books describe our involvement from a completely different perspective thna ours. To them, we came from across the seas with the intent on keeping them divided, when they wanted unification.
From an Afghani perspective... we are just another in a long procession of the world's superpower of the times that has come from the other side of the planet to try to conquer them. Changing that perspective may be possible, but it will take several generations to fulfill... maybe a couple of hundred years. Their history is that other cultures have come in to claim them and failed.
...
Back to Viet Nam... how is that place today? The violence they saw after we left was now within them, it was mopping up the chaos and mess we left behind in Laos and Cambodia. Their united Viet Nam forces straightened out Cambodia.
I'm not saying Viet Nam is the same as Afghanistan... there are completely different rules that apply because the people of Viet Nam and Afghanistan are completely different. The only similarity is our failure to recognize that their culture, religion, language and customs are completely different than our.
Hail, Hail!!!