Article

2009-12-04 Afghanistan

Obama approves 3,000 more forces for Afghanistan

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Posted by Fred 2009-12-04 00:00|| || Front Page|| [5 views ] Top
File under: Taliban

#1 Why couldn't Bush do this?

Posted by play4keeps 2009-12-04 11:55|| 2009-12-04 11:55|| Front Page Top

#2 I hear he had something more important to do in Iraq.

Posted by gorb 2009-12-04 12:36|| 2009-12-04 12:36|| Front Page Top

#3 Without the heroin industry - co-managed by Karzai's own brother - Taliban wouldn't exist. The much believed story of Taliban abolishing the drug trade is nonsense; they created a Pashtun monopoly, and raked in 15% of profits. I wonder why Karzai insists on attacking US air assaults on compounds of drug oligarchs?

The above isn't conspiracy theory. Ask any US vet who served in Helmand, and they will tell you exactly the same thing.

Posted by Javiper Lumumba2679 2009-12-04 14:11|| 2009-12-04 14:11|| Front Page Top

#4 To attempt to win a 'war on drugs' in a foreign and distant land sort of begs the obvious question, does it not?

Posted by Besoeker 2009-12-04 14:19|| 2009-12-04 14:19|| Front Page Top

#5 Fighting in afghanistan is like punching a bucket of water - the bad guys move across the Paki border too easily. Besides, how would winning in afghanistan shape the muslim world? Its a backwater, Bush knew that, that is why he left it simmering on the back-burner. Nation building in that hole is a waste.
Now take Iraq - central country in the middle east - already civilized - good infrastructure, established nation. Take that country - depose a dictator, set up a western style democracy improve the standard of living for the Iraqi people -what does that do. It is a beacon for Iranians, Syrians, Egyptioans,Jordanians, lebanese to see what their lives could be. It makes it difficult on their current leaders to blame all the ills of their society on the "Great Satan" when they can see the newly freed Iraqi's prospering. That was Bush's strategem, and that is precisely why the Iranians and Syrians tried so hard to smother the infant Iraqi government in it's cradle. Incidentally, I believe our own Democrat party fully understood the strategy and opted to actively work against it to keep a Republican president from scoring a world changing success. Reid especially ("We have lost this war")comes to mind - empowering insurgents to out-last us.
Play 4 keeps - you are an immature thinker and a perfect canditat for the democrat party.

Posted by Rob06 2009-12-04 14:25|| 2009-12-04 14:25|| Front Page Top

#6 "Take that country - depose a dictator, set up a western style democracy improve the standard of living for the Iraqi people -what does that do. It is a beacon for Iranians, Syrians, Egyptioans,Jordanians, lebanese to see what their lives could be."

It showed them they could get a pretty much decent 3rd world democracy, but at the cost of years of war, destruction, and hundreds of thousands of dead in internecine war. Which may be why the egyptians, syrians, and jordanians don't seem much interested. The only possible democratic domino event is Iran. But to the extent thats happening (and its dormant right now) it is in large measure cause Khameni and Imanutjob have overplayed their hands.

nah, if the goal was democratic dominos, then the Iraq occupation should have been properly resourced from the start.

Posted by liberalhawk 2009-12-04 15:30|| 2009-12-04 15:30|| Front Page Top

#7 It showed them they could get a pretty much decent 3rd world democracy, but at the cost of years of war, destruction, and hundreds of thousands of dead in internecine war.

So, exactly, what do you expect we're going to accomplish in Afghanistan after years of war, destruction and hundreds of thousands(?) of dead?

Hundreds of thousands? Really? Where did you get that number?

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2009-12-04 18:53|| 2009-12-04 18:53|| Front Page Top

#8 Hundreds of thousands dead -- I seem to remember The Lancet invented a number like that a few years ago. In the end the final number was something like 50,000, mostly due to internecine murder.

Posted by trailing wife">trailing wife 2009-12-04 23:12|| 2009-12-04 23:12|| Front Page Top

#9 The above isn't conspiracy theory. Ask any US vet who served in Helmand, and they will tell you exactly the same thing.

Oh, we believe you, Javiper Lumumba2679. Despite growing up here -- in southern California, if I recall correctly, where the family had a restaurant -- the Karzai brothers were not completely Americanized.

Posted by trailing wife">trailing wife 2009-12-04 23:16|| 2009-12-04 23:16|| Front Page Top

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