Quote :

"Mr. President, the bright promise of your brilliant campaign for the White House and the high hopes of the millions who thronged the Mall on Tuesday to watch you be sworn in could easily be lost in the mountains and wastelands of Afghanistan. To send our troops out of Iraq and into Afghanistan would be a near-perfect example of going from the frying pan into the fire. There is reason to believe some of our top military commanders privately share this view. And so does a broad and growing swath of your party and your supporters. So let me suggest a truly audacious hope for your administration: How about a five-year time-out on war – unless, of course, there is a genuine threat to the nation?"

Why does Obama want to continue the perpetual American war machine?

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/mcgovern-g1.html

[Edited on January 24, 2009 at 12:22 AM. Reason : .]

1/24/2009 12:21:08 AM

because he thinks that American's are still pro the war in Afghanistan and it will be a popular move to go in there and "really clean it up this time" instead of dicking around for a couple years then leaving. (i'm not saying it's possible to do so, but I think that is the political motivation)

1/24/2009 12:29:12 AM

Perhaps because we've learned first hand just what happens when you let a nation like Afghanistan slide into anarchy. Mind you, simply sending more troops in may not be the best approach, but McGovern's "time-out" is going too far in the other direction as well.

1/24/2009 2:44:10 AM

McGovern: THIS IS MADNESS

Obama: Madness?

McGovern: THIS! IS! SPARTAAFGHANISTAN!

1/24/2009 2:52:08 AM

How can anyone be opposed to Afghanistan?

We're mostly done in Iraq anyway.

1/24/2009 2:57:24 AM

cause its basically like fighting on mars?

i can't wait till we don't need that region for their fuel

man, if we could make it back to some woodrow wilson style isolationism i'd be happy as a pig in shit

1/24/2009 3:23:04 AM

what ever happened to Bin Ladin?

1/24/2009 11:16:03 AM

Quote :

"How can anyone be opposed to Afghanistan? We're mostly done in Iraq anyway."

We had been having a lot of success with small groups that would integrate into an area and really learn about the specific needs for that area. a lot of people don't want to move to a large invasion type situation where it is harder to do that.

1/24/2009 11:23:38 AM

I don't think Obama is moving the entire Iraq army over to Afghanistan. Just some, rest come home. At least that is how I interpreted. But yeah, if it was that large scale.

1/24/2009 12:36:40 PM

The last number I heard was 30,000 which would hardly be a "large invasion" given that Afghanistan is about 50% larger than Iraq (CIA World Factbook puts it at "slightly smaller than Texas). Given our experiences in Iraq, I'm guessing that the Obama administration is going to try and build up local communities and factions.

1/24/2009 11:43:01 PM

Because afghanistan can destabilize pakistan further and then the real crazies will have some serious hardware on their hands.

Isolationism isn't an option in the post bush era.

1/25/2009 1:48:06 AM

Quote :

"I'm guessing that the Obama administration is going to try and build up local communities and factions."

he can draw on his experience as Community Organizer.

1/25/2009 3:17:55 AM

How many superpowers have to fail in Afghanistan until everyone realizes that occupying the country with ground troops is a bad idea? It's like when Hitler tried to win a ground war in Russia after Napoleon's epic failure.



Nevertheless, we need to focus on Afghanistan, but ground troops are not the answer. Again, this goes back to a difference between tactics and strategy. I agree with dealing with Afghanistan, but I don't agree with a ground troop occupation of the country. It will not work.

[Edited on January 25, 2009 at 11:02 AM. Reason : -]

1/25/2009 10:53:18 AM

Woodfoot

Quote :

"man, if we could make it back to some woodrow wilson style isolationism i'd be happy as a pig in shit "

Woodrow Wilson was not an isolationist, brother. Wilson believed that foreign policy should be driven by idealism and a desire to spread Democracy around the globe. In fact, he led the country into WWI to "make the world safe for democracy". Sound like anyone else you know?

And Wilson's post-war policies were even more ambitiously international:

Quote :

"Wilson's principles survived the eclipse of the Versailles system and they still guide European politics today: self-determination, democratic government, collective security, international law, and a league of nations."

http://www.randomhouse.com/knopf/authors/mead/excerpt.html

The fact that the rest of the US wanted to retreat behind its borders can't be blamed on WW.

These days Wilson is admired by many neoconservatives that also think that idealism and a desire to spread democracy should drive foreign policy.

WW was a lot of things (including a racist that engaged in civil rights violations the Bush admin could only dream of), but he was certainly NOT an isolationist.

1/25/2009 11:26:00 AM

We should never have left Afghanistan; you think bush would have learned his lesson about spreading your offensive campaigns out and thinning your forces. I bet hitler would have won WW2 had he concentrated on england and europe and not have invaded Russia.

1/25/2009 12:00:52 PM

i figured it'd be safe to assume people would know i was kidding with that (i make that joke a lot,
laststop8 would back me up if he actually visited this site anymore)

i am totally for isolationism though

1/25/2009 12:23:17 PM

looks like a lot of marines are headed to afghanistan

so, suck on that mcgovern

1/25/2009 12:24:15 PM

cause its basically like fighting on mars?

1/25/2009 4:04:48 PM

Afghanistan can neither be successfully occupied nor its people subjugated. Countless modern superpowers and ancient empires have tried and failoled.

Unless of course, you just pulverize the whole surface of the country. (which of course, is easy, but would be an empty victory)

1/25/2009 4:54:28 PM

^ if afghanistan had any sort of infrastructure of government that actually defined it as a cohesive unit, it could be occupied successfully. Our goal shouldn't ever to be to "subjugate" people.

But afghanistan, as it is, is highly undeveloped and a collection of fairly distinct villages of people.

1/25/2009 5:11:06 PM

Our goal should be to help them build infrastructure so that they can govern themselves AND to kill Taliban like it's going out of style.

1/25/2009 7:27:52 PM

Obama is indeed wrong on Afghanistan. A five-year moratorium on war sounds like a decent start to me.

1/25/2009 8:15:20 PM

George McGovern is a dipshit for wanting a moratorium on war. He has no idea what might happen in the world in five years. Unless you're a dyed-in-the-wool, peace-at-any-price pacficist, it is entirely conceivable that within the next half-decade we could run into a situation where war really is the answer.*

*-I didn't say "likely," I said "conceivable." It might require some pretty strange confluences of events, but it could happen.

---

But really that's mostly beside the point, which is "Afghanistan: what the fuck do we do about it?"

Well, we could leave, probably abandoning the country to criminals and extremists who would spread discord and provide an even larger haven for terrorists than currently exists in the region. If we ever found some of those terrorists there, our only options would be re-bombing/re-invading/re-violating-the-territorial-integrity of the country. In that situation, even if we catch the terrorists without firing a shot we come off as assholes all over again, or being stuck in scenario two.

We could also stay, with the laughably improbable goals of either establishing an Afghan democracy that could actually control the country, or trying to maintain control of the country ourselves. If history is any indicator, the process would take generations, if it succeded at all. By that point, our will to stay (nationally and internationally) would almost certainly have long run out. Then we basically end up back at scenario one.

Either way, we're fucked.

There is, depressingly, a third option: establish a tolerable dictatorship and give it all kinds of guns and money.

I don't like it. I don't like it at all. I hate dictatorship. But Afghanistan is a rare case, almost unique in modern history. And until we get the rest of our house in order with regards to terrorism, or at least with Islamic terrorism, supplying a strongman to keep it more-or-less under control without US troop requirements may be a necessary, but extreme, evil.

1/26/2009 1:01:22 AM

The War on Terror is over, right? Why is Obama scaremongering?

1/26/2009 1:40:14 AM

Quote :

"supplying a strongman to keep it more-or-less under control "

Do we have a good record with installing "strongmen"?

Hpw about pulling out and making sure we leave a boat-load of spies there to let us know when to supply a tactical military strike when terrorists are readying another attack?

And the next time a nation captures a major warlord like Bin Laden and offers him to the US, the president pays attention. (we're looking at you Clinton)

1/26/2009 11:07:06 AM

Quote :

"There is, depressingly, a third option: establish a tolerable dictatorship and give it all kinds of guns and money."

Anyone remember Saddam Hussein?

1/26/2009 11:35:24 AM

There is another option...

1/26/2009 2:53:30 PM

Quote :

"Do we have a good record with installing "strongmen"?"

Quote :

"Anyone remember Saddam Hussein?"

I agree with you guys. We tend to fuck that part up pretty hard. But I'm really struggling to find a "good" option here. It's unrealistic to think that foreign troops (including ours) will stay there long enough to establish a functioning democracy with control over the country. That leaves a vaccuum, and it's going to be occupied by something -- most likely the Taliban, or something similar, which will offer a breeding ground for terrorists and God knows what all else.

So it seems to me that our choices are between Taliban-esque religious extremism and a relatively secular dictatorship/junta, in terms of how Afghanistan will end up being governed. It's definitely a lesser-of-two-evils option. But an Afghan dictatorship has the advantage of being totally dependent on foreign assistance, which means we can keep a tighter leash on it than we could with, say, Iraq, which had plenty of oil. At least that leverage could help us avoid some of the worst human-rights abuses, while providing us with more effective eyes and ears on the ground there.

Quote :

"Hpw about pulling out and making sure we leave a boat-load of spies there to let us know when to supply a tactical military strike when terrorists are readying another attack?"

No good. Our record at espionage is appallingly poor in general, and its downright abysmal when it comes to that part of the world. We have very few operators who even speak the language, let alone know the culture well enough and look enough alike to blend in with the population. Local assets are notoriously untrustworthy in the region. This is all before the problem of Afghan geography -- it's a large enough country, and very spread out. Spies work OK in cities, but out in the boondocks where terrorists are likely to be? Hell nah.

1/26/2009 7:26:16 PM

Quote :

"So it seems to me that our choices are between Taliban-esque religious extremism and a relatively secular dictatorship/junta"

Is that not what Saddam was before we took over?? oh yeah he was not pro-USA, sucking our dick with awesome business deals therefore it was necessary to label him with the terrorists and as a nuke builder to aide us in justification to throw him out of power.

[Edited on January 26, 2009 at 9:27 PM. Reason : l]

1/26/2009 9:27:30 PM

Quote :

"Is that not what Saddam was before we took over??"

Let's put some shit in perspective here. In the past hundred years, Iraq has attacked Israel twice, Iran once, and Kuwait once. It's kind of invade-happy. Afghanistan is limited in its borders to China, Pakistan, and a few central Asian countries. The first two aren't really options -- even with US support, they're well out of Afghanistan's weight class. There's some risk with central Asia, but we've been cooperating with them fairly well since 9/11.

And, as I said, we have an advantage over Afghanistan that we didn't have over Iraq. Afghanistan's natural resources are negligible. We could sit as its sole provider. The US would also be there to help pick the new leadership. We didn't have that option in Iraq.

1/26/2009 11:29:18 PM

Quote :

"Let's put some shit in perspective here"

We supported, armed, and provided aide for Iraq to attack our enemy of Iran who is in the Axis of Evil

1/27/2009 12:25:39 AM

Quote :

"Anyone remember Saddam Hussein?"

More like "Anyone remember THE TALIBAN?"

1/27/2009 12:32:55 AM

Quote :

"We supported, armed, and provided aide for Iraq to attack our enemy of Iran"

Yes, thank you for the poorly-written history lesson, and also for ignoring the majority of my post. I suppose I should expect no better from a paranoid bigot, but I'll try to respond anyway.

In the context of what we were dealing with at the time, supporting Saddam wasn't a terrible idea. Looking back, it probably wasn't the best, either. But Iran was not only holding Americans hostage within its own borders, it was supporting kidnappings and other acts of terrorism abroad. We needed a counterweight. A combination of bad luck and incompetence on behalf of intelligence and diplomatic personnel led us to an unpleasant conclusion. In Afghanistan we would have more control and a higher likelihood of success. But even an abysmal failure would mostly lead to terrible suffering in Afghanistan -- something we have already, at great cost in terms of American and foreign investment in troops and $texas.

1/27/2009 1:57:12 AM