Afghanistan

[Perry Winkle]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Naw, I vote we just take it out of one of the many socialist welfare programs.

Like the interstate highway system?

[Perry Winkle]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

This is very disturbing to me. We can't even supply our troops with new boots?

Our big tough soldiers don't need boots. The Tarahumara run for days on end (as a part of their daily lives and for recreation) with sandals made from automobile tires.

I'm not very serious.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by Perry Winkle

Like the interstate highway system?

...or the army.

[xoxoxoBruce]

score

[tw]

Originally Posted by W.HI.P

if somebody invades into your house, any reaction you use against the invader is justifiable...you are the good guy.

KILL ALL EVIL FIREMEN AS THE ENTER THE DOORWAY!!! SAVE THE WORLD!!!!

[ZenGum]

The election ...

Well, I wasn't expecting a resounding success, but this is a total SNAFU.

Karzai and his cronies rigged the first ballot.
They did it clumsily and eveyone saw it.
The international community leaned on the Afghans until they admitted it was dodgy and they needed another poll.
The taliban made lots of trouble.
Abdullah Abdullah withdrew from the run-off. Karzai was declared the winner and will be president.

Despite the fact that the poll was widely acknowledged to be fraudulent. No legitimate government, even more grounds for cynicism about democracy in Afghanistan.
And the taliban (and everyone else) have learned that they can disrupt an election with violence.
Karzai looks like a (successful) crook. Abdullah looks like a sore loser. The taliban have gained prestige and the influence that goes with it. The foreigners look like clumsy fools who can't even support their own puppet properly.

Election : fail.

: shakes head sadly :

I feel sorry for the Afghan people and all the soldiers who have served and suffered and sometimes died there.

[classicman]

The president has said with increasing frequency in recent days that a big piece of the rethinking of options that he ordered had to do with building an exit strategy into the announcement — in other words, revising the options presented to him to clarify when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government and under what conditions.

As White House press secretary Robert Gibbs put it to reporters on Monday, it's "not just how we get people there, but what's the strategy for getting them out."

ahhh, well tw will surely be happy with that statement...

[TheMercenary]

God (insert your fav god) Bless those Brits....

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/gre...its-finest.htm

[TheMercenary]

And the larger story, a long read but what great insight to what it is like in day to day ops.

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/bad-medicine.htm

[TheMercenary]

This was written by Adam Holloway MP. He has some really great ideas.

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/ima...pedinsofar.pdf

[SamIam]

Update:

Obama will send 30,000 more troops into Afganistan over the next 6 months. This will bring the number of troops in that country to 100,000. Where's the exit strategy?

[regular.joe]

If I understand this correctly, to leave Afghanistan before some kind of country stabilizing victory, would only give fire to and embolden our Fundamental Islamic enemies. When speaking about countries where the people with the most get up and go are the insurgents and U.S. Soldiers, I personally laugh at the term "exit strategy". The Taliban definitely has an entrance strategy, all Americans want is an exit strategy. Hmmm......I wonder who will win this one in the long run?

If we want to hold on to Afghanistan, Iraq, even the Balkans; we better gear up to stay. If we can't stomach that, we better be ready for the consequences of letting those insurgents, trouble makers and Islamists where ever they are listen to us whine and talk about exit strategies. Those guys now understand they will definitely be there longer then we will. So do the people sitting on what ever fence they sit on who live in those countries.

[classicman]

Good points RG - instead of a detailed plan on how what and how to succeed, all some people want to know is when/how we leave. Rather confusing.
On top of that - How can we say publicly that we'll be out on "x-date" without letting the opposition know that as well.

[glatt]

It's not reasonable to say we will be out on "x date," but it is reasonable to say we will be out once "x goals" are reached.

I haven't heard anyone in authority say what the goals are in either Afghanistan or Iraq.

[Spexxvet]

It's all partisan politics. I'd laugh, if I weren't so disgusted

Republicans on Clinton and Kosovo

"President Clinton is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He has yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not informed our nation's armed forces about how long they will be
away from home. These strikes do not make for a sound foreign policy."

-Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA)

"No goal, no objective, not until we have those things and a compelling case is made, then I say, back out of it, because innocent people are going to die for nothing. That's why I'm against it."

-Sean Hannity, Fox News, 4/5/99

"American foreign policy is now one huge big mystery. Simply put, the administration is trying to lead the world with a feel-good foreign policy."

-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

"If we are going to commit American troops, we must be certain they have a clear mission, an achievable goal and an exit strategy."

-Karen Hughes, speaking on behalf of presidential candidate George W. Bush

I had doubts about the bombing campaign from the beginning...I didn't think we had done enough in the diplomatic area."

-Senator Trent Lott (R-MS)


"You think Vietnam was bad? Vietnam is nothing next to Kosovo."

-Tony Snow, Fox News 3/24/99


"Well, I just think it's a bad idea. What's going to happen is they're going to be over there for 10, 15, maybe 20 years"

-Joe Scarborough (R-FL)


"I'm on the Senate Intelligence Committee, so you can trust me and believe me when I say we're running out of cruise missles. I can't tell you exactly how many we have left, for security reasons, but we're almost out of cruise missles."

-Senator Inhofe (R-OK )

"I cannot support a failed foreign policy. History teaches us that it is often easier to make war than peace. This administration is just learning that lesson right now. The President began this mission with very vague objectives and lots of unanswered questions. A month later, these questions are still unanswered. There are no clarifiedrules of engagement. There is no timetable. There is no legitimate definition of victory. There is no contingency plan for mission creep. There is no clear funding program. There is no agenda to bolster our overextended military. There is no explanation defining what vital national interests are at stake. There was no strategic plan for war when the President started this thing, and there still is no plan today"

-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

"I don't know that Milosevic will ever raise a white flag"

-Senator Don Nickles (R-OK)

"Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life?"

-Sean Hannity, Fox News, 4/6/99

"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is."

-Governor George W. Bush (R-TX)


"This is President Clinton's war, and when he falls flat on his face, that's his problem."

-Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN)

"The two powers that have ICBMs that can reach the United States are Russia and China. Here we go in. We're taking on not just Milosevic. We can't just say, 'that little guy, we can whip him.' We have these two other powers that have missiles that can reach us, and we have zero defense thanks to this president."

-Senator James Inhofe (R-OK)


"You can support the troops but not the president"

-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)


"My job as majority leader is be supportive of our troops, try to have input as decisions are made and to look at those decisions after they're made ... not to march in lock step with everything the president decides to do."

-Senator Trent Lott (R-MS)


For us to call this a victory and to commend the President of the United States as the Commander in Chief showing great leadership in Operation Allied Force is a farce"
-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

Bombing a sovereign nation for ill-defined reasons with vague objectives undermines the American stature in the world. The international respect and trust for America has diminished every time we casually let the bombs fly."

-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)


"Once the bombing commenced, I think then Milosevic unleashed his forces, and then that's when the slaughtering and the massive ethnic cleansing really started"

-Senator Don Nickles (R-OK)

"
Clinton's bombing campaign has caused all of these problems to explode"

-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)


"America has no vital interest in whose flag flies over Kosovo's capital, and no right to attack and kill Serb soldiers fighting on their own soil to preserve the territorial integrity of their own country"

-Pat Buchanan (R)


"These international war criminals were led by Gen. Wesley Clark ...who clicked his shiny heels for the commander-in-grief, Bill Clinton."

-Michael Savage


"This has been an unmitigated disaster ... Ask the Chinese embassy. Ask all the people in Belgrade that we've killed. Ask the refugees that we've killed. Ask the people in nursing homes. Ask the people in hospitals."

-Representative Joe Scarborough (R-FL)


"It is a remarkable spectacle to see the Clinton Administration and NATO taking over from the Soviet Union the role of sponsoring "wars of national liberation."

-Representative Helen Chenoweth (R-ID)


"America has no vital interest in whose flag flies over Kosovo's capital, and no right to attack and kill Serb soldiers fighting on their own soil to preserve the territorial integrity of their own country"

-Pat Buchanan (R )


"By the order to launch air strikes against Serbia, NATO and President Clinton have entered uncharted territory in mankind's history. Not even Hitler's grab of the Sudetenland in the 1930s, which eventually led to WW II, ranks as a comparable travesty. For, there are no American interests whatsoever that the NATO bombing will
either help, or protect; only needless risks to which it exposes the American soldiers and assets, not to mention the victims on the ground in Serbia."

-Bob Djurdjevic, founder of Truth in Media