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Why Don’t We Just Leave Afghanistan?
MSMB ^ | December 3, 2009 | Rob W. Case

Posted on 12/02/2009 11:21:28 PM PST by Making_Sense [Rob W. Case]

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To: Victor
You're wrong, man. Time to clean out the nest completely. We don't do that, these bastards will be back....

First, we are not going to 'clean out the nest' since neither Bush (then) nor Obama are willing fight against these guys.

Second, they are coming back, not matter what we do.

We are just prolonging what is inevitable, we are going to leave and they are going to fight a civil war.

21 posted on 12/03/2009 6:39:11 AM PST by fortheDeclaration ("Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people".-John Adams)
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To: Eternal_Bear
As long as pakistan remains a sanctuary for the taliban, you cannot win in Afghanistan.

EXACTLY!

22 posted on 12/03/2009 6:39:48 AM PST by fortheDeclaration ("Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people".-John Adams)
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To: UCANSEE2; Making_Sense [Rob W. Case]
I think you should read the whole article ( maybe you did, and maybe others should), because that is what the author goes on to say.

Well, the best way to avoid trigger-happy replies is to post longer excerpts when trolling for blog hits. :)

23 posted on 12/03/2009 6:41:18 AM PST by Mr. Jeeves ("If you cannot pick it up and run with it, you don't really own it." -- Robert Heinlein)
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To: fortheDeclaration

Have you ever served in the military? Your statements are nonsense.


24 posted on 12/03/2009 7:16:30 AM PST by kabar
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To: kabar

I think we proved our point and punished the Taliban for supporting AQ. Maybe, we should have just beat the crap out of AQ and turned it over to Karzi the last time. At that point, I think we had lost less than 50 of our men and we had destroyed and disposed the Taliban and AQ. We still can declare victory and tell them we will come back to kick their rears again if they ever support more terrorist training.

I don’t want our men and women trapped in that hell hole that the Democrats are turning into the new Vietnam. It takes way too long to get them out or reinforcements in.


25 posted on 12/03/2009 7:43:56 AM PST by FreeAtlanta (There is no "O" in Transparency.)
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To: kabar
Taleban, AQ, Pakistan (nuclear weapons), and Iran for starters.

Surely you must have a better argument. Our decades old meddling in the region did not prevent Pakistan from getting nuclear weapons or the rise of the Mullahs and the Taliban in Iran, in fact it made it possible....and you are suggesting that even more meddling is the cure?

26 posted on 12/03/2009 7:48:46 AM PST by Captain Kirk
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To: kabar; All
Blood for Oil: A Pipeline in Pakistan
27 posted on 12/03/2009 8:00:27 AM PST by myknowledge (F-22 Raptor: World's Largest Distributor of Sukhoi parts!)
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To: kabar; All
Blood for Oil: A Pipeline in Pakistan
28 posted on 12/03/2009 8:00:37 AM PST by myknowledge (F-22 Raptor: World's Largest Distributor of Sukhoi parts!)
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To: kabar; All
Blood for Oil: A Pipeline in Pakistan
29 posted on 12/03/2009 8:01:06 AM PST by myknowledge (F-22 Raptor: World's Largest Distributor of Sukhoi parts!)
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To: FreeAtlanta
I think we proved our point and punished the Taliban for supporting AQ. Maybe, we should have just beat the crap out of AQ and turned it over to Karzi the last time.

LOL. Yeah and maybe we should have captured bin Laden and been done with it. Words are easy. Unfortunately, we have to deal with reality. It is not a matter of proving a point but rather defeating AQ and its allies anywhere in the world.

There has been a resurgence of the Taleban both in Afghanistan and in Pakistan, posing a serious threat to both governments. Pakistan has nuclear weapons, which makes it even more dangerous. And Afghanistan also borders Iran, which poses its own threats to the region and which is the center of radical Islamic fundamentalism. Iran is aiding and abetting the enemy in Iraq and helping to kill US troops.

Afghanistan is a nation the size of Texas and contains some of the roughest terrain in the world, including on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border. We are in for a tough, long fight in a battle we must win.

I don’t want our men and women trapped in that hell hole that the Democrats are turning into the new Vietnam. It takes way too long to get them out or reinforcements in.

Afghanistan is no Vietnam. I say that advisedly having served a year in-country in Vietnam and 8 months off the coast. We abandoned South Vietnam allowing the North Vietnamese to take over the country two years after we left. Congress cut off funding and we did nothing when the North violated the Paris Peace Accords. The lesson of Vietnam is not gradually escalating our response, but use our full force to attain victory. Obama should have given the military what it asked for, not a half-measure. Vietnam was not lost on the battlefield, it was lost at home.

30 posted on 12/03/2009 8:01:06 AM PST by kabar
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To: Making_Sense [Rob W. Case]

Yeah, because bailing on Afghanistan worked out so well last time. If you leave a land in chaos the strong will take it over, and the populace will be mad at you, and the strong will get popular support by stoking that anger, and then you have a terrorist state that send people to knock down your buildings.


31 posted on 12/03/2009 8:05:28 AM PST by discostu (The Bluebird of Happiness long absent from his life, Ned is visited by the Chicken of Depression)
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To: myknowledge

You should purchase a tin foil hat.


32 posted on 12/03/2009 8:06:16 AM PST by kabar
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To: kabar
Congress cut off funding and we did nothing when the North violated the Paris Peace Accords. The lesson of Vietnam is not gradually escalating our response, but use our full force to attain victory. Obama should have given the military what it asked for, not a half-measure. Vietnam was not lost on the battlefield, it was lost at home.

The key problem with Vietnam was the cowardice and lack of fighting will of ARVN. I remember well how they ran like scared rabbits for the helicopters. If they really cared about their cause, they would have launched an insurgency once defeated.....but didn't. They collapsed like a house of cards and gave up with a wimper. You can't blame Congress for that.

33 posted on 12/03/2009 8:06:45 AM PST by Captain Kirk
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To: Making_Sense [Rob W. Case]
Leave and more of this will happen. And sooner rather than later.


34 posted on 12/03/2009 8:12:02 AM PST by Pistolshot (Brevity: Saying a lot, while saying very little.)
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To: Captain Kirk
That simply isn't true. They fought on for almost two years after we left. And they acquited themselves well in several major battles. After the Tet Offensive, the VC were essentially eradicated as a major force. The NVA were better equipped than the South Vietnamese after we left in 1973.

Here is an excellent source that corrects some of the myths and revisonist history surrounding Vietnam Check out pages 99 onward.

35 posted on 12/03/2009 8:18:17 AM PST by kabar
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To: kabar
That simply isn't true. They fought on for almost two years after we left.

As I said before, if they cared about their cause (as the Afghans did when they fought the Soviets with antique British rifles) they would have launched an insurency and/or resistance movement. They certainly had enough weapons to do that!

36 posted on 12/03/2009 8:24:56 AM PST by Captain Kirk
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To: Captain Kirk
As I said before, if they cared about their cause (as the Afghans did when they fought the Soviets with antique British rifles) they would have launched an insurency and/or resistance movement. They certainly had enough weapons to do that!

Where and when did you serve in Vietnam? Millions of South Vietnamese fled by foot and boat. Millions more were sent to reeducation camps. And hundreds of thousands were slaughtered. The idea that revolt or an insurgency is easy or possible under the jackboot regime of a communist government is nonsense. Take a look at Eastern Europe or China.

The idea that the Afghans defeated the Soviets with antique rifles is just more nonsense. They were aided by most of the Isamic world who sent fighters there including bin Laden and with US weapons including stinger missiles. The terrain of Afghanistan is far different than that of Vietnam.

37 posted on 12/03/2009 10:36:38 AM PST by kabar
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To: kabar
The Afghans were not aided by anyone when they first launched the insurgency. That came later. If anything, they had an even greater uphill battle. First, Afghanistan, like Vietnam, was a Communist country. Second, it was directly on the border (unlike Vietnam) of the leading Communist country in the world.

I didn't serve in Vietnam. What are you implying? That only a small group of "enlightened" are entitled to an opinion. Sorry, but we rejected that view in 1776. If not....what the heck are you implying?

I agree that refugees showed tremendous courage in seeking to escape tyranny. If I had my choice, we would have let even more of them settle here. Unfortunately, relatively few ordinary South Vietnames, when given a choice between the corruption/French colonial roots of the ARVN regime and the VC, could give the RVN a similar level of emotional commitment. What is often forgotten, is that many, many South Vietnames rejected BOTH the ARVN and the Communists. They not only included the Buddhists but indigenous religious/political organizations in the South such as the Cao Dai.

In retrospect, the best argument against continuing our expensive involvement in the Vietnamese quagmire was that nearly forty years later, Vietnam (both and North and South) have on its own made giant strides toward a market economy. Americans are popular throughout the country and we have developed peaceful trade relations. The country, though increasingly free market, is a dictatorship.....but in that respect it is no different than dozens of other countries (many U.S. allies). In the long run, it made far more sense to stop milking the U.S. taxpayers to continue an endless war.

38 posted on 12/03/2009 3:17:30 PM PST by Captain Kirk
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To: kabar
Have you ever served in the military? Your statements are nonsense.

Yes, I have served and what statements do you regard as nonsense?

39 posted on 12/03/2009 4:29:17 PM PST by fortheDeclaration ("Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people".-John Adams)
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To: anglian

You Posted:

“They attack our troops and our troops have to (as if they didn’t have enough to worry about) read Miranda rights to terrorists,,,”
Note - “U.S. commanders told FOX News soldiers are not reading Miranda rights to detainees.”

“Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd denied there has been a policy change covering detainees. “There has been no policy change nor blanket instruction for FBI agents to Mirandize detainees overseas,” adding, “While there have been specific cases in which FBI agents have Mirandized suspects overseas, at both Bagram and in other situations, in order to preserve the quality of evidence obtained, there has been no overall policy change with respect to detainees.”

My Reply:

Congressman: Soldiers ‘Mirandizing’ Enemy Combatants
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/miranda_enemy_combatants/2009/06/11/224193.html

Actions of a beureucratic nature commonly slow productivity and efficiency, and the Justice Department is a beuracracy. Mirandizing terrorists would be an act of a beureucratic nature demanded by the liberals that run it. I remember in the early years of Bush’s presidency he wanted to get rid of the Justice Department because of all of the beureucratic red tape involved. Every time this administration is caught red handed doing something that sounds shady and suspiscious, it always denies it from ever occurring. And they can get away with it too. With large majorities in both houses of Congress, a corrupt media willing to actively do what is told of them, and a legal system that is ready to destroy anybody who threatens this system that is trying to be set up, anything is possible.


40 posted on 12/03/2009 8:38:31 PM PST by Making_Sense [Rob W. Case]
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