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ironhawke.livejournal.comSo the news of the day is this: Obama has reached a decision on Afghanistan, is sending 30,000 more troops into the country, and has a plan in place to train the Afghan military such that the US will be able to pull out; leaving a stable country in place.
I'm sure that most of us expected this. He campaigned on this issue and has repeatedly said that there needs to be clear and concise actions taken in our war there to root out Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The question in most of our minds was more or less along the lines of "How many troops, and for how long?"
My take: FINALLY. As near as I can tell the Bush era plan on Afghanistan was something akin to, "Afghanistan? Huh? Wherezat? Oh, its near Iraq right? Iraq? You're telling me there's terrorists in Iraq!?? Lets go kick ass!" Or something equally absurd. Most Americans back in 2001 supported our going to war with the country and rightfully so. They harbored a group that gave us a serious case of red-headed stepchild syndrome and we had all the rights in the world to go shit-kick them back into the stone age. However with Iraq somehow becoming more important, Afghanistan was relegated to "retarded kid in the back of the class" and summarily ignored. As a result the opposition (you know, the people we went in there to kill?) have regrouped and are finding it easy to recruit, train and excecute attacks on US troops. This "surge" needed to happen 5 years ago, and its long overdue.
The consequences: Unfortunately we're boned either way, like, John Holmes style boned. Obama is facing a horrible prospect. He has to finish this bullshit war knowing that the very people who put him in office are frothing at the mouth to pull all of our troops out. I see that we're going to have a strong (read: 50,000 troops or more) for at least two years. After which we will see an Iraq-style pullout followed by a complete takeover of the Afghani government by Taliban sympathizers and within 10 years we'll see another theocracy just as bad or worse as the Taliban. *sigh* Again however, this is the only sane choice we have. We absolutely have to show the world that we're willing to actually stick out a protracted war and take the steps needed to win it. After we've blown up a few thousand Afghanis we can pull out, let the whole thing go to shit, and say "Hey, at least it wasn't out fault!"
Thoughts? Does anyone have any reasoning why Obama should have done something different? Should we pull out right now? Why? I'm honestly curious if someone has a rational argument to throw at this. (For context I live in Boulder, Colorado and quite frankly I'm sick of the antics of the ultra-liberal anti-war folks...I'm honestly looking for someone to give me a reason I can at least consider without taking half my brain out first.)
-S
I'm sure that most of us expected this. He campaigned on this issue and has repeatedly said that there needs to be clear and concise actions taken in our war there to root out Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The question in most of our minds was more or less along the lines of "How many troops, and for how long?"
My take: FINALLY. As near as I can tell the Bush era plan on Afghanistan was something akin to, "Afghanistan? Huh? Wherezat? Oh, its near Iraq right? Iraq? You're telling me there's terrorists in Iraq!?? Lets go kick ass!" Or something equally absurd. Most Americans back in 2001 supported our going to war with the country and rightfully so. They harbored a group that gave us a serious case of red-headed stepchild syndrome and we had all the rights in the world to go shit-kick them back into the stone age. However with Iraq somehow becoming more important, Afghanistan was relegated to "retarded kid in the back of the class" and summarily ignored. As a result the opposition (you know, the people we went in there to kill?) have regrouped and are finding it easy to recruit, train and excecute attacks on US troops. This "surge" needed to happen 5 years ago, and its long overdue.
The consequences: Unfortunately we're boned either way, like, John Holmes style boned. Obama is facing a horrible prospect. He has to finish this bullshit war knowing that the very people who put him in office are frothing at the mouth to pull all of our troops out. I see that we're going to have a strong (read: 50,000 troops or more) for at least two years. After which we will see an Iraq-style pullout followed by a complete takeover of the Afghani government by Taliban sympathizers and within 10 years we'll see another theocracy just as bad or worse as the Taliban. *sigh* Again however, this is the only sane choice we have. We absolutely have to show the world that we're willing to actually stick out a protracted war and take the steps needed to win it. After we've blown up a few thousand Afghanis we can pull out, let the whole thing go to shit, and say "Hey, at least it wasn't out fault!"
Thoughts? Does anyone have any reasoning why Obama should have done something different? Should we pull out right now? Why? I'm honestly curious if someone has a rational argument to throw at this. (For context I live in Boulder, Colorado and quite frankly I'm sick of the antics of the ultra-liberal anti-war folks...I'm honestly looking for someone to give me a reason I can at least consider without taking half my brain out first.)
-S
