Praxius,
I'll repeat this again - History is his-story. It is to the victor that history is written and it is much more biased than CNN. If you want to even begin to understand the past, you have to look for many different sources, many different views but even then all you get is hear say evidence. Unless you were there in the blood and dirt, you know next to nothing about it and never will reading about other people's accounts.
Which is exactly what I was just saying to you, therefore both of our views cancel out because both views are based on information we both get from people through hearsay.
But then what good comes out of that?
I am fully aware of the age old saying about history being written by the victors, and that used to be true back in the old dark ages when empires didn't have to worry about legalities in butchering and killing off those who opposed them, and attempting to wipe all traces of the previous civlilization.
However, in todays world, it's not so simple for victors to have the final say. With the internet, cell phones, digital cameras and video recorders, the truth is out there for all to see. But the battle that reigns today when it comes to history and the information we all get through the media is based around how much one side can bombard the media outlets with their side of the story.
In the end, each of us are left to our own devices to hear what we want to hear, see what we want to see, and judge for ourselves what is the true answer for us.
Which is why you have your position, which is why I have my position, and all those in the military who keep going back tour after tour have to do..... we all find our justifications, and when we can't find any, then we turn to finding solutions.
One of the guys who just recently died, I heard he was on his third tour. Now he must have had something that made him want to keep going back. Whatever his reasons were, they were his alone. Others can adopt the same reasons or they can oppose them, but they are his to deal with on his own, just like everybody else on this planet.
If he felt there was no justification for the war, and thought we should pull out and leave, why did he continue to go back tour after tour?
Now granted, each soldier is different and some do..... then again some don't. Each person joins the military for their own reasons, be that for simple money and college education, to having it in the family and want to experience it for themselves, to feeling like they are doing something great with their lives and helping those less fortunate..... to those who simply like to kill things.
I personally will suck it up and accept that we'll be there until 2011..... if it is extended beyond that, I'll be a bit pissed. But until then, if the majority of our troops feel that we should remain there until then, then so be it. If a bunch of troops.... say in the hundreds or perhaps thousands, decided to march in protest against the war, then I may change my stance a lot quicker and support them in bringing our troops back home.
It would take several lifetimes to read everything ever written about WWII, so no one is an expert on the subject.
That's a bit of an exaggeration. The closest anybody can get to understanding what occured before most of us were born, is to listen to people's first hand experiences of when they were in the war, why they were there, how they felt about it, what kept them going through it all, etc. The other method is to look into the books and history written during WWII by all sides of the fighting.... un-edited journals from Nazi forces, what was in their newspapers, on their radios, transcripts, etc..... and then look into the same information on our side of things, and elsewhere around the world.
None of it all is going to match up, but there are always two sides to a story, sometimes 4 or 5 sides..... but the point is to take all the given information, line them up to the known actions that have occured in history, and determine through what makes sense to you personally what actually happened in a logical fashion.
Is it a 100% absolute method of learning and understanding? No, but it's still a lot better then just accepting the first thing told to you like an average citizen who never put much thought into it all.
Getting back to the original topic, yes, I am pissed about our involvement in Afghanistan and nobody should have invaded there in the first place, esspecially when it surrounds some fishy tales about the Taliban rejecting the US's request for a pipeline through the country shortly before 9/11 and the invasion following. But that doesn't mean that our troops being over there don't have some justification for being there now.
The only one thing I have a concern about in Afghanistan is not if they remain a democracy or if they flush out the Taliban completely..... my concern is when we leave if those civilians stuck in the middle of this giant mess, how safe are their lives and way of life going to be? Will the US amp up more air strikes? Will the Taliban take back over and punish all the boys and girls who have been trying to get an education? What about the hospitals and medical supplies? Will they be thrown back into a world of even worse dispair and ignorance then what currently exists?
If we stick around until 2011 and by the time we leave the Afghan army is up to par for what is needed to maintain security in their own nation, then I say go for it.
If the Afghans were directly pulling what's currently happening in Iraq, and we were actually fighting Afghans who don't want us in their country (Insurgency rather then Taliban trying to take power again) then I'd say haul our asses out right now.
If they don't want us there, then why stay? Afterall it is their country. But the US's actions of air striking most of the places they're supposed to secure is screwing everybody else's successes and is the weakest link in the whole operation. And if they're going to continue this method of attack and putting the lives of civilians at risk, then what's the point? They're going to end up hating us all the exact same way as Iraqis hate the US now.
If I look only at the front of an elephant and you only look at the tail, we will both have a different idea what an elephant is. It is the same with everything. My conclusions are based on the evidence that I have come across and yours... the same. That we have differing views is not surprising but it is not reason to be obnoxious about it.
I'm not being obnoxious about it, I am stating how I see things. If you have information in regards to the Elephant's head that I may not have come accross, by all means, let me know..... in return, I'll tell you everything about the elephants ass that I know. If something doesn't add up, then it can be addressed.
But no information or evidence provided means there's not much to actually debate now is there?