As I have said for almost 7 years, lock the country down, no travel in or out, don't be driving around in the midst of a bunch of folks who now have several years worth of great reasons to want to kill us.
If we don't have the resources and means to impose such a lock-down (and I would be surprised if we don't) then we most definitely don't have the "right stuff" required to take control internally. If we are there to "kill bads guys" then why are we driving around trying to put a smiley face on it?? Constant bombardment from high altitude will be more than enough
This is where the argument for our mission falls apart, if we TRULY are there to kill al the bad guys we shouldn't be all that concerned about collateral damage. Having to make a war all "humanitarian" is ludicrous- the main reason I oppose the whole deal is due to the mix of tough talk and feel-good BS with which it has been presented.
IF the true intent was to stop "terrorists" from coming from Afghanistan and NOT regime change/establishing a base of operations and a friendly client state, we are going about it in the stupidest way possible. It is clear that we have VERY few friends on the ground there, maybe operating on the ground is just plain stupid- unless "making sure the terrorists can't attack from Afghanistan" is just PR and there's other reasons for our involvement.
The strategy has nothing to do with the stated goal which is why I continue to be strongly against the "mission". I am not attacking anyone here and expect the same courtesy back, I just wonder how driving around rural Afghanistan is doing anything to forward the stated objective (not meaning you Unf just the posts I KNOW are coming, people don't dare criticise our sacred "mission" without blowback)
Thanks for the respect and you have mine.
The problem is our sensitivity to the horrors of war. We get every minute detail blasted at us in High Def at breakfast lunch and dinner, as well as every ten minutes on radio and tv, not to mention the 24/7 news telling us all about the body parts scattered about when soldiers hit some nice family that are smart enough to use the garage as an ammo dump.
We want a nice clean war where we simply flex and our foes crumble into a heap and cry for us to have mercy, or simply a clever word or two and everyone smiles and agrees on the fair deal all around.
Fact is there are some really bad people in the world. We have them and so do they. We like to think we keep ours on a short leash but we really simply don't know just how bad they are. Frankly I suspect we don't really care.
But then again same over there.
There is no locking the country down. I don't think you can do that anywhere. So to say that is an alternative is not really being honest.
You are right in that we need to stop bringing a lot of this on ourselves, but that's another easy thing to say that's not so easy to do. You're asking someone to prevent all crime. Well good luck with that. The only thing we can do is make some sort of reparations when asked to.
But that won't change that there will always be some who choose to start a war right in your backyard. So if there has to be a war, it's better in my book to have it over there where they are than over here where we are.
Afghanistan was and still is a terrorist state. The government supported that. So the government was removed and another set up to deal with the affairs of state such as they are. That's the way governments work, mess with the wrong government and you have a problem. The Taliban messed with the wrong government and this is what they got out of the deal.
The biggest problem I see is not with the Taliban or the US government, it's with our own people. We're at war for crying out loud and people here are having a good old time of things. We should be sending all able bodied people off to Afghanistan and to hell with the recession, we should be building tanks, apcs and all the rest of the military hardware to kick the living hell out of anyone who chooses to stand against our forces.
For no other reason than they attacked our friends and allies, the Americans. And don't think for a moment that if it was Canadians in Canada that were killed the way Americans in America were killed, they wouldn't be standing right the hell up for us and having their soldiers shipped home in a coffin.
There will always be someone who will make a buck or a political career off war. That isn't the point. The point is that we live in peace here and if there is a problem then we are willing to negotiate a resolution to it and carry on. No where else in the world has what we have on the level we do. That's why people immigrate here. There is no negotiation with anyone who will die for what they think their God wants when their God wants all infidels dead.
We need to stop playing down our abilities to sooth the misguided and start using everything and anything to force capitulation or extermination.
Then we can start to educate and allow who is left to understand the benefits of peace and prosperity while living their spiritual life within that framework.