Unprecedented – Military Opposes Afghan War

http://news.yahoo.com/survey-shows-...NidXNpbmVzcwRwdANzdG9yeXBhZ2UEdGVzdAM-;_ylv=3

For the first time that I'm aware of members of the US military and their families are opposed to a war that they're involved in. I don't even believe that this happened in the Vietnam War although at the end there was rising feelings against it in the military.

The commanders in any war have to convince the troops that there is a reason for them to risk their lives. While the leaders of the US military were able to do that for nearly a decade in Afghanistan the mission is so unrelated to US interests today that it is virtually impossible for them to keep up the facade. We're no longer fighting terrorists in Afghanistan. Our mission there is to support a regime that is so corrupt that it doesn't even hold the pretense of being ligitmate. Elections are rigged and the number one occupation of members of government appears to be seeing how much US aid they can stuff into their pockets. It is a fiasco without precedence in US history.

It really is time to abandon the mission. It is the "War to Nowhere" and we need to get out. Our soldiers are now dying for no apparent reason and even they have realized that fact.

 

Agree 100%

 

We don't have a choice, we either support the corrupt regime, or we allow Afghanistan to return to Pre-9/11 conditions and that is completely unacceptable to the best interests of the USA and you know it Shiva.

You're just willing to take whatever nasty consequences come down on our heads and "deal with it" because your principles are set up that way. Mine aren't. I say we stay there until we're sure that Afghanistan can never ever be used again as a safe haven for terrorist networks to train, plan and enact terrorist plots against the USA or it's allies or citizens around the world. In order for that to happen, that requires nation building in Afghanistan.

No one WANTS to waste a bunch of money and lives in Afghanistan, it's just that the alternative is so horrible to contemplate.

 

Qatar is hosting talks with the Taliban...

China is building a railroad, power plant and mining operation to create jobs.

And, we have been there too long..

 

News flash - Osama bin Ladin is dead and his terrorist organization is fundamentally defunct. It will never return to Afghanistan as basically there is no one left to bring it back. It is doubtful that even if the Taliban took control in Afghanistan that they would allow it back. They've already learned that they don't want to do that.

Of note Al Qaeda was never an actual organization but instead a movement and it has moved far beyond the borders of Afghanistan.

The Afghanistan Taliban is not al Qaeda nor has it ever engaged in acts of international terrorism to my knowledge. There has been some association with the Pakistan Taliban engaging in international terrorist attacks, none of which targeted the US, but we're not talking about the Pakistan Taliban.

Eventually the Afghanistan Taliban and the corrupt government under Karzai are going to have to reach a political solution. That isn't going to happen so long as NATO and US troops are in Afghanistan. We know that. The Afghanistan Taliban is comprised of Afghani citizens that have just as much right to involvement in the politics of Afghanistan as any other citizen of the country. I don't believe anyone can deny them this right. How they eventually work it out with the Karzai regime is none of America's business. What we do need to do is get the hell out of the way so that a resolution can be reached.

Bottom line we don't need to worry about Afghanistan returning to pre-9/11 days. Bin Ladin is dead, al Qaeda has moved elsewhere and the Taliban does not now nor did it ever threaten the United States.

 

But this presupposes that other terrorist organizations won't move in to fill in the power vacuum left by Al Qaeda and what you propose will lead to terrorist training camps unabashedly operating in the open just like in the 90's.

 

I don't believe even the Taliban would allow it. They suffered the results of allowing it before and are not likely to make that mistake again. The Afghanistan Taliban is only concerned with Afghanistan. They are not going to welcome internation terrorists into their country again. It would be completely illogical for them to make the same mistake twice.

 

It would be a never ending struggle all over the world. There are terrorist organizations everywhere. Why do we need to be policing the world? Are you military? I am and I am sick of going everywhere to fight the ghosts that have no way of shooting at the military unless we are there. The people that do any attack on the bases are usually sheep hearders that get paid $100 to launch a rocket in our direction. If we aren't there, they can't try to kill us.

 

It is not our job to openly oppose the war, but we do have the right to change the members in the White House and Congress. Shut up and do your job. Fight your political battles at the ballot box. You know what you signed up for because the War On Terror is nothing new.

 

That's right. You have to keep a separation of politics and the military (and part of that reason is to keep civilian control over the military). Personally, I think we should keep up the fight in Afghanistan until we know for sure that Afghanistan won't fall back into mass civil war if we were to leave and also not become a place that could potentially permit terrorists to establish a base again on it's soil. We abandoned Afghanistan one time and paid the price, so we don't need to make the same mistake and abandon Afghanistan a second time. There is no substitute for absolute victory and I think we should keep fighting in Afghanistan until those objectives are complete (yes, we got Bin Laden, but simply abandoning Afghanistan is a mistake because then the country could go back into mass civil war again and once again become a place that terrorist organizations can exploit).

 

'Forward, the Light Brigade!'
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldiers knew
  Some one had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
  Rode the six hundred. ~

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
"Charge of the Light Brigade"

 

"Washington Rules" by Andrew Bacevich. Interesting perspective from a former military man. If you saw the last Republican presidential debate (CNN, Florida, USA), you saw the response to the heretic Ron Paul who had the audacity to correlate 9/11 to USA military tactics as opposed to beating the victim drum. Using Bacevich's terminology, the USA elite is committed to global military presence, global military projectionism and global intervention. The USA public is too focused on triviality to concern themselves with understanding the definition of "good guys" and "bad guys". My prediction, the USA will collapse before it changes it's policy of hegemony. Obama is a firm believer of the "Washington Rules" as was Bush.

 

Cannon to the left of them! Cannon to the right of them! Cannon in front of them! Volley'd! And thundered!

 

As are most Americans. We would be living in 3rd world conditions were it not for our hegemony. Our hegemony is the only reason we're able to remain a 1st world nation, and the leader of the first world nations.

But hey if you want 3rd world China to rule the world, then vote for Ron Paul.

 

Perhaps we should provide the definition of First World, Second World and Third World nations because apparently that knowledge is lacking.

At the end of WW II and the beginning of the Cold War the nations of the world were divided into three groups. There were caplitalistic Western European nations that were members of NATO and were classified as the First World nations. The Second World nations were those that had communist economic/political systems. The Third World nations were the remaining nations that were not aligned with either the First or Second World nations.

If someone wants to use a term then it would be appreciated if they knew what that term meant.

Communist China is by definition a Second World nation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World

Hegemony is merely another word for Imperialism albeit through indirect control as opposed to colonialism. It is rightfully seen as US tyranny by the citizens of other nations where we exert this control. It was also cited by both the CIA and the National Intelligence Estimate as being one of the primary causes for individuals joining terrorist groups such as al Qaeda to carry out terrorist attacks against the United States. Since WW II the US foreing policy of "Hegemony" (Imperialism) has resulted in the estimated deaths of 5-6 million innocent people and roughly 100,000 Americans dying in conflicts related to it. These conflicts which included the Korean War, Vietnam War and Iraq War had absolutely nothing to do with protecting the United States from foreign attacks. The "war" against the US tyranny has brought the war home with the attacks on the WTC in 1993 and the 9/11 attacks.

Every action has a reaction and the US foreign policy of interventionism (Hememony) has brought death and destruction home to the United States. It is hard to see how anyone could endorse it and it certainly goes against the very foundation upon which America was founded as that policy violates the unalienable Rights of those living in foreign countries.

 

If Obama brings the troops home from Afghanistan now the Taliban and Al Qaeda will declare victory. And in some sense they will be right. This will be used against him by his domestic political opponents.

If Obama keeps the troops in Afghanistan he will be accused of escalating the country into a winless quagmire by his domestic political opponents. Either way he's a cooked goose.

 

So you would see the USA reduced to a Chinese vassal state so long as we maintain your principles?

The Founding Fathers were imperialists and made had no qualms about it! It's all over their writings, it's all over our Capitol Building where it shows Pioneers like Daniel Boone killing Indians. Thomas Jefferson engaged in Imperialism, Andrew Jackson engaged in Imperialism and outright ethnic cleansing, Teddy Roosevelt for all his "progressiveness" was an outright imperialist with is "Great White Fleet" and so on.

America was founded on Imperialism, America became big through imperialism, and without imperialism America would still be 13 tiny colonies with the rest of the continent split between Canada and Mexico.

Imperialism is responsible for all that America is, and I'm not giving that up just because a bunch of barbarians in the middle east feel offended that America fought the First Gulf War.

The way I see it, if they attack us again, then we just kill more of them.

If we're not exercising imperialism, then China will. Our laws, traditions etc were meant for Americans domestically and do not translate to the rest of the world. I'm not interested in enlightening the world with "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". I'm interested in maintaing America's dominance because without it Americans simply wouldn't be able to have "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" for themselves!

You would have us returned to the 1930's isolationism that led to world war II, and had our armed forces caught so off guard and obsolete that our soldiers had to train with sacks of flower as grenades!

Your rigid principles are not compatible with the concept of Globalized Capitalism or Hobbes' law.

 

Shiva i respect your posts alot, you put alot of thought in effort into your posts and generally enjoy reading them..

But...i have to say not everyone feels that way mate, i have met many people who love the art of war and could care less what the reasons are.

Having said that Afgan sucks, its not fun, but it has to be done man. Cant let it go back to the way it was.

Its drawing down but there will ALWAYS be a US presence there to put the smack down on any terrorists that pops his head out of a cave.

 

That's a garbage survey. It's basically an opinion piece. I was expecting a massive military wide poll asking "do you support the war in Afghanistan." This is why I hate the media. They can skew things so easily by asking indirect questions and throwing little ancedotes into their opinion pieces. Asking about Obama's withdrawal plan isn't asking if they support the war or not. Either way, they volunteered to go over there so if they're unhappy the can simply NOT reenlist.

 

Having a military operation run by people in suits in Washington doesn't work. I learned that in SE Asia a long time ago. The U.S. has no business going into any war that it doesn't intend to win. The last war we intended to win was the Korean War. Afghanistan is of no value to the U.S. at all. Our military people are of value and wasting them on Afghanistan really upsets me. We should leave tomorrow. Let the taliban have it. It won't make any difference at all. Those that say it would hurt our national interests need to be a bit more specific. I don't see it all. Time to let China become the world's police force. They can afford it better than we can.

 

This isn't that kind of war.. There's NO military victory possible in Afghanistan.

I agree that we should let China deal with them.

China is building a railroad, power plant and mining operation in Afghanistan.... and long after we are gone, China will still be Afghanistan's neighbor.

 

There's no military victory....but there's a political one. You don't win counter-insurgencys by killing all the bad guys, you do it by building a functioning and stable central government.

China has no interest in a stable Afghanistan. They're there to exploit whatever they can.

 

Of course China wants a stable Afghanistan.. Afghanistan is the Saudi Arabia of lithium.. and they are extremely rich in all sorts of rare ores..

China doesn't want a neighbor that is forever a lawless basket case.

China is creating JOBS in Afghanistan.

 

So what are you going to say when the (*)(*)(*)(*) Chinese Reds try and "police" US???

What are you going to say when they say "Ok Mr. Sam-san.. you may not longer move your aircraft carriers west of Guam, if you do we will sink it."

Are you going to just lie down like a little (*)(*)(*)(*)(*) and take it? Are you going to just let them boss AMERICA around? Where is your sense of nationalist pride?

If China becomes "the world policeman" then they will try to tell US where WE can and can't go on this planet. You cannot possibly support that! We have spent the last 100 years since Teddy Roosevelt showing the world that our navy can go anywhere it wants at anytime it wants and you would have us restricted to home waters to please our Chinese masters.

 

War is already won bud.


Of course you wouldnt know that if you never been there and just read your news on huffington.

All the work now is just making sure bad guys stay in their little caves.

Drones take them fools out all the time when they pop their little ******** out.

The US military owns afgan, they go where they want and do what they want, their is no war unless you think a few IEDS constitute war. We will have a presence in afgan for probably 20 years.