i hear talk of doubling the amount of troops. Too many are dying. We have lost more troops total than the ammount of people that died on 9/11. Seems like we would've been better off not going anywhere at all. Obama promised to pull troops out of Iraq...but hes just sending them to afghanistan. Why can't we just leave afghan now that we're making negative progress?

9/9/2009 10:53:41 PM

wait... Is a republican complaining about afghanistan?

9/9/2009 10:54:18 PM

of course they are, now that it's "Obama's war"

9/9/2009 11:13:20 PM

It's not a war, it's Obama's Overseas Contingency Operation

9/9/2009 11:14:36 PM

STAY THE COURSE, right?

9/9/2009 11:18:36 PM

NATO and the US won't leave till the Taliban are defeated... that could take another 10 years or more.

The commander of the UK forces said it can take up to 10 years or more.

What do I think? I think the Taliban are not something to be defeated militarily. Erasing the Taliban will take 30-50 years... i.e., when they die out naturally, literacy spreads, people's atavistic mentalities change, etc.

9/10/2009 12:17:40 AM

we should just drop more bombs.

9/10/2009 12:18:36 AM

The original poster is a goddamn liar.

Quote :

"We have lost more troops total than the ammount of people that died on 9/11."

-mambagrl

But in reality:

Quote :

"There have been 1,371 coalition deaths -- 822 Americans, 11 Australians, one Belgian, 213 Britons, 129 Canadians, three Czech, 24 Danes, 21 Dutch, six Estonians, one Finn, 31 French, 30 Germans, two Hungarians, 14 Italians, three Latvian, one Lithuanian, four Norwegians, 12 Poles, two Portuguese, 11 Romanians, one South Korean, 25 Spaniards, two Swedes and two Turks -- in the war on terror as of September 9, 2009, according to a CNN count."

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2004/oef.casualties/

Event the total number of coalition/NATO forces killed in Afghanistan is less than "the ammount [sic] of people that died on 9/11," which was 2,993.

[Edited on September 10, 2009 at 2:17 AM. Reason : tell us some more bullshit stories, bitch.]

9/10/2009 2:15:59 AM

She's probably not a liar, she's just getting Iraq and Afghanistan confused. Shit, we've been in Afghanistan for eight years now, today's college freshman was 10 when the war started. Hell, today's college senior was only 14.

9/10/2009 6:23:54 AM

we cant just leave Afghanistan because that is what we did after they defeated the Soviets...the country has never been rebuilt (or originally built, for that matter) into a modern state after almost 30 years of continuous war. had we hung around then and built on the established relationships and nationalism, there is a good chance the country would not have become the haven for goons that it is.

we leave now, the same power vacuum will occur and we will have to return in 2020. however, if we build some kind of infrastructure, allow a central government to take a foothold and build some kind of reasonable means to defend itself, there is some hope the country will not again devolve into Thunderdome.

the infrastructure, roads specifically, are probably the most important part of this equation, as road would allow a central government to move military assets throughout the country to respond to threats such as the Taliban much easier.

9/10/2009 8:10:27 AM

As a Liberal, I'm fine with Afghanistan. After all, that is the home of the actual original target of our offensive operations after the September 11th, 2001 attacks.

9/10/2009 8:29:48 AM

We cannot leave Afghanistan until our commanders can safely say that the country is no longer a safe haven for terrorism that can reach US soil, now and going forward.

9/10/2009 9:53:27 AM

Quote :

"we leave now, the same power vacuum will occur and we will have to return in 2020."

We never "had" to go in the first place. Terrorists don't need government support to operate.

Quote :

" had we hung around then and built on the established relationships and nationalism, there is a good chance the country would not have become the haven for goons that it is."

They were the same goons back then when we put them in power.

Quote :

"The original poster is a goddamn liar."

afghan war
1350 us
6625 total have been killed fighting on our side in afghanistan
31000 civlians

Iraq war
4334 us
over 16000 total killed fighting on our side
102000 civilians

totals
5500 us
23000 "good guys"
130000 civilians

158000 total dead in post 9/11 wars

vs

3000 deaths on 9/11

It would've taken 53 more attacks equivalent to 9/11 (thats a major attack every other month) to make these wars worth while.

Goal of these wars: to prevent American lives or lives of american allies from being taken abroad or at home.

Result: 23000 said deaths

=FAIL

You can't end terrorism with a military, at least Iraq is showing progress so there is slight moral reward to sticking it out. Afghanistan is just getting worse by the day.

Anyone who values life can't say either war has gone well or even made sense to stay the course this long.


[Edited on September 10, 2009 at 10:42 AM. Reason : 53 times more deaths than 9/11]

9/10/2009 10:29:18 AM

Quote :

"We have lost more troops total than the ammount of people that died on 9/11"

-mambagrl

Post remembering fail.

Also, I'd like to see some sources for those numbers.

[Edited on September 10, 2009 at 12:20 PM. Reason : #s]

9/10/2009 12:19:28 PM

and who knows how many contractors were killed in afghanistan. those numbers aren't reported along with soldier deaths.

9/10/2009 1:28:56 PM

It's still a giant straw man.

9/10/2009 1:30:15 PM

According to Democrats (less than a year ago), Afghanistan is the "good" war.

Quote :

"What President Bush and Senator McCain don't understand is that the central front in the War on Terror overseas contingency operation is not in Iraq and it never was. The central front is in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the terrorists who hit us on 9-11 are still plotting attacks seven years later."

--Barack Obama, September 2008

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cug26zopm8c

BUT. . .

Dems signal resistance to Afghan troop increase (AP) – 5 days ago

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iqyaFh_efr-brDq0rMLF1hkop0tgD9AH1B580

9/10/2009 1:43:24 PM

I say again, the OP is a goddamn liar.

Quote :

"We have lost more troops total than the ammount of people that died on 9/11."

Now you try to backtrack and lump all the coalition forces under "we," but of course, that doesn't work, because:

Quote :

"There have been 1,371 coalition deaths"

So then you try to add Afghan fighters and civilians. I don't consider them part of "we." Afghanistan certainly lost a shit ton more people than we did on 9/11. That's their problem.

Then you try to throw in Iraq, which of course is relevant to Afghanistan in no way, shape, or form.

But let's get past your lies and perversions of the facts, your backtracking and your general stupidity, and focus for a moment on a very specific piece of your stupidity:

Quote :

"It would've taken 53 more attacks equivalent to 9/11 (thats a major attack every other month) to make these wars worth while."

"Worth while?" So, what, if the war in Afghanistan had resulted in exactly one fewer deaths 9/11, it would have been OK, but as soon as it went one over it ceased to be worthwhile?

The goal wasn't to even the score. The goal was to disrupt and, preferably, eliminate an enemy.

9/11/2009 3:54:37 PM

is hooksaw salisburyboy?

i mean seriously

9/11/2009 4:13:33 PM

i always thought so.

9/11/2009 5:35:13 PM

Quote :

"Afghanistan is just getting worse by the day."

Is it? Or are we just hearing more about it since the focus is no longer on Iraq? Sure, we are incurring more casualties now that the Marines are pushing deep into Helmand but the Brits and Canadians have been taking a beating there and in Kandahar province for years.

Its neither new nor shocking that the government in Kabul is nearly ineffective and rife with corruption. Anyone with even the slightest knowledge of Afghanistan could have predicted that. Im interested to see how this election debacle turns out but quite frankly it is just a temporary distraction from the major issues that have been present for years.

9/11/2009 5:38:27 PM

^^^ no, but i think they're second cousins.

9/11/2009 5:41:28 PM

I support our president's war of killing poor mountain farmers with robots. It creates American jobs.

9/11/2009 6:13:36 PM

OP: Incredible. Bush starts a war in Afghanistan (justified or no), and people cheer. We ignore it for several years to fight a war in Iraq that was provably a bad idea. We pull out of that, and re-focus on the war in Afghanistan that we should have been fighting at full-strength all along.

And now that's Obama's war. A war he didn't start, and was left to prosecute by an administration that ignored it for several years.

Do you even read modern history? Do you read a newspaper? Do you do ANYTHING AT ALL to inform yourself of the most basic of facts?

If you're going to make a thread in TSB, you should at least command a grasp of the most basic facts necessary to construct an argument.

[Edited on September 11, 2009 at 9:06 PM. Reason : I'll add that I'm a Democrat, and I support the Afghanistan conflict. Bring bin Laden to justice!]

9/11/2009 9:05:27 PM

lets fight iran on 2 fronts

9/11/2009 9:21:03 PM

^^It strikes me as similar to the Obamacare term. At the point the term started being used there were several bills & many many ideas out there on health care reform, and President Obama was taking an unusually inactive role in promoting the specifics of health care form (while letting the most representative branch of gov - congress - come up with the details) as compared to Clintons attempt to say this is exactly what the bill should be, congress make it so. But it was still called Obamacare & the bill (is if there was only one), and that Obamacare bill had death panels and all the rest of the crazy in it.

We can have Obamawar, in fact we can throw Obama in front of any political word we want and that lets all the right wingers know to oppose it without knowing what it is about (& conversely I suppose the left wingers to support it without knowing what it is about even if the right wing came up with the term).

But lets face it, Obama has been in office for over half a year now, its time to start admitting that he started Obamawar.

9/11/2009 10:21:07 PM

what, are you trying to reason with them?

how sweet.

9/11/2009 10:46:02 PM

Quote :

"is hooksaw salisburyboy? i mean seriously"

You have gotta be shitting me. Not even close.



Also, just found out that I'm going to Afghanistan in the spring.

9/11/2009 11:41:02 PM

Quote :

"It would've taken 53 more attacks equivalent to 9/11 (thats a major attack every other month) to make these wars worth while."

Hopefully you understand that the 9/11 attacks were a far reaching event that can't be measured just by death toll.

Unrelated, but just to put in in perspective, the Soviets had troops in Afghanistan for just over 9 years and withdrew after around 15,000 troops were killed. Compare that with the 1371 coalition deaths over 8 years.

9/12/2009 1:02:27 AM

As much as it may rankle some people in here, I don't think it's an unfair question to ask what our real goal if Afghanistan should be, and therefore what our exit condition is. Are we still there to secure peace and love and democracy? Well, we could be there a long time, in that case, if the last election is any indication. Are we there to wipe out the Taliban and make sure they don't regain a foothold? Well, fantastic - but that is a significant re-focusing of the mission from trying to rebuild a country and develop a strong central government in a country that's never had one, or much of a penchant for liberal democracy.

Meanwhile, we continue to treat Pakistan with kid gloves even though they are far from helpful in preventing the Taliban from regrouping. Perhaps if our goal is to prevent the Taliban from re-forming, we should be a bit more concerned about this issue.

9/12/2009 3:21:03 AM

OP FAIL EXPOSED???

9/12/2009 6:42:43 AM

Wait, you guys didn't see this as a troll thread?

'Cause this is a troll thread made by a troll of a user.

Just see the other things this user posts.

9/12/2009 12:19:42 PM

^no shit. this is the same user that said popeyes is greater than bojangles. WTF?

9/12/2009 12:56:34 PM

^^^^^ To be fair, MrJosh, we have been pussy-footing around in afghanistan for part of our time there...

9/12/2009 5:13:07 PM

^when we should have been _________. fill that in and then people would be a little less dismayed that we're still there.

9/13/2009 8:04:57 PM

irrelevant.

MrJosh compared deaths between US and USSR forces in afghanistan of comparable-lengthed time-spans. I pointed out that we were not as aggressive in our actions against afghanistan than the USSR. Such a thing might have an effect on how many troops are lost.

9/13/2009 8:17:47 PM

Nor do we have to be as aggressive. The insurgency that we're facing isn't nearly as popular or as well armed as what the Soviets had to face.

9/13/2009 8:33:15 PM

solution to all middle east problems:



[Edited on September 14, 2009 at 11:04 AM. Reason : .]

9/14/2009 11:03:59 AM

Quote :

"i hear talk of doubling the amount of troops. Too many are dying. We have lost more troops total than the ammount of people that died on 9/11. Seems like we would've been better off not going anywhere at all. Obama promised to pull troops out of Iraq...but hes just sending them to afghanistan. Why can't we just leave afghan now that we're making negative progress?"

Are you shocked that troops are dying in a war zone? seriously?
Not having enough troops is negative progress. The flip side of that, not even the Soviet army succeeded in Afghanistan, although with different motives.
Also, Iraq was just something Bush had been pushing for even though they had absolutely nothing to do with Afghanistan, Al Queda, or WMD. So stop comparing a unjust war to something that you could justify if you stretched your reasoning far enough.

9/14/2009 11:12:30 AM

Quote :

"Nor do we have to be as aggressive. The insurgency that we're facing isn't nearly as popular or as well armed as what the Soviets had to face."

Bonus points to this man. Arguably, we've been too . . . well not aggressive, but not precise or targeted enough in our actions.

I think we're going to see that change with the change of command over there.

9/14/2009 11:17:18 AM

Bin Laden calls Obama 'powerless' in Afghan war (AP)

Quote :

"In the 11-minute tape, addressed to the American people, bin Laden said Obama is only following the warlike policies of his predecessor George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney and he urged Americans to 'liberate' themselves from the influence of 'neo-conservatives and the Israeli lobby.'"

Quote :

"'If you end the war (in Afghanistan), so let it be,' bin Laden said. 'But if it is otherwise, all we will do is continue the war of attrition against you on all possible axes.' 'You are waging a hopeless and losing war for the benefit of others, a war the end of which is not visible on the horizon,' he said, according to a translation of the tape Monday by SITE Intelligence Group, a terrorist-monitoring firm, and by The Associated Press."

Quote :

"Bin Laden devoted much of his address to discussing U.S. connections with Israel and castigated Americans for failing to understand that the issue was behind al-Qaida's animosity. As he often does in his addresses, he cited books by American scholars and others that he said support his claim. Such citations also serve to show he keeps close watch on current events and media despite being a fugitive in a war zone. 'The delay in your knowing those causes has cost you a lot without any result whatsoever,' he said. 'This position of yours, combined with some other injustices, pushed us to undertake the events of (Sept. 11).' 'Ask yourselves to determine your position: Is your security, your blood, your children, your money, your jobs, your homes, your economy, and your reputation dearer to you than the security of the Israelis, their children and their economy?' he said."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i90Vbl1udECbfZDyLWXyyqdoU4_gD9AN2NHG5

9/15/2009 5:29:14 AM

Okay?

9/15/2009 8:56:23 AM

isnt there a similar story from several years ago with Bush's name instead of Obama's?

i find all of this pretty stupid.

9/15/2009 9:30:49 AM

Dems signal resistance to Afghan troop increase (AP)
Sep 5, 2009

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iqyaFh_efr-brDq0rMLF1hkop0tgD9AH1B580

Military Chief Suggests Need to Enlarge U.S. Afghan Force
Published: September 15, 2009

Quote :

"WASHINGTON — The nation's top military officer pushed back Tuesday against Democrats who oppose sending additional combat troops to Afghanistan, telling Congress that success would probably require more fighting forces, and certainly much more time. That assessment by the officer, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stopped short of an explicit request for more troops. But it signals that the military intends to have a public voice in the evolving debate as many Democrats express reluctance to expand the war and President Obama weighs options. Admiral Mullen, called before the Senate Armed Services Committee to testify for his nomination to serve a second term as chairman, said that no specific request for more troops had yet been received from Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the senior American and NATO commander in Afghanistan. 'But I do believe that — having heard his views and having great confidence in his leadership — a properly resourced counterinsurgency probably means more forces, and, without question, more time and more commitment to the protection of the Afghan people and to the development of good governance,' Admiral Mullen said."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/world/asia/16mullen.html

[Edited on September 16, 2009 at 5:42 AM. Reason : .]

9/16/2009 5:35:46 AM

PS:

September 14, 2009
Bin Laden's Reading List for Americans

On the list:

Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, by Jimmy Carter

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/bin-ladens-reading-list-for-americans

And here's the link to my thread about the problems with Carter's book from over two years ago:

Carter Center Advisers Quit to Protest Book

message_topic.aspx?topic=456194

[Edited on September 16, 2009 at 6:16 AM. Reason : .]

9/16/2009 6:07:48 AM

Quote :

"As a Liberal, I'm fine with Afghanistan. After all, that is the home of the actual original target of our offensive operations after the September 11th, 2001 attacks."

What does being a liberal have to do with what you said?

9/16/2009 8:16:04 PM

^^ So you and Bin Laden think in the same ways… interesting...

9/16/2009 8:22:24 PM

^ Are you really that stupid or have you completely run out of ideas? I was and am against many of the positions Carter takes in his book, Bin Laden recommended the book.

9/17/2009 1:05:35 AM

hacksaw. blah blah blah.

9/17/2009 2:44:38 AM

Quote :

"We have lost more troops total than the ammount of people that died on 9/11."

Can you imagine how America would be like if we had IED's striking at random roads while people are driving them?

Or let's do a comparison to other wars we've faced in the past.

I think we're pretty successful considering what could have happened if we did not respond. Not belittling the lives lost during this war, but you know what, they were prepared to die for their country and they signed that paper knowing exactly what their line of work entails, so don't you sully their actions or their deaths.

9/17/2009 2:53:04 AM