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I'm in favor of the President doing what his hand picked generals tell him to do but not half-assed. If they say they need 40,000 then give them 40,000 or end the war.
If that is the case, it will be the remake of Vietnam.
If my guy asked for 40,000, I'd be sending 100,000, and tell him I'll see them all back in a week, for Christmas.
You cannot stand in the middle of the road, and not expect to get run over like we did in the last part of Vietnam, that got our azzes kicked.
Your either all in balls to the wall, or you get the hell out.
Okay Stormin Norman What do you think of McCrystal's (sounds like a hamburger) comments:
October 14th, 2009 | Afghanistan | Posted by Erik Holmes
McChrystalNew York Times reporter Dexter Filkins’ excellent profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. Force Afghanistan, contains a little tid-bit that might raise a few eyebrows around the Air Force.
While speaking to a group of senior coalition commanders after an air strike on an Afghan compound, McChrystal reportedly said:
“Gentlemen, we need to understand the implications of what we are doing. Air power contains the seeds of our own destruction. A guy with a long-barrel rifle runs into a compound, and we drop a 500-pound bomb on it? … If we use air power irresponsibly, we can lose this fight.”
It is no secret that McChrystal thinks air power needs to be used more judiciously — as I reported recently — and it seems probable that is all he was trying to say. But the “seeds of our own destruction” comment caught my attention as a particularly blunt way to put it, and one not likely to win him a lot of fans in the fighter pilot community.
“Gentlemen, we need to understand the implications of what we are doing. Air power contains the seeds of our own destruction. A guy with a long-barrel rifle runs into a compound, and we drop a 500-pound bomb on it? … If we use air power irresponsibly, we can lose this fight.”
They actually call me Relentless, not Stormin. It rhymes with my last name better.
Sounds like he has a plan. The statement is a little PC for me, but none the less it is a plan.
Not sure what your stance is other than the usual rant against whatever Obama does. Are you saying we should abandon Afghanistan and Pakistan? Are you saying we should put more than 34,000 troops in? Is your message basicly to build more Chevys and that will solve the problem? Or is it the same right wing wet dream of hanging Obama from the nearest tree. I guess I'm easily confused by posters such as you. I can't figure out what you want or what you want Obama to do or what your solutions are. Somehow in your rants, there are never any solutions.
your problem is that you think all right wing conservatives are alike and all left wing liberals are alike. there are many shades of gray in the world!
i always offer solutions, but liberals don't like any of them. personally, i was not for the iraq war and am not for the afghanistan war. of course there needed to be some kind of response after 9-11, but i think a targeted hit squad would have been a better solution rather than announcing to the enemy that we are coming to get you, or at least bush could have actually stopped when he made his victory announcement on the carrier.
i don't understand why we don't have defensive military action. when you are a kid, you realize it is a heck of a lot easier to defend the fort than to attack the fort. i especially don't see where this "war" is winnable in any sense of the word and have yet to see how we will not get sucked into a quagmire that will deplete our country and its resources even further. next, we will be pulled into pakistan. russia collapsed partly under the weight of their own military debacles and we are heading down the same road.
i don't think this is a topic that should be ignored since it involves the lives of many americans and comes at great expense to america.
Like, we only have ~50K troops in Afghanistan. That is so freaking weak. In comparison, NYC has ~40,ooo cops. Our combined armed forces stand at over a million boots. Seems Afghansistan is under staffed.
4000 troops being trained for cold weather fighting in fairbanks alaska right now.obama will be sending more troops in a few weeks
I lived in Fairbanks, and no amount of cold weather gear, and training can keep the elements from chewing you up when they want to. Equipment has a way of....never mind. 20 below. It's hard enough to move your lips, let alone your body.
I'm going to reserve judgement until I hear what Obama's strategy is. If he has an actual plan for success and defines what success is and creates benchmarks for progress then I'll make my decision.
That's the problem. It's been months and he hasn't made a decision. He needs to do something, sitting around debating the politics of the situation is far worse than the other two evils.
Send more troops or pull out completely. Pick one. Either way half the people are gonna be mad.
Not making a decision or leaving things how they are pisses of everyone.
your problem is that you think all right wing conservatives are alike and all left wing liberals are alike. there are many shades of gray in the world!
i always offer solutions, but liberals don't like any of them. personally, i was not for the iraq war and am not for the afghanistan war. of course there needed to be some kind of response after 9-11, but i think a targeted hit squad would have been a better solution rather than announcing to the enemy that we are coming to get you, or at least bush could have actually stopped when he made his victory announcement on the carrier.
i don't understand why we don't have defensive military action. when you are a kid, you realize it is a heck of a lot easier to defend the fort than to attack the fort. i especially don't see where this "war" is winnable in any sense of the word and have yet to see how we will not get sucked into a quagmire that will deplete our country and its resources even further. next, we will be pulled into pakistan. russia collapsed partly under the weight of their own military debacles and we are heading down the same road.
I agree with your assesment on how the war against terror should be fought. In fact, I've posted the same strategy. Unfortunately, we're not in charge to make the decisions. I posted months ago when McChristal first asked for troops, that Afghanistan may be Obama's undoing, more so than the economy or health care.
Afghanistan is a damned if you do and damned if you don't situation. People talk about Afghanistan as being a replay of Vietnam. To a degree it may end up to be. On the one hand if we pull out immediately, we create our Vietnam immediately. The vacuum we leave most likely will destableize the whole region and give free reign to a movement that wants our destruction. On the other hand, if we can stabilize the country through alliances with regional warlords similar to what we did with the Sunni's, then we have a chance to succeed. But it's just a chance. In the end, it could just be spilled blood and lost treasure and Vietnam all over again on an exponential scale.
We can't forget that there are 42,000 foreign troops fighting there now, from various countries who also have a vested interest in the stabilization of Afghanistan. Last I heard was that NATO is driving for up to 75,000 troops through additional allotments from countries.
Since I'm not in charge to make the decision and I don't have access to the same intelligence that they have, I choose to wait and see what our elected leader's solutions are and then make my judgement. Believe me, if they make what I feel are the wrong moves, I'll be at the front of the ramparts asking for their heads on a pike. Nobody hates war more than the veteran who fought in a bad one.
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What do you think of McCrystal's (sounds like a hamburger) comments:
personally, i was not for the iraq war and am not for the afghanistan war. of course there needed to be some kind of response after 9-11, but i think a targeted hit squad would have been a better solution rather than announcing to the enemy that we are coming to get you, or at least bush could have actually stopped when he made his victory announcement on the carrier. 
