Yeah, there at ye olde state fair, with no pending charges, Obama was supposed to say “your governer is a dip-sh!t”.

C’mon McNary, can’t you find a better tar-brush than that?

Yeah McNary, we heard you the first time.

“We’ve got a governor in Rod Blagojevich who has delivered consistently on behalf of the people of Illinois.” -barack obama, illinois state fair, august 2006.

Melter,

That IS coal for the stockings.

The gifts that keep on giving.

DD, perspective, perspective…

Think about it. It’s tougher to get an abortion now due to the midnight regulation allowing doctors to say no.

The lower-incomers are now in debt up to their eyes thanks to the mortgage meltdown and it’s going to be harder for them to file for bankruptcy meaning the separation of wealth is even greater now.

U.S. oil services industries are fully entrenched in Iraq for the next 25 years.

More countries hate us now than before ensuring the M.I.C. will stay in business for quite a long time.

Did Laura Bush REALLY say this country was better off now than when Georgie took office?

Maybe she meant Afghanistan? Nah.
Iraq? Nope.
Sudan? Nah.
China!!??!! I’ll bet she meant China. You think?

Oh, I think he’s been pretty clear. Wrong, but clear. When I voted I understood that I was selecting the lesser of two evils. Obama may be able to do great things, but I don’t expect that he’ll depart radically from past administrations, especially in regards to foreign policy.

TinMan,

I sure hope Obama articulates a clear position soon. With the retention of Gates, it’s easy to say it’s going to be Business As Usual but I don’t believe that to be so.

I want someone (Obama? Who else?) to come out and say that terrorism is NOT the greatest threat to this country’s well being. It’s not even in the Top Five, or Ten.

To me, the number one long-term priority is raising the level of education in this country. It should be against the law to be stupid.

DD,

Good question. Experts on the situation will tell you, adding more troops will not help the situation. Arming and paying warlords? Isn’t that what got us in this mess in the first place (Charley Wilson’s War)?

I think the answer lies in politics. David certainly fingered a good part of it (to placate the Military-Industrial Complex). But I think it goes further. The Democrats have paved their way into a corner with the “Afghanistan is the REAL front on the ‘war on terror’”. This construction fits well into a sound-bite, but is problematic. For starters, it is an admission that the ‘war on terror’ exists and is a good thing.

Why do we have to send MORE troops to Afghanistan? Because politics has little to do with reality.

Meltman,
Why bother?

mcnary: Seriously?

Why don’t YOU do something ‘constructive’ and tell us exactly what it is that Obama has done wrong? And, are you inferring that Bush HASN’T done anything wrong, or ‘deconstructed’ the constitution?

I hope Santa brings you some new rants and raves……

the coal is that crap the stone has been doing about that decostructionist clown obama.

Something I’ve learned a long time ago: What things are suppose to be and how things are. They are usually different.

There was a book released last year by someone in Delta Force who could’ve captured Bin Ladin, but got underminded by the Bush Administration. Afghanistan has been the greatest law enforcement boondoggle in our history. If you believe in conspiracy theories, Afghanistan is more about oil and/or drugs than it is about bringing a terrorist and his organization to justice.

Oh, Tim,,
That’s not a LUMP OF COAL in your stocking…
It’s A Stale Turd..
It’s something that those on the far right and those on the far left are giving us..
It’s called a STIMULUS PACKAGE.
You know,, that thing that Congress and the White House voted in even though they knew it was against the will of the people??
Bail out the BIG THREE??
The People are overwhelmingly against it..
Guess What??
They ” REPUBLICANS & DEMOCRATS ” passed it anyhow.
The Will of The People is getting Ignored a hell of a lot now adays..
Might Be Time To Show Those In Power where the REAL POWER is..
Might Be Time To Remind Those In Power that we are a armed society and why our forefathers deemed it necessary to be so..

Their Their Wild Thing, wary not. Young ML just hasn’t had the exposure we’ve had to your grammatical idiosyncracies. He’ll get the drift after a time.

Merk,

You always have a measured, informed perspective on matters, especially worldly ones. I ’spect you’re an instructor of some sort that deals with current affairs, a write, or a bore, one. If you’re not one of the first two, that’s the only viable option left.

In truth you validated what I said. We have NOTHING to show for tens of thousands dead, millions displaced and bazillions spent. I stand by my contention it was all a waste.

JP, if you’re right, and I don’t know if I think you are, then you’re saying we’ve spent seven years in Afghanistan (good title for a movie, maybe a little too long) looking for bin laden. If so, that must go down as the greatest law enforcement boondoggle since the Keystone Kops.

Merk has it right and goes to the source of my question. We don’t know what’s going on ‘over there,’ and given that, concluding that no one else does either isn’t far fetched.

Our foreign ‘policy’ has been a cluster frig for many years. Since 9/11 it’s taken on biblical proportions of insanity.

We have learned nothing since Viet Nam and our feet are riddled with bullet holes. Wait, what feet? We’ve long since blown THEM away and are now peppering our lower legs with misguided discharges.

My favorite bumper sticker is “Proud to be an American.” Proud? Of what? I want one that says, “Thank GOD I’m an American.”

Montana Liberal:

Forgive my spelling,, I beg of thee..
Forgive those missing letters or those added vowels..
Imagine if you will a place where not only do words have more than one meaning, they have more than one spelling..
If politicians can have more than one face,, ” and we know all of them do “, then permit me my little fetish of spelling words the way I think they should be spelled..
But Please don’t blame me if a word is not spelled right,,
Blame it on the PHUKING SPELL CHECK!!

Dennis– you’re original question is hard to answer, depending on how one looks at it, it can have a myriad of answer. And not being one in power, I cant answer it; I simply don’t know what plan those in power specifically have. What you can observe, however, is the after affects of us being in the region, and, despite all of our mucking about, all we did was simply reallign states back to a pre-9/11 detente.

As for the rest of the the world vis a vis the US, if you’re talking about world opinion of us, then I suspect not much has changed. Our approval rating has always been low post Suez Canal; during the Cold War the only thing we had going for us was that we werent the soviets.

So current financial crisis not withstanding, all of our gallavanting in the region has simply taken us back to the 90’s. Terrorism has been restricted to soft targets in the global south. Instead of using Saddam to contain the Iranians, we’re doing it ourselves, and Pakistan is still barreling out of control. The ME is still the ME; the Saudis still pump oil, Mubarak is still in power, and Israel and the Palestinians are more or less in a lull between violent spells. So, our troops didnt die for nothing…they died to set the global clock back a decade or so. Whether you agree it should have been done that way is certainly debatable, but that seems to be the reality of life today, no more, no less

Dirty Dennis, as I said before, Afghanistan is about capturing Bin Ladin. I don’t care or support fighting the Taliban or occupying & “democracizing” Afghanistan. If Obama does anything else in Afghanistan except bringing Bin Ladin to justice, I’ll be strongly against his actions as I am about our occupation of Iraq.

Merk,

That said, what about the rest of the world and the U.S. specifically. Can you say things are about the ’same?’ Methinks no, given the fiscal crisis which may or may not have been fueled by our misadventures in the Middle East.

And there are thousands in Iraq who will miss this Christmas, and every Christmas hereafter because we killed them. And MILLIONs of former Iraqis who may never see Christmas in their own country, let alone their own home.

I repeat my original question, what ARE our tactics in Afghanistan and to what end? Why are we there? If we’re still fighting a seven-year-old-war with the Taliban, then perhaps we should concede defeat and go home. It’s pretty clear we’re NOT going to beat them. The Russians could have told us that. In fact, they did.

The bottom line is we are not going to win in Afghanistan nor Iraq so every GI and/or civilian who dies will die for what?

Meltdown– The region is no more or less safe than its always been. Out all the countries you listed, only Pakistan is really a threat, due to it’s instability. If not for the Pakistani army, we’d already be looking at a failed state. All the major players in the region have already moved into their relative stances of detente. Syria is bottlenecked by non supportive, or at least, ambivalent states (Turkey, Israel, Jordan), and Iran has to play it safe, less the great unwashed masses get rowdy, as they have been in recent years, and the want Amadinejad out (not what happened the last time the masses got pissed in Iran). Afghanistan is Afghanistan…it’s a little better now, but really, I dont know if one can undo 30-odd years of constant warfare, at least in just the amount of time we’ve been there. Turning it over to the U.N. for longterm looking over, ala Bosnia, might have to happen.

Democracy has a toehold at least in the region…one may not be the most satisfied in the way it was delivered, but at least the seed is there in a way that hasnt been seen since the halycon days of Nasser. So perhaps there might be a bright spot in this after all. That said, despite our invasions, the region is basically the same, no more, no less

Redneck: Yeah, Iraq is a beacon of freedom! All hail W! Wait, let me backup a minute.

During our forray in Iraq, Syria, Iran, Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan have ALL become more of a threat to the region. So, just because one country, that was run by a puppet dictator, was able to be turned, doesn’t mean the same for the region. Perspective, please.

And, if Iraq is so ‘free’, why was the shoe thrower turned over to the military and beaten? If Iraq was ‘free’, wouldn’t he have just been detained by local police?

To this day, it still perplexes me that people will TRY to justify invading a sovereign nation that posed zero threat to the United States.

Bobby Boy,

Do you think Georgie Porgie would EVER show his face in another Arab country? Shoes, hail, they’d be shooting him. As it is, he had to ’sneak’ into Iraq.

Of course Zakaria said that, he’s Georgie’s hand-picked shill. You don’t bite the hand that feeds you. We’ll see what the esteemed Iraqi Prez has to say AFTER Bush has left power. And I don’t mean the DAY after. Political decorum dictates that you wait some time before you turn on your fellow pol. But mark my words, he will.

Doesn’t sound like everyone thinks the war was a waste

CNN: Do you think the shoe-throwing incident shows that Iraq is becoming an open society?

Fareed Zakaria: Yes, and President Bush was right that it represents a huge advance in freedom in the Middle East. There is quite simply no other Arab country in which that scene could have taken place.

D&C: “BTW I am still waiting for all of the “No blood for oil” protesters to explain where the oil we going to war to steal from Iraq is?”

Take a look at what companies are drilling for said oil, and which companies are providing the services in and around said drilling areas, and which companies are supplying the security……..

Exxon, etc.
Halliburton
Blackwater

All american businesses.

It doesn’t matter where the oil is going, only that we (the U.S.) are the ones in control of it. Only a super small percentage of it was ever designed to come to us.

Who CARES what you think? Or I? Or Coach? It’s what the people in power think that we should care about.

The lessons of history seem to be lost on you. The very reason we DID steal this country from the Amerindians is why we should NOT be chiting all over ourselves in the ME. Sure, every major power has exploited smaller countries. So, because others did, it’s okay for us? I’m afraid too many who are IN power share your convoluted view of world geopolitics.

YOU are interested in setting up democracies in the Middle East? Pray tell, based on what? Your extensive knowledge of the cultures involved? The many examples of Islamic democracy in place?

You seem to place a high value on towering stupidity. Your own, apparently. If there was EVER any intent by Bushney to install ‘democracy’ in Iraq, it was an ‘oh, by the way,’ thingie. As for ‘Blood for Oil,’ you seem to have magically transformed Bushney’s debacle into an honorable act. They didn’t get any oil because they NEVER secured the country, doofus. Call if ‘Blood for NOTHING!! NOTHING!!’ All a waste. Every single solitary life and dollar spent in Iraq and Afghanistan was spent for NOTHING!!

And as for those ‘other’ countries returning the colonies, what a crock. They couldn’t control their colonies and they cut and ran. Of course, as they were retreating, they made a grand gesture and said, “We give your country back to you.” Afterwards, they added, “Please stop killing us.”

Sadly, too many in power have had your convoluted version of history and vision of current affairs. We INVADED Iraq. Remember the rockets’ red glare and bombs bursting in air? I’ll bet you got a kick out of that. That is NOT how you bring ‘democracy’ to a country. That is how you bring oppression. It’s been that way since time memorial. Too bad you can’t read.

Define “successfully” and “use of arms”.

Is that different than the US “settling” the West? or Spain “settling” Mexico?

The Moors ruled Spain for hundreds and hundreds of years

England conquered Canada, and India and Australia and NZ, but later gave them back.

Most countries who invaded or conquered natives in the 1500-1800’s gave the countries back colonialism became out of favor. Look at Russia they control many ethnic groups in Russia as do others in the region.

Where your logic falls off the tracks is the implication that the USA is trying to occupy and own Afghanistan and Iraq. I am only interested is setting up free and STABLE Democracies to rule the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.

BTW I am still waiting for all of the “No blood for oil” protesters to explain where the oil we going to war to steal from Iraq is?

Took a world financial crisis to get oil under $100 a barrel, not oil we stole from Iraq.

Not much Coach, that’s for sure. I use the same reverse argument but to little good.

If we were living in Iraq, we’d be fighting the hell out of the U.S. troops. It’s one thing when your own people suppress you, it’s quite another when it’s a foreign invader.

Has ANY invader, in history, ever successfully occupied a country by the use of arms? NOT a rhetorical question.

DD, speaking of ‘presence’ in the region, I’d like to propose a question to all who are commenting on this current thread:

What ‘presence’ would WE allow? Would WE allow a Russian presence in our region? How about an Iranian presence? How about a Chinese presence?

It’s funny, but the word ‘presence in the region’ gets thrown around quite easily…..Kind of like the argument that we’re around to STOP nuclear war, but we’re the only country to EVER use such weapons and we have a vice president touring the nation BRAGGING about how capable we are.

Again, WHAT PRESENCE WOULD WE ALLOW?

Strategy all, and likely quite right. Except for criticizing Wild Thing’s grammar. He does that to get a rise.

But what are the tactics, which would lead back, I would like to think, to the ‘real’ strategy.

JP says catch bin laden. You’d have better luck trying to catch a flea on a bear then bin laden in Afghanistan. The ONLY way they’re going to catch him is if someone ‘turns’ on him. And at the present pace in which the U.S. Military is making ‘friends’ in the area, THAT proposition looks dim.

So, are ‘NATO’ troops getting up in the morning, having a cup of joe and scrambled eggs and heading out on a ‘hike’ to look for bin laden? Methinks not.

If you listen to what the propaganda machine says, the drones are firing upon militants. And, just what is a militant? Usually someone who is taking up arms against you. And is that ‘wrong?’ Well, I guess it is if you’re the 20th Century version of the Roman Legions.

My point, and what I’m after, is that this country has forgotten, either intentionally or no, what it set out to do. Think back to all the various ’scenarios’ that were laid out to justify the U.S.’s intervention into the area. The fact that they were ALL bogus seems to have faded from the collective memories of those in D.C.

Even on this site, the whole ‘business’ in the Middle East has take second shrift to the Election, not without some justification. But the election is over and OUR side won and yet it is business as usual. I have faith/confidence in Mr. Obama and I don’t expect him to behave like a fanatic over the issue prior to his assuming office, but NOTHING that I’ve seen over the past month has indicated that anything will change. I sincerely hope I’m wrong.

Merk, you’re quite right in your assessment and would be, I presume, the first to agree that the strategy, as reflected in the tactics, is a disaster. If you want a ‘presence’ in an area, you’d better make DAMNED sure the locals are at least tolerant of that presence. Our method, it would seem, would be to declare war against any and all who do not desire a foreign army, an invading culture, to be setting up what could be permanent bases. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to determine that a majority of the population will be against a situation.

So, tactically, we have declared war on the peoples of Iraq, Afghanistan and now Pakistan and Syria. The only ‘strategy’ position THAT would seem to endorse would be Coach’s. And while I believe in it de facto, I don’t see it de jure. I can’t believe our country has sunk to such depths, Viet Nam, Grenada, Panama and Iraq I notwithstanding. If Mr. Obama does not feel the same and does not take steps to reverse our course, then I concede, we have imploded.

Some amongst us are so shallow as to think my comments would desist given a change of administration. Fools, I hold the Left to a higher standard than the Right. If you understand something and don’t act accordingly, then you are condemnable. Bushney was/is too ignorant/arrogant/greedy to ever understand.

Perhaps, once you have opened the gate and let loose the dogs of war, there is no recalling them. But we did in Viet Nam and the world kept spinning away on its axis. I suggest we can do so again and this ol orb will keep right on rotating.

Afghanistan is something that should get finished the right way with the capture of Osama Bin Ladin. Y’all remember him, don’t ya? Responsible for thousands of death few years back. I think it was a day in September when it happened.

I’m sorry. I am not trying to make light about a tragedy. Finishing the job in Afghanistan with the sufficient amount of troops and a clear objective is a no-brainer of a foreign policy decision that anyone can make.

I don’t like war anymore than the next person. Yet, going after the person who was actually responsible for 9/11 is an exception I’m willing to support.

Delta Wild Man,

I believe it’s spelled lose, not loose. Your posts are painful to read because they are so poorly spelled and punctuated.

He wont…Obama, like the rest of the democrats, has his own vision of ruling over an US-Centric world…so all you who wanted real “change” should have voted in a party that doesnt have an R or D as its initial.

we’re in Afghanistan to stave off Iranian influence (i.e. to keep an eye on them), and to keep an eye on Pakistan. If/when it goes to hell, so does the ME. It has nukes, a militant populace (which Iran doesnt), and has been on the precipice of anarchy for some time. So we have a vital interest in staying in, to be in a quick position to act should Pakistans relations with other nations, particularly nuclear armed India, devovle into a shooting war. And, we’re probably going to begin launching covert raids into Waziristan, if we havent already. That’s my understanding of the situation

Dennis, the answer is right in front of you and Eisenhower’s noses: The MIC. Obama has a chance to halt the madness, but………we’ll see.

That may all be well and true, but how do you JUSTIFY it? You’ve talked strategic but not tactical. What relevant reason are American soldiers dying in Afghanistan? To what end?

I think it’s simply the strategic center has drifted farther east. Syria is no problem. They have their slice of Lebanon, and a Nuclear Israel right next door (which is the biggest known secret in the Levant), not to mention Jordan, which isnt too interested in Syrian nonsense,which should keep them in check. And If Iraq continues to improve, you’ll see Syria limited to being just another regional power, surrounded by larger ones (Israel, Turkey), those with bigger alies (Jordan), or both (Egypt).

On the other side of the ME you have Afghanistan, surrounded by a hostile Iran and an increasingly anarchic Pakistan, which is nuclear armed. So it makes sense that we would shift back to our original theater. Not to mention, David is right…it’s a combination of money and strategic assets.

Well, Dennis, it’s simple.

The US needs to exit Iraq (there are those who say we should have never been there to begin with).

The military oriented corporations that run this government (and us) are used to having war dollars coming in their front door and propping up their balance sheet.

Gee. Who would want THAT to go away.

The rest of the crap you hear is just posturing. Follow the dollars.

DD:
Sorry, Bush 43, not 42..
My Mistake..
Oh, and let’s not forget, when war breaks out in the middle east,, What does Israel have to loose??
When you’ve got nothing left to loose, you throw everything you have at your enemy as hard and early as you can.
Didn’t Carter admit that Israel has NUKES??
Iran and Syria will loose,, what??
75% to 85% of their population in the first hours of that war..
Remember,, Israel has NOTHING to loose..
NOTHING..

Because Bush 41 had his war,, Clinton had his whore, and Bush 42 had his war,,
You don’t think our first ” BLACK ” president if going to be playing second fiddle to all these “WHITE” presidents do you?
Hell No, ObamaRama gonna have hisself his own war.
No Realy,,
With all the unrest and al quaida pop ups, along with iran and syria, America has to have a major presence in that area of the world, otherwise,, Isreal will blow the f@*% out of the aformentioned countries.

I realize I’m old and feeble-minded but would someone please explain to me, why oh why we have to send MORE troops to Afghanistan?