Afghanistan.

[lostfan]

AHAHAHAHA...

 

He's just a hypocritical douche. Come on, admit it. It doesn't hurt that bad.

This is true but I had admitted that sometime in summer of 2008.

[KipWellsFan]

But curiously absent from the vote was Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, also a Democratic candidate for president, who had canceled a campaign appearance in South Carolina so he could be in Washington for votes.

 

Mr. Obama issued a statement calling the resolution, put forward by Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, “a stunt.” Mr. Obama said, “By not casting a vote, I registered my protest against these empty politics.”

 

Mr. Obama had voted minutes earlier in favor of an extremely similar resolution proposed by Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California.

 

Ms. Boxer’s proposal, which failed, called for the Senate to “strongly condemn all attacks on the honor, integrity and patriotism” of anyone in the United States armed forces. It did not name MoveOn.org, but criticized the ad that appeared in The Times. Mr. Dodd and Mrs. Clinton also voted in favor of Ms. Boxer’s proposal.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/21/us/polit...nLqHQKdf67O9m0A

 

Not really any proof of anything. But then again, I don't assume all politicians are scum.

[StrangeSox]

General Be-TRAY-us was from the minds of Obama and Rahm.

[Balta1701]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/21/us/polit...nLqHQKdf67O9m0A

 

Not really any proof of anything. But then again, I don't assume all politicians are scum.

Clearly, Obama should have booked Letterman that night, then suspended his campaign, did interviews for all 3 major news shows, and changed nothing about his campaign strategy other than canceling on Letterman. That's how you show you're serious about an important issue like that.

[StrangeSox]

28% of Americans say civilian control of the military is bad.

 

Many of the Founding Fathers, including James Madison, the chief author of the U.S. Constitution, strongly advocated civilian control of the military to ensure a stable democracy. President Obama’s decision this week to sack the top commander in Afghanistan after publication of the latter’s comments criticizing the president and his advisers is a high-profile example of this policy in action.

 

I wonder if it has anything to do with having a democrat in charge or if this is a pretty stable finding.

[lostfan]

So 28% of Americans are dumb and literally want to live under a military dictatorship. Okay. I believe it though.

[StrangeSox]

I'm hesitant to attribute it to there being a black democrat Muslim Kenyan usurper in office, because I wouldn't be shocked if there really was a decent amount of Americans who always felt like that.

[lostfan]

No, I'm pretty sure that 28% is just dumb. But I noticed that a lot of people's opinions of whether the move was legit or not (it unquestionably was and to even attempt to argue otherwise is frankly retarded) had a lot more to do with whether the person being asked liked Obama to begin with. The majority of those being the "don't like him, shady move" types.

[Balta1701]

Well, guess someone ought to post this. Massive leak of about 5 years of Afghan war documents through Wikileaks. The NYTimes and the Guardian have had access to the 80k or so documents for a couple weeks and were allowed to start writing about them today after an embargo ended and they were posted publicly online.

 

Overall I'm underwhelmed. Lots of seemingly big important details about how everyone's being driven crazy by the Pakistani intelligence services and their open support of the Taliban. Lots of details about how there have been large numbers of civilian casualties that haven't been discussed publicly or admitted to. The one seemingly genuinely new detail is that the Taliban has acquired and used heat seaking surface to air missiles against the coalition in that conflict. Didn't knwo that.

 

Overall, I think it's more illuminating for what isn't there. There's no report saying "we need to stay in Afghanistan to secure our mineral wealth future" or "we can't have the press figure out that we're lying on this". Basically, it seems like a nearly intractable, seething, local conflict with no obvious path to victory and every path leading to something bad, which is sorta what we have heard for years now.

 

If nothing else, I think it makes a strong case that Bush was right. That is...candidate Bush was right and candidate Gore was flat out wrong...using the military for Nation-Building is a very, very difficult endeavour and you better make bloody well sure you've got everything in order before you try it.

[Texsox]

I am not certain that civilian control really stops a military coup. While at times having a civilian making some of these decisions seems to be odd, I do appreciate that check and balance. While driving around today I'm going to be thinking about some of the decisions that Presidents have had to make and see if those Presidents with "real military experience" have done any better or worse than those without military experience. I'm not certain which group to put little Bush.

[StrangeSox]

The one seemingly genuinely new detail is that the Taliban has acquired and used heat seaking surface to air missiles against the coalition in that conflict. Didn't knwo that.

 

Aside from helicopters, I don't think there's anything we're flying over there that a SAM could hit.

[Balta1701]

Aside from helicopters, I don't think there's anything we're flying over there that a SAM could hit.

Transport and civilian jets?

[lostfan]

The whole "bombshell" of the Afghanistan leaks was pretty underwhelming, a very "dog bites man" story. Anyone who's read newspapers in the past 3 years probably already knew all of that. I think it's funny that the press is acting like they uncovered some huge secret, the foreign press is acting like they blew the lid off the American propaganda machine, etc. Truthfully, everything in there has been admitted by the U.S. government (either this administration or the previous one) and the current strategy is made to reflect a lot of that.

[Balta1701]

Sigh

An ambitious military operation that Afghan officials had expected to be a sign of their growing military capacity instead turned into an embarrassment, with Taliban fighters battering an Afghan battalion in a remote eastern area until

The fighting has continued so intensely for the past week that the Red Cross has been unable to reach the battlefield to remove the dead and wounded.

 

The operation, east of Kabul, was not initially coordinated with NATO forces, but the Afghans called for help after 10 of their soldiers were killed and perhaps twice as many captured at the opening of their operation nine days ago.

 

“There are a lot of lessons to be learned here,” said a senior American military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the operation was continuing. “How they started that and why they started that.” He said there had been no public statements on the battle because of the need for confidentiality during a rescue mission.

[lostfan]

The last combat brigade left Iraq today and the 50k are left. That means that since Obama got inaugurated there have been about 100k troops that have left. Which is a lot. I was getting tired of people whining on the lefty blogs about how the war in Iraq was still on as if this was Obama's choice and he was sitting around intentionally doing nothing.

[kapkomet]

Bush -

 

Obama -

[NorthSideSox72]

Bush -

 

Obama -

In terms of Iraq? Yeah, that's about right. Glad to see we are on the same page.

 

[Balta1701]

The evidence he presented to the United Nations -- some of it circumstantial, some of it absolutely bone-chilling in its detail -- had to prove to anyone that Iraq not only hasn't accounted for its weapons of mass destruction but without a doubt still retains them. Only a fool -- or possibly a Frenchman -- could conclude otherwise.

Yup.

[lostfan]

Bush -

 

Obama -

 

 

In terms of Iraq? Yeah, that's about right. Glad to see we are on the same page.

More or less, yeah. Not particularly happy with Obama on Afghanistan, but there are no options except to do something that sucks.

[Balta1701]

The Post this mornin'.

An intense military campaign aimed at crippling the Taliban has so far failed to inflict more than fleeting setbacks on the insurgency or put meaningful pressure on its leaders to seek peace, according to U.S. military and intelligence officials citing the latest assessments of the war in Afghanistan.

 

Escalated airstrikes and special operations raids have disrupted Taliban movements and damaged local cells. But officials said that insurgents have been adept at absorbing the blows and that they appear confident that they can outlast an American troop buildup set to subside beginning next July.

 

"The insurgency seems to be maintaining its resilience," said a senior Defense Department official involved in assessments of the war. Taliban elements have consistently shown an ability to "reestablish and rejuvenate," often within days of routed by U.S. forces, the official said, adding that if there is a sign that momentum has shifted, "I don't see it."

 

One of the military objectives in targeting mid-level commanders is to compel the Taliban to pursue peace talks with the Afghan government, a nascent effort that NATO officials have helped to facilitate.

 

The blunt intelligence assessments are consistent across the main spy agencies responsible for analyzing the conflict, including the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency, and come at a critical juncture. Officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

 

The Obama administration's plan to conduct a strategic review of the war in December has touched off maneuvering between U.S. military leaders seeking support for extending the American troop buildup and skeptics looking for arguments to wind down the nation's role.

What I think is worth considering is that this report could be either entirely accurate, entirely inaccurate and leaked only as a PR move prior to the strategic review in December, or both. It could be both an argument for staying longer and an argument for packing it in.

[Texsox]

How many years in the past 50 has Afghanistan *not* been at war?

[GoSox05]

How many years in the past 50 has Afghanistan *not* been at war?

 

How many years in the last 75 years have we not been at war?

[southsider2k5]

How many years in the last 75 years have we not been at war?

 

75 if you don't count 1945.

[GoSox05]

75 if you don't count 1945.

 

 

At least we are consistent.

[lostfan]

How many years in the past 50 has Afghanistan *not* been at war?

Depends, what do you count before 1979 (it's pretty much constantly been at war since then)?