Don’t know about that but I do know that the Bushbaby is in Romania right now at the NATO summit and he asked the NATO member states to send more troops to Afghanistan.

Ever the diplomat, here’s how he “asked”: “We expect our NATO allies to shoulder the burden necessary to succeed.”

Arrogant little twit!

Several new states could be added to NATO this week. How much you wanna bet Bush is trying to condition US approval on the new states, Albania, Macedonia and Croatia, agreeing to send troops to Afghanistan?

Impressive!

The metrics you provided for Afghanistan are indeed imprecise…to the extreme. As far as pulling out of Afghanistan being a great idea, since pulling out of Iraq is the “smart” thing to do…no. Afghanistan was, and still is, the linchpin when it comes to AQ. Sadly, I’m not sure that battle hasn’t also been lost. Certainly, the resurgence of the Taliban in that country is a net loss to the ordinary Afghani. When the government of Karzai only controls Kabul, I would say that there’s been more than a significant failure here.

The bottom line here is that it’s been a tragedy for all involved.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/ index.php?context=va&aid=5564

Exactly. All these wingnuts, including McShrub, justifying staying in Iraq for 100 years are just reinforcing what progressives have been saying all along: the US is an imperial power, constantly trying to force our will against the rest of the world. I just heard on CNN that the generals in Afghanistan are begging for more troops to quell the resurgent violence there, but were refused because of the number of troops in Iraq.

Thanks, Shrub for devastating our Armed Forces, as well as our Constitution, economy and US prestige worldwide.

Actually, al Qaeda in Mesopotamia is the rechristening of Ansar al Islam (Partisans of Islam). They were a radical Sunni Islamist terror organization which operated in Northern Iraq along the border region with Iran from around 2001 until we invaded Iraq in 2003.

During the pre-invasion years we more or less afforded them protection from Saddam (whom they detested for his secular government) because they were based in the Northern No-Fly Zone, patrolled by US fighter jets. They were also protected from the Kurdish peshmerga, whom they also opposed, by Iranian artillery just across the border from their stronghold.

After the US invasion and the collapse of the Baathist regime Ansar, along with their leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (remember him?), moved south and commenced insurgent operations against US and coalition forces. After a while al-Zarqawi received the support of Usama bin Laden and renamed his organization al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

Read more. The situation in Afghanistan is a good deal more than “murky.”

It is a very imprecise metric, subject to all kinds of differing interpretation, but here is the Google Boxscore on Afghanistan:

“Progress in Afghanistan” = 711,000 hits
“Military Progress in Afghanistan” = 1,820,000
“Failure in Afghanistan” = 646,000 hits
“Military Failure in Afghanistan” = 1,760,000

BTW, I responded to your point on SA – how about the idea that pulling out of Afghanistan would work great since it is obviously the smart thing to do in Iraq?

You didn’t respond to this last statement: “Lest we forget, OBL was born and bred in Saudi Arabia, and most of the 911 terrorists were Saudis. Interesting that Saudi Arabia got the free pass, isn’t it?”

I have discussed the Saudi situation in other posts. In a nutshell, SA is the birthplace of Wahhabism, so it makes sense AQ Wahhabists would be born there but they hate the Royal Family as much or more than they hate us. The government of SA revoked OBL’s citizenship years ago. Osama and his gang represent the Royal Family the same way Tim McVeigh represents the US.

But most important of all, SA is the keeper of Mecca and Medina. We spurred Muslim hatred of us when we had troops there protecting SA from Saddam. The fanatical hatred we would bring about by any attempt at so much as looking cross eyed at the Saudis from the entire Muslim world would give us universal Jihad which we don’t want to contemplate.

Add to that their oil, their holding of US debt…they are untouchable and they know it.

Solar/wind/geothermal any old decade would be swell. Then we could show the Mid East the same deep concern we have shown Darfur and Rwanda. That sounds harsh, I know, but if we aren’t going to use force we have got to remove the single item that forces us to care.

AQ in Mesopotamia was a home-grown group of Sunni, which was joined by the larger organization out of Afghanistan. They wouldn’t have been there, nor grown, if we hadn’t invaded in the first place. And Iran, when they inevitably control Iraq, will eliminate AQ. In addition, if Iran is able to provide the security that the present government in Iraq and ourselves have been totally unable to do, I suspect the civil war will end very quickly.

Iraq is 60%+ Shia; Saddam had driven many Shia Iraqis into Iran; they won in a free election with tremedous turn out.

I strongly doubt that the Iraqi people realized that they were essentially voting in an Iran-backed government when they voted. (Remember the 8-year war?) I feel very sorry for those people. They expected better and got far less. Let’s also remember that such a “free election” would never have stood if the U.S. had been opposed to this leadership. Hamas comes to mind.

Do we know this? I read this a lot. I also read a lot about the Taliban getting their assess handed to them in pitched battles fairly often. I would call Afghanistan murky, but “degenerating by the day” a bit of an exageration.

Read more. The situation in Afghanistan is a good deal more than “murky.”

A seperate issue, but yes, Waziristan is the nexus of AQ/Taliban. We could take every guy in Iraq and put them in Afghanistan, and unless we are willing to cross that border OBL would still be safe there.

I don’t totally disagree with you on this one. But I would point out that our failure against OBL was directly due to our pulling our forces, energy and commitment out of Afghanistan, in addition to a misplaced loyalty and support of Musharraf.

Over the weekend, the Mahdi army fought the Iraqi Army to a standstill and only when US airpower got involved did Sadr tell them to pack it in. Had we not been there to help out, Basra would in all likelihood be Iraq’s version of the Gaza strip.

This is an inevitable situation, and is a great example of our intervention in what is a struggle for political power. This is not the U.S.’ fight. Iraq is a sovereign nation (supposedly) and these issues will be resolved. Whether through violence or political accomodation is up to THEM.

You didn’t respond to this last statement: “Lest we forget, OBL was born and bred in Saudi Arabia, and most of the 911 terrorists were Saudis. Interesting that Saudi Arabia got the free pass, isn’t it?”

Keltoi Says:
It seems his service was not worthy of much bio material in his 00 campaign – I watched that sucker pretty close and never heard it mentioned. BUT – service is service

jees, do you ever read this crap before you hit the submit button? Yeah, you were a vet…..but not really…from what I heard…..

Gore should be given credit not only for his service but for not hyping it…Here is what he said in his 2000 acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention about his military service:

“I was an Army reporter in Vietnam. When I was there, I didn’t do the most, or run the gravest danger. But I was proud to wear my country’s uniform.”

I always thought that was a classy line by Gore.

What I most object to is your statement that only those who have served “get to comment”. That is why I mentioned those “commentators” like Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld et al.

Now, I have served so I guess I get to comment and what I want to say is this: Service does not bestow a higher moral standing or even a higher degree of understanding. We are all possessed of differing degrees of tactical and strategic thinking skills. Some with high marks never served. Some with low marks have served.

That’s just the way it is in life. You have to listen to what people have to say and draw your own conclusions in light of your own experience and your own native gifts.

The distinction between a “combat brigade” and a “strike force” seems a little spurious. Obama has declined to say whether he would station his strike force inside Iraq or in a neighboring country, such as Kuwait. It sounds a little like a shell game. All combat troops will be withdrawn from Iraq within 16 months, but “strike forces” will be re-introduced as needed.

Funny, but we heard the same thing in the past from the Bush administration. I don’t remember you scoffing about it then. In fact, it’s been proposed in some form repeatedly: US troops drawn down, and pull out of active combat but a “permanent” base is located in the region so that the troops (hmm, sort of like a “strike force”) can be quickly re-introduced into hot spots.

Since y’all are convinced the country will turn into a bloodbath the moment US troops are withdrawn, I’d think you’d be all over this as a brilliant idea. Oh, wait, IOKIYAR.

I stand corrected, and thank you, I did not know that. It seems his service was not worthy of much bio material in his 00 campaign – I watched that sucker pretty close and never heard it mentioned. BUT – service is service.

Also from The Post:

Obama says that some troops must remain to “protect American diplomatic and military personnel in Iraq.” He is more explicit than his rivals in insisting that the other Democratic candidates in saying that the U.S. must be prepared to re-intervene in Iraq “to stop genocidal violence.” According to an Iraq issue paper on Obama’s website:

‘Obama would supply armed escorts to civilians who voluntarily choose to move from religiously heterogeneous areas to communities where they feel they will be more secure. He would reserve the right to intervene militarily, without international partners, to suppress genocidal violence within Iraq.</em>’

Obama’s “plan:”

“[H]is claim that he will withdraw all combat troops from Iraq “within 16 months” of taking office-but “continue to strike at al Qaeda in Iraq.” He has acknowledged that these will be “combat missions.”

The Obama campaign has tried to square the circle by insisting that Obama will withdraw all 20 combat brigades presently in Iraq. “A different force will be constituted,” said Obama spokesman Bill Burton, in an e-mail. “This would not be a brigade engaged in sustained combat. Rather, it would be a strike force that could take targeted action against specific al Qaeda assets.”

The distinction between a “combat brigade” and a “strike force” seems a little spurious. Obama has declined to say whether he would station his strike force inside Iraq or in a neighboring country, such as Kuwait. It sounds a little like a shell game. All combat troops will be withdrawn from Iraq within 16 months, but “strike forces” will be re-introduced as needed.

Well, the war stopped but the violence didn’t. Syria kept an occupying army in Lebanon and persisted in meddling with the Lebanese government via, among other things, subversion and assassination.

See? They’re just like us, these Syrians!

I think of myself as pretty well versed on the History of the region. Personally, I think the trouble really started at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 when the Turks crushed Byzantine power forever in the Levant, but there are all kinds of times and places you could go to to say “THIS is what screwed it up.” Blame Cain and Abel, I think they lived in the same neighborhood.

I did not intentionally mischaracterize your point on Vietnam, I apologize if it seemed so. My point was, no American politician is going to point to the aftermath of our leaving Vietnam as a good thing. Not if they have any desire to be elected, and especially not if they are running against POW John McCain.

And you may be right, maybe we should just get the hell out and let the people who live there sort it out, however bloody and nasty it gets, at least it won’t be our blood.

But we can only do this when oil no longer matters to us. Otherwise, we will get sucked back in as sure as God made little green apples.

umm….Patton did not oversee an occupation. Nor did the 3rd Army fight any “insurgents”–as in a guerilla force.