Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

[5mn_Major]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

Don't remind me. I get paid in dollars, and you know where lots of investors like to put their money when things are uncertain? Safe, reliable, Swiss Francs. The Dollar is down 30% vs. the Franc since I moved here. Ouch!

I'm sampling that pain right now. I can't imagine trying to conduct the size of operations the US does with just how little the dollar is buying.

 

[Bakunin]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

He's one dude. If they can cost America that much treasure and lives so we can kill one dude, then they've won. By any measure.

So what exactly is your proposed alternative? Let the terrorists attack us and... do nothing?

Even if we had opted to go that idiotic route, that course of (in)action would also carry with it significant costs, and I would argue that those would be larger in the grand scheme of things, since they'd be borne out of more attacks occurring on our soil by emboldened anti-American ****tard terrorists.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

It's less than scratch. The moon just has nothing whereas Afghanistan not only has that, but a variety of historical traditions (some of which you mention) that work counter to establishing anything resembling a legitimate central government and national identity. It's one thing to start from nothing -- and it's another to have to figure out a way to clean the slate first. At this point, it's probably an impossible task.

It's also hard to see how "cleaning the slate" of a country's indigenous culture and institutions (as creepy as some of them are) jibes with respecting the self-determination of that very people.

This is the classic problem of how you enforce tolerance on the intolerant. The difference is sovereignty and representation -- we have the right to impose modernity on Mississippi, but not Kandahar, because Mississippi votes in our elections.

Going into Afghanistan to kill as many of AQ as we could was justifiable as national defense -- the Afghan government was sheltering and encouraging a direct, active threat to US lives that had just attacked us, and they refused to do anything about it. After the initial scattering, it becomes less and less justifiable and more and more impractical -- but it shades into it, there's no bright line. At this point, 8 years later, being in Afghanistan has become really, really expensive in a time of finite resources. The same argument for staying in Afghanistan until "the job is done" would also dictate that we immediately invade Somalia, Yemen, and probably a half dozen other countries where AQ is alive and well and plotting against us.

Just as with Iraq, it's time to leave, and if we leave we should leave entirely because any troops we leave behind will be vulnerable. If the people who really understand the situation (and it's unclear who they are -- the generals speak in good faith, but they have an enormous sunk cost loyalty to the current mission) think staying another 2 years will have a significant, long-term stabilizing influence, OK. If I had a vote, I would say we should remain at full strength until the day we leave, and then everybody out of the pool, because that would provide the greatest cover for our troops, but that would also create an enormous discontinuity for the Afghans which a gradual draw-down mitigates. Since we'd like to remain their allies, that's something to consider.

As usual, this is all way more complex than some opportunist's sound bite or bumper sticker.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

So what exactly is your proposed alternative? Let the terrorists attack us and... do nothing?

Even if we had opted to go that idiotic route, that course of (in)action would also carry with it significant costs, and I would argue that those would be larger in the grand scheme of things, since they'd be borne out of more attacks occurring on our soil by emboldened anti-American ****tard terrorists.

Do you honestly believe it makes a difference? That's the beauty of being a suicide bomber or a terrorist. All you care about is terror. You don't care about winning, you don't care about money, you're not trying to gather wealth. You just want to kill and you don't care about dying. It took occupation and billions of dollars to change Afghanistan enough not to be a safe place for Terrorists camps. After all that all evidence suggests that the minute we're gone they're back.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

It's also hard to see how "cleaning the slate" of a country's indigenous culture and institutions (as creepy as some of them are) jibes with respecting the self-determination of that very people.

This is the classic problem of how you enforce tolerance on the intolerant. The difference is sovereignty and representation -- we have the right to impose modernity on Mississippi, but not Kandahar, because Mississippi votes in our elections.

Going into Afghanistan to kill as many of AQ as we could was justifiable as national defense -- the Afghan government was sheltering and encouraging a direct, active threat to US lives that had just attacked us, and they refused to do anything about it. After the initial scattering, it becomes less and less justifiable and more and more impractical -- but it shades into it, there's no bright line. At this point, 8 years later, being in Afghanistan has become really, really expensive in a time of finite resources. The same argument for staying in Afghanistan until "the job is done" would also dictate that we immediately invade Somalia, Yemen, and probably a half dozen other countries where AQ is alive and well and plotting against us.

Just as with Iraq, it's time to leave, and if we leave we should leave entirely because any troops we leave behind will be vulnerable. If the people who really understand the situation (and it's unclear who they are -- the generals speak in good faith, but they have an enormous sunk cost loyalty to the current mission) think staying another 2 years will have a significant, long-term stabilizing influence, OK. If I had a vote, I would say we should remain at full strength until the day we leave, and then everybody out of the pool, because that would provide the greatest cover for our troops, but that would also create an enormous discontinuity for the Afghans which a gradual draw-down mitigates. Since we'd like to remain their allies, that's something to consider.

As usual, this is all way more complex than some opportunist's sound bite or bumper sticker.

Enforcing tolerance. Interesting paradox.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

Enforcing tolerance. Interesting paradox.

It is -- over the years, millions of words have been written about it. Life is shades of gray. You should appreciate that.

 

[Foxton]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

It is. Life is shades of gray. You should appreciate that.

Obvious enforcing tolerance is being intolerant and is therefore just as bad as being racist or sexist.

 

[Rover]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

Do you honestly believe it makes a difference? That's the beauty of being a suicide bomber or a terrorist. All you care about is terror. You don't care about winning, you don't care about money, you're not trying to gather wealth. You just want to kill and you don't care about dying. It took occupation and billions of dollars to change Afghanistan enough not to be a safe place for Terrorists camps. After all that all evidence suggests that the minute we're gone they're back.

I don't think its that bleak. I think we should start getting out of Afghanistan because there's nothing more for the US military to do short of a full scale occupation. However, the Taliban and AQ's ability to set up training camps is extremely limited, not the least of which by those drones which have been devastating to their organization. The key for the US is not to have 100,000 boots on the ground from now until the end of time, but to have the access and ability to quick strike any of these clowns whenever possible. I would imagine operations will result from the info gleaned from OBL's hideout. However, by 2014 that info will most likely be stale. At that time, its up to the Afhans to do their own day to day policing.

This war was worth fighting. The places for terrorists to hide is shrinking regularly. AQ is a broken organization that's a shell of itself. That's not to say they're not still dangerous, but they're capacity to wreak havoc seems to be a lot lower.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

Obvious enforcing tolerance is being intolerant and is therefore just as bad as being racist or sexist.

Tolerating intolerance or being intolerant of intolerance in the spirit of tolerance is one of those awful paradoxes that is always intruding on "common sense." It winds up in the courts a lot, too -- the Geert Wilders hate speech case, pharmacists who refuse to dispense morning after pills, the extent to which we give democratic rights to political parties that want to end democratic institutions. And of course in all cases we are influenced by whether we agree or not with the dissenter.

It's one of the things that makes ethics non-deterministic. Emmanuel Kant would have been most displeased.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

However, the Taliban and AQ's ability to set up training camps is extremely limited, not the least of which by those drones which have been devastating to their organization.

Coupla things. The drones depend on local basing and agreements with the government, so when we go, they eventually go. Also, we have to decouple the Taliban and AQ as a matter of practicality because the Taliban are going to be a defacto actor in the Afghan government (they are right now, even while we're still there). We aren't going to make peace with AQ ever because their reason for existence is tied up with attacking us. We are, eventually, going to at least go to separate corners with the Taliban, in the way we did with the Soviets, China or indeed any of the dictators we have looked the other way on: we won't make trouble for you as long as you color inside the lines and don't try to expand.

The art of the possible. We aren't omnipotent.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

It is -- over the years, millions of words have been written about it. Life is shades of gray. You should appreciate that.

Ah, my favorite color!

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

Ah, my favorite color!

But which?

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

But which?

Well, black and white certainly aren't gray. Beyond that, I'm a little partial to the middle of the road shades. You know me, hewing the middle of the road as always!

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

Well, black and white certainly aren't gray.

Sure they are. Black and white are shades of everything.

 

[Bakunin]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

I never thought I'd see the day where I basically agreed with something Rover said, but there it is.

Since the apocalypse is surely upon us, we all may as well bet on Bachmann to win the presidency next year.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

Sure they are. Black and white are shades of everything.

you must've been an art major to come up with something like that! I'm a little more pedestrian in my consideration of colors, and for my purposes, black and white aren't shades of gray. Otherwise they would be called gray, not black and white. But, that's way too simple I guess.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

I never thought I'd see the day where I basically agreed with something Rover said, but there it is.

Since the apocalypse is surely upon us, we all may as well bet on Bachmann to win the presidency next year.

We hadn't seen Rover around for awhile. Do you think it's possible this is an impostor, or maybe his doppelganger or something? He's being scarily reasonable in his comments.

 

[Rover]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

Coupla things. The drones depend on local basing and agreements with the government, so when we go, they eventually go. Also, we have to decouple the Taliban and AQ as a matter of practicality because the Taliban are going to be a defacto actor in the Afghan government (they are right now, even while we're still there). We aren't going to make peace with AQ ever because their reason for existence is tied up with attacking us. We are, eventually, going to at least go to separate corners with the Taliban, in the way we did with the Soviets, China or indeed any of the dictators we have looked the other way on: we won't make trouble for you as long as you color inside the lines and don't try to expand.

The art of the possible. We aren't omnipotent.

I would like to see a small US contingent there to aid in the targeting of drone strikes on terrorist camps. I'm guessing in exchange for continued US aid that shouldn't be too hard to negotiate. I'd also expect a special forces contingent to be at the ready and operating in that country for awhile.

Agreed on the Taliban. Sounds like they're trying to do a similar arrangement like with Al-Sadr in Iraq, another bunch of people who aren't choir boys but who its easier for both sides to make a deal rather than continued fighting. All in all I think Afghanistan is going to end up about as well as we could reasonably expect given its severe limitations. Much like Yemen and Somalia the trick now is to keep a close eye on it and know who's trying to set up shop there without needing a fullscale military commitment to achieve that. Like it or not, Obama has done what he said he'd do when elected on these issues (Iran, Afghanistan, OBL, etc). I personally think we're heading in the right and most realistic direction.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

Sounds like they're trying to do a similar arrangement like with Al-Sadr in Iraq, another bunch of people who aren't choir boys but who its easier for both sides to make a deal rather than continued fighting.

The trick with Al Sadr is to give him other options besides Iran. Co-opt, co-opt, co-opt, like we did with Egypt. He's never going to be our friend, but forcing him to make common cause with Iran is not in anybody's best interests, particularly as it defeats the isolation of Ahmadinejad.

 

[5mn_Major]

Re: Obama XXI: Kenyan Muslins are ruining this country!

Well there have been several objectives in the Afghan war. A (if not the) big one was to destroy terrorist camps. A second wider goal was to kill OBL.

I am of the opinion that there was a less costly way (in terms of many if not all of lives, money, impact, time) was possible if we were focused like a laser on those goals rather than fighting a widespread war in an enormous and war machine unfriendly place.