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Tom Francis - SWSports

On Wed, 09 Sep 2009 21:01:06 -0400, wrote:

On Wed, 09 Sep 2009 19:27:59 -0400, H the K
wrote:

wrote:
On Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:05:53 -0400, Tom Francis - SWSports
wrote:

The left has taken to calling Afghanistan "Obama's Vietnam." Well, if
we're going to let troops die as part of a PR stunt, then yes, it does
begin to resemble Vietnam.

Either we're going to give our troops every advantage in an effort to
allow them to win or we should, in fact, get out. If Obama has in mind
a Nixon-style "decent interval" where we are going to let troops be
killed in an effort not to win a war but to simply contrive a
politically-palatable "defeat with honor," then get them out of there.

I say, get them out of there. We have nothing to gain by staying.

If we really wanted to get Bin Laden the best way would have been to
ignore him until he stuck his head up and then just send in a small
team to shoot him.
We should have bombed Afghanistan with school supplies and other aid
after the Soviets left. They would have handed Bin Laden's head to us
on a plate.

I really wonder how much of this is driven by women's rights groups
and drug warriors.

You oppose womens' rights?

I support women's rights in this country but I don't think we have the
right to invade another country and impose our culture on them.

Amusing to see that comment from our resident anti-war squirrel
brained leftist.

Speaking as a combat veteran and totally philosophically - yeah - it's
worth it if, and only if, the people you are fighting for support your
efforts. That's the difference between Afghanistan and Vietnam - the
South Vietnamese wanted a non-communist government and fought for it.
With the Afghans, I'm not so sure that's true. They've lived under a
5th Century code of religious/tribal warfare and I don't think they
understand the nature of democracy if only because they historically
have been under the thumb of a theocracy for so long that any other
form of government is anathema to them - western freedoms are like
speaking English to somebody who speaks Swahili - they don't
understand it at a base level.

That's a poor way to express it even though that thought has some
merit. Perhaps an example might suffice.

One of my doctors is an Iranian immigrant and once, when we had some
time to kill for one reason or another, I asked her why she still wore
the hijab (head scarf) after all these years of living in the US. What
she said was very interesting. She tried to stop wearing the hijab
during med school - to kind of blend in as she put it, but was very
uncomfortable if only because the hijab represented, to her, concepts
of modesty, privacy, and morality at a personal level. She understood
the concept of freedom of choice, but this was a cultural thing - she
explained it this way - even though she is a non-practicing Muslim
(actually she's rather agnostic), married to an American (former
All-American from Brandeis - I didn't dare ask her if he was Jewish),
basically non-religious, the head covering represented something that
she was comfortable with. What she did say, though, which really was
intriguing is that in America, she had the choice to wear it or not -
in Iran, there was no choice. It meant as much to her to have the
choice as it did to actually wear it.

In part, that's what we're fighting - ingrained cultural ethics and
morality in addition to religious fanaticism.

It would have been cheaper to fly all the Afghani women who want their
rights here and buy them a nail salon.

Er...most of the nail salons around here are run by Asians. :)

How many billion do you think we have wasted in Afghanistan for
virtually zero results? We have killed a lot of people but I don't
think we are a bit safer for it.

Well, yes and no. In some way perhaps a little safer because we're
keeping the Taliban busy dodging Hellfire missiles launched from
Predators so they can't get up to mischief with terrorist camps. On
the other hand they've been at this for centuries and are fairly
expert on the hit and run tactics of guerilla warfare. And while they
are keeping us busy there, others who share a dislike for us can get
up to no good.

It is a conumdrum to be sure
..
I am old enough to remember the Vietnam rhetoric and it was basically
what we are hearing now. I was wrong then in supporting the war, I
don't want to be on the wrong side again.

While I agree, what with the restrictive ROEs in Afghanistan that it's
beginning to look a lot like Vietnam, I'm not sure that what we're
doing isn't the right thing. It's simplistic to say that keeping them
busy there, keeps them out of here, but I can't help thinking that the
domino theory has some validity with respect to Afghanistan..