Preserved Topic: Actions in Afghanastan (Page 1 of 1)

I'm going to be very direct.

Should the US be overseas in the Middle East?

Why or why not.

My opinions coming soon.

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cheers.jay

"Everybody's gotta be somewhere." Myron Cohen

Hmm, this is just me, speaking as an american who no longer lives in the states. (Which might indicate I'm not being fed the same pap as my stateside compatriots, heh.) America, and american politics, will always tend to stick their noses where they are not *exactly* wanted, it's in our nature. It's hard to mddle just a little, once you start, then you uhave to come back and meddle some more to fix the problems caused by your first attempt, etc... We've been at this for at *least* 50 years, rigtht? Hard to just stop now!

From what little news I see on this subject, I wonder, aren't there all sorts of other countries also sticking their noses in here too? The US is making the most noise (as usual), but I thought other 1st world countries were also making nuisances of themselves, maybe I'm wrong.

My basic, techie, apathetic take on things? The issue of whether we should be there or not is not worth debating, we *are* there, and we'll probably never leave, at least until they're developed enough to start selling us small electronic devices at half the cost of what we can produce ourselves, heh. Stopping in mid-meddle is not easy, nay, near impossible. Hopefully it will all work out.

(Question? Have we "won" yet? Has anyone? News is silly stuff, unrelated to real issues, at least from what I can glean.)

Your pal, -doc-

I am also not up on the news of this.......even tho I live in the US. I have a question tho. Is our involvment in other countries going to piss off more ppl and make the next generation of terrorists mad at us just like the last 20 years in the middle east has made these terrorists mad?

As Doc said, it's far too late to debate whether we should or should not be there.

The only thing left to determine is - what do have to do while we are there?

At what point can we pull out without doing more harm than good?

And, as carlton alluded to - how can we do it without making more enemies than we do allies?

And of course, how much of the blame that shoud fall on the international community as a whole is the United States going to have to suck up?


Now, I don't have answers to all of those, but I think they are the more important quesitons.



[This message has been edited by DL-44 (edited 02-11-2002).]

first thing i said when bush was elected: "he's gonna get us in a war." it runs in his family hell.. 3 months into his presidency he bombed iraq! can't say i don't like the man though, he's pretty bold.

however, i'm not really a fan of his "war on terrorism." the way i see it:

As long as there is variable X, there will always be people that hate variable X.

Stick anything you want in X, and it holds true. as long as there is viagra, there will always be people that hate viagra. as long as there is pop music, there will always be people that hate pop music.

as long as there is America, there will always be people that hate America. he can try all he wants, but there will always be somebody somewhere that is considered a "terrorist."

thats how i see it anyways

[This message has been edited by Raptor (edited 02-11-2002).]

Raptor, so how do you answer Jestah's question? And I agree with you that there will always be enemies of variable X.

welp, i see it this way. they could have sent in a small strike team to hunt down those responsible.. but from what i understand, the US gov't has been wanting to take action on afghanistan and bin laden for a few years now.. so they go with the whole war on terrorism blah blah blah thing..


yeah. i'm against it

Interesting, Raptor ------
small strike team?
I'd like to hear what constitutes a "small strike team" by your standards.
Then I'd like you to explain why you think it'd be better than what we've done.
I'm curious.

small strike team such as ' we ' (USA an UK) should have done in Iraq back in 92' (assassination? big no no hehe)

but back then of course we didnt want to get rid of Hussein , cos that would have meant 'nation building', however, in our current situation, after 911, The American ppl wanted action.

I dont think Bush had a choice. I think he reacted (as most world leaders do ) to the pressure of the populous, which , in a way I guess is what a leader in a democratic nation should be doing right?

my 0.2 ruppees

I suppose I don't consider it Americans meddeling in foreign affairs as much as I consider it Americans protecting themselves. Terrorism is a very effecient way to wage war against a superior United States military. Currently in the news are reports of China selling missiles to Pakistan, and thats a bit scary. I'm not one to condone war in most cases, but if its to prevent the death of many American lives, then I think its necessary.

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cheers.jay

America does have a superior military -- measured pound for pound, we're nearly as good as Israel, and that's saying something. But America can't defeat all comers even in conventional warfare, and American leaders are, I hope, aware of that. Right now, for instance, we're officially "not ready" to attack Iraq if we wanted to -- we're relatively low on cruise missiles, most of our air capacity is already deployed, and any money that could have served as a war chest has been given to megacorporations and the super-rich as gifts (known officially as "tax cuts"). Like it or not, we just can't fight two wars at once without taking a beating, at least until we switched over to a wartime economy... if we could make that switch.

There are reasons why we've been kissing up to China, despite its hideous human-rights record, antithetical political system, and continued intimidation of democratic Taiwan -- and those reasons aren't entirely commerce-related. They're the only country that might have at least an outside chance of putting us to the worst in a one-on-one military confrontation. I'm sure there are Army think tanks simulating that war over and over in every possible configuration... I'd be curious to learn their results. Ideally with a bottle of 20-year-old Scotch to keep me company.

I'm not actually an expert on any of this, so if anyone has better facts, I'll just shrug and say "oh, okay, sorry." But that's how things look to me right now. If anyone here can pat me on the back and say "don't worry, Alan, the United States a) won't get into a war it can't win and/or b) will automatically win any war it enters," then I'd be pretty happy about that.

"Right now, for instance, we're officially "not ready" to attack Iraq if we wanted to -- we're relatively low on cruise missiles, most of our air capacity is already deployed..."

I'm not much of a CNN watcher.... so by all means, bear with my ignorance.
You said we're "officially" not ready........... does that mean someone had a press confrence and said, "we're not ready"?

"Reletively low"........?....... so that means about how many? 100? .... 1000?

"most of our air capacity is already deployed".....?
Wow. Do you mean like, almost all aircraft? All the fighters and bombers?


please.... expand.

And the wheel keeps on turning and turning and turning... stupid hamster

All of this is in the "I seem to recall" department, but on (insert reputable news source, the specifics of which I don't remember), someone [edit: a U.S. military commander] said that the U.S. was down to a few thousand smart missiles, at most, and that there weren't enough free units to immediately prosecute an offensive against Iraq. That doesn't mean "we can't do it," since I'm assuming all we'd have to do is shuffle our force allocations a little bit in order to free up the necessary muscle. But "they," whoever exactly "they" were, said that right this instant (as of a few weeks ago), we could not conveniently wage war against Iraq.

Whoever it was who was saying this, it was some sort of bigwig, and he was quoted in some major news source. After my brain said "oh, okay, this source is pretty legit," it discarded the source and just kept the information. The complete vagueness of my knowledge is why I'm looking for a more authoritative explanation. But I know it was in the CNN/Wall Street Journal category, not the Drudge Report/New York Post category.

Anyway, this year's budget allocates U.S. dollars equalling the total weight of Borneo to defense. I assume we won't have a problem when it comes to making Central Asia safe for democracy.

Bah, I'm not really equipped or informed to take a real position here. We've got well-connected millionaires to run our lives for us; let's let them exercise the power they've worked so hard to seize.

[This message has been edited by Perfect Thunder (edited 02-17-2002).]

"we could not conveniently wage war against Iraq."

that's cute.

oh... and something else that has crossed my mind...
I'm not sure if my lines are crossed, or yours are....
Were you referring to Cruise Missiles, Smart Missiles, or Smart Bombs?
You called 'em as two different things in the 2 posts.... "smart missile" didn't really ring a bell..... but I've heard of the term "smart bomb"...

[This message has been edited by taxon (edited 02-17-2002).]

Well, my brain registered the term in the slot reserved for "big metal things that we use to blow stuff up for CNN." Beats me exactly what you call them.

And I don't know that the term "conveniently" was actually used, but the impression I got was that we were fully prepared to pound one nation into the pavement, but not two in such rapid succession.

ah well..... fair 'nough.
I won't hold it against you, I suppose.

quote:

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big metal things that we use to blow stuff up for CNN

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lol don't forget MSNBC too

[This message has been edited by Raptor (edited 02-17-2002).]

At least if I speak while half-informed, I mention that I'm half-informed. What more can you ask for?

[edit: Well, of course, "speak fitly or be silent wisely."]

[This message has been edited by Perfect Thunder (edited 02-17-2002).]

So what do you think will happen next?..... or do you think the US is just making idle threats?

Speaking solely from assumptions, hunches, and common sense, I bet that we work on the reconstruction of Afghanistan just enough to prove our kindness and goodwill, then once we've spent some of that 70-zillion-dollar defense appropriation, we find an excuse to attack Iraq (heaven knows we won't have to look very hard). The exigencies of war against Iraq make us "temporarily suspend" US relief operations in Afghanistan, leaving Kofi Annan holding the bag, although I imagine US corporations will be overjoyed to option some oil drilling in the area (masked as "providing jobs for the indigent Afghan people," ignoring the fact that the Afghan people will get 25 cents an hour per employee while the corporations will make kadillions of dollars per second).

Then we bomb fuck out of Iraq, "liberate" the area, and pull an identical presto-chango on that country. It would be nice if we could do something more like Japan or Korea, where we fight a war, hand down some democracy by fiat, and then the nation ends up being a postwar economic competitor... but I don't think that's going to happen anywhere in Central Asia.

I guess it would be relevant to mention http://www.mnftiu.cc/mnftiu.cc/war.html , just in case a few of you here haven't seen it before... warning, this cartoonist uses profanity like a sculptor uses stone, forging unique linguistic landscapes.

[This message has been edited by Perfect Thunder (edited 02-21-2002).]

I checked out those cartoons. You know what I really get sick of? I get sick to death of self righteous people who complain about *everything* but offer no real solutions to *anything*.

I wouldn't, and don't, mind when people disagree and debate the best way to solve our problems, but to sit on the sidelines and put down anyone who dares do something about our problems is a pathetic waste of time.

What I really want to know from the person who did the cartoons and anyone else who shares that frame of mind is how would you solve these problems? I'll listen. I'll be open minded but be prepared for some hard questions to follow to make sure they're thought through.

But make sure the entire solution is *not* "can't we all just get along?".

There's certainly no proactive political philosophy in that cartoon... the humor has no defense against those who demand that their satire do more than just satirize. "Get Your War On" is purely destructive humor, and provides no solutions. That said, I still can't help laughing at some of the jokes, despite and because of the bitter reality that underlies them.

My personal philosophy is to go about my life as best I can, and trust that the rulers of the United States (i.e. Microsoft, Honeywell, AOL/Time-Warner, Coca-Cola, et al) work to provide us a high enough lifestyle that we can still purchase their products. And, as long as we have leisure to consume, we'll have leisure to pursue personal goals, be they moral, artistic, whatever. To our masters, we're a cross between animals and numbers, but it's in their interest to pamper us. So be it!

[This message has been edited by Perfect Thunder (edited 02-22-2002).]

Oh yes...this makes lots of sense

So really, where is there something right about killing hundreds of perople who had nothing to do with the 911 attack, in retaliation? This is the kind of events that sparked off WW][.

Well, the obvious answer, and I assume the official answer, is "we didn't kill the innocent on purpose, it's the Taliban's fault for having (insert military target) in the middle of a civilian population. Given that circumstance, it was impossible for us to drop bombs on these military targets without accidentally killing some civilians."

Now is that answer correct?