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In Politics Two Wrongs Still Don't Make a Right

Submitted by Dave Nalle on Thu, 05/21/2009 - 12:45
in

I find it puzzling that I consistently see the same wrongheaded argument being presented to me by my Democrat friends in their desperate efforts to excuse the excesses of the Obama administration. I'll bring up something like massive troop deployments in Afghanistan and Pakistan or inprecedented deficit spending and corporate bailouts, and their rote reply seems to be that I can't criticize Obama because of all the terrible things that Bush did. Further, because I'm a Republican then I must be complicit in whatever crimes Bush committed and therefore am disqualified from questioning or criticizing Obama.

What they seem to miss here is that if the things Bush did were wrong, then aren't the same things still equally wrong when they are done by Obama? Aren't they even more wrong when they are done by Obama on a larger scale? Bush overspent and created deficits. Obama has already doubled his spending in a few months. Bush deployed hundreds of thousands of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, where our interests are at best debatable. Obama has done the same and is talking about a deployment more than double the size of Bush's biggest commitment to the region. I defy any Obama supporter to identify a qualitative difference between the excess spending and troop deployment of the Obama administration and that of his predecessor. There is certainly a quantitative difference. Obama has dramatically spent more money and put more lives at risk for less reason. If I'm disqualified from criticizing Obama because of Bush, then why aren't Democrats disqualified from criticizing Bush because Obama has done the exact same things and worse?

Their second error is the repeated assumption that because I bear the "Republican" brand I must have supported every Republican and every act of a Republican going back to my infancy. Apparently I have to shoulder the blame for everything both Bushes did wrong and presumably for the sins of Reagan, Ford and Nixon as well. Never mind that I actively protested Nixon's administration, wrote scores of articles critical of Bush and his policies during the last 8 years, and voted Libertarian in every presidential election since 1980. Does this mean that conversely they are going to accept responsibility for the Carter's loss of the Panama Canal, the Drug War, Vietnam and Jim Crow laws? Somehow I doubt it.

Their belief that all Republicans are the same ought to be embarassing, if they had any sense of shame. Their victory in the last election gives Democrats a certain level of arrogance and a tendency to gloat which is truly unappealing and apparently makes them immune to any obligation to think with any subtlety about political issues. They just can't grasp that Republicans are a diverse group. They assume that we're all warmongering, Bible-thumping reactionaries who are apparently on the verge of becoming domestic terrorists -- at least so Obama's Department of Homeland Security seems to believe. My actual beliefs seem to matter nothing to them -- as a Republican I can't possibly be pro-choice, areligious and generally opposed to unnecessary wars. They would certainly never believe that I know thousands of other Republicans who are politically active, share those views and were critical of Bush over these and many other issues.

You would think that some simple self-examination would enlighten them. Lyndon LaRouche, the Unabomber and Louis Farrakhan are or have been active members of the Democratic party and remain largely on the poilitical left. Does that mean that all Democrats share their views? There are even large factions within the political left and the Democratic party which don't agree with each other. Most of the Democrats I know aren't outright socialists or communists, but those philosophies thrive within the progressive wing of the party. Nativism and strong anti-immigrant beliefs are common among union Democrats, but many other Democrats remain liberal on the immigration issue. If their party isn't homogenous, why do they assume that all Republicans are the same?

This idea that the sins of one administration or political faction do not excuse the abuses of another also extends to foreign policy and seems to confuse the left there as well. When dealing with the issue of Iran, they always seem to fall back on blaming the United States because we put the Shah in power. Apparently we have to excuse the sins of the current regime because of the wrongs done by the Shah. Never mind that they killed more political dissidents in their first two years in power than the Shah killed in 17 years and have done more to limit freedoms for the general population and especially for women than the Shah ever did. It's the same with Israel. Because Israel is militarily aggressive and inhumane, it excuses every action of violent excess from the terrorist groups and equally aggressive and inhumane neighbors like Syria and Iran. Somehow Arab violence doesn't count because Israelis deserve it.

What they seem not to grasp is that wrong is wrong and right is right, regardless of the political persuasion of the perpetrator and regardless of the actions of others. You can't pick and choose between murderers and madmen and say that the crimes of one are excused because of the crimes of another. You can't excuse the policies of someone you voted for and criticize someone you opposed for policies which are exactly the same. While there may be different standards of what is right and wrong, whatever standards you choose to accept have to be applied uniformly. If you don't follow that rule and instead live by a subjective double standard which applies one set of rules to those you like and another to those you dislike, then you should expect rational people to dismiss your political opinions as worthless and brand you a hypocrite.

So please, the next time I criticize Obama or your favorite terrorists or Hugo Chavez, please keep in mind that the things they do should be judged on their own flaws and merits. Everyone is responsible for their own actions and nothing done by someone else excuses or justifies them.

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Comments

How do you measure wrong and right?

Submitted by Maleficent on Thu, 05/21/2009 - 13:08.

you don't. they're relative. they can't be empiracally measured.

this isn't to say that I disagree with either Kantian nor Utilitarian morality -- just that there is room for differences of opinion.

You need to get out more, your attitudes towards Iran display a shocking ignorance of it's society.

I get it, not all republicans are alike. You know, i think I figured that out on this site within my first week of being here. ;-()

and as a liberal democrats, I hate the corporate bailouts too (though I have at least some sympathy for the automakers in terms of national security)

Accepting your challenge

Submitted by NextRightNando on Thu, 05/21/2009 - 13:33.

I defy any Obama supporter to identify a qualitative difference between the excess spending and troop deployment of the Obama administration and that of his predecessor.

Osama bin Ladin and al Qeda perpetrated 9/11. They are in Afghanistan. They are not in Iraq.

See the difference?

 

Obama is in Iraq and Bush invaded Afghanistan

Submitted by Freedoms Truth on Thu, 05/21/2009 - 13:49.

So your point is saying Bush is better.

 

Let me correct you.

Submitted by NextRightNando on Thu, 05/21/2009 - 17:53.

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that Obama invaded Iraq, so let me set the record straight for you. The criminals behind 9/11 are, and have been, in Afghanistan. W invaded Afghanistan. And then, to deal with his daddy issues, he made up the story that Iraq was behind 9/11, and invaded that country, too. In doing so, he drained resources away from the effort in Afghanistan, so that all these years, OBL is still at large. In the meantime, he trashed Iraq, at the costs of hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of dollars of taxpayer's money, and the strengthening of IRAN as the unchecked regional superpower. And now Obama cannot just snap his fingers and withdraw the troops - he has to be the grownup that cleans up the mess that the child Bush left behind.

  I'll bring up something

Submitted by In between on Thu, 05/21/2009 - 14:02.

  I'll bring up something like massive troop deployments in Afghanistan and Pakistan or inprecedented deficit spending and corporate bailouts, and their rote reply seems to be that I can't criticize Obama because of all the terrible things that Bush did. Further, because I'm a Republican then I must be complicit in whatever crimes Bush committed and therefore am disqualified from questioning or criticizing Obama.

This depends where we are at in history. It was Bush who abandoned our war in Afghanistan/Pakistan as he wanted to go to Iraq which had nothing to do with 9/11. We have to fight our original fight which is in Afghanistan. It was Bush and the neocons that said we should go to Iraq, and have only 170,000 troops, and not pay for the war, and we still did not get Osama Bin Laden. The whole Middle East is a mess, and maybe we can resume what we were supposed to do 8 years ago. So you can't blame Obama on what we were supposed to do in the first place.

If I'm disqualified from criticizing Obama because of Bush, then why aren't Democrats disqualified from criticizing Bush because Obama has done the exact same things and worse?

Once again. Obama has no choice. Obama inherited a mess in the Middle East and our economy. It was Bush policies that did not work. Trickle down did not trickle down. Bush did a "guns and butter" approach and created deficits and debt. The war has cost us 1 trillion dollars in which it was well known that it would be a quagmire. The war was estimated to be as low as 50 billion dollars. Add to that the borrowing for tax cuts and now we are back into a recession.

This recession is a near depression and the government is the last resort to keep the economy from going into a tailspin as the private economy is not creating jobs. Obama is faced with the Bush deficits, bank bailouts, auto bailouts or loans, a housing crisis, an infrastructure that is in neglect. 8 years of Bush tax cuts has left us nowhere. Our jobs are going overseas and we have to support two wars. I have not seen a mess like this in my lifetime.

Their second error is the repeated assumption that because I bear the "Republican" brand I must have supported every Republican and every act of a Republican going back to my infancy.

Well, we won't go back that far. It is that those on these threads keep preaching the same thing. That is tax cuts and then it is laissez-faire. We have problems piling up and they need to be dealt with. Just tax cuts and laissez-faire is not going to cut it. And then a lot of republicans want more religion in our lives, although they want smaller government. So go figure. And here is my answer to running our economy. 

The Republican party and what I have learned.

They just can't grasp that Republicans are a diverse group. 

Well, all I hear is tax cuts, don't do anything, everything is just fine, and let's all have religion while our problems pile up as we ignore all the problems at hand.

Your assumption on Louis Farrakhan and on Iran seems to be out of place. Let me say here that I am independent. First democrats would not put religion in government as we see the republicans preaching for more religion and on Iran, it was Bush who gave them the biggest boost. We had a policy to keep Iraq and Iran as equals. We got rid of Saddam Hussein and Iran is the big winner. Add to that we had the reformers that helped us out on Afghanistan, then Bush ignores Afghanistan for Iraq. The reformers in Iran lost power and now we have that nut job in as president of Iran. 

Yes, as you say "two wrongs still don't make it right." However, if you dig deeper in the various areas, you will see why Obama is doing what he has to do. For example, we are behind in our infrastructural spending by 2.2 trillion dollars. I suppose you would think it wrong to spend money on our infrastructure. But the fact remains we are behind in so many things and it will take money. So if we can get away from failed politics and failed policies and failed ideologies like trickle down, maybe we can catch up with what we have to do in this country. There is no doubt we are broke. We are broke with deficits and debt, with the printing of money, with two wars, with a neglected infrastructure that we will need to spend money on. 

So this is where we are. Eight years of failure and now we have to pay the price. Of course people don't want to may more in taxes, and I am for cutting spending. However, you have to do the right things and have the right procedures. If you say you want more tax cuts and we should cut spending then be more specific. It is very hard to cut out 100 billion dollars of spending each year. This is something we have to do, but we just get people who say cut spending and they don't realize how painful and how intricate our cutting spending is. At the same time we have to spend money on thing that have had years of neglect.

And in actuality Bush has created more welfare with his policies.  We have middle class jobs going overseas, cities and states are going broke as factories close, two wars, an infrastructure in neglect, those that lost jobs have lost healthcare insurance and pensions. So I see nothing the republicans have done of late in alleviating and fixing the problems we have.

 

 

 

BS alert - so bad its not even debatable

Submitted by Freedoms Truth on Thu, 05/21/2009 - 14:14.

It was Bush who abandoned our war in Afghanistan/Pakistan

Wow. Full-bore bs in sentence #2!  Please. You need to live on planet earth for there to be a discussion here.

 Planet earth? Obviously, you

Submitted by In between on Thu, 05/21/2009 - 14:48.

 Planet earth? Obviously, you are not on earth.

Nalle hits Nail on Head

Submitted by Freedoms Truth on Thu, 05/21/2009 - 14:18.

I have YET to see an Obama defender / Kool-aid drinker manage to defend his/her Dear Leader without, very quickly, knee jerking into Bush-bashing.

I challenge our house liberals and trolls to actually put together an argument that does NOT fall into the cheap rhetoric of Bush-bashing.

Please, let go of the past, the Bush era is over. Defend Obama on HIS OWN merits/demerits.

 

you appear to think he needs defending.

Submitted by Maleficent on Thu, 05/21/2009 - 16:18.

he does not. he's doing a decent job, but I'd rather spend the time critiquing what he's doing wrong. more productive, that.

Exactly, FT

Submitted by Dave Nalle on Fri, 05/22/2009 - 16:09.

I have YET to see an Obama defender / Kool-aid drinker manage to defend his/her Dear Leader without, very quickly, knee jerking into Bush-bashing.

As we get farther and farther away from the end of the Bush era it becomes increasingly bizarre how they default to still attacking Bush when it is so totally irrelevant.  The longer it continues the more people there are who are going to see it for the hollow effort at misdirection which it is.

Going back to earlier comments, I didn't say anything about the difference between Iraq and Afghanistan.  Bush put plenty of troops in both.  Obama has added another front in Pakistan.  Where the troops are is largely irrelevant.  They aren't catching bin Laden and the Taliban was no more responsible for 9/11 than the Saudis and other Arabs who backed terrorists like bin Laden for years, including Iraq.

The question was whether there is a meaningful difference between Bush sending 200,000+ troops to the region and Obama sending what looks like it will end up being twice tha number?  The answer is no.  They're still fighting the same war on terror, they are still just as much at risk, and they are still largely wasting their time and our money.

Dave

 As we get farther and

Submitted by In between on Sat, 05/23/2009 - 05:06.

 As we get farther and farther away from the end of the Bush era it becomes increasingly bizarre how they default to still attacking Bush when it is so totally irrelevant.  The longer it continues the more people there are who are going to see it for the hollow effort at misdirection which it is.

Bush did a "guns and butter" and left deficits and debt. LBJ did the same and the inflation from that lasted 20 years. With that you had higher interest rates and higher unemployment. I see nothing that Bush did for 8 years that would create prosperity, especially creating the deficits and debt, our jobs going overseas, our money going to Iraq, we are back into a recession, more people are without healthcare, and cities and states are going broke as factories close. So all those years of tax cuts ends up to be nothing.

Going back to earlier comments, I didn't say anything about the difference between Iraq and Afghanistan.  Bush put plenty of troops in both.  Obama has added another front in Pakistan.  Where the troops are is largely irrelevant.  They aren't catching bin Laden and the Taliban was no more responsible for 9/11 than the Saudis and other Arabs who backed terrorists like bin Laden for years, including Iraq.

I don't know where to begin here, this is so off base. There was a difference between Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq did not attack us. Our war was supposed to be in Afghanistan. Bush did not have enough troops. I do not know where you get your info, but it is erroneous. Bush had a max of 170,000 troops for two wars and the war not paid for. Bush 41 had 500,000 troops for one war and the war paid for. A big difference. It is relevant where the troops are. If we stayed with what we were supposed to do in Afghanistan instead of going to Iraq, we would have had Osama Bin Laden and we would have limited the amount of Al Qaeda and Taliban that went into Pakistan. This whole region was largely ignored as we were in a quagmire in Iraq. Al Qaeda was in Afghanistan and directily harbored Al Qaeda. The region of Afghanistan and Pakistan is a total basket case. Too bad we spent so much time in Iraq fixing Bush's mess.

The question was whether there is a meaningful difference between Bush sending 200,000+ troops to the region and Obama sending what looks like it will end up being twice tha number?  The answer is no.  They're still fighting the same war on terror, they are still just as much at risk, and they are still largely wasting their time and our money.

Again, this is so off base. We are not wasting our time and money in this area. The area is a mess. It harbors Al Qaeda which is a threat to the western world. It also puts Al Qaeda closer to nuclear weapons. This was our original war, an area that we neglected as the Bush administration was consumed with Iraq. The difference is that Bush did not solve a problem that he was supposed to deal with. The problem is still with us after all these years. We never had enough troops to secure two countries. The threat of Al Qaeda is just as much as before. While we have had this presents in Afghanistan, we have had not near the troops to win the war on terror in the region. We are only doing what is supposed to be done. And that is to defeat Al Qaeda at all costs and make Afghanistan and Pakistan better countries so that we can avoid a catastrophe. Again, Bush left the Middle East and our economy in a total mess. If he was a democrat I would say the same. In this case, Bush was a social conservative that had no business in running the country. 

And since I bashed Bush and that is offending. I will say this on Gitmo. Obama should have never discussed the subject. There are some things that are best left unsaid and not disturbed. What done is done and we have to live with it, as there is no other solution.

 

 

 

Krauthammer's Law

Submitted by chemjeff on Fri, 05/22/2009 - 16:18.

Excellent post, Dave.  I believe your consternation can be explained by reference to Krauthammer's Law: "Conservatives believe liberals are stupid.  Liberals believe conservatives are evil."  Which is just another way of saying that liberals, generally, think we have corrupt motives.  It doesn't matter what we do - we could hand out lollipops to sick children - and you will always have some leftist claiming that we are really just doing it as a payback to the lollipop industry, or we are just using sick kids as a prop in some political theater.  We can't ever be truly interested in just helping out sick kids!  For if we had that level of compassion, we wouldn't be conservatives, we'd be liberals!

Well, tweeny, it's like this...

Submitted by Dave Nalle on Sat, 05/23/2009 - 00:49.

I see nothing that Bush did for 8 years that would create prosperity, especially creating the deficits and debt, our jobs going overseas, our money going to Iraq, we are back into a recession, more people are without healthcare, and cities and states are going broke as factories close. So all those years of tax cuts ends up to be nothing.

And yet, Obama is giving us more of the same on an even larger scale, with spending insanely out of control and policies which punish business and encourage more jobs to go overseas.

I don't know where to begin here, this is so off base. There was a difference between Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq did not attack us.

So? Was our goal to get vengeance or to stop terrorism, stabilize the middle east and try to build peace in the region? If it was just revenge, then Afghanistan was the place to go. Get revenge, create more enemies, breed more terrorism. If the goal was to stabilize the region then nationbuilding in Iraq starts to make some sense.

Our war was supposed to be in Afghanistan. Bush did not have enough troops.

As you will eventually come to realize there is no such thing as "enough troops" in Afghanistan. The Pakistanis understand this and when asked to deploy more troops in Waziristan they refused because they knew that more troops would just create more targets and get in each others way. We haven't appear to still not have learned that you can't fight an asymmetrical war by deploying increasing numbers of conventional troops. You need to change tactics. We saw that his worked with the misnamed "surge" in Iraq, but Obama seems to favor the brute strength approach in Afghanistan where it will work even less well.

I do not know where you get your info, but it is erroneous. Bush had a max of 170,000 troops for two wars and the war not paid for. Bush 43 had 500,000 troops for one war and the war paid for.

And yet Bush Jr. overthrew Saddam where his father came up short, and managed to establish a functioning government in the aftermath.

A big difference. It is relevant where the troops are. If we stayed with what we were supposed to do in Afghanistan instead of going to Iraq, we would have had Osama Bin Laden and we would have limited the amount of Al Qaeda and Taliban that went into Pakistan.

It's our presence in that area which has strengthened the Taliban and driven them into Pakistan. Things have gotten worse there since we sent more troops, not better. And we're certainly not one bit closer to catching bin Laden who is either dead or somewhere else entirely.

We are not wasting our time and money in this area. The area is a mess. It harbors Al Qaeda which is a threat to the western world.

al Qaeda isn't geographical. They're all over the place, from the Philippines to Venezuela. They aren't just a small group hiding in northern Pakistan.

It also puts Al Qaeda closer to nuclear weapons.

If they wanted nukes that badly they could certainly buy a couple of old ones from a number of sources. The whole nuclear threat from Iran or Pakistan is basically bogus. The problem for them is not getting the weapons, it's putting the weapons where they will do harm.

We never had enough troops to secure two countries.

We never had any need to 'secure' either country. We would have been fine if we had just hit Afghanistan hard and quick and followed through to get bin Laden at Tora Bora. If that didn't work then we shoul dhave cut our losses and gotten out. Same thing with Iraq and Saddam, though there we had at least some reason to leave things more stable after we left, because of the size and strategic position of the country.

The threat of Al Qaeda is just as much as before.

Exactly, and nothing we're going to do in Afghanistan is going ot change that.

While we have had this presents in Afghanistan, we have had not near the troops to win the war on terror in the region. We are only doing what is supposed to be done.

What is supposed to be done is get the hell out. Do you know what they have called Afghanistan for centuries? The "graveyard of empires." And it's not just a meaningless slogan. The cost of conquest there is so high that even when you win you lose.

And that is to defeat Al Qaeda at all costs

That's not going to happen with a war in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

and make Afghanistan and Pakistan better countries so that we can avoid a catastrophe.

Colossal ignorance. Go read up on the region and its history and the recent statements from its leaders. What you suggest is just nonsensical in the context of the reality of what we're dealing with.

Again, Bush left the Middle East and our economy in a total mess. If he was a democrat I would say the same. In this case, Bush was a social conservative that had no business in running the country.

On those points we can at least agree. And now Obama seems to be expanding on every one of Bush's mistakes.

Dave

 

 And yet, Obama is giving us

Submitted by In between on Sat, 05/23/2009 - 06:04.

 And yet, Obama is giving us more of the same on an even larger scale, with spending insanely out of control and policies which punish business and encourage more jobs to go overseas.

Some of the spending I did not like. However, the bailouts are necessary to prevent a depression. Preventing a depression comes first and deficits come second. Republicans have no leg to stand on when it comes to deficits. Cheney said "deficits don't matter." And Limbaugh and Hannity all but ignored it. Many things have to be fixed and it takes money. Money that went for tax cuts and for the war. The spending for war will go on. We cannot just pull out. This is the kind of mess we are in.

So? Was our goal to get vengeance or to stop terrorism, stabilize the middle east and try to build peace in the region? If it was just revenge, then Afghanistan was the place to go. Get revenge, create more enemies, breed more terrorism. If the goal was to stabilize the region then nationbuilding in Iraq starts to make some sense.

Our goal was to stop terrorism in Afghanistan. That is where Al Qaeda was at. Iraq was a matter of convenience for the neocons and had nothing to do with 9/11. And certainly we did not have enough troops to deal with the situation. Also invading Iraq, everyone knew it would be a quagmire. There are many problems that happened because you had an administration who ignored the warnings.

As you will eventually come to realize there is no such thing as "enough troops" in Afghanistan. The Pakistanis understand this and when asked to deploy more troops in Waziristan they refused because they knew that more troops would just create more targets and get in each others way. We haven't appear to still not have learned that you can't fight an asymmetrical war by deploying increasing numbers of conventional troops. You need to change tactics. We saw that his worked with the misnamed "surge" in Iraq, but Obama seems to favor the brute strength approach in Afghanistan where it will work even less well.

Again, our fight is with the terrorists. The Taliban was harboring them. We still have to deal with terrorists. Afghanistan and Pakistan is a sanctuary for terrorists. All we did is drive them into Pakistan. We never had enough troops to secure the situation. Yes, it takes other tactics. Bush, all but ignored Afghanistan while he had his thoughts on Iraq. Afghanistan has gotten out of control, it has not infrastructure, but you cannot blame Obama for inheriting a mess. Obama is listening to Petraeus and others. This is not going to be easy. Again, this problem was allowed to grow under Bush. You cannot sweep it under the rug. Even changing tactics and paying off the Taliban will be difficult at best. There is no easy solution and it will take many years.

And yet Bush Jr. overthrew Saddam where his father came up short, and managed to establish a functioning government in the aftermath.

This is a totally erroneous view. Bush 41 knew it would be a quagmire. And that is what we had, a quagmire. Our policy for many years were to keep Iraq and Iran as equals. By invading Iraq, we made Iran the new leader in the Middle East. There is no government in Iraq. The war lords are paid off, you have Shiites, Sunnis, and the Kurds. Iran is Shiite, a big winner for them. We paid a heavy price for going into a country that did not attack us. A price of money, men, and the neglect of Afghanistan. The Middle East is a mess.

It's our presence in that area which has strengthened the Taliban and driven them into Pakistan. Things have gotten worse there since we sent more troops, not better. And we're certainly not one bit closer to catching bin Laden who is either dead or somewhere else entirely.

Our presence in the area was minimal. We could not fight a good war with less troops. The area was not secure. All we did is drive the Taliban and Al Qaeda into Pakistan. Things have not gotten worse with sending more troops. It was years of neglect that made things worse. The Taliban and Al Qaeda has gotten stronger as the years went by. 

We had Osama Bin Laden in Tora Bora and Rumsfeld screwed up on that. We could have him today if we paid attention to business. 

al Qaeda isn't geographical. They're all over the place, from the Philippines to Venezuela. They aren't just a small group hiding in northern Pakistan.

Of course, but the worst area is Pakistan-a nuclear country in which they are only 60 miles away from the capital. Most of the training and recruiting is in this area. The northern Pakistan area is the highest concentration of Al Qaeda by far.

If they wanted nukes that badly they could certainly buy a couple of old ones from a number of sources. The whole nuclear threat from Iran or Pakistan is basically bogus. The problem for them is not getting the weapons, it's putting the weapons where they will do harm.

As long as these terrorists exist, then you have to fear that they will get their hands on nuclear weapons no matter where they get them. Again, Pakistan has real problems controlling the situation.

We never had any need to 'secure' either country. We would have been fine if we had just hit Afghanistan hard and quick and followed through to get bin Laden at Tora Bora. If that didn't work then we shoul dhave cut our losses and gotten out. Same thing with Iraq and Saddam, though there we had at least some reason to leave things more stable after we left, because of the size and strategic position of the country.

Our strategy in Afghanistan was working. we did not finish the job and we went to Iraq. Afghanistan does not have an infrastructure, it is embedded with the Taliban. Maybe other arrangements could have been made. All we did was neglect the situation all these years and let Al Qaeda rebuild.

Exactly, and nothing we're going to do in Afghanistan is going ot change that.

I disagree. At least if we did our job, instead of going to Iraq, we would have had more success. The Taliban may have remained but Al Qaeda was our objective. Many people in the area do not like them. We could have had Afghanistan on our side. We will never know. We are becoming occupiers as the years roles by. It is hard to fix something that we broke. We cannot leave as the terrorists are a threat to us and to the area.

What is supposed to be done is get the hell out. Do you know what they have called Afghanistan for centuries? The "graveyard of empires." And it's not just a meaningless slogan. The cost of conquest there is so high that even when you win you lose.

So your answer is that we let Al Qaeda do what it wants to do. There are no easy answers, but we should have done the job in the first place. It is much harder now.

That's not going to happen with a war in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Again, we do what we have to do. Al Qaeda is our enemy. We did not concentrate on our enemy while we were in Iraq.

Colossal ignorance. Go read up on the region and its history and the recent statements from its leaders. What you suggest is just nonsensical in the context of the reality of what we're dealing with.

I know the history of the area. Al Qaeda is and was our enemy. Letting this drag on only empowered them more. They are a threat to the whole world. If you don't like this then let us let out all the criminals. After all the criminals are of no threat.

On those points we can at least agree. And now Obama seems to be expanding on every one of Bush's mistakes.

Expanding or not, we still have to deal with the situation that has not gone away and will not go away if we ignore it. We have not had the chance to do it right. So let us try and do it right, but that is a problem when we are messes like this in which the previous administration ignored.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remedial history class is closed

Submitted by Dave Nalle on Sat, 05/23/2009 - 23:41.

Sorry, In Between, I don't have time to teach a remedial history class right now.  Stop repeating the party line and go out and do some research on the political and strategic realities of the region you're so concerned with.

Just one note -- you say "we do what we have to" -- what we have to do is defend America.  Engaging in ill-conceived military campaigns at vast expense makes us more vulnerable, not less.

 

Dave

And Pakistan is finding out

Submitted by In between on Sun, 05/24/2009 - 05:14.

And Pakistan is finding out the hard way. Too bad they waited so long also. The generals understand the situation. Yes, there are drawbacks, but you cannot let Al Qaeda go freely also. It is a combination of military campaigns and diplomacy. The fact remains, the longer we waited, the longer we were in a quagmire in Iraq, we neglected what we were supposed to do in Afghanistan and it makes all that much more difficult. It is very hard to put Humpty Dumpty together again in both our economy and foreign policy after 8 years of incompetence. 

Mind boggling irrationality

Submitted by Dave Nalle on Mon, 05/25/2009 - 02:03.

I still find it bizarre that you can excuse an utterly pointless and unwinnable war and then condemn another war where something was actually achieved, apparently solely on your hatred of Bush.  When you get over that irrational hatred you might start seeing things as they are.

 

Dave

The war with the Taliban may

Submitted by In between on Mon, 05/25/2009 - 05:12.

The war with the Taliban may be unwinnable. Our original intentions and the basis for being there is to get Al Qaeda. Afghanistan has its own tribal rules. Afghanistan has a puppet government and no infrastructure. Having said that and knowing the situation is dire, we still have to go after Al Qaeda. We cannot allow extremists to fester in sanctuary areas. It is true the tribal areas have their own battles and you can hope that people will turn against Al Qaeda, but the incidents in Pakistan is telling a different story. Obama is not making the call on this. It is Petraeus and others that he is listening too. Again, the situation has gotten out of hand because we did not treat it for so long. Treating this in the beginning and putting more trust in the local people and supporting would have been the good thing to do. This cancer today is not going away and we are losing the war. Letting them go in a "a winnable war" as you say means that they can have their training centers for terrorism and they can have nuclear weapons. That part does not make sense to me. History tells us that we cannot win the war, fine, but what else is the answer when there are too many extremists that have the upper hand, when you have a puppet government, when the government cannot defend itself, when the country has no infrastructure. Add to that with nuclear weapons nearby and it is a real mess. 

Whatever happened to covert ops?

Submitted by Dave Nalle on Thu, 05/28/2009 - 02:04.

Going after the relatively few al Qaeda members in Afghanistan and Pakistan and the many more spread all over the world is not really a job suited to the regular military.  It's what we ought to be tackling with covert ops, surveillance and some of our high tech weapons designed to go after individuals and small groups in non-military situations.  Our military needs to be redesigned for the realities of the new era so we can fight groups like al Qaeda on the right terms rather than letting them push us into wasting time with the traditional military as our only recourse.

 

Dave

our military has been redesigned.

Submitted by Maleficent on Thu, 05/28/2009 - 09:12.

the idea with the invasion of Afghanistan (as planned by General Wesley Clark) was to take out the Taliban, as they were likely to pose a substantial regional flashpoint. The invasion worked fabulously. But keeping a land sane and healthy is much harder than invading it.

back in the 1990's i read a lot about the redesign of the military. you can check out more info at the Army War College -- they have a lot of their material published online.

Invasion is not pacification

Submitted by Dave Nalle on Sat, 05/30/2009 - 02:23.

If all it took were an invasion then all these military ventures would be much, much easier.  But it takes more than that.  A bangup invasion of Afghanistan didn't take out the Taliban.  They're arguably stronger now than ever.

Dave