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You have not converted a man because you have silenced him

By: Tom Lesser (Diary)  |  March 17th, 2012 at 02:58 PM  | 

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You have not converted a man because you have silenced him

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  • demsaresatanic

    that the Obama nation-building plan is futile so long as the Taliban has sanctuary in Pakistan.

    • 6eorge Jetson

      I agree that the Afghanistan War should be conducted toward naked American interests. The “Good War” nation-building thing is a fool’s errand.

      Bush absolutely had to punch Afghanistan in the Taliban in the nose after 9/11. Check. After than, keeping military bases for American access and killing bin Laden were the only realsitic and worthy goals.

      Bush’s expeditures of blood and treasure were a lot closer to an effort guided by those goals than what Obama has spent.

    • Dave_A

      The Taliban were never ‘defeated’ in Afganhistan.

      Al Qaeda was – but that’s because they refused to stay and fight (they were gone by the end of the first month or two)…

      If we didn’t stay and ‘nation build’, then the Taliban would have been back in power within a year, and everything done there would be for naught – we’d end up spending 30-some years ‘containing’ the area in a cold-war-esque manner.

      Oddly enough, the ‘real war’ was always Iraq – as that’s where Al Qaeda actually met us in battle, stayed to fight, and lost.

      The problem with Afghanistan, is the geo-political significance of a 1991-style ‘smash-and-run’ war: The message sent was that if you piss off the US, we’ll come in, do the ‘Hulk SMASH’ on your countryside, and then run back home… Anti-American regimes would walk away with the lesson that if you oppose America you WILL get away with it, with the cost being – at most – a few villages bombed & some peasants killed…

      The point to staying in Afghanistan is simple: The Taliban, as a political organization, forfeit their right to power when they allied with Al Qaeda to attack the US.

      The US *cannot* leave Afghanistan until we are sure that the Taliban will not resume their former position as political leaders of the country. Even if we have to occupy the place for 50 years.

      Anything less is a sign of weakness, and an encouragement to those who would attack us & the governments who aid them.

      We must stand firm.

      - Dave_A
      OIF & OEF Veteran
      Recently returned from Paktiya & Parwan, Afgahnistan.

      • Stricia

        I’m sorry, but I can’t see any difference in getting out now or 10 years from now. It’s a WASTE (of everything & everyone). To me, our digging in heels over there is beyond ridiculous.

        • Dave_A

          We cannot let the Taliban win.

          And if we leave now, they will retake the government, and thus have won the war against the ‘evil Americans’.

          They can’t force us out militarily, but they can win politically if we give up & go home….

          We need to stay, to outlast them… It’s not like we have a more pressing war to fight, nor will bringing the Army home to obsess over pressing uniforms & Soldier’s haircuts and/or off-duty attire (As the CSM Mafia now demands) improve our forces….

          The Army is better off with a war to fight vs stagnating in garrison & promoting parade-pretty idiots over combat soldiers, and the nation is better off NOT losing a 10 year war to a bunch of piss-ant thugs, because we don’t have what it takes to stick it out in the long haul….

          • tedpomeroy

            is unfounded. After the Soviets were expelled from Afghanistan a civil war broke out. The best fighters of the contenders were the Taliban and Bin Laden mostly with money backed them.

            The Taliban were ready to hand Bin Laden over the Saudis who would have beheaded him but President Clinton lobbed cruise missiles at Bin Laden into Afghanistan. Once that was done the Taliban could not afford to appear to be cooperating with the US. So this gave Bin Laden his refuge to run his training camps in Afghanistan.

            It was good to chase the Taliban into Pakistan after 9-11. This was a lesson to the world not to harbor the likes of Al Queda. Pres. Obama put his foot in his mouth during 2008 and committed himself to Afghanistan.

            He should have listened to Pakistan. And realize that only the Taliban could stabilize Afghanistan.

      • aesthete

        Our strategy in Afghanistan is already seen as a weakness. We are no better off today than we were in 2006. That tells our enemies that we will willingly pour tons of resources into something that doesn’t pay off. Doubling down on this does not seem worthwhile, especially since there’s high opportunity cost associated with staying in any country.

        • Dave_A

          To me ‘pay off’ = the Taliban out of power.

          Showing our enemies that we will pour ‘tons of resources’ into simply blocking them from achieving their goals is a statement worth making…

          Even if it is an eternal stalemate.

      • littlehouse18

        It seems their morale is terribly low and they’ll be dying for nothing. I don’t relish dragging on a Vietnam-style debacle. Leaving will indeed show weakness, but will our guys have the strength to carry on as long as it takes? Will our armed forces be able to recruit?

        Obama has been a disaster for us in every way.

        • Dave_A

          By the perception that America has given up, than anything else…

          For folks who enlisted after 9/11, we’ve never known peacetime service – and the thought isn’t exactly comforting, to tell you the truth (peacetime service inspires thoughts of being heckled for using both straps of a backpack or wearing the ‘wrong’ clothes off duty, pressed uniforms, and a never-ending list of absurd rules put forth simply to help the rule-maker get promoted)…

          I can’t speak for all of the Army, but for every ‘I’m out, I’m DONE’ I met on my recent deployment, there was a ‘Hey, let’s do it again’ somewhere… A good number of us (myself included) were individual volunteers – not deployed because ‘our number came up’, but because we volunteered to be transferred to a deploying unit – and almost all of us who did, were on our second tour (at least)….

          There’s some element of ‘burn out’, but with only one war now we can shorten tours & increase time in-between – and there’s always that long line of kids who played ‘Call of Duty’ from 14 to 18 who are just waiting to do it for real (line gets shorter when height/weight & PT standards come into play, even shorter when they hear the words ‘drug test’, but still enough)…

          The biggest recruiting issues will be in the support ranks – the truck drivers, mechanics, and other noncombat jobs (oddly enough, the ones most easily replaced with contractors) – the mentality of combat arms (Infantry, Armor, Artillery) is such that an ongoing war helps recruitment, as we sign up because we *want* to fight….

          Most of what you hear about ‘rules of engagement’ isn’t D.C., but rather LTCs & full-birds (senior commanders below the rank of general) more worried about their next promotion than the fact that their men, in the field & under fire, are on the radio begging for fire support… Of course, in peacetime, these folks are rated as ‘exemplary leaders’, you know…

          Granted, I agree that Obama has not done the best of jobs with the situation – negotiating with the Taliban, offering to free prisoners, and so on – that doesn’t show resolve…

          But in the end, we *can* do it, if the civilian leadership, and the American people will let us.

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  • Dave_A

    Was more aimed at pointless missions to Africa than anything else…

    Which is why he refused US troops for Liberia at the same time we were heavily involved in Iraq and Afghanistan – there was a POINT to those missions, and none to interfering in yet another African nation-state-sized family-spat…

  • Stricia

    I can’t imagine what you and your fellow defenders of our country have seen and gone through, God bless you. But, it just seems like the military is a bit stretched right now and could actually USE some downtime to “practice” without their buddy getting his head blown off for a hell hole full of ingrates. I know that I’m no whiz in geopolitical affairs, but I think I have a pretty good feel for what my fellow citizens of my red state and the U.S.A. are feeling and thinking in general. And what I continually here from both sides of the political spectrum is: Enough Already! This decision to shorten or extend is of paramount importance. I hope the remaining candidates in the race of this GOP nomination will speak out more about this ongoing fiasco.

  • littlehouse18

    When I hear about all these multiple deployments, and the toll it’s taking on families, I think the psychological cost is huge. At least our ground forces need to recuperate. I wonder – can the navy do anything via air and missile power against the Taliban?

  • tedpomeroy

    Bin Laden should have been captured and given a miltary tribunal at Guantanamo! Instead, the Navy Seals were used to execute a human being.

    Do you think the President did not know where Bin Laden was upon January 21, 2009? Not for second, somebody in Pakistani intelligence must have given the word to US intelligence.

    The President after failing to close Guantanamo and getting the Al Queda trials moved to the US, decided that a hidden Bin Laden was no longer useful to him.

    So stop praising the President for killing Bin Laden!