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Tom Pennington / Getty Images
Residents of Tolar, Texas, attend a candlelight vigil Wednesday at the old Tolar High School football field to honor hometown Army Special Forces soldier Sgt. 1st Class Riley G. Stephens.
When No. 2,000 fell last weekend in Afghanistan, journalists were keeping count. But is the nation keeping up?
Sunday marks the 11-year anniversary of the first American missile strikes against terrorist and Taliban targets inside Afghanistan. The U.S. military death toll has ticked ever slowly upward from the war's launch in October 2001 as a globally watched counterattack to 9/11 through the height of the Iraq War when service members in Afghanistan darkly dubbed their own battleground “Forgot-istan.”
Last Saturday, Sgt. 1st Class Riley G. Stephens, 39, was shot and killed by an Afghan National Army soldier at a highway checkpoint in Wardak Province. The Airborne Special Forces member had three children and a wife. Residents in his tiny hometown, Tolar, Texas, gathered Wednesday night on the local high school football field, burning candles in his honor.
According to The Associated Press, Stephens was the 2,000th U.S. service member killed in Afghanistan, the type of historic landmark that gets the media’s notice.
/ USASOC News Service
Sgt. 1st Class Riley G. Stephens
But if the simple cold arithmetic of his passing didn’t get your attention, you’ve got company. Although 68,000 U.S. troops remain in that war zone, the majority of Americans have mentally moved along, military experts say, to the point where such tragic notches rarely rate a mention at the supper table and barely raise more than a momentary blip in the Twitter-sphere.
“I don’t think it ranked very high” in the nation’s consciousness, said Michael O'Hanlon, senior fellow with the 21st Century Defense Initiative and director of research for the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution. “Thoughtful people – even if they have made up their minds about the war – they just want to commemorate it the same way we commemorate Veterans Day or Memorial Day. It merits a little bit of response in that regard. But beyond that, it elicits almost no new policy debate whatsoever."
“A 2,000th fatality does not affect people's (personal) calculus on mission feasibility or the desirability of one policy option over another. It’s just going to be a sad milestone,” O’Hanlon said.
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Perhaps that’s partly because America’s lengthiest war has not generated the fatal pace of past military conflicts. While 181 U.S. service members have been killed, on average, per year in Afghanistan, the annual death rates for American troops in three previous wars were higher to exceedingly higher – Iraq: 498 per year, Vietnam: 4,850 per year, and Korea: 12,300 per year.
The U.S. military plans to finish a withdrawal of most U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
“Of course, 2,000 fatalities these days really means 20,000 wounded because we’re keeping so many wounded people alive,” said O’Hanlon, who describes himself as “a supporter of the mission” in Afghanistan. “So, I think the numbers are pretty high in many ways."
“The fact that the country has sort of tolerated them, even though we’re still unhappy about still being in this war, is a testament to the fact that they are not huge,” he added. “Most people are not losing sons and daughters and brothers and sisters in this war. And that may explain why we’re still all sort of more or less against it and yet tolerating it. We have a presidential campaign in which there’s no real pressure to get out and yet everybody wants to get out.”
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Beyond that, giving special commemoration to the 2,000th service member to die in Afghanistan seems somewhat disrespectful to the 1,999th U.S. troop to die there -- someone whose life story and profound sacrifice may get far less acclaim. Meanwhile, the first casualties of the conflict get shoved deeper into the nation's collective memory, said Paul Rieckhoff, chief executive officer and founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, a nonprofit group with more than 200,000 members.
"The larger concern we have is with that general disconnect," Rieckhoff said. "Obviously somebody was just killed in action there and that person should be remembered and celebrated. But we’ve also got to remember there are widows who have been dealing with this since 2001. They still need support and their families need care and their kids need to figure out how they’re going to school. The price those families pay impacts generations."
"Most Americans aren't constantly thinking about Afghanistan. It’s not always in the papers. It’s at the end of very few news broadcasts. Maybe there is some fatigue in the general population," Rieckhoff said. "But I also think there’s some paralysis: They don’t know what to do about it. So, what we simply try to tell them is just make sure you remember the families."
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Leave a Comment:
Time to bring our troops home, "Never get involved in a land war in Asia" comes to mind, especially where we are unwelcome! Too bad a "Second Front" was started by Bush (under false pretenses) before we were finished with OBL and AQ back at Tora Bora way back in the days when the Northern Alliance had them on the run!
When the Army and Police have become the insurgents and the insurgents have become the police and army !!!!! Then it is long past time we leave !!!! Another brother lost . FOR WHAT ????????????
Too bad we can't punish the people that are really to blame for these deaths.... Cheney and Bush! I remember feeling like it Cheney who was really the running the country when Bush was in.
Just think, we could have possibly used drones in a lot of cases, keeping these young people out of harms way...and saved an obscene amount of money.
Plus the enemy would have had nothing to strike back at after we nailed each one of those Al-Qaeda @!$%#s one by one.
No military activities since 2001, other than the SEAL's raid and killing of bin Laden, have made a hill of beans to anyone but the fatcat officers in the Pentagon and billionaire military contractors on the taxpayer dole. The U.S. has a volunteer military. Most join up for the govt. job and lifetime benefits that kick in when that 18-year-old recruit puts in 20 and exits at 38-years-old. Some become cannon fodder, some are wounded and on VA benefits forever, others flip out and kill their families or co-workers back home. Okay. So stop joining up with the employer of last resort to go play tin soldier and kill people in another country; go to college and get a real job or start a business. This isn't WWII and the mideast isn't rife with an aggressor, such as Hitler or Hirohito. None of these "wars" since 2001 has done squat about alleviating terrorism, and it has likely made the U.S. less secure. Those misspent billions have certainly made us poorer. At the end of the day when all fiscal elements are factored in, including interest we pay on debt to finance the outrageous Pentagon misadventures and 1,000 bases around the globe, nearly 70% of all federal taxes go to the military. Only when this nation stops glorifying war and warriors will we ever begin to have peace.
Let's just GTFO!
Nice spin unfaired, but it's been 4 years and the commander in chief has increased the troops hence the increased deaths. Get a clue.
unfair why dont we give credit where it is due, if we are to punish bush and cheney then we must punish them all. Every single D and R that voted to goto war, every single "news" anchor that helped push for the wars and every single american that was fooled into cheering them on as they went.
If you truly wish to support our troops and bring them home then none of you will be casting a vote for the R or D choice this november! Write someone in that you feel will truly be for the troops or vote for governor Johnson who WILL bring them all home and close our bases around the world to help reduce the cost and spending of our empire.
a vote for freedom is never wasted, even though a non R or D will likely never win due to the way our country is now. however your vote will show that we are all fed up with the BS choices we are given, and empower others to make the same statement next time. Change is seldom accomplished overnight but true hope and change will never come from the R or D.
Iraq was wrong and a crime from the begining under Bush Jr. Afghan was correct in the beginning, but we should have been out 7 years ago. Both of these, Iraq and the extended Afghan are designed so the top brass and contractors could make money from the military industrial complex. There are incredible career opportunities from these limited wars. No real direct military danger to the US from Iraq and Afghan, yet billions of dallors being spent per month. IF you can line up a contractor , then go through the revolving door at the Pentagon and take a top slot at the contractor the money is unimaginable to plain ol working class folks. We are so far past the time we should have shut these wars down and come home it has become a moral crisis. God Bless these young folks in Texas honoring their fallen. May he live on in them. Any gubmint official who does not work to end it all and bring the troops home should be replaced by people who care.
"When No. 2,000 fell last weekend in Afghanistan"
Nice way to start the article..why couldn't it be.. Our nations 2000th hero died last weekend in Afghanistan!!!
Our military hero's are not numbers!!!
Funny how selective memories are for so many people.
CONGRESS voted for Iraq, with all kinds of dems, including Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Harry Reid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Resolution
And Obama increased (not decreased, but increased) the number of troops in Afghanistan in 2009.
i hope you and everyone else votes with that anger in november mike.
to the majority in DC, the pentagon, and the media our combat troops are just that, a number. they remain just a number until they are taken, then they have a name to be used in scoring political points and gaining more clicks on websites such as this one.
The media does very little reporting on Afghanistan, then it reports that people are not paying attention to the war. Well, if they reported on it more, we would pay attention.
Funny, when Bush was president, all the major news networks posted nightly reports of names of soldiers killed and the death toll counts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Strange how that all stopped when Obama became president. Was it because our troops stop being killed over there?
No?
Jax no it wasn't because they "stopped being killed", the media that supports the D's couldnt report on it our their guys would look bad.
and the other media station that backs the R's felt that the scary black, kenyan, muslim, commie, socialist, fascists, rev wright christian, atheist (did i miss any?) in the white house was a more important issue to cover than our troops in harms way.
Yes, you forgot "community organizer." The "community organizer" who then sent more troops to Afghanistan in 2009...which for some strange reason, the media didn't dwell upon very much, either.
Funny Jax, that you remember something that never happened.
You said Democrats in Congress voted for the Iraq war. You are wrong. This was Bush and Cheney's war. Congress voted to give Bush the authorization to go to war. Their decision was based on lies perpetrated by the Zionist cabal which infested our Pentagon, the Zionist media and the Mossad. AIPAC was pushing the war within the halls of Congress, lon before 2001. It was Bush's decision and he chose to go to war with Iraq, not Congress. Here is how they sold the war.
Zionist
warmongers like Ken Adelman and the Zionist Washington Post pushed the war in
an editorial titled, “Cakewalk in Iraq.” Jewish supremacists Richard Perle and
Paul Wolfowitz told you that Iraq would “Welcome us as liberators.” Iraq became
the longest war in American history. Here is a report from USA Today: “Pentagon
officials estimated for the first time Wednesday that up to 360,000 Iraq and
Afghanistan veterans may have suffered traumatic brain injuries.” Now that’s
not counting tens of thousands who have suffered maiming, amputations, or death
in this war based on lies.
The war in Afghanistan was for the TAPI gas pipeline, which is slated to transport Israeli owned gas to India, via Afghanistan and Pakistan. the taliban had to be dealt with so the pipeline could be built. 9/11 was used as a reason to invade and deal with the Taliban. It was a false flag attack, perpertated by some in our government and Israel.
www.rense.com/general15/game.htm
Iran can
sell gas to India at a third the price of Turkmenistan. This is the ENTIRE
issue. In Turkmenistan Israel holds the lease rights to sell this gas and US
companies are building the pipeline called TAPI. This has gotten Iran upset and
that is what the whole reason for petroleum sanctions. We have US military
holding the Taliban at bay in the North all the while prince and his private
paramilitary mercenary forces are executing pipeline security privately in the
South to lend some sort of propriety to this whole sham of a war. Americans
should demand presidential head on a platter for this fraud. Deni-ability is
everything.
Cute Ralph. How do you explain Bill Clinton, Madeline Albright, Nancy Pelosi and Sandy Berger claiming Saddam had WMDs all the way back in 1998? Who's telling these lies before Bush was even elected??
Anything?
Since clicking on links and reading is difficult for you, here, I'll help:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Resolution
from that article:
Let me guess, Congress had no idea what they were voting for?
The desperate attempt by liberals to rewrite history apparently knows no bounds.
On 9/11 almost 3000 people died in one day. I would rather no one died, but it is better a few trained volunteer soldiers die fighting the terrorists on their own turf then seeing more one day death tolls in the thousands here on our own soil.
Funny, Ron Paul, Pat Buchanan and Soviet General Victor Yermakov all said the same thing. NO ONE listened to them.
Sigh.
Ralph you are right on the MONEY. also Hypnoticfreedom is right about the dems and repubs, they don't care about the american people. On the back of my truck I always write something last week it was"11 years in afganistan and 2000 killed and nobody gives a @!$%#, because it it not your child" It is sad we have nobody to vote for that is for America the are only for amerika
Funny how when Bush was in office, the local (and national) papers posted a body count that was updated daily. We don't see that anymore. I wonder why. (but we all KNOW why)....
Since Korea, American politicians have wantonly sent thousands of America's youth to their deaths for supposedly valid reasons. However, none of the reasons were serious enough for them to declare war to fully support their effort. They conduct these military operations like some sick form of video games for their own purposes. As a Viet Nam veteran, I certainly would not oppose indicting these cowards for, at the very least, manslaughter. Perhaps being held somewhat accountable, they will not be so quick to spill American blood without fully justifying their deployment and then supporting our kids with the full military might of the United States to end these conflicts quickly and decisively.
2000 is nothing compared to the number of brave young men & women we will lose when Romney takes us into Iran.
Thank you but other news organizations support our troops and keep up with the war and our servicemen but I am sure this is news for MSNBC. Obama wants to forsake our troops and military by cutting our funding. Did you not get the memo?
Obama is President and the media remains silent on the deaths of our brave soldier's.
When Bush was President the media made sure the number of deaths were repeated over and over.
unfairunbalancedfox
You are a fool. If Clinton had killed bin laden when he had the chance the world would be different today. There would be many less widows and fatherless children in this country. Clinton had multiple opportunities to kill Bin Laden and didn't because he was and is a politician concerned more about his own welfare more than the brave soldiers that had to pay the price for his cowardice. As a result 911 happened. That is Clinton's legacy. Bush and Cheney gave us the intelligence network and military capability to do the job Clinton didn't have the courage to do. Place blame where it belongs.
Hello folks, hell yes I noticed! There appear to be too many warmongers in our leadership that are too indebted to the Military Industrial Complex and their masters the global cartels. I wish we would stop spreading death and destruction around the globe but we need to overcome the apathy and blind allegiance of the sheeple.
Our job in the globalization of the planet is to act as the enforcement arm of the Oil, Corporate and Banking cartels.
The sheeple have fallen in line for us to attack Iran, a country that hasn't attacked anyone in centuries (Iraq attacked Iran for those who are research challenged).
How can anyone argue with a mentality that allow these atrocities to occur over and over again. In most wars around the world there appears to be one common denominator, the United States!
We have bombed over 65 countries and have been at war for 216 of our short 236 year history. No other country in the world has done this!
We demagogue and demonize any country or race of people we want to attack for their resources. Who died and made us God?
People have confused patriotism with fanaticism. As long as we allow death and destruction to be perpetrated around the world in our name it will not stop.
These are wars of profit, we don't fight for a sovereign nations freedom we fight for the freedom of Exxon Mobil and BP to lay the foundation for military bases to enhance the cartels who own the Military Industrial Complex.
Enough! The time to respect the planet and mother earth's inhabitants is now!
Why do you think "we can't punish people responcible for these deaths"?
Did anyone stop laws from working?
@TrustVerify,
You start off well with your first sentence but lose all credibility after that.
Iran has never attacked anyone? What about their invasion of U.S. soil in the 1970's. Yes embassies are considered sovereign soil of the country who it represents. It is an act of war to attack one.
The current leader of Iran has stated Israel should be destroyed. Yes a peace loving government.
Been at war for 216 of our 236 years? Do you have something to back that up?
Ever hear of Nazi Germany? They werent around all that long and look at what they accomplished. They also declared war on us. Guess that was our fault for even existing. Maybe Hitler would have stopped murdering Jews and others by the millions if we had just asked him nicely to just stop.
It would be wonderful if we could all sit around campfires singing cumbaya, but reality has shown there are evil leaders in our world. The U.S. isnt perfect and we have made mistakes and done things we shouldnt have, but that is no excuse for your blame everybody in our history rant.
miron, there was an atempt to bring chney/bush up on war crimes charges, it was squashed by obama once he took office, im not sure if the media reported on it (vry doubtful), but it was in one of the leaked cables that wikkileaks released.
yep the smoke and mirrors continue while the sheep have bought into the idea that there is a real diference between the D's and R's, they have you all on here debating which pile of S.hit tastes better (the few posters up top trying to turn this into a blamefest over who started these wars and who is at fault for 9-11), you know who you are and you we know how pathetic you are.
I agree there's no point in us being there anymore.
As long as the Taliban and Al Qaeda can hide and resupply in Pakistan without fear of getting hit we can never win. It's time to leave. It was a goat Phucking hole when we arrived, it is now, and will be once we leave.
Again, these posts get too full of BS to dig through so for all those who have been at home playing armchair soldier and politician instead of getting off your asses and making a difference, here is the bottom line: When you have someone with a set in power, we do not allow the enemy to slap us in the face and then play house with them. Damn how much it costs! When we are attacked, it is time to crush them. That is what started Afghanistan. Sure there are other choice motives for certain individuals, but catching and killing the ones responsible for planning and ordering the attacks on us was the primary reason. Everyone who was in office and at the top in the military is responsible, Republican and Democrat. They damn near voted unanimously for this. Don't jump on your high horse now and claim that the poor little Democrats were forced into it. Iraq, while ill planned and definitely took away from finishing Afghanistan 7 years ago, was a legitimate reason for attack. Saddam did have WMD's. I saw the proof on the bottom of the lake at Haditha. Satellite images of tractor trailer loads going into Syria and barges dumping into the lakes. Yes, it could have been handled differently, but to just blame it on "the Republicans" and wash your hands of it is cowardish. Again, there was backing from both sides. Bottom line is when are you all, the American people, going to stand up and make decisions to elect people who care and will do their job. They work for US!! We put them into that office to work for us and help build a better future for us all. They have not done that! Not since President Clinton balanced the budget has anyone in the District done their job. I say fire them all. Unfortunately, our choices leave us with very few options for success. Not everyone has the sackage to stand for what they believe in and fight for the changes necessary.
The journalists may have been keeping count but the Lamestream Liberal media has put a cap on Afghanistan.
Prior to Obama becoming Commander in Chief you couldn't escape all the events occurring in Iraq and Afghanistan. All the major networks led their broadcasts with any large or small event. From the atrocities of war to virtually any human interest story possible, we were exposed to it.
CNN actually had a running score in the corner of the screen tallying deaths and casualties. The outcry of suffering for both our troops and the Iraq and Afghan people was deafening. Bush was demonized for every death and ignored with each victory. Before the surge in Iraq the media frenzy was hysterical, after its success, silence.
Obama claims he ended the war in Iraq. Another lie. Bush and Iraq agreed to the SOFA agreement in 2008. All Barrack Hussein did was follow Bush’s orders. He actually wanted to stay longer and the Iraqi's refused. Obama’s 2008 campaign scrubbed his presidential Web site that criticized the Iraq "surge". Of course then he praised the G.I.'s "hard work, improved counterinsurgency tactics and enormous sacrifice."
Afghanistan has turned into a cluster f**k. From his dithering on his own version of the surge that lasted months as allies waited and the Taliban entrenched, to not challenging the obvious widespread fraud and corruption during the Karzai election, Obama was doomed. Ever since, from the politicalization of the war, allowing the irrational changes to the Rules of Engagement to his open announcement of not only our withdrawal but when, this war was lost. Defeat was assured.
Now, as the Taliban has entrenched themselves with all the time in the world until 2014 and our courageous troops being slaughtered by the Afghanistan troops we trained, this war is an embarrassment.
Barrack Hussein should just spike the football one more time about killing Osama Porn Laden, if he dares, and bring our troops home by Christmas.
Oh, and on the way out, we should "Shock and Awe" one more time over all the poppy fields and make sure Hillarious Clinton stops by India and announces our newfound alliance with India and their nuclear strength to remind, Karzai, Zardari and Imadinnerjacket in Iran we're still watching.
ROMNEY/RYAN 2012 FOR REAL AMERICANS©
The psychopaths who run the state (the compulsory government) have sent 2,000 of ours to the meat grinder without remorse, and killed 100s of times that many of theirs. But there is no "ours" or "theirs"...they teach us to think in such false paradigms. There are two governments full of psychopaths mad at each other...and two populations at the mercy of their brainwashing and the fight they start with each other. In the end, we're pawns to them. They lose no sleep over the deaths. Men, women, and children die...and not one wink of sleep is lost.
We allow psychos to rule us. They allow psychos to rule them. The state is an institutional enabler of psychos. And we cheer for them, like they're celebrities, every 4 years. Damn them...and damn us all for our worship of the this god...the state. It's the coldest of all cold monsters...and we worship at its altar, and lay down our children as blood sacrifices in its Crusades.
These wars aren't about self defense 10+ years later. It's occupation, aggression, and nation-building (propping up a puppet regime). The Afghani leader cheated in their elections, and yet we support him. The soldiers aren't defending our freedoms. They aren't dying for us.
They're dying for the state. They're dying in vain.
Damn us all - the faithful to the religion of statism and the worshippers of politicians (the psychos). Damn the state and all its psychpathic members. We are an Empire of Masochists, ruled by Sadists.
The S&M Kingdom. The King lost re-election...long live the next King. Now let the vampires feast on our life blood; our money extorted (taxed), our children slaughtered - or murdering in their names.
Murder and extortion are wrong...unless the state says so.
(2 posts up a man makes rationalizations for wars of aggression. No one in their right mind thinks Iraq was a threat to us. No ICBM = No threat, tough guy.)
Hello edandbunny, I doubt anyone could possibly change your world view as it appears your indoctrination is thorough, but I will provide some information and doubt you will allow it to change your fragile sensibilities.
Do you know why the embassy in Iran was taken over? I didn't think so. We removed their leader and put in the infamous Shaw in power via a coup. The Shaw Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavī was our puppet. In 1953, Iran, or Persia as it was then called, had a functioning democratic system. A successful coup by the CIA and British Intelligence overthrew the democratically elected government and replaced them with the hereditary Shah of Persia. His abuses and misrule led directly to the Islamic Revolution and the problems we have encountered with their Islamic government ever since. In the early 1980s, Iraq thus was encouraged to invade Iran, by the US in a fit of pique, and was supplied with arms in the resulting war. This assistance helped solidify Saddam Hussein’s military ambitions and indirectly encouraged his invasion of Kuwait in 1991, all of which led to the mess in Iraq today.
The current leader of Iran never said that Israel should pre-emptively be destroyed. It was mistranslated. He did say that if Israel was to attack Iran that they would be destroyed, but that goes with out saying for any country that gets attacked.
Hitler was an evil tyrant and he forced a military response by attacking sovereign countries. Iran hasn't done that. We on the other hand have attacked to just list a few:
Libya, Iran, Nicaragua, Haiti, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Angola, Mozambique, Honduras, Chile, Congo, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia, Angola, Columbia, Peru, Panama, Yemen, Pakistan, Grenada, Mexico, etc..
In terms of the U.S. being at war for 216 of 236 years, here you go.
The Revolutionary War – 1775 – 1783
The Whiskey Rebellion – 1789 - 1794
The War of 1812 – 1812 – 1814
The Mexican American War – 1846 – 1848
The American Civil War – 1861 – 1865
The Spanish American War – 1897 – 1898
The Indian American Wars – 1775 – 1918
World War I – 1914 – 1918
World War II – 1941 – 1945
Cold War 1945 – 1992
The Vietnam War - 1962 – 1973
The Invasion of Grenada – 1983 – 1984
The Invasion of Panama – 1989
Operation Desert Storm – 1991 – 1992 (Kuwait)
Operation United Shield – 1992 – 1995 (Somalia)
Operation Determined Falcon – 1998 – 1999 (Kosovo, Albania)
Operation Enduring Freedom – 2001 – 2012 (Afghanistan)
Operation Iraqi Freedom – 2003 – 2011 (Iraq)
Operation Freedom Falcon – 2011 - ? (Libya)
P.S. Ignorance is bliss isnt it edandbunny? Before you get on your high horse and infer that we are a peace loving country and wouldn't dare spread death and destruction around the world learn your history. A mind is a terrible thing to waste!
Don't you Main Stream Media types mean Cover-Obama's-ass-astan?! How can anyone notice when the press is sheilding their boy Barak from any negative press? Everyday, during the Bush Administration, the press crammed the names of the dead down our throats in an attempt to destroy him. Now that their Affirmative-Action-Hire's policies and his 'War of Necessity' are getting Americans killed, we don't hear a peep from them. The Main Stream Press has ZERO credibility and ZERO journalistic ethics.
*******************WHAT A BUNCH OF PATHETIC NONSENSE********************
Before when the News Media reported EVERYTHING as a attempt to nail President Bush, the News Media used to have a running count of dead, wounded, etc.. And Code Pink was protesting in front of the Whitehouse.
example from the article:
Where is your OUTRAGE and ACCURATE REPORTING as the US Military Asymmetric Warfare Forces (aka Special Warfare) will remain at President Obama's "Right War" for DECADES after the US Military Conventional Warfare Forces Abandon US Ally Afghanistan again so that the Fundamentalist Islamic Taliban can massacre all the Collaborators to the Christians, Jews, Unbelievers again.
The Reason why the US Public could give a crap less about Afghanistan, President Obama's Secret Wars, or anything else is because unlike WWII, Korean War, Vietnam War, etc. when everyone had Immediate Family Members in these Wars only 1% of US Citizens are Serving in the US Military as 2008 Candidate Obama's "US Military Service is a Civic Duty" and "US Citizenship is not an Entitlement". Also as stated by First Lady Michelle Obama:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e1R0lliFHc
Then there are those like some of the Newsvine Posters that say that people that join the US Military do that because they cannot get Civilian Jobs, are Uneducated, Gangstas ("Gang Bangers") "the scum of the earth" and only joined for "entitlements".
Then we got the NO EXPERIENCED slinging manure all over the mushrooms of Newsvine:
And the KNOWN consequence of those "Troops" being thrown on Unemployment.
Then there are those that attempt based on a lack of knowledge, no experience, and TOO LAZY to do the real research not knowing squat and flinging more sh!t all over Newsvine.
After we (NOT YOU) attached to the CIA's SAD/SOG, plus the Northern Alliance did this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arxKhJIjIiY
We (NOT YOU) started chasing the Fundamentalist Islamic Taliban, Fundamentalist Islamic Al Quada, Fundamentalist Islamic Jihadists at the Islamic Jihadist Training Camps on the Old Silk Road and were killing them with extreme prejudice by the hundreds of the hundreds of thousands. They escaped to Northern Iraq. And were given Fundamentalist Islamic Sanctuary by the Fundamentalist Islamic Kurdistanis. Combined with all the Islamic Jihadists from Worldwide and Fully Supported by the Fundamentalist Islamic Shia Republic of Iran, they renamed themselves Ansar Al Islam.
In 2002 we (NOT YOU) conduct Operation Viking Hammer, after living with the Pro US Kurdistanis. We start killing off Ansar Al Islam, and before we can eliminate them they are given Fundamentalist Islamic Sanctuary by the Fundamentalist Islamic Shia Republic of Iran. Most of Ansar Al Islam then goes back to Afghanistan as their individual groups. Afghanistan being a UN Mission Nation Building, the mistake is made and Gentleman British General McColl (Conventional Warfare Only at Asymmetric Warfare Afghanistan) is appointed the Commander Afghanistan and all the previous gains are lost.
Since we were at Northern Iraq 2002 , it is decided by US Congress that we will accomplish President Clinton's US Law; H.R.4655 "Iraqis Liberation Act of 1998" Justification Section 2 WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION (NOT BUSH), Section 3 US Policy Overthrow President Hussein (aka "Regime Change"). Those of us that survived since the US Military Training Teams to US Ally Iraq during the Iran Iraq Wars, 1998 Operation Desert Fox, etc. until 2002 protest in writing as we knew from EXPERIENCE that President Hussein was the counterbalance to the Fundamentalist Islamic Shia Republic of Iran and are threatened with charges of "Insubordination".
President Clinton's US Law; H.R.4655 "Iraqis Liberation Act of 1998" becomes US Military Operation Iraqis Freedom. To make this a 100% Legitimate War the US Senate Declares War Against Iraq with the 2002 Iraqi War Resolution (Act) with US Congressional Appropriations AND Iraq also becomes the UN Mission of Nation Building (International Legitimacy). Combined together President Clinton's H.R. 4655 (US Congress House of Representatives) and the US Senate 2002 Iraqi War Resolution (Act), Iraq becomes the First Declared War since WWII, and meets all the Restrictions and Rules that Limit the Presidential War Powers according to US Law, 1973 War Powers Resolution (Act).
Shows just how much YOU DON'T Know.
Go ahead call President Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Penetta liars, 2012, "A Defense Cut of 10% will result in a Million (US) Civilians becoming Unemployed".
Too bad it is the President as Commander In Chief and the Secretary of Defense that determine the criteria for their Ordered current Reduction In Forces (RIF) of 90,000 US Military Personnel and the layoffs of 108,000 US Civilians employed by the US Military. It is and always has been the US Civilian Control of the US Military.
Again shows just how much YOU don't Know.
Try again the ONLY one's the make money are the almost hundred Million Too Expensive Overpaid US Civilians employed by the US Military Industrial Complex.
example: The US Military Industrial Complex as previously created by President FDR to get the US out of the Great Depression 1939 pays a "Fair and Living Wage" so that the labor cost is $275 paid to make a $25 Hammer with the US Taxpayers having to buy this for the US Military, instead of allowing the US Military go to Walmart and buy the same hammer for $26.. Same SH!T with the USAF Toilet Seat. And these Overpaid too expensive US Civilians love Contract Delays because that means they have Jobs longer, while the US Military ends up with Obsolete US Military Equipment.
This is also why the Chinese, Russian Federation, etc. can also spend less and get way more than what the US can get, as they still take people out and execute them for Manufacturing Delays, Contract Defaults, etc. so they get every Chinese Yuan or Russian Roubles worth.
This is why President Obama backpeddled on this previous April 2009 Defense Budget Cut of the USN (One USN CVN (Aircraft Carrier Strike Group)) as stated in his 2012 State of the Union Address, as the hundred thousand US Civilians of the US Labor Unions threatened to drive from Virginia and Strike on the steps of the Whitehouse. Of course President Obama did not tell the whole truth, as CVN -65 USS Enterprise will be decommissioned and scraped after the USS Enterprise's final current deployment; long before being replaced.
Blah, blah, blah, the only ones that benefited from Afghanistan for Strategic Location or the High Tech Mineral Wealth of Afghanistan are the Chinese, China Metalurigal Group, as negotiated away by President Obama.
Same kind of negotiations of President Obama that lost all the Iraqis Oil to the Allies of the Fundamentalist Islamic Shia Republic of Iran, the Chinese and Russian Federation. That Iraqis Oil could have paid for the US and US Allies Liberation of Iraq with Decades to Centuries of Iraqis Oil. This Loss of the Iraqis Oil made the Libyan Oil of Strategic Importance to the US European Allies.
All of you NEED to learn how to live like Fourth World Somalis; as all the Oil, and High Tech Mineral Wealth, etc. was necessary to maintain the current US High Tech Standard of Living and the Future US Alternative Energy.
Once again don't know Shiite (plural of Shia). You believe the current and Future Wars are fought with Conventional Warfare, with all kinds of Aircraft Carriers, Aircraft, hundreds of thousands of "Boots on the Ground", etc. ala WWII, Korean War Vietnam, etc..
For the longest time the Longterm Stategic Goals of the Chinese and Russian Federation has been to get the US And US Allies out of their Backyards (Resources). The Chinese and Russian Federation use of the Fundamentalist Islamic Shia Republic of Iran as their "Proxy Fighter". The Fundamentalist Islamic Shia Republic of Iran using the Islamic Jihadists from Worldwide to Overthrow the US and US Allies Worldwide. With Fundamentalist Islamic Shia Republic of Iran using their Asymmetric Warfare Forces (aka Special Forces), Quds, training the Islamic Jihadists (hundreds of thousands) currently located at the Main Islamic Jihadist Training Camp located at the Fundamentalist Islamic Autonomous Kurdistanis Region as Funded by the Trillions USDs per year from the Mandatory Islamic Tithes as "funnelled" thru "Non Established Financial Institutions" usually the Imams at the Mosques Worldwide; as per current Islamic Laws, based on the Suras of Book Two of the Holy Koran, the Mosques MUST provide Islamic Sanctuary to the Islamic Holy Warriors aka Islamic Jihadists.
Keep on attempting your Failed Deflection of Blame Game and diversionary "Illegal War of Bush" or "War Criminal" while NOT being able to show anyone the US Laws with US Congressional Appropriations of President Obama as Commander In Chief Ordered Libya, before the First US Military Actions as required by US Law. (and don't even say "No US Military Boots on the Ground" of US AFRICOM).
How about listing the United Nations Missions that most of the later Operations you listed are actually parts of as NOT Unilateral US Military Operations.
@Mike277:
I could not have said it better. /salute!
Never said they were a threat to us. As a matter of fact, with the right person in office, no one is a threat to us. I served my country honorably for 24 years. I may not have agreed with every decision, but I know what defending our freedoms costs to all involved including our families. I do not claim to know you or your motivations for any of your comments, but I was there during the first Gulf War and with just the nerve agents and chemicals Sadam had, he was a deadly threat to everyone there. While i do not agree with us being th eworld police force and never have, to allow a dictator to gas his own people and spread nerve agents on his detractors should not be allowed. What were we to do, let the UN take care of it? That is a joke. Sanctions were placed, he did not follow the rules of the sanctions. He had the full decades of the 90's to comply. But, to each his own. There are many things that have occurred over the past decade that I disagree with, but these wars I did not disagree with. Bailing out banks that set themselves up for failure with the taxpayers money, no. Bailing out auto manufacturers who refuse to get us off our dependence on oil, no. Not pulling out all of our troops immediately, no. the economy is getting better everyday, NOT! But, if called to do it again, I would stand side by side with my brothers in arms and fight to protect this nation from all who hate our way of life and would choose to do any of our citizens harm, including you, Proindividual, because that is what our military does. To forget those who have made the unltimate sacrifice and list them as just another number is an extreme dishonor to their service. Any of them were better than us for the sacrifice that they made by volunteering to protect this country.
@Trust Verify,
My indoctrination and fragile sensibilities? Oh how little you know me. I dont fit in any normal mode. Put my above statement into context with the fact that I believe Dick Cheney is the son of Satan. The man is pure evil.
I find your list a little broad, Grenada lasted all of a few days not two years, Somalia was a humanitarian mission to deliver aid to an already existing war zone. I am surprised you realize that the cold war was a real war even though never fully declared. Putting an evil face on the
US due to that list is going a bit far though. I think if you do the research you will find many other nations with a similar and much longer history.
As to your remarks about the Shah, I cant comment on what type of government was in place prior, but it is an example of mistakes we made during the cold war. It still didnt excuse the attacking and holding hostage of noncombatants. I started really learning politics about the time of the civil war in Nicaragua. Even then at my most rabid right wing thinking and wish to stop the spread of communism, I had issues with the US support of non humanitarian dictatorships.
The place where I question you the most is your comment that ignorance is bliss. War is not nice and it is not pretty but to say it is always evil is wrong. I can send the ignorance is bliss right back. In a case like Hitler or the ethnic cleansing that was going on in what was Yugoslavia it is very easy to sit back, enjoy the freedoms and safety we have, and ignore what is going on. I am not the type of person who can do that. Our own civil war which killed more people than all our other wars up till Vietnam, was horrible, but I will not regret it happened as I wouldnt want to live in a nation with the kind of institutionalized slavery we had. Even with the cold war and the bad things we did during that time, What we fought against was not communism, we were fighting against a system that if you didnt agree with the govt. you disappeared. Just look at how happy the Polish and East Germans were to get out from under Soviet rule. Again war is not pretty or nice, but sometimes needed.
As for our current wars, Afghanistan and our drone attacks in other nations are correct. How many innocents like those in the twin towers need to die if we dont fight back against terrorism? As for Iraq, that was a mistake. Saddam did have WMD's and had shown a willingness to use them ( just ask the Kurds and Iranians) but I still feel that giving sanctions more time to work along with other less direct activities was a better option. Going in with a real plan, exit or otherwise would have been nice too. But then again if you have no exit plan it is easier to enrich your buddy's in the defense industry.
I can agree with you that what we have done has not always been just or moral, but I cant agree that war isnt ever right or justified.
Hello edandbunny, as I said your indoctrination is thorough. You may want to watch 1984 as you are the poster child for adherence and willful ignorant capitulation to despotism.
Drone strikes, really. They are a violation of the Geneva convention and have given new meaning to the term collateral damage. But why wouldn't you support such abhorrent attacks against your fellow human, this contumacious drone (pun intended) behavior has successfully been inculcated in the weak minded.
Your accedence to the plunderbunds for more than likely personal comfort and perceived safety illustrates the depths to which some corners of humanity will proselytize themselves.
“I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Enjoy your slumber!
Jax, it has occurred to me that Congress didn't want to make the decision (which is their job) to go to war at all, They passed this resolution giving Bush sole discretion. Why didn't they want to declare war? Because of this resolution, Bush, as President at the time, is wholly responsible. The Iraqi War was Bush's War.
With Bush's War, came losing in Afghanistan. We had our troops spread too thin. As Chief of Staff of the Military, Obama is responsible for Osama bin Laden's death. This was the goal when we entered Afghanistan after 9/11. Obama has set a timeline for troops to all be home and he defends the time line. Obama is bring home the troops in spite of the fact that Afghanistan is deteriorating. Though it appears that we lost the war, we didn't. Obama completed the job that Bush failed to finish.
I believe that there is some research that you should do.
http://articles.cnn.com/2009-12-01/politics/obama.afghanistan_1_obama-afghanistan-strategy-afghan-forces-security-forces?_s=PM:POLITICS
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/9240356/Barack-Obama-in-Afghanistan-we-must-finish-the-job.html
http://www.voanews.com/content/obama_administration_defends_afghanistan_withdrawal_timeline/1105882.html
However, the most important piece of information can be found here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/21/obama-romney-afghanistan-war_n_1818437.html
And here is Romney's word's on the subject
http://2012.republican-candidates.org/Romney/Afghanistan.php
As for me, for all the military lost, all 2,000 of them. RIP To their families I send out my condolences.
The Office itself is the problem, not who is in it. One day maybe you'll figure that out. Psychopaths rise to the top of these hierarchal structures like helium balloons to the top of rooms. There is no coincidence that psychologists have verified that CEOs, clergy, union heads, politicians, police, and officers in the military are more likely to be psychopathic as a percentage than the general population. Psychopaths concentrate where there is low accountability and the ability to rule over others sadistically.
And the higher up in these hierarchal institutions a person is, the more likely they are psychopathic. They rise to the top, literally. They lie, cheat, cut the throat of competitors, and say whatever people want to hear. Presidents, for example, are far more likely to lack the ability to feel empathy than the average person. Read up on the psychology studies on police, Presidents, and Generals. They can laud power over innocent women and children (let alone innocent men) without any remorse...including murder them.
No person should have that kind of power, since it's so likely psychopaths will hold the Office. Institutions and laws shouldn't be made with angels in mind...they should be made with what a devil might do with them in mind. Men are not angels...and those who make it to the top of these institutions are much more akin to devils than angels.
The state (compulsory government) would not be a dangerous extortion and killing machine if men were angels...but we aren't. Hence, logically, the state is too dangerous to exist. Voluntary government would give us the benfit of government, without the drawback of monopolizing it and allowing it fall in the hands of psychopaths so often. There should be free market competition in social contracts (government) with the same geographic free territory. Panarchism (pan-anarchism) and panarchist synthesis (panarchy in economics) is much preferable and more benign (although not totaly benign) than statism and state economics.
Remember...all monopolies and monopsonies have predictable results: high costs, low quality service, and low accountability. The state monopolizes or monopsonizes law, economics, roads, defense, etc. It is not immune from the laws of science and economics that all monopolies and monopsonies are subject to. Think it through, SERIOUSLY.
I don't care what "occurred to you." If Congress didn't want Iraq, they wouldn't have voted for it.
And I've posted plenty of quotes from the democrats who believed Saddam had WMDs from 1998 (well before Bush was even in office) up until they voted for it in 2002.
Is this tricky?
Then you say:
Within one paragraph you blame Bush for losing in Afghanistan and then credit Obama for winning it. This of course, after saying Congress didn't really want Iraq, but voted for it anyway.
By all means, please keep embarrassing yourself, it makes for great entertainment.
I, having been in the military during the Nam era, am against any war except for self-defense. Egotistical and chickensh-t leaders' disagreements are the root reasons why wars are fought. Rarely do the leaders and their families fight on the front lines. No, instead they get the young and fit to fight their battles for them, while they rake in the monies from bribes from the weapons suppliers.
Now the insane warmongers want the U.S. in another war? Aren't you tired of the fraudulent-style BUSH/CHENEY warring mentality? I am. Weren't the murdering of tens or hundreds of thousands of civilians and thousands of our own military enough for them? The U.S. is already on the verge of financial collapse and they want to go to war some more? Then these warhawks must go over there, get on the front lines, and put their own azzes at risk--don't support the killing and maiming of our young men and women to satisfy their freaky ideals.
Remember: WAR IS HELL for those who live, die, and get maimed in it!
THANK YOU ALL VERY MUCH TO YOU MILITARTY MEN AND WOMEN WHO HAVE SUFFERED FOR THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA! MY MOST SINCERE CONDOLENCES TO EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU. MY DEEPEST THANK YOUS GO TO THOSE THAT HAVE GIVEN THEIR ALL, THEIR LIVES, THEIR WELL-BEING SO THAT AMERICANS CAN REMAIN FREE.
It is sad that people do not remember the fighting man and women and do what they can to see that their losses are not in vain.
I was in Vietnam 67-68 and we lost that one. That made us cautious and very much aware of how easy it is to get sucked into a situation where we lost:
But now we have lost in Iraq with 4,409 total deaths (including both KIA and non-hostile) and 31,928 wounded in action (WIA). We essentially gave Iraq as a gift to Iran.
And now we are slowlly pulling back from a loss in Afghanistan. The Army is pulling Abrams tanks out of Afghanistan because the wide flat bottom has proven to be very vulnerable to IEDs. There are now rows of 3,500 Abrams tanks in the California desert and more on the way. (Though Congress is demanding that the Pentagon take 2,000 more of the unwanted tanks.)
Why are the Republicans beating the drums for war with Iran and critisizing Obama for not getting involved in Syria? How many more of our young men and women are we going to lose in these nonsense wars?
I only have one thing to say to all you ppl blaming Bush...
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time
I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We
will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." Barrack Obama
This ill conceived war will produce nothing to our advantage, certainly nothing to justify the costs to Americans and America. After 9/11 a little payback was a good idea. Staying to nation build showed a complete disregard of history and logic.
Amen Don. Get every American out of that worthless, dirty, illiterate hate filled country now! Let these ignorant muslim scum kill each other, not Americans!
Why are we still there?????
President Bush and our Congress rightfully sent troops there for a mission that needed to be done after 9/11. President Bush pulled most troops out and he and our Congress sent troops to Iraq. We should be out of both places now. We went to Iraq to get rid of Saddam, he's gone. We went to Afghanistan to get Bin Laden, he's gone. Time to bring every troop home and let those countries take care of themselves. It is a decision that is totally in the hands of President Obama. Is he capable of making tough decisions?
Um, if you don't recall, the US supported what became the Taliban to fight the Russians during the 1980's, a war which utterly decimated Afghanistan.
One of the reasons that Afghanistan became a den for terrorists was because we didn't help to rebuild their infrastructure after we supported them in a proxy war.
The only group to pick up the pieces were people like Osama Bin Laden who utilized his family's wealth to assist in rebuilding.
We're still suffering under the stupid decisions made by Reagan...
If we were to leave Afghanistan now without making sure that their government has stabilized, they would degrade back into a festering sore on the world and will undoubtedly become our problem again in another 5-10 years.
From now on......ALL future Presidents should be REQUIRED to send their own son(s) or daughter(s) with the first wave of an attack on another nation - - - maybe only then we would have no other wars like all the unneeded ones since the only righteous one - WWII.
@parkwaync:"ALL future Presidents should be REQUIRED to send their own son(s) or daughter(s) with the first wave of an attack on another nation"
Well, that'll make it MUCH easier to get Catholic Priests & Bishops elected. Other than than... good luck.
World War 2 was "righteous"? How so? FDR let us be attacked by the Japanese so we could go fight the Germans. Hmm...
FDR started WWII - gee- what planet are you from????
11 years and only 2000 dead? At an average of 181 deaths per year, this might be the most successful and least dangerous occupation of all time!!
Consider: according to the CDC, in 2007 there were 2,194 Asian-American/Pacific Islanders deaths by "unintentional injuries". Or, if you like, about 400 more children die every year in the US from SIDS than troops that have died in 11 years Afghanistan.
Heck, I'll take it one step further: the death rate in Minnesota (home of the Mayo Clinic) is about the best in the country at 732 per 100,000, and they don't even have to worry about IEDs. Afghanistan? 181 per 100,000. ...statistically speaking, it's safer to be in Kabul than St. Paul!
Now, all death is tragic. I'm not trying to make light of anything here. But c'mon people... get some persepective!
All data taken from: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus10.pdf (PDF pages 163-172)
Did I really read that someone said we went to war in Iraq to get rid of Saddam? Come on! Don't you remember Bush went to Iraq because they were making chemical weapons (supposedly, which of course was a huge lie).
Do you not remember "weapons of mass destruction"? The biggest lie told by a politician in the 21st century. Republicans are damn liars. Did you hear that idiot Romney in the debate saying ho he was not going to reduce the taxes on the rich? Damn liars, all of them.
Uh oh, here come those pesky facts again. Just look at all those dems who thought Saddam had WMD back in 1998. Tell me, Linda, who was telling the lies back in 1998?
Jax -All those people got their information from Zionist sources, AIPAC, the Zionist media and the Mossad. The CIA didn't believe any of that bs and I am quite sure they didn't make it up in a vacuum.
JERUSALEM (AP)
— Israeli intelligence overplayed the threat posed by Iraq and reinforced the
U.S. and British assessment that Saddam Hussein had large amounts of weapons of
mass destruction, a retired Israeli general said Thursday.
The Israeli assessment may have been colored by politics, including a desire to see
the Iraqi leader toppled, said Shlomo Brom, who was a senior Israeli military
intelligence officer and is now a researcher with Israel's top strategic think
tank.
Brom told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday that "Israeli
intelligence was a full partner with the United States and Britain in
developing a false picture of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction
capability."
Brom said the Israeli assessment may have been influenced by politics. "Israel
has no reason to regret the outcome of the war in Iraq," he wrote, noting
Saddam was an implacable enemy.
So to whom do you think the Mossad was giving their false intelligence, Jax? I am going to say it was those people you listed, via AIPAC and the media. Like I said, it didn't come from American intelligence agencies.
Ralph, really? You know for a fact that that's where Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Al Gore, Madeline Albright and Sandy Berger got their intel? As soon as you adjust your tinfoil hat, please explain how you are somehow privy to this information.
Then, maybe you can explain why Bill Clinton used this intel "nobody believed" for the Desert Fox bombing of Iraq in 1998...something else the democrats seem to conveniently forget, for some strange reason.
I think the real focus should be on the fact that we have lost many great men, women, husbands, fathers, sons, wives, sisters, and daughters. Being from Tolar Tx I know the pain that this sad milestone has inflicted on my very small community. You people should be ashamed of yourselves for fighting over the reasoning behind why we are there and instead be honoring the great people from our communities that have given their lives, limbs, and functionality to support this great nation. I wish you could have seen how the town came together to fully support this great man and sad loss that has been inflicted upon us. You have all seen the need to support your own beliefs and strike down those of others but have completely forgotten about the true value of these losses, so go on pointing fingers but at least take a moment of silence for these men and women who are no longer with us that were willing to put there lives on the line for what they believed in knowing that you would not have the guts to do the same. Y'all are pitiful excuses for Americans and you make me sick! God Bless America and the soldiers who defend her. By the way if you can read this thank a teacher and if you are reading this in english THANK A SOLDIER!
Good stats Mark from Bridgeport. Sounds safer than Chicago or the stats of crime in America. We probably kill more fellow Americans with Gangs in America than Afghanistan. Maybe the troops can come home and fight the gangs. I am sure they will get out of the seat of a patrol car.
RIP all slain heros.
@Will,
No, many of us do understand. The terrorists declared war on us. Our volunteer not drafted soldiers are over there fighting terrorism on their soil so that we are less likely to have to go through another 9/11. Many of us understand and appreciate it.
Seriously? No...Really?!,
That would have been POTUS Carter, not Reagan...
That used the CIA through the ISI (Pakistan) to arm, finance, and train the Muslim radicals, including OBL...
Though, Reagan and Clinton supported these same people in Bosnia...
A lot of you keep saying that you should stay out of the ME but a lot of you are also Romney fans so I think its a bit ironic considering the fact that he's pretty pro military considering his debate the other day. I think a lot of people including the government are pretty islamophobic and were pro war in Iraq and Afghanistan and you thought that you could put a good dent into the ME with no consequence and now that it proved to be harder than you thought you want to pull out. Well there is a saying out there "YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW!"
What's sad is you really believe that brainwashed nonsense.
They're dying for COIN (Counter Insurgency)...the same failed strategy of nation building that we failed at in Vietnam and a dozen other countries. It worked once in the Phillipines...not once since. But the Black Ops love the theory, and keep throwing our brainwashed young men into the death machine rather than admit they're wrong.
Why?
Because those in power are psychopaths. Psychos are incapable of admitting they're wrong. They never take any responsibility for their failures. They are literally insane...and thereby keep doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. They are accidentally self destructive.
Statism and nationalism are mental disorders...religions. They worship the false god of the state. They demand blood sacrifice. You pray (pledge) to the cross (flag), sing the hymn (anthem) for the martyrs (those dying for wars of aggression and occupation - like Iraq, and the latter 8 years of Afghanistan), praise the prophets (Founders), listen to priests (politicians), and never question. Murder and extortion are wrong...unless the state tells you to do it. The state is your god. If your other God says something is wrong (murder, extortion, etc.), you dismiss Him, Her, or It when the state tells you to.
They aren't dying for us. They're not even DEFENDING us. That would imply DEFENSE, not offense, nation-building, occupation, and COIN. They're dying for the state and it's psycho hierarchy. ANd you cheerlead for it like a good sheep...in the flock of the faithful.
Praise the Holy State! Sing It's Praises! Never think for yourself, never question authority. Just send your kids to brainwashing centers where they take blood oaths to the state to start each day of "education". Never ask yourself what in the heck that ritual has to do with education...just teach tme being slaves is "patriotic".
You know what patriotism is? It's not nationalism. It's "love of countrymen", not "love of the state". I love you...not the government. There is nothing patriotic about loving the state. It's a monstrous murder machine. THINK...it's patriotic.
...the true patriotism, the only rational patriotism, is loyalty to our fellow countrymen ALL the time, loyalty to the government when it deserves it. It almost never deserves it.
Now go ad hominem Twain. I know that's what your illogical minds will go to first. Remember what I said about mental disorders? Probably not.
YOU WERE TOLD BEFORE AND HERE YOU ARE ONCE AGAIN SLINGING SH!T ALL OVER THE PLACE ABOUT THINGS YOU HAVE NO EXPERIENCE WITH.
During Operation Cyclone we supported the Pro US Afghan Refugees that fled to the Mountains of Afghanistan and the Afghan Refugee Camps at Pakistan, about 1/3rd of the Afghan Population. After extensive Vetting to prevent USSR Counter Intelligence Agents, USSR intelligence assets and Insurgents, we trained them, armed them and lead them into Combat.
During the USSR 40th Army Occupation's Total Conventional Warfare, it did not matter which Afghans they massacred, Pro USSR, Pro US, Neutral; if you were an Afghan you were dead. So the Pro USSR Afghans fled to the USSR Backed Fundamentalist Islamic Shia Republic of Iran and got Fundamentalist Islamic Sanctuary. As a duty to their Host, Iran, many of these Pro USSR Afghans also fought in the Iran Iraq Wars.
AFTER the USSR 40th Army were defeated as Operation Cyclone. The US Abandoned the US Ally 1980s Pro US Afghan Muhajeen, as US Congress refused to believe Senator Charles Wilson, Democrat Texas and his pleas of money to help the US Ally 1980s Pro US Afghan Muhajeen to rebuild 20th Century Afghanistan back to the "Little America" that it was as built up previously by the US during the 1950s till 1979.
The Pro USSR Afghans returned from the USSR Backed Fundamentalist Islamic Shia Republic of Iran, with the majority of them becoming Fundamentalist Islamic Believers after living for years under Fundamentalist Islam (including the Islamic Law Enforcers). They become the 1990s Fundamentalist Islamic Taliban. Upon returning they start implementing their Fundamentalist Islamic Laws (Sharia, Hadith), and in accordance with the Holy Koran (Quran) start their massacres of All Collaborators to the Christians, Jews, Unbelievers, being 1/3rd of the Afghan Population; ESPECIALLY, the US Ally 1980s Pro US Afghan Muhajeen.
This is why the current Afghans Allied to the US have such Abandonment Issues.
This is also why there are so many problems as far as Land Ownership. Land abandoned during the USSR 40th Army Occupation, Squaters, then the returns of the surviviors that owned the Land. And then the Fundamentalist Islamic Taliban's Forced Wealth Distributions mostly to other Fundamentalist Islamic Afghans, after they massacred many Afghans.
ProIndividual-3906907,
You don't even attempt to know the WHY, just fling feces and hope it sticks to something.
3% of the 1% of the US Citizens of the US Military are actually trained and experienced in Asymmetric Warfare, the Majority of 97% are Conventional Warfare Only. This is because US Congress loves all the US Military Conventional Warfare US Military Equipment manufacturered at Their States (Civilian Jobs); as opposed to investing in the retentions (over 20 years) and training up of the US Military Conventional Warfare Forces to Asymmetric Warfare that takes Decades (including College Level language(s) and culture(s) for their Area(s) of Operation(s)). This Asymmetric Warfare Training is only to make it so that you survive long enough to gain Operational Experience. This is why the average age of US Military Asymmetric Warfare Forces is age 35 and up. It is usually about year 15 of serving with the US Military Asymmetric Warfare Forces that most become Physically worn out or just quit this extremely harsh life or death career field (most have already served about 6 years in the US Military Conventional Warfare Forces before being selected and sponsored as Candidates to become US Military Asymmetric Warfare). This is the reason why the few of us left that survived from the almost thousand since Operation Cyclone and the US Military Training Teams attached to the CIA's SAD/SOG to US Ally Iraq during the Iran Iraq Wars are continuely recalled to active duty in the special category, since our replacements were never trained due to the Cut to the Bone Reduction In Forces of the US Military as Ordered by President Clinton (reason for our "@!$%#ty attitudes" and get it done so we can go home and be Civilians again; Results matter, Excuses don't.).
ProIndividual-3906907,
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana
Winston Churchill is also credited with the variation:
"Those that fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it"
A persons reality is determined by their life's experiences and the environment they exist in...
I have had the pleasure to travel the world and continue to do so. The one thing that has always stood out...
Everyone wants the same things;
1. To live in a safe environment, with food and shelter...
2. The ability to earn a living to support their family...
3. To enable their children to have a better future...
When these things are threatened, they will do what-ever it takes to obtain them...
If YOU are perceived as the threat, you are their enemy. Even if you are there to sussposidly help them...
The reality of someone living in one area is nothing like the reality of someone from another area...
This is the underlying problem, when a person goes into a foreign land...
When a US Business person, tries to do business in Asia, the Asian Business person wants/needs to talk family ties and history. Many deals have fallen through, because the people involved did not understand the others motivations or social norms...
Whether you use COIN or business terms, you have to understand where the other person is coming from. When you try to force your reality on them, they will only fight harder to remove your influences...
BTY - 26+USMC and I did not support the way the US Army did/does things, in Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan. The US Marines had their own methods that have WORKED in their areas...
Bush & the UK turned the Afghanistan 'Nation Building' over to the UN and 52+other countries during Dec 2001. Bush may have understood the history of the area, or it may have been POLITICS. IMO it was the correct move then and it should the same now...
david-475776,
How is retirement treating you???
War is like business or making love...
Once you convince them your advances are for their enhancement. Everyone has fun...
Or you can force the issue and bear the consequences...
The use of drones fits Obama's approach; lacking the personnel touch and ACCOUNTABILITY. The US Citizens working overseas and @ home will be bearing the consequences of this for DECADES to come.....
@Pro individual
Say what you will, I would rather see trained soldiers fighting terrorism at its source than seeing another attack like 9/11 happen on US soil. As for rebuilding, I am not sure what anyone thinks we are going to rebuild in Afghanistan. There wasnt any kind of real infrastructure there to begin with. Some areas were ruled by the Taliban while others were ruled by the local warlords. Add to that the fact that there are those in the middle east who will hate us no matter what we do.
God, you guys are brainwashed.
Say it with me:
The state monopolizes a populace's DEMANDED services and goods, both in production and distribution. How would ending the state (the coerced monopoly) mean that demand ends? If the demand for defense, roads, laws, etc. doesn't end, then wouldn't it logically be met by supply in the market, WITHOUT a monopoly?
The state didn't invent clean water. It didn't invent property. It didn't invent law or defense. It RUINED them. Their coerced monopoly, like all monopolies, causes higher prices, lower quality service, and no accountability.
Why did the water get polluted on a vast scale?
The state decided corporations who piad more extortion (taxes) than you did individually was better for the "collective good" (their collective good, not ours), and therefore it was in the "public interests" (their coffers, not ours) to allow them to pollute. They literally have court cases you can look up in both the USA and England where corporations were told they were allowed to pollute, BY THE STATE. Individual rights, like property, were trampled for the "good of the collective". The state doesn't protect property or health, they create the problem then offer you the cure for the disease they created. Wake up.
Property rights?
Anthropolgists have proven they have existed for 10s of thousands of years due to the agrarian economic revolution (previous to the industrial revolution), due to specialization in farming to tailor itself to trade. All property, including land property, predate the state by thousands of years.
Law?
Pre-existed the state by 194,000 years. It was monopolizing it in a geographic area that led to the state...and to nothing taking the place of the monopoly upon it's INEVITABLE life-cycle related collapse. The chaos that ensues when a state collapses is because of their monopoly...as when stateless societies had a law giving service collapse the market simply replaced them by increasing market share to one of their simultaneous competitors. So blame the chaos and lawlessness (anomie) in the aftermath of the collapse of a state on the state itself, not statelessness. Clearly, logically, this is another example of the state causing a disease, and then playing hero when offering a cure to it (in this case, setting up another state).
Defense?
Predates the state by thousands of years as well. Again, when not monopolized it was more efficient and less prone to offensive atrocities. It only ended via genocide (like england's genocide of 40% of the anarchic Irish population). But states are subject to that same criticism (many states end via genocide and invasions), so that in no way is an argument against statelessness and its higher efficiency, cost effectiveness, freedom of choice, better services, and higher accountability.
In the end folks, your brainwashing prevents you from thinking for yourselves, and questioning authority. You pray to the god the state...it is your religion. You refuse to look into alternatives.
The state is siad by some to be a necessary evil...then why do you NEVER seek ways to make it unnecessary? Do you like evil? Do you not worship it currently, in fact? Some of you wish to expand evil, logically. It's disgusting, and a product of intellectual dishonesty, willful ignorance, and embracing of your mental slavery.
The state makes you safe?
So overthrowing a democratic Iran in the 1950s had NOTHING to do with the Iran Hostage Crisis? That didn't give rise to the current Islamist regime? That didn't cause our current problems? Vietnam was a justified self defense...really? Korea? Beruit? We didn't antagonize Japan for decades by forcing them with our military to trade with us for oil against t heir will, then cutting them off the oil while in an existential precarious situation when in a war with China, forcing them to bomb us to break the embargo? We didn't CHOOSE WW1? We didn't cause Hitler to rise from hail cell after a failed coup to the top of t heir nation's state via bankrupting Germany and forcing them into hyper-inflation and collapse with WW1's Treaty of Versailles?
You mean to tell me you don't see (or don't choose to see) that the state makes us less safe with it's interventions overseas? You didn't notice that supporting the Taliban and what would later become Al Queda when they fought Russia didn't arm a later enemy? You didn't notice Bin Laden used to be a CIA asset? You didn't notice we encouraged Saddam to invade Iran in the Iran-Iraq war? You didn't notice we turned a blind eye to his chemical weapoins then, but cried wolf about them and used them as an excuse to invade in the 2nd Gulf War? You didn't notice all we did in the 1st Gulf War was put a billionair Amir (Prince) back on his THRONE in Kuwait? You really don't notice that almost all our wars are in oil rich, or some natural resource rich, nations in the Middel East and Asia? You don't notice foreign aid is taking money from our poor and middle class to give to the rich of other countries, so we can bribe them into submission? You don't notice that a "friend" or "ally" you have to pay isn't really your friend at all?
You reall don't comprehend that 9/11 was caused by us occupying foreign lands and bribing foreign puppet regimes to be our puppet states when they are domestically highly unpopular over there? You really think crazy Islamist Preachers weren't preaching this hate for hundreds of years...and didn't notice they couyldn't find recruits until we gave them recruitment tools via our unpopular interventions over there? The can't recruit without our actions! The KKK is also a Congressionally declared terrorist organization...since the 1860s BTW...but do we occupy the South? Do we kill every KKK member as a solution? Or do we do the opposite? Ignore and stop intervening, and let failed violent ideas and speech cease to recruit en masse because we stop maing them look like a message worthy of mass sympathies? Ask yourself...why did the ideas of the KKK fail to win recruits, and fail to win men to commit terrorism? Clue: It was because we DIDN'T occupy them or kill ALL of them..it was because we said "look how overdramatic and ridiculous these violent idiots are", and simply locking up the criminals who acted out as terrorists.
I would rather see a non-monopolized trained force fighting those who harm us...not those who say ugly things with stupid, even violent, IDEAS. I want them to stop encouraging people to hate us. They hate us for a reason...and it isn't religion mostly, our wealth, or our rights. It isn't even our culture. It's because we keep killing them!!!!
When asked if our sanctions (that didn't work) on Iraq in the 1990s were worth it, even though they killed half a million Iraqi children via starvation and disease (because we banned the shipments of food and medicine under Clinton), Secretary of State Madeline Albright answered without hestitation:
Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: "We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?"
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it."
--60 Minutes (5/12/96)
This is the clergy of your religion...psychopaths. Your god the state is cruel, and makes cruel followers...statists. These are who lead you in state worship...this is the god you REALLY follow. You aren't athesists...your god is the state. You are Christians, Muslims, or Jews...your god is the state. All athiest and religious morals (ethics) say murder and extortion are wrong...but when your god the state says it's okay, via the state clergy, you throw all morality right out the window.
Shame on you all. War makes boys who are soldiers, and citizens caught in the rationalizations and excuses for their state's actions, into monsters. Remorse makes those boys into men.
When will the citizenry start to grow a conscience?
THINK...it's patriotic (the only real patriotic act left).
Fool, he is also talking about Romney.
But he is a candidate therefore he is also a psychopath, according to the author. That is what I am pointing out. A vote for Romney is a vote for putting another psychopath in the Executive Office per this author. I guess you didn't understand this as you were reading.
every American has seen and lived the loss of all 2000 except the politicians in congress who want this war to go on so they can fill their pockets.stop this insanity.
Jax - Bill Clinton got his information on WMD from the PNAC Letter sent to him in 1998 by the Zionist/neoconservatives in that "think tank" (Progress For A new American Century), urging him to attack Iraq and replace Saddam Hussein. That letter is the first use of the term WMD of which I am aware.
You can look up PNAC Letter yourself and see who signed the letter. Hint: it was a whole bunch of Jewish people, many of which ended up in the Bush Pentagon.
These people and Jewish writers from the NY Times, such as Judy Miller, wrote many stories about Iraq being responcible for the anthrax attacks, 9/11 and uranium from Niger, aluminum tubes, meetings of Atta in Prague and a whole bunch of other lies.
There is no question Zionists were behind the march to war with Iraq. What is worse, is the fact that Zionists were involved in 9/11, right up to their eyeballs. Those towers were brought down with nano thermite explosives in controlled demolitions. Even a fool could tell Bldg 7 was a controlled demolition. Silverstein, the owner even says "pull it", just before it goes down. It is on video tape.
He insured all 3 buildings for billions against a terror attack in July, before 9/11. Wow, what a lucky break.
The reason:
http://www.sptimes.com/2004/08/15/Columns/Israel_s_pipe_dream__.shtml
Once the Pentagon's choice to lead the "new" Iraq, Chalabi
promised to reopen an old British-built pipeline from Kirkuk in northern Iraq
to the Israeli port of Haifa. The plan impressed Richard Perle, Douglas Feith
and other conservatives influencing Bush administration policy toward Iraq in
the lead-up to last year's war.
The idea also drew enthusiastic response from Israel.
"The pipeline would be a dream," Yosef Paritzky, Israel's minister
of infrastructures, said as reported by Salon.com. "We'd have an
additional source of supply, and could even export some of the crude through
Haifa. But we'd need a treaty with Iraq . . . to build the pipeline."
Once Chalabi assumed a position of influence in
the new Iraqi government, Israel would get its treaty, the neoconservatives
were assured.
I remember every day of my life. My husband is in the Army and I have a brother in law about to deploy for 9 plus months with his Brigade in the next few months. Its just another broken Obama promise.
you remember every day of your life? Like June 16th 1994 - what did you have for lunch?
Over the past four years and beyond Americans such as me and others have been asking, then demanding an answer to this question. WHY ARE WE IN AFGHANISTAN?
A better question is why so long? Another question... what did we learn from the past ten or so years? The same thing the Russians learned. These ragheads cannot be modernized.
These tribal areas are not capable of becoming civilized. They are unable because they are simply throwbacks to a time when murder, looting, rape violence and subjugation ruled their world.
Karzai and his thugs have sucked the life blood out of their tribal area, not one useful event has taken place in the ten years America has been squandering its national treasure in this hell hole. TWO THOUSAND deaths... every one of them unnecessary, every one of them a tragic statement of the stupidity of the so called POLITICIANS who sent these lovely people to their death half way around the world.
And the question still unanswered is WHY ?
WHY did we go ? Why did we stay ten years ? WHY ??? answer me all of you guilty politicians who sent these beautiful Patriotic Americans to a sure death at the hands of infidels. WHY ?
Afghanis have no sewer systems, no water purification plants to speak of, no intention of growing food to feed themselves but plenty of incentive to grow poppies, plenty of incentive to mutilate their young women, plenty of incentive to remain a tribal area.
That is good... let them stay a tribal area... AMERICA the Beautiful does not need to be caught in the common wars between people who hate each other and are not a cohesive group. These people have never invented a single labor saving device, they have never put a medicine on the market to cure or control any disease, they have never built a decent road, only the very powerful (IE men with armies) can survive in this sand pile of human waste.
There has never been an Afghani who wrote a literary piece, not an Afghani who developed a cure for any disease, not an Afghani who built decent housing, built shops or mall, none of that has happened.
These people have lived like nomads, like gypsies, like ragheads, like tribal members for thousands of year.
Why does the US Government in its stupidity believe that now these people who live on in the belief that they are somehow going to find a better life in the BEYOND ever be taught civility, morality and integrity and honesty?"
They cannot, they resist and they should. America has no business being in their country.
Immediate withdrawal is such an obvious answer but NO the politicians like that miserable excuse for a Secretary of State and the absolutely despicable "Ambassador' Susan Rice push for more deaths, more violence more diminishment of our national treasures. They should be arrested and tried for crimes against America and shot or hung for their evil acts, their lies, their conflictions and their damn fool comments.
Remember American citizens do not start wars, they only die in them.
It is the politicians who start wars because of their limited abilities to know when to stay out of something and their foolish belief that they can 'enlighten' or save the poor fools whose land we choose to 'save!
Uh, huh. Mock outrage, Josh Brogan. You were told before and all you could do was start name calling.
How about this after we get back from northwest US AFRICOM, and maybe get to go back on our cancelled CONUS R&R and Leaves, then you can come with us to live with the Afghans again for years of consecutive tours like we were doing before we finally got R&R and Leaves (off Mission Status, on Training Status, 80-90% training for our next missions, 5% family time, 1-2% individual time (f**k off time, and the rest of % attending memorial services.).
You are just like the US Politicians REFUSE to listen to those of few of us that have survived since Operation Cyclone; instead most of you are more worried about if McDonalds will still have McRib sandwiches or in the US Politicians case which Lobbyists or Special Interest Group will be buying their thousand USD "lunch" today.
David - I already told YOU why we went to Afghanistan. It was to provide security against the Taliban, so Israel could have the TAPI gas pipeline.
www.rense.com/general15/game.htm
On December 11, a
preliminary agreement was signed in Turkmenistan’s capital, Ashgabat, by
representatives of the four countries to proceed with plans for the American
and Israeli-backed pipeline. Here are the basic points about the TAPI pipeline:
Construction of
pipeline will be completed by 2014
1,680 kilometer gas
pipeline will supply 3.2 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day (much of
this gas will come from Israeli/Mossad-owned gas fields in Turkmenistan,
meaning immense profits for the Mossadniks who pulled of 9/11)............►The Obama
administration, elected on the promise to withdraw U.S. troops by July 2011,
now says the U.S. will maintain combat troops in Afghanistan until December
2014. On December 17, the House passed a defense authorization bill (by a
341-48 vote) that authorizes the Pentagon to spend more than $160 billion on
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2011 without major restrictions on the
conduct of operations. Why are U.S. (and NATO) troops being kept in Afghanistan
for another 4 years? What's really going on there? What is the cost and who is
involved in this game??
The real reason for the U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan is to build and
secure a 1,080-mile long gas pipeline designed to carry trillions of dollars of
Israeli-owned gas from Turkmenistan to Pakistan and India.
How about a comment, David? Try not to make it so long winded and you can leave out the words asymmetrical warfare and arse.
RIP, Sargent. And yes, I do pay attention. 2 of my children are in the military.
The US had admirable intentions and the military executed the intial stages almost flawlessly AND then we let the White House and other Washington fat cats get invovled and it gets ALL screwed up. we took the fight to a "nation" use the term loosely, that was harboring terrorists and Osama himself. We have some minor victories but they were heavily paid for and finally got the Big Fat Rat himself. They did not die in vain andto say so now would dishonor thier sacirfices and memories. 1999 or 2000, it doesnt matter. All heroes, All volunteers, All doing thier duty when called upon. Dont ever forget that.
Yes we need to bring our brave troops home.
No matter what our brave military are following orders and doing their jobs, and I'm proud of them, and Thank Them for their service, their sacrifices and that of their families!
I keep them in my thoughts and prayers!
I'll be at his funeral.
People are paying attention a lot more than the media suggests. I don't know why they can't bring them all home NOW and are waiting till 2014. Most of the Afghans don't want us there. They never have and never will. And until the ones that want change are willing to stand up and fight for it themselves, it'll be a never ending battle for anyone who tries to "help" them by doing it for them.
billi934
You might want to check a couple of articles that appeared last week on Afghanistan and the troop withdrawal. The articles talk about the sagging economy as the troops and support staffs leave. There is no one else spending money, because they have none. It is either stolen from them by the Taliban or by their government. The people of Afghanistan do want us there because when we leave, the progress that has been made in women's rights and education of children will be reversed as the Taliban once again struggles to power. The Iraqi's wanted us to stay too, because they new of the sectarian violence that would erupt as soon as the last troops crossed into Kuwait. My son served in Iraq, some of his friends also served in Afghanistan, and one thing rings true in both instances, the common people understand that while the troops are there they are protected and relatively safe from attack, but when the troops are gone there will no longer be anyone to protect them. It is the governments and the media that want us to leave not the common people.
archangel316
Only those on the U.S. dole and kept in power by the U.S. military want us to stay, so that they can reap $billions ($trillions?) more from the American taxpayers. And, by the way, the Afghanis were making a great income (before the U.S. destroyed it) cultivating poppies and providing drugs to satisfy America's demand. As long as this demand continues, Afghanistan can make it on their own. Then too, Afghanistan has vast sources of natural resources for the west to plunder. Maybe that is really why we are there?
Absolutely horrible!!! Time to bring our men and women home.
The 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate should feel great about himself.
The whole middle east is one big stinky toilet. Get out and never go back!
We have an idiot in charge that has quadrupled the rate of our fatalities in Afghanistan. Our "Commander in Chief" has already doubled the former administrations numbers in half the time. The kicker, he won the Nobel Peace Prize...WTF
I'm sure he will announce troop withdrawals in time for the election. Don't let him fool you.
Let your conscience guide you come November people.
Nobel putz prize, what a joke.
It is an insult to the people who fight there that the war barely registers with most people any more. Get out. NOW!!! There is NO rationale for staying any longer. The fratricide you see playing out there should be the signal that the time to go is NOW!
Has the NEWS MEDIA noticed that American citizens are screaming for the return of our troops IMMEDIATELY, but the news is refusing to report that? Our own government is sweeping the deaths of our soldiers under the rug, primarily because it's an election year. None of the candidates (at least the ones invited to debate) have said one word about getting our troops out of Afghanistan! America is sick and tired of this 'police action', and it has become Obama's Vietnam, but he (Obama) refuses to acknowledge that he can do something about it BUT WON"T!!!
To expand on Billi934, the people do not think of the sacrifice of our military. There are only 14 coomments on this thread and the press is no where. Politics are funny in that the last President, and us that are concerned, saw everyday the death count in the news papers. Not so any longer. The reason????????????? Bring them home or flatten the land!!!!!!!
Leave first, then flatten
Your head needs to be flattened! Your idiocy will keep these wars going because you can't see the big picture.
Time to go.
Even Obama can see that with his IQ.
I think readers need to be honest about something here. If Bush were still in the White House there would be demonstrations in the streets 24/7, but since it is the darling of the Left living there, there is a reluctance to protest the continuation of the war lest it reflect adversely on his judgement and, therefore, his elect- ability next month. Yes, Obama inherited the war but that's like saying Nixon inherited the war in Vietnam in 1969 and bears no responsibility for continuing it till 1972. Just sometimes, reality is uncomfortable to confront.
In 1843, the British army chaplain Rev G.H. Gleig wrote a memoir of the disastrous (First) Anglo-Afghan War, of which he was one of the very few survivors. He wrote that it was "a war begun for no wise purpose, carried on with a strange mixture of rashness and timidity, brought to a close after suffering and disaster, without much glory attached either to the government which directed, or the great body of troops which waged it. Not one benefit, political or military, was acquired with this war. Our eventual evacuation of the country resembled the retreat of an army defeated”. [10]
They really shouldn't have been sent in in the first place.
Obama is a lying war criminal, just like Bush. There IS no difference. Afghanistan is an open sewer just like the sewer Obama grew up in.
Wow you gathered he's a war criminal from what? Racist much?
Didn't we pretty much quit keeping count when The One (President Stinky aka BO) was immaculated? Why is it being brought up now? Is it because he's black? Leave him alone!!! Even Code Pink has moved on. They quit protesting the wars once Bush was gone. Oh sure, they did dress up like Hillary, Michelle O, and Nancy Pelosi at the RNC, but other than that, where they been?
steve- BO ended our war in Iraq and the drawdown has begun in Afghanistan.
I, myself, would like everyone at home tomorrow, but I can appreciate the balanced approach: now we have a plan, we have an exit strategy and we're moving forward with it with modest support from military leaders (which BO probably wouldn't get from leaving tomorrow)
Code Pink has moved on; now they're going to Pakistan, against State Dept. warnings, to protest US drone bombings. Is that what you were hoping for?
D, BO did not end the war in Iraq, he simply followed the exit strategy of bush. the military "leaders" are not there on the front lines, fuk what they think bring our troops home tomorrow! if obama wont then he should not be given another term. It was one fo the main promises he made, and the main reason most voted for him (other than the stupidity of ragin palin).
Well, D'uh! The Bush people set the tone for the War when they forbid pictures of our dead soldiers returning to home and when our great leader, in the face of this great struggle, told us all to go shopping.
Gone are the days of sacrifice that the greatest generation endured during WWII. Food rations, gas rations and critical products were removed from the free market so that they could contribute to the war effort.
Today conservatives would call these rations an infringement on our freedom.
I personally wish we had rationing, I wish our conservative voices were eager to contribute with more taxes to pay for these wars instead of lowering them. Its insane to me. As if we never learned a thing from 'Greatness'.
Who told the press to stop doing body counts on the nightly news when Obama was elected?
Who sent MORE troops to Afghanistan in 2009?
if you truely care about the troops you will not vote for romney or obama this coming election. if you truely care for where our country is heading you will not vote for any democrat or repulican this election. it is time for all of america to vote third party candidates in. vote for every third party and independent on the ballot come this next election. vote for johnson as president if you want true change and american first politics. its time for the democratic and republican parties to go the way of the dinosaur!
My father was buried with a flag draped coffin. He was one of the oldest survivors of the Normandy Invasion...
Having to deal with the PRESS, would not have been welcome, and BOTH myself and my brother are veterans...
The POLITICIANS and PRESS are trying to make the grieving of a family over their lost ones, a public issue...
When they are the ones ultimately responsible for sending them to their death...
IMO - POTUS George Bush did the correct thing. We ALL know that both Clinton and Obama are narcissistic publicity hounds and any PRESS coverage is good for them...
I feel as though grieving for our soldiers should be a national debate. Of course the families of the lost are aware of the losses, but the same argument could not be made for the millions of citizens who are clueless to our loss. If our soldiers never die in war, then what's the harm in war, right? Keep on sending them.
The Proud and the Brave gone to soon. RIP! Wars are made to be terrible so they don't happen. Don't occupy or police, destroy everthing of value and they will find out who their friends are. The enemy would sacrifice all their women and children to keep themselves alive.
Forgot - istan ? NBC how low you stoop ......These lost souls will never be forgotten. Was that meant to honor our fallen men and women? Is so you have a very skewed view of what honor is ....seems more like an insult.
Did you not read the article? It stated that Forgot-istan is what service members in Afghanistan started calling it after we went into Iraq. It's dark, but it's (unfortunately) acurate.
LOL, PV, you are clueless.
Never be forgotten? lol yeah, they will be, well for those very few that were known. The others were never known and so will not be remembered forever.
What a clueless thing to say.
Be accountable ....is Be-ing a dik ....You don't have to know someone's name or know them personally to honor their commitment to their country ....You're an idiot
Well, when Bush left Office, the Great One, was going to bring the Troops home, and all would be well. And WE did, MOSTLY, get out of Iraq...but the Death Rates in the Rockpile have tripled, but the Media Coverage has been (hah) strangely quiet on that fact. Some units went VFR direct from Iraq to Afghanistan...sorry, but I see no value in a continued prescence in Afghanistan. A Fellow soldier likened it to "trying to tach a Chimp to write." both very UN-politically correct, but afterawhile there, I began to understand the wellsprings of that frustration he was voicing...
Captain Night, you don't understand. Our mission is to rid Afganistan of the Taliban, in order to build the TAPI gas pipeline for Israel. The pipeline will not be completed until 2014, so we have to stay. We will end up keeping a contingent there for a lot longer in order to protect the pipeline even after it is finished. We have to do the Zionist bidding, even if it means our soldiers are being killed. This is all for Israel. They do not risk their own soldiers lives. Let gentiles die and get maimed, after all, they are not the chosen people.
Oil companies proposed the pipeline in 1995, but
it dropped off their agenda after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan the
following year. The plan was revived after the United States-led invasion of
Afghanistan in 2001, and received backing from the Asian Development Bank,
which financed feasibility studies.
Iran can sell gas to India at a third the price of Turkmenistan. Israel owns the gas rights in Turkmenistan.
Ralph,, I'm beginning to think you have plenty of stock and interests in this pipeline. You seem to have only one train of thought. Go back to your recliner and let the real warriors fight for you.
gunner - The purpose of my posts is to inform people about the real reasons we went into Afghanistan and Iraq. Those reasons were never to fight terrorism. We are there fo Israel's economic enrichment.
The war in Iraq was for a 42" oil pipeline from Iraq to Haifa in Israel and the war in Afghaistan is for the TAPI gas pipeline. It is important that the American people realize we are being used by Zionists to further Israel's goals, not America's welfare.
I already served my time in the US armed services . Perhaps you should get your head out of your own rectum and learn something, tough guy.
I will help you. Here is a start.
http://www.rense.com/general29/perl.htm
http://www.serendipity.li/iraqwar/ignoble_liars.htm
http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_conc1.htm
http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_conc2.htm