There have been tangents coming off recent threads about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I wanted to comment on them. Rather than continue to lead the threads astray, I decided to start a new topic.

The problem I have had with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from the beginning has been that they have been advertised as "wars on terror."

I'm no military mastermind by any stretch, but I really have a hard time believing there is any hope of defeating a tactic, as opposed to a real, tangible enemy. There is no point at which we will ever be able to say, "Well, that's it. We finally killed the last terrorist. We can go home now."

With no clear, defined objectives, these wars can only lead to the continued senseless loss of too many young Americans, not to mention countless tax dollars at a time when we can least afford it.

No doubt, we all saw the story about the recent security leak that allowed accounts of apparent "war crimes" (whatever the hell that means) being committed by American troops to be exposed to public view. As horrible as it is to think that our troops might have murdered numerous innocent civilians, I'm not sure they could be faulted for doing so. When you declare war against terrorists (as opposed to the armies of an enemy nation, for example), how can you possibly be sure about whom you should or should not consider your enemy? Sounds a lot like the dilemma our troops faced all too often in Vietnam, and I probably don't need to remind anyone of how Vietnam turned out for us.

I'm one of those who believes that in this case, the best way to support our troops is to bring them back home safe. I'm fairly certain at this point that more Americans have died in this war effort than might have been killed in the next 50 years' worth of terrorist attacks. By reacting the way that we have to the cowardly attacks of 9/11 (committing hundreds of billions to a war effort and huge, additional sums to homeland security measures) , we are falling right into the trap the terrorists set for us.

No doubt, there are some viewpoints out there that conflict with mine, and I'd be interested in hearing them. Please have at it.

NO. A "War on Terrah" against an enemy that WANTS to die cannot be won militarily, IMO.

I don't think we're falling into any 'trap' set by the terrorists either FF. War is BIG business and business is good.

There is no way to 'win' the War on Terrah...and I think those who instigated it knew that going in, endless war in the Middle East was their plan, not the inevitable byproduct of their plan.

Endless money flowing from the taxpayers to the pockets of a handful of contractors, and endless bloodshed, blood from the "terrorists", blood from our men and women in the armed forces, and probably more blood from innocents than both of those combined.

Anyone who thinks we should reduce spending to cut the deficit, especially if they think the best way to do that is to cut taxes, but doesn't support getting our troops home asap and stop the hemorrhaging of blood and money there is a sack of crap that needs to be issued a suit of body armor made out of tissue paper and sent out to the front lines to support their war.

Fish on...

Todd

Of course we can win it! We just need a little more time... and a little more money.

Why do you hate America?

I absolutely agree with those of you who have suggested that it is no accident that we have gotten stuck in these wars indefinitely. I initially opted to leave my conspiracy theories (of which the list seems to be growing daily, commensurate with the list of legislators being made examples of) out, but now that the flood gates have been opened....

What Todd said, especially the last paragraph...well the 2nd paragraph too.

We spend more on weapons than the next top FIFTEEN military powers combined. Tell me how it's not reasonable to HALF this?

When the GOP and Tea Baggers start advocate this, I'll believe they really care about the deficit, rather than the partisan battle with the Dems/Obama.

When the DEMS get the spine to stand up to the "patriotic police" who show up the instant anyone suggests bringing the troops home is somehow un-american, then I'll believe they deserve to run something other than a public library.

What we have now is the inept and the insane, arguing over who gets to hold the remote control.

OK now the one word game........... OIL..........they have it, we use it, we do not want to drill or otherwise for our own. So we send billions of dollars each year purchasing oil to people who want to kill us with weapons and people financed with OUR OWN MONEY.

So as a simple farm boy I ask you big city geniuses............ what part of stupid don't you get ?

No we cannot "win" a battle against religious fanaticism.
I've been against this decade long crusade based on beliefs of fiscal conservatism and the precious lives of our young men and women.

As I said in another thread, I watched a friend bury his son on Sunday, one of the most heart wrenching afternoons of my life.
When you watch a father take a shovel and with tears running down his cheeks throw that first load of dirt on his son, well it brings this whole middle eastern clusterf*ck home in a way that newspapers, & tv cannot convey.

While there are some fat cat defense contractors that profited heavily from these wars, I do not believe that Bush and Cheney are so evil as to plot an eternal war for profit.
I think that they thought that we would have this mess mopped up in short order with our "legendary super power weaponry", much like we did in the first Iraq invasion.
I think there is a just a tad of partisan hatred skewing thoughts to the contrary.

Winning a war against religious fanatacism would be virtually impossible...which is still easier to win than this war.

Fish on...

Todd

Don't know how to imbed a myspace video, but here is what those kids are dealing with over there.

My friend's son was lost to one of these IEDs.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=26506048

FleaFlickr02,

Some very good posts in this thread. Maybe we should bundle them together and send to Obama and Congress.

Thanks Salmonella. Didn't realize IEDs had gotten so big!

Here's my take: We already lost the war on terror. We lost this war when the US passed the Patriot Act. We lost it when Bush did away with the Constitutional Writ of Habeus Corpus. We lost it when we created the Dept. of Homeland Security and the TSA. We lost it when so many Americans decided to prefer security (or the lip service embellishments of it) to liberty. We lost the war on terror before the first American serviceman fatality or the first billion dollars was spent on the war effort.

War has always been profitable for some. And those who profit from it are highly motivated to keep on keepin' on. I agree with Salmonella that Bush isn't evil enough to plan an eternal war for profit, but he's very probably dumb enough to. But I differ in regards to Cheney. Well, he's one of the few people on the planet that is actually evil enough, sort of like Saddam H.

There are similarities between Vietnam and the Iraq and Afghan wars that don't seem to get the required attention. We aren't fighting an identifiable army in an identifiable country. We are fighting an idea. The idea of Islamic extremists appears to be that the U.S. and western religion and Christianity in particular are totally at odds with their ideals and must be eliminated. A lesser but significant tangent to this is that the U.S. is seen as intolerably evil for supporting Israel and thereby supporting Muslim Palestinian oppression. You cannot defeat an idea. You might be able to suppress it temporarily. And the idea may change over time, which is what happened in the case of Vietnam, since Communism eventually collapsed internally, and now most Communist or former Communist nations are our allies or trading partners. It's a strange world for sure.

Sg

Afganistan was the rush to decline for the old Soviet Union. Looks like history repeating itself again. We didn't learn anything from the French occupation of Viet Nam either.
In the Abab countries they have been killing each other over religious beliefs for thousands of years and will still be doing that long after we pull our troops out.
I think the idea of pulling out our troops and letting those who support these "wars" take thier place. On thier own dime of course.

It collapsed because they could not win. It took new leadership to recognize that. Fifty years ago, we were doing drop and cover drills and since then the 24 hour flights loaded with nuclear weapons came to an end.

No one wanted to deal with Hitler and let him invade nearby countries. I dont see much difference here. You wont change much by allowing the people who want to leave and are able to leave, to come to the US and Canada and escape. It only delays the revolution in those countries that must take place. Those that come here, to assimulate Americans into the Muslim faiths, are doing so peacefully and we will regret it. .02

they said the same things about the italians, irish, chinese, etc.

too bad the right-wing is now pushing this "fear the brown people" strategy.

Topwater, Its too bad you have to associate skin color to any particular religion. I never did that.

no, you just want to ban muslims from immigrating to the US.

the right wing has been playing crap black racism stories, muslim fear mongering, and illegal hispanic immigrant hysteria to drum up the crazy base for this november's election. but it's really not about race...

to single out a group due to race or religion is anti-american, plain and simple. you choose to divide based on religion. nice try to deflect it back to me. just accept that what you wrote was stupid crap.

Not true. Since I dont trust a single one of them, they can take their vacation, go to college, flight lessons etc. Somewhere besides North America and South America. I wouldnt give them a kitchen pass in this country.

Truck drivers in the US cannot get into Canada, if they have ever had a conviction much beyond speeding. Yet Canada allows quite the drug trade and also didnt have the ability to keep a terrorist out of their country. He was caught at the WA border, headed for LA. Its pretty simple. The more access they have to our hard targets, the better their chance of success. People forget, over 100 different countries were locations where terrorist were arrested. Its already been shown they will seek out other hate groups that want to target the US

In Washington, if you bring a foreign container from Seattle to Canada, you are required to stop at the US border and have it inspected. Failure to do so, in 1997 was subject to a fine of 10,000 dollars. Then you get to stop at the Canadian Customs.

Now days Drivers, must have one set of finger print ID for getting into the PORT terminals and another ID to carry Hazmat Materials. That runs the DRIVER about 95 bucks each. On top of that, we now need a passport for Canada. Every overseas container is examined and opened if the radiation meter goes off on the way out the gate. Would not matter much if a device goes off on the dock in Elliot bay, Portland, Oakland, LA, Gulf Ports, Florida, New York and so forth. The day they can hide the radiation, our ports are going to be a prime target. Empty containers are stolen all the time. A semi with Hazmat could easily be used in the same way as the planes in 9-11. Just multiply McVay X ten major cities.

The irony is, during the driver shortages over the last decade, trucking companies were lobbying and advertising for foreigners to come here and go thru driving school. There were a number of cases of fraud in the schools where people paid for their certification. Mexican trucks were given limited access to US highways and both the unions and the DOT were against it, for jobs and safety regulations. Last I heard, the DOT finally won.

At the same time, fishermen can no longer walk into the headwaters of the green river to go fishing, since 9-11.


If you cannot handle conversations about national security, without taking it so personal, you should find a site with a kids forum. It is exactly because of the race card, that we have opened borders. What is happening now, will someday be the equivalent of giving Japanese tours of Boeing in WWII. You want to call people with my outlook anti American.. fine. Dont bother to consider the terrorists might be racist. How many more Americans will have to die in terrorist acts, before you become anti American?