The Glade 4.0

My opinions of Obama are such that I don't really feel I need to remove points everytime he does something that pisses me off. Hell, I don't have time.

I do try to specifically state positive things when they occur. Throw a guy a bone once in a while.

I don't buy the fact that Obama is trying to scapegoat anyone. He's smart enough to know that would be a pointless exercise. This is clearly Obama's war now.

The U.S. had a strong "China lobby" that felt that we abandoned the Nationalists, and if we hadn't they would have defeated Mao. To make a long story short, that was hogwash; Chinag's army was a mess. I don't want to sidetrack with a lengthy discussion of how **** up it was, but basially this nonsense was perpetuated by a Republican faction that used it to hammer Truman, and to which MacArthur was sympathetic.

The reason Mao was nervous about us getting too close to his turf was the fact that this vocal faction existed and that MacArthur was part of it.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

This is a myth. It was not just the invasion of NK, but actually pushing up to the Yalu.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Which is all true, but the fact of the matter is that the General is still not conducting himself properly. If Obama set him up to hang by giving him an impossible task.. well, sorry but that still does not make it acceptable to publicly question the CIC or for your staffers to do it.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

While technically true, a basic military principle is that commanders are responsible for everything their unit does or fails to do. If McChrystal has not disciplined, orderd to shut up, or otherwise repudiated his staff, he's responsible for their comments as reflective of his feelings. Even if he has, it does not reflect well on his control of his staff.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Is it? The responsibility of the President is to look after the strategic interests of the whole country. Any given president believes his political agenda best serves that strategic interest. Afghanistan is just one theater. It does not override the national interest as a whole.

That isn't to say Obama is correct; just to say that his overriding concern is not and should not be Afghanistan in and of itself.



Arathain is, correctly, giving Obama points for properly handling a General who has violated the principle of not publicly cricticizing the President. The reasons the general is doing that do not change the essential propriety of the action.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

There are serious questions as to whether even the additional 30,000 troops in Afghanistan can be physically supplied, much less 40-60k. Afghanistan is landlocked and surrounded by countries that range from inconvenient to work through to downright hostile. Air transport can only handle so much.

This highlights the absurdity of shutting down C-17 production when we're putting so many hours on existing airframes but that's a side issue.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

To be perfectly honest, Bush (or to be more precise Rumsfeld with his idiotic "do more with less" and assumptions that everything would go perfectly methodology) DID undermine the entire Iraq effort. Generals always want more troops, but Generals are also professionals and understand they can't have everything and that they need to give a realistic estimate of what's needed.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

No argument on that point, DE. I just don't think for a second that Bush, Rumsfeld, etc. were deliberately undermining the effort in Iraq anymore than I believe that Obama has deliberately undermined our efforts in Afghanistan. Presidents are often wrong, but it will take a mountain of evidence to convince me that any of them screw up intentionally when it comes to wars and national security.

I wouldn't go so far as to say he is intentionally screwing it up. What I'd say is that he is simply not interested in winning it because either winning it or withdrawing will serve his purposes.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

One of the reasons I was overjoyed to vote for this President was that he intended to try and turn things around in Afghanistan and focus on that effort. I think, perhaps, he inherited a much worse mess than he expected, but I think it's a pretty big reach to say that he's not interested in winning it or that his own selfish motivations are what's driving his work there.

Afghanistan shatters empires and nations. We were foolish to think we could occupy it and rebuild it into anything remotely resembling a stable Jeffersonian Democracy.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

No, Afghanistan doesn't do anything of the sort. The countries that have invaded it have done so at the extreme end of a logistical tale, with an exhausted army, or both (Alexander and Great Britain) or have attempted to apply the same tactics they'd use to defeat NATO to crushing an insurgency, and done a half-ass job on top of a collapsing autocratic society (USSR).

Afghanistan isn't invincible or special. It's a tough case, but it's not some unassailable fortress. But maybe you're right and we should have stayed out, and just dropped a nuke on Kabul after 9/11.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

From orbit, its the only way to be sure (someone had to say it)

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"Life isn't divided into genres. It's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky."
— Alan Moore

Actually in this case, no. You'd want to use a bomber with gravity bombs. (I'd actually want 3, with two bombs each, with 3 aimpoints. I'd need to look at Kabul in some depth to figure out where I'd place them) That way it could be called back at any point if the Taliban agreed to play ball, and so that you wouldn't make China and Russia nervous with ballistic missiles.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

So what is the goal? You're saying you were happy to vote for him so he could turn things around in Afghanistan, but then you say you feel we were foolish to occupy it and form a Democracy. What is the result you are looking for there?

I think the best thing I can say for Obama on Afghanistan is that he seems to be allowing his Generals to handle it. He doesnt seem even remotely engaged on the issue though.

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“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

Dashel:

The more telling thing is that Obama's diplomatic policy failures in Southern Asia still aren't his fault. The Presidency still isn't Obama's as much as it is the failure of the Bush Administration. Consequently, Obama is saddled with an unfair advantage mired in racism and hatred. He'd be a brilliant President if only his predecessor did not suck so much.

At least, that's what I'm getting from this new round of apologetics.

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I know blaming the previous administration is a political maneuver and it doesn't really bother me that they're using it, but the folks that buy into that story ... disappoint me.

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In time, this too shall pass.

That, and remember that we invaded Afghanistan just because we got a sudden hankering to turn a contender for "Worst Shithole On Earth" into a Jeffersonian democracy. Their toleration of Bin Laden on their soil and refusal to play ball when we demanded he be handed over had nothing to do with it.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Well, the Taliban refusing to turn him over isn't particularly incriminating by itself. Imagine if a skyscraper in Libya got blown up and their government pointed the finger at an American. Even if they had very incriminating evidence implicating that American, I doubt we'd turn him over. We would probably try him ourselves, yes, but the Taliban DID offer to do that for Bin Laden as well.

Of course, that doesn't change the fact that they still funded his training camps and provided him with all sorts of assistance, so I'm not saying we should have done nothing to Afghanistan.

And if Libya felt it could get away with using military force to deal with us, they could go right ahead and give it a shot. As for "turning and pointing a finger" it became pretty clear who was behind it pretty fast; it wasn't exactly just finger pointing.

As for offering to try him themselves.. I don't know what the reversal of a Star Chamber trial would be called, but this would be it.



Then what's your point?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."