Oscar Wilde pleads insanity

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.org/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7007674

Oh my.

The large-proboscised primitive, Oscar Wilde:

Cyrano  (1000+ posts)        Fri Nov-13-09 11:39 AM
Original message
 
Obama -- Iraq -- Afghanistan -- and insanity.

I have no idea what Obama is thinking in regards to Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq is someplace we never should have been to begin with. It's the most disgusting "war for profit" in our history and our troops should have been pulled out long ago.

And Afghanistan is not really a country. It's endless miles of mountainous wilderness run by countless local warlords who make money off of growing poppy for opium. It is a place where "empires go to die."

Alexander the Great couldn't conquer them because there was no "there" there. The British Empire couldn't conquer them because there was no standing army to defeat. The USSR used everything in their arsenal short of nuclear weapons to conquer them and they finally ended up walking away.

And bombing virtually any part of Afghanistan is useless. There's nothing there to destroy. All you can do is blow the rocks around.

Going after the Taliban or some subset of Al Queda is a job for the CIA, not our military. Any leader who doesn't know all of this is a fool. And Obama is not a fool.

So does anyone have a clue as to what the hell we are doing there?

Oh my again.

Oscar Wilde is being geocentric.  And ethnocentric.

"There's nothing there."

From the same sort of people who think Nevada's a vast wasteland.

There's something there, everywhere in the world, just as there's something in New York or Florida.

abelenkpe (704 posts)     Fri Nov-13-09 11:42 AM
Response to Original message
 
1. I wish we'd leave Afghanistan and Iraq. Both wars are a waste of money and lives.

If those governments feel they need protection they can hire mercenaries, but our troops should come home.

Ozymanithrax  (1000+ posts)        Fri Nov-13-09 11:52 AM
Response to Reply #1
 
4. Mercenaries are very expensive compared to a standing army...

Afghanistan doesn't have an economy to speak of, so they won't be hiring mercs. They will go back to the way they protected their country before, local militias raised and managed by semi-autonomous warlords.

Winterblues (1000+ posts)      Fri Nov-13-09 11:43 AM
Response to Original message
 
2. Testing Drone warfare....

Ozymanithrax  (1000+ posts)        Fri Nov-13-09 11:50 AM
Response to Original message
 
3. You show a remarkable lack of knowledge about Afghanistan.

They have buildings, ancient cities, and tribal culture. They are a real counrty in accordance with the UN. We went there because Al Qaeda was there. Because Bush did not want to invest the troops to do the job right (I suspect he was deep in the planning stages of Iraq even then) we failed to meet our objectives and allowed the culprits to escape.

(Actually, the Taliban outlawed the growth of Opium before we invaded. They have returned to that crop because they need money to fight a war.)

We are still there because a failed state there would be bad for the region and the entire world. The real question we will untimately face is do we want the religious extremists in the old Northern Aliance or the religious extremists in the Taliban to run things.

I suspect Obama will announce a withdrawal date soon, though it would take at least 18 months to do it safely. He will do so because NATO, from what I have read, has reached the end of their patience.

Cyrano  (1000+ posts)        Fri Nov-13-09 12:00 PM
Response to Reply #3
 
5. Okay, so your vast knowledge tells me that our military people are being sacrificed chasing down the ghosts of Al Queda that were once there, and because "a failed state would be bad for the region." Does that "failed state" thing mean we're supposed to get into some fantasy called "nation building" again?

Give me a break. The reality is that American men and women are dying for nothing. And, according to you, they will go on dying for another 18 months because ... ???

Ozymanithrax  (1000+ posts)        Fri Nov-13-09 12:10 PM
Response to Reply #5
 
7. Because withdrawing troops from a live combat zone takes time if you want them out alive.

First, you have to pull in people from outlying zones and build defenses. You take out only a few at a time because when the enemy sees you leave will redouble their efforst to kill everyone they can. If you are not careful, they will find the point when they outnumber you and just sweep in and kill everyone.

The Afghanis have already used brilliant tactics to catch American troops in exposed positions and kill them.

While we do that, we evactuate the current government and anyone who has worked with us because they will be murdered by the new rulers of the area.

This war was suffered piss poor planning from the beginning. That doesn't mean we have to continue piss poor planning until the end.

Cyrano  (1000+ posts)        Fri Nov-13-09 12:31 PM
Response to Reply #7
 
9. Once again, give me a break.

It wouldn't take a year and a half to safely evacuate our military. It could be done in less than six months and anyone who has ever read Clausewitz (or has even gone through ROTC) knows it.

The issue is not military but political. I really believe that Obama has a bit of the disease that infected Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon over Vietnam. Namely, "I'm not going to be the first American president to 'lose' a war." I could be wrong, but who knows?

(For those who don't know who Clausewitz was, google his name. He was a military genius, his principles are taught at all military schools and, in my opinion, he would have thought that the "invasion" of Afghanistan was madness.)

Ozymanithrax  (1000+ posts)        Fri Nov-13-09 12:46 PM
Response to Reply #9
 
10. Clausewitz is dead and not running the situation.

Obama doesn't have Johnson-Nixon syndrome because he wouldn't be the first to lose a war. He does have to be concerned with what happens after. We already saw what a precipitous exit did in Vietnam; collapse of the government, interment camps, and the Vietnamese Boat people. We also saw what happened after the Soviets fled. Mass executions, a religious state, and the exportation of religious extremism.

This is not Europe after the end of World War II when we could move people as fast as possible. There are more concerns than simple military efficiency.

The Bostonian Drunkard:

WilliamPitt  (1000+ posts)        Fri Nov-13-09 12:09 PM
Response to Reply #3
 
6. A failed narco-state 

Don't forget that part.

Cyrano  (1000+ posts)        Fri Nov-13-09 12:52 PM
Response to Reply #6
 
11. Nonetheless, the poster to whom you're responding tells us that the Taliban was against growing opium, but had to go back to it to fund their current operations.

Well, how about if we use Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska to grow opium to fund our wars? What the hell. If we want to run the world, I guess there's nothing wrong with breaking a few of our own "rules" to help out our economy.

You know I'm not aiming this sarcasm at you, WilliamPitt. It's aimed at the person you were responding to and to anyone else who doesn't recognize the web of insanity in which our country seems to be trapped.

Oscar Wilde reads franksolich.

WilliamPitt  (1000+ posts)        Fri Nov-13-09 02:21 PM
Response to Reply #11
 
14. I agree with you 

Just wrote today about the complexity of this disaster.

opihimoimoi  (1000+ posts)        Fri Nov-13-09 12:26 PM
Response to Original message
 
8. We know very little of the War Operation but we comment as do those locker room jocks we see every NFL game...

As we prattle, the forces do battle...

Bomb Bomb shoot shoot

we lose track of whats in the Command tent....we can guess...but the main tactics will emerge only later.

Who noes what lurks in our Officers Minds re the fight...is it the NUKES?? Pakistan has them...and ...as we all noes...

The sit is rocky at this time...

My bet....why we can't leave....its because of the Nukes in an unstable area with an unstable military rogue force present

Cyrano  (1000+ posts)        Fri Nov-13-09 01:12 PM
Response to Reply #8
 
12. Pakistan has nukes, but I don't think that they, or any other country would be insane enough to use them.

Launching one could lead to a chain reaction which would cause the rest of the nuclear powers to use theirs. Could this really happen? Who knows for sure?

Maybe the world really will end with a bang and not a whimper.

If so, the rest of the universe will take little notice.

opihimoimoi  (1000+ posts)        Fri Nov-13-09 02:16 PM
Response to Reply #12
 
13. I did not mean to imply the Paki's would use them....its the Taliban MFKRs who would if given the op

SIMPLYB1980  (1000+ posts)        Fri Nov-13-09 02:23 PM
Response to Original message
 
15. I like using Predator drones to go after terrorists.

[Carl]

Cyrano  (1000+ posts)        Fri Nov-13-09 01:12 PM
Response to Reply #8
 
12. Pakistan has nukes, but I don't think that they, or any other country would be insane enough to use them.

Launching one could lead to a chain reaction which would cause the rest of the nuclear powers to use theirs. Could this really happen? Who knows for sure?

Maybe the world really will end with a bang and not a whimper.

If so, the rest of the universe will take little notice.

That shows how simplistically idiotic you and most of the DUmp is.
In the hands of radical islamists who view dying for the cause that pretense is false

You can`t and won`t admit that now or ever because it would mean that resources that you wish could be spent lavishing goodies on YOU have to be spent in the defense and protection of the nation as a whole.
It is pure selfishness and always has been.

[GOBUCKS]

From the same sort of people who think Nevada's a vast wasteland.

Well, outside of Vegas and Reno........uh...

[franksolich]

Well, outside of Vegas and Reno........uh...

Not true.

That popular idea of Nevada being a "wasteland" is based upon that it is nothing like what people are used to (congestion, skyscrapers, homes, farms, whatnot).

It's only that man hasn't figured out what to do with it, nothing more.

It's reminescent from the times Nebraska was called "the Great American Desert."

What people didn't know at that time was that Nebraska sits atop the largest source of underground water in the world, a massive ocean (although more deep than wide).

When people change their perceptions of something, they find all sorts of useful things about a place they once dismissed as "irrelevant" or "barren."

[GOBUCKS]

It's only that man hasn't figured out what to do with it, nothing more.

It's reminescent from the times Nebraska was called "the Great American Desert."

Oh, Nevada for sure isn't useless. It is a terrific missile range, and some day when sane people regain control, it will be an ideal repository for expended nuclear fuel.

Nebraska, sorry to say, has been exclusively flyover country for me. Never been privileged to visit. My main impression of Nebraska is that it was the first place where I saw, from the air, all those circular green fields, with the gray desert in between.