If you support the President's Afghanistan escalation, can you tell

[cali]

me what you hope to see achieved? Do you honestly believe that the U.S. is/will be safer because of the increase in troops?

I confess, I don't understand why anyone on the left would support this action. What is it that you think makes it worth the blood?

[Christa]

1. Nothing he says

can make me support the escalation.


:(

[MNDemNY]

2. "'cause obama said so."

That is all you need to know. Sit down and shut up.

[L0oniX]

5. ...

“My country right or wrong” is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, “My mother drunk or sober.”

– G. K. Chesterton

[MNDemNY]

9. ..

Kick in tha ass, aint it?

[Soylent Brice]

3. i'd like to hear the answer to that one as well.

K&R

[jschurchin]

4. What I want achieved is

ALL American solders on American soil, PERIOD. Although our President has agreed to some things that I don't agree with, i.e. Extending the Patriot Act, The Stimulus Act, I have given him a pass because I figured he was doing what he thought was best for our Nation. However, IF he sends more of our young men and women to a meatgrinder, no more PASS.

I am one of those Moderate Democrats who helped elect him, if he does this, he assures he will NOT get my vote in 2012. And although I am only one vote and I wouldn't vote for a Conservative candidate, EVER, I won't vote for him either.

[northzax]

31. So if it's between Obama and Palin in 2012

You're staying home? Thank you very fucking much in advance.

[jschurchin]

32. Just a little information for the small minded

Because I don't want to overwhelm you. There are OTHER candidates for President

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_third_party_and_independent_presidential_candidates,_2008

Hope this doesn't make your pea brain hurt.

[spanone]

6. i don't support it one bit, but i'm open to hearing his reasoning.

[Echo In Light]

7. His admin, like any US presidential admin, is hired to fulfill the various duties of empire

If more Americans realized that they're never going to get any different type of 'representation' than what that fact entails, including the rhetoric and deceit that goes hand in hand with it, we'd have ourselves a legitimate challenge to the ONE big $ party.

[harun]

8. I don't support escalation. Afghanistan needs aid, not violence.

[TwilightGardener]

10. I don't necessarily support the increase right now, but I hope

that more troops lead to fewer casualties, both military and civilian--not good to be undermanned in dangerous areas. Unfortunately, in Iraq, the surge brought about the MOST troop casualties of the war, so I'm worried about that. I also hope that this is a final push to firmly secure the areas where terrorists are most likely to spring up again.

[napi21]

11. Why can't you wait until you hear what Obama has to say tomorrow?

It's only 1 DAY! You're all taking what the talking heads are saying "he's going to say & do". I will wait and listen before I make a judgement.

[cali]

13. Quite honestly, nothing he says will change my opposition to

an escalation or indeed continuation of the war in Afghanistan. We know he's going to increase troops in Afghanistan. It's not premature to discuss that.

[Robb]

18. You know better than that.

"Nothing" he says?

What if he says he's withdrawing all troops and sending in nuclear bombers for a one-time blow-everything-up shot? Of course you wouldn't support troop withdrawal then.

What if he says he's sending in additional troops, but they're all going to be Army Corps of Engineers and they'll do nothing but bridges, schools and water treatment plants, and will leave in six months? Would you still be against troop escalation?

I'm not saying either thing will happen, simply that "nothing he says will change my mind" is a rough way to head in. :hi:

[cali]

21. why entertain the absurd?

you should know better than that.

And we already know that he's sending in combat troops.

[Johonny]

24. Got to agree

Nothing seems way to open ended. What if NATO is also standing behind him 100 % and China, Japan and India are willing to commit to nation building in Afghanistan. What if he lays out an actual coherent strategy for creating a working government in the region. We would look really stupid to pull our support then. What you're going to be for leaving NATO rather than support Obama? I don't think so.

[L0oniX]

15. I suppose you expect Obama to have us out of Iraq within the 18 months he said he would do it in.

I don't expect it to happen. There will be an excuse, I am sure.

[napi21]

28. I believe that's his orders to the military. Can THEY accomplish

it in 18 months? I don't know. I do know that most people who are not in the military do not realize what's involved in doing that. There's LOTS of equipment that must be recovered and brought home...that takes time! It takes a lot of time to actually evacuate as many troops as we have in Iraq. I do believe the military will do their best to comply with their orders of 18 months.

[L0oniX]

12. I don't understand why anyone would join the military other than a desperate need for money.

Why on earth would anyone throw away their life for those miserable countries? This whole terrorist thing should be a police matter, not a military one. By now we could have infiltrated Al Qaeda's ranks with covert special agents. Instead we make this big splash and let everyone know where we are and what we are doing. It's totally stupid.

[sinkingfeeling]

17. The goal has never been to 'end terrorism', but to obtain more empire.

[kentuck]

14. I can understand the argument for sending more troops...

although I don't think it is going to accomplish anything...except more dead troops.

Naturally, no one wants the nukes in Pakistan to fall into the wrong hands. No one wants al Qaeda to set up shop once again in Aghanistan and make plans to hit America once again. Break out the monkey bars!

I can understand the argument for more troops but I don't agree with it.

[dionysus]

16. i guess the reasoning would be to prevent the taliban from retaking the country, but i don't think

it is worth it anymore.

[still_one]

19. What some threads were saying yesterday in their reasoning amounted to blind faith in Obama

I was encouraged to wait and hear what Obama says on Tuesday before making my mind up.

Funny, I was told to wait for Obama speech, but those having blind faith in Obama do not have to wait for his speech?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=433&topic_id=24793&mesg_id=24793

[BeFree]

20. Evident

That we need to keep them fighting over there so they don't come over here and buy airplane tickets.

[Raster]

23. "...so 15 Saudi nationals with boxcutters walked into three American airports..."

[Beetwasher]

22. Think Of Afghanistan As A Collapsing Mine

In order to shore it up, you need to get more material in first.

I don't like this alleged decision but I can understand it. It was not arrived at easily.

Obama believes he can facilitate operations that will eradicate AQ and the Taliban (or render them much less of a threat). I have no idea whether or not this is achievable, but he apparently believes it is.

Since I was never mislead about his intentions regarding Afg., I will remain critical of this alleged decision, but still supportive of Obama in general.

My hope is that he lays out a clear mission, with an exit strategy, milestones and timetables and I suspect he will. It will be made very clear that the mission is not a blank check or open ended.

[Ruby the Liberal]

27. So, that means you support starting a war in Pakistan?

Seeing as how that is where they are now and all that...

This should have never been a military action. It should have been treated as a criminal pursuit. Too many civilians have given up their lives because of "preemptive strikes" against the country just because a few criminals decided to take up homes in caves on its border.

[Beetwasher]

30. Where Did I Say I Would Support This Decision?

:shrug:

I explicitly said I would be critical of any decision to escalate.

That being said, if we knew there were AQ operatives like OBL in Pakistan and knew exactly where they were, I would in theory support (details pending) operations to neutralize him (them).

[tekisui]

25. They can't tell you until they get the official spin tomorrow.

[Ruby the Liberal]

26. 100k US troops vs 100 AQ. In what SHOULD have been a criminal

pursuit in the first place?

Sorry, the only answer I will accept is that it will take ~35k people to move the other ~65k out of there and back home.

[rucky]

29. I have no answer for that, but...

blah blah realistic!
blah blah finish the job!
blah blah never said we wouldn't!
blah blah popular war 8 years ago!
blah blah burkas!
blah blah fight 'em there so we don't have to fight 'em here!

[Forkboy]

33. Kick....I have yet to hear what victory is even supposed to be.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

34. I don't and I can't. k&r

[BigBearJohn]

35. The Afghan Pipeline You Don't Know About

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Take ActionComments (49)Subscribe NowText SizeAAA.…and speaking of oil, just when we were barely getting used to Big Oil and Iraq hitting the front pages of American newspapers in tandem, here comes Afghanistan! Who now remembers that delegation of Taliban officials, shepherded by Unocal ("We're an oil and gas company. We go where the oil and gas is…"), back in 1999, that made an all-expenses paid visit to the U.S. There was even that side trip to Mt. Rushmore, while the company (with U.S. encouragement) was negotiating a $1.9 billion pipeline that would bring Central Asian oil and natural gas through Afghanistan to Pakistan? Oh, and who was a special consultant to Unocal on the prospective deal? Zalmay Khalilzad, our present neocon ambassador to the U.N., George W. Bush's former viceroy of Kabul and then Baghdad, and a rumored future "Afghan" presidential candidate.


Well, speak of the dead and not-quite-buried. It turns out that, in April, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India (acronymically TAPI) signed a Gas Pipeline Framework Agreement to build a U.S.-backed $7.6 billion pipeline. It would, of course, bypass Iran and new energy giant Russia, carrying Turkmeni natural gas and oil to Pakistan and India. Construction would, theoretically, begin in 2010. Put the emphasis on "theoretically," because the pipeline is, once again, to run straight through Kandahar and so directly into the heartland of the Taliban insurgency.

Pepe Escobar of Asia Times caught the spirit of the moment perfectly: "The government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, which cannot even provide security for a few streets in central Kabul, has engaged in Hollywood-style suspension of disbelief by assuring unsuspecting customers it will not only get rid of millions of land mines blocking TAPI's route, it will get rid of the Taliban themselves." Nonetheless, as in Iraq, American (and NATO) troops could one day be directly protecting (and dying for) the investments of Big Oil in a new version of the old imperial "Great Game" with a special modern emphasis on pipeline politics.

There has been a flurry of reportage on the revived pipeline plan in Canada, where -- bizarrely enough -- journalists and columnists actually worry about such ephemeral possibilities as Canadian troops spending the next half century protecting Turkmeni energy. If you happen to live in the U.S., though, you would really have no way of knowing about such developments, no less their backstory, unless you were wandering the foreign press online.

To put the lack of coverage here in perspective, consider Nick Turse's latest piece on the Iraq/Big Oil story that did, at last, hit the mainstream news here (only a few years late in the Great Game). Turse offers further leads for mainstream reporters finally ready to pursue the story wherever it leads, even back into an ignored, and oily, past. Let's hope Afghanistan's pipeline gets similar attention one of these days.

Source: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/335023