I remember finding DU in 2004

[babylonsister]

because of the Iraqi war, Bush, and things just not adding up. I never understood and still don't why we started that.
I went to see Cindy Sheehan in Crawford, TX, to support her after her son was killed.
I went to DC to protest that war.
I was not happy when President Obama surged instead of removing us from the war zone.

I know this will be a big mess but we needed to get out. There is/was no end game. It would always be messy despite what year it was done.

[Tree Lady]

1. Kind of like Vietnam but at least the soldiers

Treated better after this one.

I joined in 2004 also while working on Kerry campaign. Michael Moore had a link to this site on his website.

[Hoyt]

2. Got here at same time. It was also Iraq bombing and occupation that ticked me off.

[babylonsister]

4. Colin Powell pissed me off around that time.

The more attention I paid, the angrier I got.

[OAITW r.2.0]

3. It was a political oasis that I never left nt

[BootinUp]

5. I was thrilled to find it

there was no place else that came near it in coverage or interest. I read a lot of blogs b4 I made up my mind on where to hang out.

As far as Afghanistan Iraq and all, the pukes ran everything for domestic political short term gain, that hasn't changed.

[GP6971]

6. I found DU

from a link posted on Bartcop.

These endless wars never end well.

[bluecollar2]

14. Same here...

May 2001. Lost my original moniker and date when DU was hacked.

[cilla4progress]

7. It's HOW we are doing it.

A bit hasty.

[babylonsister]

16. So dragging this out would have been better?

Then people would be sitting around critiquing every move this admin makes, which is going to happen anyway.

[mahina]

8. Hard and true.

Last edited Sat Aug 14, 2021, 12:19 PM - Edit history (1)

I remember our first convo. You thought I was a troll. 🤣 My feelings weren’t hurt. I posted to gather good responses to an argument.

We were in the street together though far apart. You are one of my favorite DUers. Aloha.

[babylonsister]

21. Ha! I have most

definitely mellowed over the years. Sorry I gave you a hard time.

[mahina]

25. It's no worries! I knew your heart was in the right place.

[robbob]

9. I joined in 2002; I was a Canadian living in Boston

As I used to joke, when I moved to the USA a president was being impeached over lying about a blow job, and when I moved back to Canada (in 2003) the president wasn’t even being questioned over lying the country into an illegal war.

I think I found DU via Bartcop, RIP. Also remember daily howler fondly. One thing I miss from the early days is; they weren’t quite so quick to identify and remove (tombstone) disrupters, so I learned so much about subjects as diverse as the Vietnam war and CIA meddling in Central America via rebuttals to RW visitors to the site. Anyway, as a very stressed out Canadian living in Boston through the 2000 election debacle and the horror of 9/11 all I can say is thank you DU, you helped save my sanity!

[electric_blue68]

10. I saw DU briefly on line at an internet cafe close to the start...

Without steady access I forgot.

Decades later...

With 2020 campaign gearing up for extra crazy times, I needed more than the now more sleepy site of a band, and it's political sub-thread than I was getting.

Luckily, I remembered the name, and was absolutely surprised, and delighted when I found that you'd successfully made the long road.

[Gore1FL]

11. I'm glad you found it. nt

[LetMyPeopleVote]

12. I remember finding DU in 2004 also

I was involved in the Kerry Edwards voter protection team and went to Florida along with 3000 out of state attorneys

[Hekate]

13. A friend of mine urged me to check out DU and Bartcop and some other site...

… every time we bumped into each other at protest marches in our town in 2002. Finally I did, and found that DU was an excellent fit for me.

I remember you from so far back that I thought you must have joined before me, you were so well embedded! Am so glad you are still here, Babylonsister.

[babylonsister]

17. Embedded?

No, I was just a bored housewife with time on her hands who found all this fascinating. I still am anti-war so welcome this action in Afghanistan.

[bluecollar2]

15. I was down in Crawford at the same time.

Damn hot and dry but worth the effort.

[babylonsister]

18. It was just awful there, but

at the time I lived in Texas and thought I had to do something, so went.

[bluecollar2]

19. I was working in Fort Worth at the time.

Couldn't make it to DC but did the Dallas, Austin protests.

I was linked up with the veterans groups

[msfiddlestix]

20. I agree. n/t

[Tom Rinaldo]

22. I remember hearing in 2006, 2007, that we were training a new Afghan Army

It seemed it was always in two or three years that the Afghan Army would be solid enough to defend that nation on its own, maybe with some logistic support. I never forgot how the Taliban had ruled, how women were subjected by them, I kept supporting the American mission in Afghanistan, long after many of my friends believed that we should pull out of Afghanistan.

It's not 2006 or 200y anymore, nor is it 2016 or 2017. We never stopped training the Afghan Army, we never stopped arming it or providing logistical support. America helped train Afghan soldiers last year who weren't even born yet when our training mission first began.

Afghanistan isn't like Germany, Japan or South Korea. Those nations had cohesive and stable national governments in control of their entire territory ten years after the wars there ended and the U.S. stepped in to help rebuild those nations.They did not at that point need U.S. forces to quell domestic civil wars. The Taliban are on the verge of re-conquering all of Afghanistan in mere weeks. They aren't dependent on anyone's major logistic support to do so.

If America wanted to become an old school 19th century Imperial empire seeking to expand it's inventory of subject state's, perhaps we could have begun being so with Afghanistan. But it is very a tough nation to control History has shown that time and again. Maybe we could have militarily suppressed the Taliban for another twenty years, maybe not. By and large a resurgent Taliban has not been heavily targeting U.S. forces in that nation for the last year or so after we proclaimed that we were leaving soon. That quasi-truce would not have lasted had the U.S. committed to maintaining a ground military presence inside that nation indefinitely.

We gave Afghanistan twenty years. I can find some fault in the details of our exit planning, we could have saved more lives at very little expense, but am hard pressed to fault exiting.

P.S. I found DU in 2003 and have rarely failed to be on here ever since. It's nice to still be "in dialog" with many of the same people for all these years!

[spanone]

23. K&R...

[sarcasmo]

24. 2004 for me too, Bush was driving me crazier.