Hey "Troops".. McCain has a "plan" for you..

[SoCalDem]

Since he's convinced that Iraq is "won", he plans to send y'all to Afghanistan.. How's that float your boat??

I cannot believe that ANY military person would vote for a guy who sees nothing wrong with endless whack-a-mole deployments from one battlefield to another..

One look at Afghanistan's history, demographics, climate and topography maps tell the real story.. We cannot "win" in Afghanistan..

No one has EVER "won" a war with/in Afghanistan. The best anyone can ever do there is. ...a bloody war, followed by a precarious stalemate, followed by another ill-conceived war...rinse & repeat.

The ONLY way to "win" a war is to not START one. Less money than it takes to FIGHT with people, spent on AID and humanitarian assistance is the ONLY way to change a people....and even then we are not changing THEM...only their opinions of US.

The Afghans know what they want, and they will get it in the end, no matter how many soldiers we sacrifice.. ask the Russians.. Ask the British..

Tribal people want to be LEFT ALONE.. They do not want outsiders telling them how to live.

We try to measure them by OUR standards, but they are NOT us, nor can we change them. Only time, and the acceptance or non-acceptance of their own people can change them.

Does their society treat women badly? yes. Can we make them stop? no. Will a million US soldiers trashing & bombing their country, make them treat their women better? no. If a FATHER will kill his own daughter, or a brother kill his sister or a husband, his wife, for some perceived religious affront, can we have a soldier stationed with every family, to protect the women? no.

The best we can do ,is to try and see that they have adequate living standards, schools where we can build them, and then leave them alone.. they will either join the modern world..or not.. It's not up to us to change them.

WE know it's about oil & energy, and the shipment of same....our government will never admit it, but to claim it's about bringing them freedom and peace, is a complete LIE..

[BOSSHOG]

1. And he doesn't want you to have a new and improved GI Bill

because you may be tempted to get out of the service and take advantage of an educational opportunity. No doubt you are just selfish bastards whining in your cammies over in the the vacation spot of the middle east.

[EVDebs]

2. Psssst. What's the DoD gonna do with all those Permanent Bases in Iraq ?

McCain wants to make sure there's American troops there until at LEAST 2013.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

3. I have some problems with statements you are making.

You seem to buying into the cultural relativity argument to justify allowing mistreatment of women to continue. No dice with me. Women's rights are HUMAN rights. I'm not saying I think military intervention is the answer but there are ways to incentivize better conditions for women and they aren't being tried because "it's their culture and we mustn't interfere with it". For example, if the US and Europe were to boycott oil from Saudi Arabia until they stopped oppressing women you better believe there'd be changes made, quickly. But we won't do it because there's money to be made, and besides, it's just women you know. :sarcasm:

[babylonsister]

4. Obama wants to send more troops to Afghanistan, too. nt

[Imagevision]

5. "send more troops to Afghanistan, too" clarify... too?

[babylonsister]

6. Here...

I'm trying to convince myself Obama knows what he's doing, but I'm not there yet on this.
Edit to add: I recognize part of this is to give people who have been stop-lossed a break, too. But I need to read more abaout his overall reasoning.



http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/337748

snip//

Despite the fact that there are more foreign troops in Afghanistan today than at any time since the 2001 invasion -- roughly 60,000 total, including 36,000 Americans – Obama is proposing to dispatch two more US combat brigades (comprising more than 7,000 soldiers) to Afghanistan. That will give the United States even greater responsibility for a technically NATO-led ooccupation.

The Democrat's send-more-troops proposal is precisely the same as that of Republican John McCain.

And it is precisely wrong.