Do you think either the Iraq or Afghan occupations will end in your lifetime?

[NNN0LHI]

[treestar]

1. Both will end

I don't see any reason to deny that except a firm determination to be negative.

[MadBadger]

21. Well, considering some here think we "occupy" Germany, Korea, and Japan...

They can move the goalposts again to say we are occupying.

[treestar]

24. Do we really occupy those countries?

Those bases are not an occupation of the country. The countries run themselves.

The German ones were NATO related, to help Eastern Europe defend itself. South Korea needed defense from North Korea. They may not be necessary but don't constitute an occupation. The countries are not fighting us with armies to get rid of us.

Edit: Read further down and see what you mean. Guess this is like our "wars" on countries where we may have interfered with their governments, but never actually attacked them.

[Xipe Totec]

2. I'm not planning to die anytime soon, so yes. n/t

[Sebastian Doyle]

3. Well, when you consider the fact that Germany, Japan, and Korea are still "occupied"

It's not looking good. And those countries don't even have pipelines.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. SOFA agreeements are not an occupation by any

stretch of the imagination.

[NNN0LHI]

29. We have SOFA agreements with our puppet governments in Afghanistan and Iraq too?

I guess that means we aren't occupying those countries either.

Don

[nadinbrzezinski]

33. We have SOFA agreements with Mexico, Canada

and NATO countries too.

SO I guess we are occupying the whole world by this crazy logic.

By the way the SOFA with Iraq means we are gonna leave sooner than later, and we do not have one with Afghanistan yet. The authority for that occupation comes from Article Five of NATO, invoked on twelfth September, the day after 9.11.

[arcadian]

11. Empires rarely relinquish their holdings willingly.

[Kaleva]

12. +1

[MadBadger]

22. ludicrous.

[treestar]

25. +1

This stuff is ridiculous.

[Posteritatis]

32. I'd sooner shave with a lawnmower than endure much more of this kinda hyperbole (nt)

[mix]

4. No, they will continue after it.

Such occupations are driven by our economy's oil and gas needs...until we find a viable energy alternative we will be at war, which will increasingly become proxy affairs between the USA, China, Russia, and India as each state strives either to secure its access to energy resources or to achieve dominance among the others.

Welcome to the future.

[timeforpeace]

5. If you had asked on or after Nov 5 2008 I'd have said they will end. Not now.

[mix]

9. absurd nt

[timeforpeace]

15. Maybe, but I really don't think he would have been elected if people knew they were not going to end

[mix]

16. There are forces, economic and geopolitical, perpetuating these wars

that are far greater than a single politician or president...and beside there was little reason to think that Obama would change direction regarding national security and energy and foreign policies...a tonal shift has occurred, true, but the President is substantively in line with his predecessors, for now at least.

Honduras also shows Obama's willingness to side with the reactionary and unjust, a traditional mode of American foreign policy in Latin America since the early 19th century, as you know.

[donheld]

6. How long do you think I'll live?

[NNN0LHI]

17. You would probably be a better judge of that

[glen123098]

7. Both will end in my lifetime

But Im only 23 so thats a lotta time.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Both will end with the collapse of the empire

that is well underway...

[walldude]

13. Yes they will end, but not before another boogyman

Is securely in place. You know... the new, "this guy is worse than Hitler".

[mix]

14. This country has two addictions.

Our economy is addicted to fossil fuels, which causes wars, and our political discourse is addicted to boogeyman narratives, the latter probably stemming from the settlement history of the country, i.e. the genocide against Native Americans. Both are irrational and self-destructive.

[EFerrari]

18. That's interesting. Are you saying that the bogeyman narrative

is a cultural projection? That makes sense.

[hayu_lol]

19. Since I am pushing 75, I doubt, given our needs for energy...

that I will see the end of this occupation of much of the middle east and Eurasia.

Too many pipelines exist or are planned through that region.

[treestar]

26. Bull

The neocon cabal invented the new boogeyman right after the USSR fell. Saddam and the Muslims. GWB jumped on that and continued it. It will take another Republican President in touch with the neocon cabal to invent a new one.

[AllentownJake]

20. Yes but not the way we think they will nt

[EFerrari]

23. Yes, I think they will end in my lifeime unless I really screw up this ham.

[amborin]

27. The Nation: US taxpayers funding a Taliban protection racket:

"As President Obama prepares a massive military buildup in Afghanistan, a House subcommittee has launched an investigation into whether Defense Department contractors are paying off the Taliban to protect American supply lines. The investigation was triggered by a Nation cover story .

In interviews with The Nation, Afghan government officials, security contractors and trucking company executives outlined a giant protection racket, funded by US taxpayers, which raises millions for the Taliban. With no US military forces protecting their supply lines, contractors had to protect routes by other means: payoffs. As one trucking company official told The Nation, "If you tell me not to pay these insurgents in this area, the chances of my trucks getting attacked increase exponentially."

At the heart of the scandal is the Defense Department's $2.2 billion Host Nation Trucking contract, a military logistics operation launched with six major contractors, a number that has since risen to eight. One of the contractors under investigation is NCL Holdings, a US firm headed by Hamed Wardak, the Afghan-American son of Afghanistan's defense minister, Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak. (NCL denies ever having made payments, directly or indirectly, to the Taliban.)

But it seems Hamed Wardak was more than just a defense contractor with a budding business. Parallel to his business ventures, he's been running an aggressive foreign policy campaign in Washington to keep the US heavily vested in Afghanistan. A confidential lobbying memo obtained by The Nation shows that Wardak commissioned a blue-chip lobbying firm to push for an extended US presence in Afghanistan--a potentially lucrative outcome for NCL.

Earlier this year Patton Boggs LLP, Washington's most monied lobbying firm, established a nonprofit front group on Wardak's behalf to act as the "face" of a campaign for increased US engagement in Afghanistan, according to confidential legal records. Patton Boggs is heavily involved in foreign policy and has registered with the Justice Department as a foreign agent for governments and interests in Angola, Cameroon, China, Cyprus, India, Sri Lanka and Qatar, though not Afghanistan. "

snip

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100111/roston

[harun]

28. No effing way. Not unless the United States collapses or is defeated militarily.

Just like we aren't leaving Okinawa, Germany, etc.

[mmonk]

30. Possibly. The empire project is bankrupting us.

So at some point, economic calamity which would make occupations of foreign nations impossible could happen. That is the risk inherent with such ambitious projects.

[hunter]

31. Our empire will collapse quickly.

Hungry, cranky, underpaid, and neglected troops will be arriving home from Afghanistan alongside troops from Iraq, Japan, the Philippines, Europe, and everywhere else.

Republicans will declare it to be some kind of victory and hold poorly attended rallies nationwide. Sarah Palin will attempt to give a welcome home kiss to some miserable kid with frostbitten feet and a nasty heroin habit. He will punch her in the face.