Supporting a President is not a case for supporting a war....

[debbierlus]

I have yet to see one democrat who supports this escalation actually make the case for the policy.

In fact, the Afghanistan policy from the Obama supporters seems to be based merely on their 'trust' and 'liking' of the President. Or, they state they don't like the policy but they support the President. Far too many take the ability to give an articulate speech as being evidence of sound policy.

The sentiments sound frighening similiar to the same type of rheoteric that DU has traditionally despised from Republicans.

Everything from 'he knows things we don't' to you can't cut and run. Of course, the latter is not phrased this way. Here is the actual text from a journal featured on the front page journal of DU & right now up to the top of the greatest page (so a large portion of DU'ers agree with this - it is not just the original poster):

"This latest gambit will likely fail. Afghanistan is by all available evidence the Sword of Damocles wrapped in a Gordian knot.

We as a country are too broke, and as a people are unwilling to serve any interest but our own, most of the time.

But we do have to TRY to set this right. We have to.

Or the sacrifice of every soldier who died is a waste, every civilian in Afghanistan who believed in us has to become an acceptable casualty when we are gone.

We have to finish the job. We have to support this President....."

This post sounds shocking similiar to the defense of all those who tried to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq. The arguments given here are resurrections of everything the right stated when they were defending Bush and his extremely poor decisions around the Iraq policy.

Only now, the left is mouthing these platitudes.

I believe, if these DU'ers who believe marching in lockstep with a President is a form of support asked themselves this question and answered honestly, they would realize the depth of their own self deceit.

If John McCain was President, and he gave the same speech, would you still support the policy?

From my experience of DU, and the five years I have been a part of this community, I would bet blood and money the answer would be no.

We are never going to get any type of meaningful change in this country, if we continue to back politicians who go against our core principles, no matter how likeable they may be. And, this blind support of Obama is a dangerous thing. Policies that would be decried and protested in unanimous dissent from democrats are now being accepted with unblinking acquiesence because they are implemented by Obama.

And, that is downright frightening.

[debbierlus]

1. The cowardice of the unrecommend button

[Taverner]

2. I agree - 100% coward

[Bobbie Jo]

5. Unrec: SSDD

:hi:

[debbierlus]

24. SSDD?

[ZombieHorde]

26. SSDD is high school hipster/valley girl slang for Same Shit, Different Day.

Sort of like, "TTFN" for Ta Ta For Now.

[mullard12ax7]

3. We need to hold war criminals accountable as a start or you are 100% correct

We will never get any type of meaningful change. The reasoning is very simple: Iraq and Afghanistan are both war crimes consisting of a conspiracy to commit war (1000s of WMD lies and Al-Qaeda lies), both are complete frauds. We need to acknowledge that, hold those people responsible who conspired to do it and then and only then can we move on.

[debbierlus]

17. This country seems completely incapable of introspection and responsibility

So many people are just fine with 'looking forward, not back', they miss that looking back is a NECESSITY to moving forward.

[Taverner]

4. Agreed. I still support Obama. I do NOT support this war

[debbierlus]

7. Second only to announcing the escalation, this part of the speech was the biggest sham

"Today, after extraordinary costs, we are bringing the Iraq war to a responsible end. We will remove our combat brigades from Iraq by the end of next summer, and all of our troops by the end of 2011. That we are doing so is a testament to the character of our men and women in uniform. Thanks to their courage, grit and perseverance , we have given Iraqis a chance to shape their future, and we are successfully leaving Iraq to its people."

1 million people murdered

Babies being born with birth defects due to the pollution of depleted uranium

Millions displaced.

Millions more placed into poverty to the point they are selling their children into the sex trade.

Obama sums it up, in a neat little package. Meanwhile, he lets the liars who brought about this atrocity and war crime off the hook completely. The lack of investigation of Bush & Cheney under this President, in itself, is a crime. For anyone on this board to be able to sit and listen to that tripe, and not feel outrage shows how far our moral compass has fallen.

[SammyWinstonJack]

15. I am outraged. Shouldn't those saying we can't walk away from the Afghan people since we broke

their country, be concerned with the mess the Iraqi people find themselves in after 6 yrs of shock and awe? :puke:

Something the people of Afghanistan can look forward to after we've finished with them, their country and lives in total shambles.

Aren't we a great country/people or what? :puke:

[debbierlus]

18. EXCELLENT point. Like we are going to be doing humanitarian work with our bombs and war

I am disgusted with this place today.

[bertman]

29. Fuckin' aye, debbierlus! When he made that statement I almost screamed.

[polichick]

6. It's the cult of personality trance. nt

[debbierlus]

9. I don't think I ever fully understood the meaning of the phrase until now

[FiveGoodMen]

10. Yup. Exactly.

Many people here absolutely do not care what this country does, how it spends its money, who it hurts, or whether it has a future.

Just who's in the White House. (GOOOOO, TEAM!)

[debbierlus]

21. I don't think people really understand Afghanistan

And, the implications of this move.

[FiveGoodMen]

22. I'm sure that you're right.

But I just googled 'Graveyard of Empires' and got plenty of hits. It wouldn't take long for anyone who wants to understand to get their first clue.

Besides that, any contemplation of what warfare is really like (we've all at least seen movies) should be enough to ensure that we'd never engage in it if given any choice.

The only counterargument that might hold some water is that things would be even worse if we don't fight.

But that assumes that either we're going to stay and run the country forever, or else that we can wipe out an attitude with an army. I don't think anyone can do that.

It also assumes that we can win...which brings us back to the Graveyard of Empires.

I'm sure that some of the escalation's supporters have their hearts in the right place.

But that's not enough.

[debbierlus]

23. We have become numb to war since it hasn't been on our soil.

I wonder if people would be so blase, if it was their town that was going to be occupied.

[bertman]

30. "numb to war since it has not been on our soil." Absolutely right on. BUT remember the

anguish we Americans experienced when 3000 people died in America on September 11?

Three thousand people.

How long does it take for 3000 Afghanis to die in that war?

How many Iraqis have died so far in that abomination? Even if you take the ridiculously low propaganda estimates of 100,000 it makes our collective grief for 3000 seem obscene. Of course, those dead and maimed are not AMERICANS so they don't matter.

This rush of patriotism or militaristic fervor by so many Democrats for President Obama's troop escalation is just further proof that the corporate media propaganda machine has us in a deathgrip.

It's appalling.

[leftstreet]

8. K&R

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

11. "Finish the job" = "Stay the course" & "Peace with honor" & "Smoke 'em out".

[debbierlus]

16. Right makes Might - A new one pulled out last night

Nice Orwellian twist on that one!

[ecstatic]

12. I don't support the war, but I'm mature enough to understand the reasons

why the President thinks it's the best way. I bet that made your brain hurt, didn't it...

[debbierlus]

20. Thanks for that profound insight.

:eyes:

[Tigermoose]

13. I posted reasons why I support the policy.

Of course, since I did not call anyone names or agree with the outraged DUers, the post will sink and you will never see it. I suspect that is why you have not seen anyone defending the policy.

[notesdev]

14. It's a case for a lobotomy

if they're not going to use the brain anyway, that conscience thing just gets in the way of being a good mindless drone.

[debbierlus]

27. Thanks, after this I feel pretty gentle!

[glitch]

19. K & R nt because you said it all.

[Are_grits_groceries]

25. This stance is along the same line

as "I support our troops, but I don't support the war.' People who said that were accused of being unpatriotic.

Whatever my beliefs about any issue, I want everyone, especially the RW haters, to know that I respect the Office of the President and him. I don't want anybody to misconstrue any disagreement with him on policy as a disagreement about him being legitimately in office.

[boomerbust]

28. OK

[jeff47]

31. Why would we try?

"I have yet to see one democrat who supports this escalation actually make the case for the policy."

Well, that's mostly 'cause trying to rationally explain support for Obama's escalation in Afghanistan results in getting 'screamed' at. Apparently, we're terrible warmongers who hate the troops and just want people to die and secretly love the neocons and all sorts of other invective.

But here goes anyway.

For the first 7-1/2 years of the war in Afghanistan, we used the Donald Rumsfeld & Co. strategy. We bombed the shit out of people, and then sat there waiting for them to run into our open arms to thank us for bombing them. Stunned that we weren't greeted at liberators, we bombed the shit out of more people.

The folks who decided on that terrible strategy are gone. The new strategy involves what we should have done back in 2002: nation building. The typical build roads, schools, wells, etc. Which is why we need more troops there. Under the Rumsfeldian strategy, you don't have to bother guarding anything. You blow shit up and leave. With the new strategy and expansion of our nation building efforts over the next year, we have to guard the folks doing the construction.

There's some stories coming out of Afghanistan that indicates the new strategy may be having positive results. However, they're anecdotal at this point. It's going to be a while until the strategy has been in effect long enough for anecdotes to grow into data.

The speech itself was terrible. It was rambling, and lacked any coherent logic. If I was only evaluating Obama's plan from the basis of the speech, I'd say it was a bad plan. Obama needed to do a lot more to explain why his plan has a chance to succeed, and why this is different from past wars, such as Vietnam (short reason-the Vietnamese wanted communism. The Afghanis are tired of people blowing their shit up).

And before any neocon slurs fly, let me be clear that the Iraq war was the biggest foreign policy disaster in US history. And despite the conventional wisdom cheerleaders, the surge failed. It provided stability, which was the simpler of its 2 goals. The other goal was to use the stability to produce reconciliation, which has not happened. I am glad we're now pretty much confined to our bases there and are leaving as quickly as is prudent. And I feel sorry for the Iraqis who will have to live through the upcoming civil war.

When deciding what to do in Afghanistan, we've got to look at the possible outcomes. If we withdraw now, all possible outcomes are bad for us (They're worse for the Afghanis, but that's frankly their problem). If we continue nation building for a while, we might have a relatively good outcome, or we might have a bad outcome. Personally, I think we'll end up with a relatively decent non-Karzai/non-Taliban government ("Decent" meaning better from our perspective than many of the other governments in the region).

Finally, Obama's plan has a relatively short window. Escalations in Iraq (and Vietnam) were announced with no plan to leave. With this plan, if it turns out that those positive anecdotes are not growing into positive data, we're already working on our departure.

To sum up: The people running our war now actually possess a clue, and their plan includes what to do in case of failure.

I now look forward to the demands that I go over there and fight in the place of our soldiers, that my opinion would be different if it was my son/daughter over there, and that I'm really some sort of RW mole.

[ginnyinWI]

32. I agree with your explanation except for a few pts:

I don't think it can really be called nation building, because that would take ten years or more. We are there for the short term to offer stability while the Afghan govt. gets its act together and gets strong enough to keep the Taliban at bay. When they build up their own nation, there will be jobs and roads and schools and stuff and fewer people will want to join the Taliban just for something to eat. Besides killing Taliban, depriving them of recruits is a really good idea.

This next year and a half is a prelude to a responsible withdrawal and giving control back to the Afghans. If they do what they should, they'll be ready for it.

I'm as anti-war as most Democrats, but I can see the wisdom of looking down the road and deciding to do this now and prevent a worse carnage later.

[bvar22]

37. One of the BIGGEST problems I have is:

"We are there for the short term to offer stability while the Afghan govt. gets its act together and gets strong..".

The Afghan Government is currently led by Hamid Karzai.
If you don't know who he is and WHAT he is, pleas do some research.


In his speech, Obama completely endorsed one of the most corrupt people in the Middle East, and legitimized one of the worst cases of election FRAUD in modern history.

THIS is The Man that Obama is asking our children to DIE for....to strengthen the Karzai government.


I can't go along with this.

[jeff47]

39. And your solution is.....?

Fact is Karzai in the leader for the time being. Obama can't simply wish him away in an instant without telling the Afghanis "We are in total control of our country". That's the exact opposite of what we want.

However, I do predict that before we start pulling out of Afghanistan, Karzai will decide to spend more time with his family. That's based on comments coming out of the administration about needing to supervise Karzai more closely, and his complete lack of credibility within Afghanistan.

[ginnyinWI]

42. I heard somewhere that they are planning to bypass Karsai.

They are going to go around him and work with the lower-down officials.

This is not a simple problem that has any simple straightforward answers.

Would it be better to let the Karsai govt. fall and have the Taliban start running Afghanistan? Would that be a good plan? Obama has had to choose the lesser of the evils.

[Desertrose]

41. Heard a teacher from Afghanistan on NPR this AM

Think he was American but had been living & teaching there since the 90's. Was even detained by the Afghan govt in '96. He was talking about his latest book "Stones to Schools"(not sure if that's the correct title).

He spoke about how many more schools there are now and how since '03 I believe, there have been many more kids attending and more girls attending school.

He did mention the girls who were sprayed in the face with acid last year in front of their high school- they are now back in class and said the only way the Taliban will stop them is to kill them. Wow. Such courage!

He also spoke with many mothers and asked what they really wanted. He figured he'd hear bigger houses, rich husbands etc, but what they told him was they wanted their babies to live and their children to attend school.

All this really made me wonder...CAN we do any good by still being in Afghanistan? Will the Rumsfield tactics truly stop? Can we change and do more to build rather than bomb? I wish I knew what was really going on (beyond the usual capitalistic reasons for being/staying there).Is it possible that the changes Obama is making are all below the surface and it just looks the same from our perspective? Or are the changes merely a D behind the name rather than an R....wish I could know.

We are SO past time for wars to be over...but can we end them just like hitting an off button...or does all this war stuff have to slowly shift- in subtle ways until we look back and realize its all different?

I wish I knew.

[BlueCaliDem]

33. Thanks for this expl. It makes perfect sense

Most anti-war people are very extreme, and they refuse to see logic.

They don't care if the people in Afghanistan are suffering because of past U.S. war policies by Dumbsfeld. Realistically speaking, if we leave now without making right what the Bush Regime made wrong, the people of Afghanistan will flock to the Taliban and a new generation of terrorists will be born that hate the U.S.

Is that what they want?

I believe that the escalation is designed to protect our war-weary troops and the innocent in that country, disguised as an escalation. Congress would never approve funds for nation building, but they're more than happy to vote for supplimentals for war.

The Administration will work hard to nation build so that the Taliban don't go from a strong grip on the people to an iron fist on them.

I loathe war and wish the American people will never vote in another Repub president again. This is the result of it, and now it takes another Democrat to clean up these lousy politicians' mess as is always the case. I just wish the Democrats here could understand it.

[mike_c]

34. I'm not sure I agree that the "left" is repeating those innane talking points...

...but I damned well agree with everything else you said! As for support for these wars from the left, my sense is that a great many folks who self identify as liberals are closet imperialists at best. On the left, we abhor war for political grandstanding.

[kenny blankenship]

40. The Reagan Wing of the Democratic Party

and you're right, there's nothing left about them.

[parasearchers]

35. I will not vote for them anymore, I am through with the game.

I will vote against Obama, even if it means bringing a luantic into office. Maybe that will wake the country up.

[Vidar]

36. K&R.

[midnight]

38. Good explanation why we need to get some answers to the escalation of

this illegal war.... On the campaign trail Obama said: He will focus on the global strategic interests of the United States, which includes ending our misguided effort in Iraq.

The differences on Iraq in this campaign are deep. Unlike Senator John McCain, I opposed the war in Iraq before it began, and would end it as president. I believed it was a grave mistake to allow ourselves to be distracted from the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban by invading a country that posed no imminent threat and had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. Since then, more than 4,000 Americans have died and we have spent nearly $1 trillion. Our military is overstretched. Nearly every threat we face — from Afghanistan to Al Qaeda to Iran — has grown.

In the 18 months since President Bush announced the surge, our troops have performed heroically in bringing down the level of violence. New tactics have protected the Iraqi population, and the Sunni tribes have rejected Al Qaeda — greatly weakening its effectiveness.

But the same factors that led me to oppose the surge still hold true. The strain on our military has grown, the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated and we’ve spent nearly $200 billion more in Iraq than we had budgeted. Iraq’s leaders have failed to invest tens of billions of dollars in oil revenues in rebuilding their own country, and they have not reached the political accommodation that was the stated purpose of the surge.http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2008/07/obama_clarifies_can_remove_com.html

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

43. Hate all Wars ... still support Obama

We had a great chance to unite the world with peaceful intentions after 9/11. The world was on our side. But ... Bush & Co. chose war.
We here knew, deep inside, that was the wrong choice.

OK, so "spank" someone for a wrongdoing.

I'm a vet from the VietNam era.
I have seen death, I have lived with death, I have felt, tasted, the blood and brains from a friend,
whom I was joking with moments before, scattered and spewed upon me.
Suddenly, with no sound, except that of a grunt and splat. At least he was laughing. He walked for a while,
6 to 8 paces at least, without a head, blood pumping from the neck. The screams were mine, not his.

I have walked through mud when there was no rain, mud made from blood, urine and scat.
On my boots, on my fatigues, in my nose, mouth and mind ... still. You never can clean blood from anything, anything, ever.

I have been through therapy for "Survivors Guilt", if they think it works, they are wrong!
How can you rationalize those moments? Wish it was just one, it may make it easier.

Still I saw the need to, again, "spank" someone.

But I feel we have exacted our pound of flesh. Oh, we have taken more.

This question I pose to you, not just Debbie, but to all.

"If we pull out of Afghanistan, we are told it would make "things worse" " , for whom and how? (please excuse the double quotes)

We would save billions of bucks.
Respect the blood of our soldiers already spilt?
Regain our fear of another terrorist act?
Do you really think they are coming for us?
Do we still have that much residual fear left over from the Bush years?

I feel we love to live in fear, just as we love the horror flicks, make us feel alive!

Please, Fellow DU'ers I need your help.

Where and when does pulling out of Afghanistan "make it worse"?

I'm a new poster to this site, but have read for many years.
Why post now?

Dems are a different kinda people, we all are different, we represent many opinions.
Repubs may be of one mind, we are the rest. That's what makes being a Dem so hard.

WE MUST RESPECT ALL OF OUR OPINIONS, politely point out the differences and come to a consensus.

I really love ya all.