Do You Support Obama's Planned Troop Surge in Afghanistan?

[Truth2Tell]

Poll question: Do You Support Obama's Planned Troop Surge in Afghanistan?

Obama has pledged to send an additional 7,000 American troops to Afghanistan immediately upon taking office and has suggested he would be open to sending more. At the same time our NATO allies seem to be backing towards the exits. Do you support the Afghanistan surge?

My answer is no. Afghanistan isn't known as "the graveyard of empires" for nothing. Just ask Alexander the Great, the British raj and 150,000 Soviets troops. Oh, and um, we're broke too.

[Sebastian Doyle]

1. It's time to end ALL the goddamn occupations.

The purpose of the United States military is to defend the United States of America. Sadly, it has been used for anything BUT since 1946. End ALL the occupations. Bring them home. Let UNOCAL and the Bush Crime Family opium farmers protect their own property.

[spanone]

2. afghanistan is another clusterfuck.....no. no. no.

what is our mission in afghanistan? osama? heroin production? democracy? OUT NOW

[Deja Q]

3. Osama. GWB said he did not care. What if Obama does?

[anonymous171]

I'm pretty much an isolationist, so no. We shouldn't be rebuilding it.

Our one and only goal should be the capture or death of OBL.

[Mari333]

4. oh hell no n/t

[Solly Mack]

5. Nope

[leftstreet]

6. No

[Swamp Rat]

7. BRING THEM HOME NOW!

There are other, much more effective ways to capture Bin Laden.

[Pyrzqxgl]

8. I tried to support Johnson in the 60s & that damn Viet Nam war caused me to

leave the Democratic Party for the only time in my life.
Please don't let that be the reason I leave this party
a second time. The Viet Nam war split progressives like
no other. Please don't let Afghanistan be a replay of
that scenario. It'd be a perfect opportunity for the GOP
to sneak back into power.

[TygrBright]

9. I do not support additional offensive action.

But I think additional troop strength could be productively used to enable a hugely expanded effort at re-building infrastructure and supporting a secular, democratically-oriented government.

I'm also willing to acknowledge that it might NOT work, even with that end in view. However, I'm willing to allow the new Administration, with new leadership and new mission objectives, to take a swing at accomplishing what needs to be accomplished. Because I'm pretty sure that if they see it's not gonna work, they'll stop doing it and do something else.

For preference? I'd get all Americans the hell out of a line east of Romania or thereabouts and west of California, with the exception of a few installations in the far East and the Pacific Rim. But that is unrealistic. And it's also an abrogation of responsibility. The U.S., whether you like it or not, tends to exert a disproportionate gravitational pull in international relations. We also use a hugely disproportionate share of the world's resources. We also produce a disproportionate share of the world's pollution. All of those factors mean we can't morally decide to simply disengage from troubled regions. We are in western Asia for the long haul, militarily, diplomatically, and economically. We have to find a way to do it right.

I think the incoming Admin has a way better chance of doing that, especially if they start out with some maneuvering room. Time enough to holler "Knock it off" if they start repeating mistakes.

equably,
Bright

[Truth2Tell]

15. Why does the fact that we use

more resources and create more pollution mean that we should maintain a military presence in other nations? I don't understand the logic of that?

[TygrBright]

31. Sorry, I didn't phrase it too clearly.

I didn't mean that disproportionate use of resources and responsibility for a disproportionate amount of pollution by themselves require military presence anywhere.

Rather, those two things are part of a larger profile (including the other things I mentioned) that makes the United States, whether we like it or not, a critical influence on security and economic stability in most regions of the world. Those factors do contribute to our influence.

The nature of our influence in the context of regional and local geopolitics may make a military presence the most prudent or productive option in some situations. Some. Not nearly as many as we have bases and deployments. But some. I'd argue that Western Asia is one of those places if only because lack of a military presence would limit the ability of non-military forms of U.S. engagement to function productively.

It's far too complex a situational dynamic to be dogmatic about. I'm willing to admit I don't know enough for my opinions to matter a fart in a high wind.

But if we're all standing around passing gas into the gale, I don't know why I shouldn't let rip with a few contributions.

bloviationally,
Bright

[Truth2Tell]

36. I'm not sure that lack of military engagement

would limit our ability engage non-militarily. It may be exactly the opposite at this point. Either way I suspect it will take time and effort to be able to constructively engage non-militarily in Afghanistan - a lengthy rebuilding of trust over many years - after we leave of course. :)

[anonymous171]

16. I respectfully disagree. There is no way a secular government can exist there.

Too many fundamentalists and tribes. I think the military should focus on finding and capturing OBL and other key Al Qaeda members so we can get out as quickly as possible. Afghanistan cannot be tamed. If the British couldn't do it, neither can we.

[Truth2Tell]

10. Latest on the situation

from Robert Fisk via The Independent:

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-nobody-supports-the-taliban-but-people-hate-the-government-1036905.html">Nobody supports the Taliban, but people hate the government

The collapse of Afghanistan is closer than the world believes. Kandahar is in Taliban hands – all but a square mile at the centre of the city – and the first Taliban checkpoints are scarcely 15 miles from Kabul. Hamid Karzai's deeply corrupted government is almost as powerless as the Iraqi cabinet in Baghdad's "Green Zone"; lorry drivers in the country now carry business permits issued by the Taliban which operate their own courts in remote areas of the country.

The Red Cross has already warned that humanitarian operations are being drastically curtailed in ever larger areas of Afghanistan; more than 4,000 people, at least a third of them civilians, have been killed in the past 11 months, along with scores of Nato troops and about 30 aid workers. Both the Taliban and Mr Karzai's government are executing their prisoners in ever greater numbers. The Afghan authorities hanged five men this month for murder, kidnap or rape – one prisoner, a distant relative of Mr Karzai, predictably had his sentence commuted – and more than 100 others are now on Kabul's death row.

This is not the democratic, peaceful, resurgent, "gender-sensitive" Afghanistan that the world promised to create after the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001. Outside the capital and the far north of the country, almost every woman wears the all-enshrouding burkha, while fighters are now joining the Taliban's ranks from Kashmir, Uzbekistan, Chechnya and even Turkey. More than 300 Turkish fighters are now believed to be in Afghanistan, many of them holding European passports.

"Nobody I know wants to see the Taliban back in power," a Kabul business executive says – anonymity is now as much demanded as it was before 2001 – "but people hate the government and the parliament which doesn't care about their security. The government is useless. With so many internally displaced refugees pouring into Kabul from the countryside, there's mass unemployment – but of course, there are no statistics.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-nobody-supports-the-taliban-but-people-hate-the-government-1036905.html">More here...

[tomg]

11. Out now. nt

[sandnsea]

12. Depends on the strategy

If it's to focus on the Pakistan region and al qaeda, yes. If it's to occupy the entire country, and not focus on infrastructure improvements, then no.

[Truth2Tell]

18. Would just focusing on terrorist threats

mean we need to add troops? Couldn't we scale back and run special ops from mid-sized bases in or around Afghanistan? Do we need to invade and occupy whole nations in order to hunt down terrorists?

[sandnsea]

29. Is the border region safe?

No?? Oh. I guess special ops isn't enough.

[Truth2Tell]

32. So our job should be

to keep thier border area safe, in addition to hunting terrorists?

[sandnsea]

33. The terrorists are in the border region

But you knew that, right?

[Truth2Tell]

34. Yes snidely, I knew that.

I'm simply suggesting that we don't need to occupy and run the nation of Afghanistan in order to chase down the terrorists. We can use intellegence and surveilence and other tools to find them. Then we can send in special forces to get them. I'm really not sure what that has to do with making the places they are hiding "safe?" :shrug:

[sandnsea]

39. "Depends on the strategy"

Which is why I said my support of additional troops depends on the strategy. If it's to target al qaeda and support a real construction program, fine. Otherwise, no. If special ops was enough to get them, it would be done by now. And if terrorists weren't in those regions, they'd be safe.

[Truth2Tell]

41. Why the construction piece?

To do that we need to occupy, and that just isn't working, has never worked, and is not going to work.

What you describe as an acceptable strategy is the same as our current utterly failed strategy.

It's likely that most of the terrorists are in Pakistan anyway. So why rule Kabul?

[sandnsea]

42. We always do that

It's traditionally how we've built good will. That was before we put greed and bigotry over the most basic human decency that any citizen knew we were supposed to act with. Improving the standard of living and empowering people to rule themselves is how you create a more cooperative world. But these neocon haters are a whole other breed and have unleashed the worst in this country, which has in turn been unleashed on Iraq and the world. They won't trust us to work against the terrorists unless we prove we can be trusted, and one way is to improve the standard of living. The saying, if mama's happy, everybody's happy, applies.

[HereSince1628]

13. We have already lost all dignity, now it's just a matter of losing money

and, oh yes, those meaningless little lives drawn from the nasty masses of the unfortunate who were silly to volunteer to serve their country.

Did I say meaningless? Okay then, no point in worrying about them.

[KSDiva]

14. Send in more troops. Help the country stabilize. Then get the hell out.

n/t

[Truth2Tell]

21. How many more to stabalize?

The Russians couldn't stabalize the place with 150,000 of their own troops and twice the Afghani forces that we have. Is there a limit? Do more troops really help with insugency situations? Do you believe the Iraq surge has solved anything there?

[Uzybone]

17. Until we finish off Osama's Al Qaeda in Afghanistan

I am in support of finishing that fight.

[Truth2Tell]

22. Is finishing off Osama and friends the same

as occupying and running the nation of Afghanistan?

[cali]

19. no.

it's way, way too late.

[Roy]

20. Obama's troop surge???

How about Obama's policies on Afghanistan when he begin to institute them?

I haven't heard Obama say he would institute a "troop surge" or any other right wing framed terminology as his policies.

I don't know why others would.... or maybe I do.

Should we not wait until he starts to implement his Afghan policy before we try to define it in right wing terms?
Or should we just try to spin everything about him now, in order to tarnish him a month and a half before he even takes office?

Hell, maybe we should start the impeachment process now, and avoid the holiday rush.

[fla nocount]

27. 20.000 more mother's sons, he said it, he owns it.

Just like FISA and the banking charities he supports.

[PurityOfEssence]

46. and the faith-based charities and the drilling

and the nuclear power...

[Truth2Tell]

37. He has unquestionably said he plans to send more troops.

I think the term "surge" is a fair description of his plan.

[Roy]

38. The term surge is a BS description and an attempt to paint...

Obama with a right wing brush.

Placing 'enough' troops to do a job proficiently is not the same as Bush's excuse to dampen criticism from those who said his flawed strategy was costing lives.

That 'surge' BS was just a slogan coined to pretend there was a change in that failed strategy.

[Truth2Tell]

40. Well, I happen to think

that sending 7,000 more troops to Afghanistan is a BS policy decision intended to make it appear we are doing something differently about THIS flawed strategy that is costing lives, exactly as you describe about the Bush Iraq strategy. Same game = same terminology. This troop increase (how's that word?) is only a tactical change and will do nothing the fix the overall flawed strategy of occupying the entire nation. A quagmire is a quagmire is a quagmire. When will we ever learn?

[Roy]

43. I don't have the benefit of your crystal ball....

So, I don't know what Obama will or will not do, nor the result of such actions.

Even though you purport to already know the outcomes of policies that Obama will not implement until at least a couple of months from now, I still hesitate to defer to you and your right wing paint brush.

So, I guess I'll just put you on ignore until sometime next spring. Maybe even in time for some more right wing spin on how Obama is a failure and any success achieved in Afghanistan is due to some other circumstance.

[Caliman73]

23. No troop surge

In order to eradicate terrorism (if you can even do that)you have to eliminate fundamentalism and desperation and you cannot do that with an army.

[Mari333]

24. ANYONE who supports a troop surge

should either be willing to enlist. or willing to send their own kids there or willing to support a DRAFT..
otherwise, they are chickenhawks.

our troops are already doing 4-5 redeployments as it is, and are strained to the max.
send them all home now.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

61. No more than those who oppose it should be willing to move to Afghanistan.

Both sending more troops and not doing so will have negative consequences, for different groups of people.

To condemn those who call for one decision without being willing to suffer the consequences themselves, but not the other, is hypocrisy.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

25. More cannon fodder for another lost war? I think not.

Not to mention speeding up the bankruptcy of the country.

[RetiredTrotskyite]

26. Out! Out! Out!

This war is not worth one more American life.

[tekisui]

28. No. It will end in failure.

Afghanistan's Occupation is unwinnable. The Taliban cannot be defeated with the resources we have.

[Initech]

30. We need to get the hell out of there ASAP!!!

[BeFree]

35. Its a wonder

That we haven't been nuked yet, eh? More war? What for? We keep this shit up and we will be nuked to smithereens and deserve it, too. Obama ain't gonna save us. He's a pawn of those who want us to all die in some gawd damned fire and brimstone show as if it were gonna be televised and we're just spectators.

_{can ya tell I'm a little bummed?}

[Pastiche423]

44. No ifs, ands or buts about it...

No. Bring the troops home!

[mvd]

45. My opinion is just to bring all troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan

More occupation will solve anything.

[eridani]

47. It isn't like we're doing social work with JDAMs and cluster bombs in Afghanistan, ya know

Unfortunately, with imperial domination helping people is strictly secondary to the domination thing if it occurs at all. You can tell when domiation is the agenda because dominators always look for local elite cats' paws to carry out thos agenda, which eventually fails because the locals always have their own sometimes contradictory agendas as well. For that reason, the dominators are constantly switching sides. Look for that--it's how you can tell what's actually going on.

Our first intervention was recruiting radical Islamists from all over the world to fight against the Soviets starting in 1979, with the deliberate intention (according to Brzezinski) of drawing the Soviets into a Vietnam-like quagmire. We paid American universities to develop pro-jihadi textbooks. Of the native reactionaries, we gave most of our $5 billion or so financial aid to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who made his bones in the 70s thowing acid in the faces of female university students. (Yes, as late as 1975, female students in Kabul occasionally wore miniskirts.) The CIA knew all about his prior history, and they were happy to watch him burn down girls' schools. Now we have a price on his head. The CIA does a lot BSing about how they never did finacially support bin Laden. True, but only because they invited him to the party precisely because he donated a bunch of his own money to the cause.

After the Soviets left, warlord factions destroyed a lot of Kabul and killed around 40,000 of its citizens. We fully supported the Pakistani ISI in their sponsorship of the Taliban, which the warlord-weary population of Afghanistan thought might suppress lawlessness. Imperial agent Zalmay Khalilzad (currently our ambassador to Iraq) even wrote a WaPo editorial in 1997 explaining how the Taliban were agents of stability and not nearly as bad as those Shi'ite fundies in Iran. Now we don't like them for having temporarily harbored bin Laden.

AFter 9-11 we ignored constant pleas from indigenous anti-Taliban forces to not engage in massive bombing of civilians in support of the Northern Alliance warlords (formerly Soviet-allied, so we switched sides again). After our new allies kicked the Taliban out of major population centers, we refused to let the Loya Jirga of 2002 install their choice of ruler, the former king (favored mainly because he had pissed off the fewest number of people). They also wanted nothing to do with the warlords we insisted on installing instead, but we installed them anyway.

Our current campaign there consists of supporting warlords who are not much different from the Taliban (except for being slightly less puritanical and a lot more corrupt) with extensive bombing of civilians. That's gotten bad enough so that Lambchop Karzai occasionally bites Ms. Shari the Dominator right on the nose, at least verbally.

Why in fecking hell anybody believes that more of the same can possibly do Afghanistan any good is beyond me.

[Truth2Tell]

50. Thanks eridani!

:hi:

[mdmc]

48. this is the way I see it

I disagree with his plan but I trust his decision. He's the man with the plan. I will support his decision.

[Truth2Tell]

49. Sooo, is that a vote for

bring them home or send more? :shrug:

[mdmc]

51. I was always against this war and the Iraq war

but we are in a fucked up situation.

So I support Obama, even if he is a rat worm war hawk. He is better then the other rat worm war hawk. And he will be better then the rat worm war hawk that the GOP will run in 2012.

Nader and Barr would admit defeat and bring the troops home. If I wanted to vote "anti-war", I would have voted for one of them.

But I voted for "change". As in a change from the super stupid neo-cons. Now lets see if we triangulate or if we articulate liberalism. I bet we triangulate. aka - send more.

[Truth2Tell]

53. How did you vote in the poll? nt

[mdmc]

54. Send more troops

I think...or other...I voted yesterday.

[Truth2Tell]

56. You sounded a bit other-ey.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. :hi:

[mdmc]

60. peace and low stress

bro

[Hanse]

52. Of course not.

And I hope Obama was lying to get elected when he promoted the idea.

Afghanistan will be Obama's folly if he doesn't pull out.

[Zhade]

55. Fuck no. What does bombing innocent Afghanis do to DETER terrorism?

NT!

[NNN0LHI]

57. Been the 7 years. Didn't find bin Laden. Didn't find bin Laden's Mountain Fortress

And Mullah Mohammed Omar escaped on a motor scooter 6 years ago and hasn't been seen since.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Omar

We are chasing ghosts over there.

I don't think the Afghans are ever going to surrender and there is no way to tell the good guys from the bad guys which means the only way to "win" is to kill them all and repopulate the place. I am not for that.

Don

[amborin]

58. no, a million times no...good article earlier on in The Nation about the quagmire of Afghanistan

definitely no

we need to focus our limited reserves on other places....

[HEyHEY]

59. Yes. One hundred Canadians have died, time to pull your weight.

[yodoobo]

62. If Obama thinks its a good idea, I'll support him

Originally I had preferred that they all come home, but I'm willing to give Obama a chance on this.

Obama was 100% correct on Iraq, I think its silly to start doubting him now.