Ah you’re too kind, AB. Later in the thread I’ll go into more detail. It’s interesting but let me not mislead. It’s not entirely MY book. My story is, however, the best of the bunch. It is a great book, great writing....seriously.
For now, heh, here’s a concept, we shall stick to the thread as I have thoughts, opinions and such.
First, McCain was right although again, as I make the sign of the cross, why is this man ALWAYS the so-called “conservative” guest? This gives the folks some idea that McCain is the mouth of the Republican party when you, I and all other readers, know that he is definitely not liked.
But he IS the Senator from Arizona and as much as he tried to stretch his mouth to encompass both sides, he was right on about how the federal gubmint treats Arizona crap. Did you hear federal agencies are now boycotting Arizona? Did you ever think the day would come in your lifetime when our President would go to war against a state? and all because the state wants to protect its citizens?
Next, hey, Shiela Lee! She looks normal! She doesn’t have that African braid thing on her head. She looks like a normal American and she’s not talking too weird. She’s still a dumb lib. Maybe I’m reading too much into it but I’m thinking the Dems in California have probably been pushed too far left, that Barbara Boxer might already have gone too far, that the Dems need to go back to center if they’ve got a chance. I’m probably reading too much into the makeover of Shiela Lee but hey, recall the mockery that Boxer got for her Donald Trump hairstyle, which she rightly deserved.
As for Afghanistan, America needs to figure out a way how to get the hell out of there without making it look like we’re losing.
First, my thinking is that McChrystal planned this entire episode. He knew that those ridiculous rules of engagement (don’t shoot your gun until command is given?) were causing death and danger. Without this big public uproar I think the cowardly Obamer admin (this is a guy who throws a baseball like a girl and eats cilantro) would get more and more absurd until the ROE’s would command that our guys surrender immediately upon any sighting of a Taliban.
I suspect that Petraeus demanded that the ROE’s be changed as there’s been hints of this since McChrystal quite.
As for Afghanistan, I don’t have the solution. But I sure think throwing our money and military folks at that neanderthal place is a waste of resources.
A REAL leader would be pondering and thinking of how to do this with as much pride as possible. I think the Obamer admin plan was to have our guys keep getting killed until Americans demand we leave there.
Kinda like Vietnam, you think?
I think it’s important for all Americans to remember why we went to war in Afghanistan in the first place.
Al Qaeda, through their leader, Osama bin Laden, brutally and deliberately attacked our innocent countrymen on September 11th, 2001. We had no quarrel with the Taliban ruling Afghanistan but to demand they give up Bin Laden and his henchmen for these crimes against humanity, but the Taliban refused.
We probably need to discuss this in talks with what remains of the Taliban, and hold them to giving up Al Qaeda, renouncing terrorism as a crime against humanity and “Allah”, and then we’ll leave. World opinion needs to be refocused on Al Qaeda’s dirty deeds and the Taliban’s support of them.
Until then we’ve got to have the stones to take war to them harshly and sternly if they cannot see the truth in the simple thing above.
However, if we cannot do that, then we have truly lost. We will have to admit that as a people, we did not have the will to defend ourselves and avenge the victims of 911.
It is that simple in my mind.
What’s wrong with cilantro, at least on fajitas?
re: As for Afghanistan, America needs to figure out a way how to get the hell out of there without making it look like we’re losing.
We need to withdraw from Afghanistan immediately, except for sufficient SPECOPS forces to keep the Taliban pinned down, with NO ROE restrictions (neca eos omnes, Deus suos agnoscet - "kill them all, let God sort them out").
The withdrawal needs to be through southeastern Iran, accompanied by the seizure of their oil fields and refinery facilities and the re-establishment of secure sea-and-land-based lines of logistical support for our military. If we do that I can pretty much guarantee nobody's going to be talking much about how things look in Afghanistan... /g
I'm only half kidding, of course. The sad reality is that the war in Afghanistan, as it is currently framed and implemented, is militarily untenable. It's a no-win scenario, by design. Petraeus has been set up to fail and be the scapegoat for that defeat. It doesn't matter how good he is.
He had one small window of opportunity to leverage his public popularity and Obama's vulnerability to demand the changes necessary to give our military a fighting chance. To do that he would have to publicly repudiate the current strategy and state his own - IOW publicly defy Obama and his agenda while he's too popular to be fired.
If the comment from another poster here is correct, however, that Admiral Mullen has already publicly declared no change in the ROEs, then Petraeus has already been outplayed in the political chess game. That's assuming, of course, that Petraeus doesn't actually support and believe in the current suicidal strategy...
Our troops in Afghanistan are being set up for a reprise of the French at Dien Bien Phu and the fall of Saigon, with a big dash of Xenophon's "Anabasis" thrown in.