Who does this guy think he is?!

[GoldenRivet]

Did i wake up in some strange twilight zone episode???

W T F?

http://news.aol.com/article/obama-af...taliban/373693

he just bitch slapped every dead American soldier across the face.

nice.

[Sea Demon]

Perhaps this is a reason we can see this reality....

Different Presidents, A Different Corps. Speaks volumes. These people know.

[surf_ten]

Originally Posted by Sea Demon

Perhaps this is a reason we can see this reality....

Different Presidents, A Different Corps. Speaks volumes. These people know.

I wonder how many military members wonder if the Obama administration itself classifies as a domestic threat to the constitution.

[antikristuseke]

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

he just bitch slapped every dead American soldier across the face.

In what way?

[GoldenRivet]

Originally Posted by antikristuseke

In what way?

basically by saying we have lost, and taking the position of "War in Afghanistan?... oh never mind that, we will just reverse our policy and make nice with the enemy now..."

[Enigma]

basically by saying we have lost, and taking the position of "War in Afghanistan?... oh never mind that, we will just reverse our policy and make nice with the enemy now..."

He didn't, though. He said we are not winning, not that we lost. I also don't see where the article suggests he wants to make nice with the enemy.

He says...

"The national government still has not gained the confidence of the Afghan people," he said. "And so it's going to be critical for us to not only, get through these national elections to stabilize the security situation, but we've got to recast our policy so that our military, diplomatic and development goals are all aligned to ensure that al-Qaida and extremists that would do us harm don't have the kinds of safe havens that allow them to operate."

He also says (bold mine)

There may be opportunities to reach out to moderates in the Taliban, but the situation in Afghanistan is more complicated than the challenges the American military faced in Iraq, Obama said.
U.S. troops were able to persuade Sunni Muslim insurgents in Iraq to cooperate in some instances because they had been alienated by the tactics of al-Qaida terrorists.

The article also says that Gen. David Petraeus has discussed this as his own idea for months, Robert Gates is on board, etc.

So, I'd have to say with respect, the twilight zone, wtf, and Obama slapping dead soldiers in the face? Come on, maaaan.....

basically by saying we have lost

Would that be like the pentagon studies from the 50's& early60's where the US military said indo-china couldn't be won .
hey you're right the politicians and generals proved them studies wrong didn't they.
Stupid bloody can-do attitude...bloody and stupid being the important words.

But hold on didn't the measures to temporarily solve the problem in Iraq to facilitate the hand over involve paying the sunni insurgents to stop attacking the coilition ? Did Bush bitch slap every dead serviceman by doing that ?

[GoldenRivet]

I live in a military family... and from all accounts i have heard so far, this Obama guy is full of sh*t.

but... your right guys

i was wrong and i apologize

we should give up, turn tail and run and hope our civilian centers never get attacked on the scale of 9/11 again.

because hope is enough right?

we should turn several years of combating evil into a single moment of "never mind.. forget we were ever mad at you"

we should also dump trillions of our hard earned dollars into a big federal bucket and just hand it over to the poor crack heads, and irresponsible welfare mothers while we are at it.

i suppose we should kill unborn children too.

I guess the leftist policies are the best policies after all?

am i the only person who takes issue with this stuff???

[fatty]

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

am i the only person who takes issue with this stuff???

Unfortunately, no, you have an army of morons right behind you determined to connect abortion and negotiating with moderate cells of the Taliban insurgency.

Are you for real? Goddamn.

[antikristuseke]

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

I live in a military family... and from all accounts i have heard so far, this Obama guy is full of sh*t.

but... your right guys

i was wrong and i apologize

we should give up, turn tail and run and hope our civilian centers never get attacked on the scale of 9/11 again.

because hope is enough right?

we should turn several years of combating evil into a single moment of "never mind.. forget we were ever mad at you"

we should also dump trillions of our hard earned dollars into a big federal bucket and just hand it over to the poor crack heads, and irresponsible welfare mothers while we are at it.

i suppose we should kill unborn children too.

I guess the leftist policies are the best policies after all?

am i the only person who takes issue with this stuff???

Strawman much?

For the first part, NOONE is claiming that all troops should pull out imediately and we should hope that they do not attack, whoever says that is an idiot. Allso those who think that just by keeping the fight going, without looking for possible diplomatic solutions, it can be won is an idiot, want to see evidence of that, look at Israel.
As for abortion, which is an act of grater cruelty, aborting a fetus or bringing an unwanted child into this world?
Sidenote to this, abstinance only sexual education does not work, demonstrably so. It is like communism in that regards, nice idea, **** in practice.

[heartc]

Originally Posted by antikristuseke

In what way?

In ways of defeatism indeed.

America - together with its allies - destroyed Nazi-Germany in Western Europe and Imperial Japan in Asia and the Pacific. Don't tell me they can't deal with a bunch of ragheads in the desert. It is only because of the "international pressure" - rather bickering - of "Allies" who are not willing to commit effective force to the fight because they taught "World Peace" to their people for decades. They could afford to do that because the US took care of the Soviet threat for all those decades, while being lectured they would threaten this "World Peace" by a bunch of moronic hippies in Europe and the US itself.
Now, these days the Western mindset is dominated by them, and the recent US election may well have made the last bastion of determined and effective resistance disappear, which the enemy feared the most.

The Taliban / Islamic extremists cannot ever dream of winning their jihad against the West and free societies close to what they claim their own lands by military means. In a sound world, they would be crushed and destroyed, totally. But while the enemy stands no chance against the military might of the West, their only hope is to engage the West through terrorist acts and propaganda, it hopes to win on the battlefield of Western policy against weak minds and defeatists.

And now the President of the US considers to negotiate with them. One of the greatest world powers in human history, being embedded in one of the strongest military alliances ever, NATO, cannot deal with the ragheads and wants to talk with them. Give me a break.

The demise of the Roman Empire against a bunch of barbarians came about mostly from slow but steady decay from within. The same can happen to the great free societies of the West. Never before has there been such a grand alliance of free people as today. We don't have to and should not give in to a bunch of 5th century radicals.

[Enigma]

In ways of defeatism indeed.

America - together with its allies - destroyed Nazi-Germany in Western Europe and Imperial Japan in Asia and the Pacific. Don't tell me they can't deal with a bunch of ragheads in the desert. It is only because of the "international pressure" - rather bickering - of "Allies" who are not willing to commit effective force to the fight because they taught "World Peace" to their people for decades. They could afford to do that because the US took care of the Soviet threat for all those decades, while being lectured they would threaten this "World Peace" by a bunch of moronic hippies in Europe and the US itself.
Now, these days the Western mindset is dominated by them, and the recent US election made the last bastion of determined and effective resistance disappear.

The Taliban / Islamic extremists cannot ever dream of winning their jihad against the West by military means. In a sound world, they would be crushed and destroyed, totally. But while the enemy stands no chance against the military might of the West, their only hope is to engage the West through terrorist acts and propaganda, it hopes to win on the battlefield of Western policy against weak minds and defeatists.

And now the President of the US considers to negotiate with them. One of the greatest world powers in human history, being embedded in one of the strongest military alliances ever, NATO, cannot deal with the ragheads and wants to talk with them. Give me a break.

The demise of the Roman Empire against a bunch of barbarians came about mostly from slow but steady decay from within. The same can happen to the great free societies of the West. Never before has there been such a grand alliance of free people as today. We don't have to and should not give in to a bunch of 5th century radicals.

Every comparison you made per the enemy was an organized, uniformed military backed by a state or government. Terrorists are not. It's a big difference. No hill to take, no government to topple, etc, etc. A war on terrorism, while in good intention, is like a war on jealousy. You can't stamp it out completely, especially using the military to do so.
You also clearly didn't read the article, either. And, the same question applies to you: Do you suppose that Secretary Gates, Gen. Petreus, and President Obama are all weak minded defeatists?

[Schroeder]

@Heartc

And your suggestion is what?
Nuke them all?
We are not facing a country here that can be brought down like Nazi-Germany.
You would have to kill the entire islamic population to get rid of terrorists.

Or shall we continue what we did over the last 8 years?
Did not really get us anywhere, did it?

I don't like to talk to these idiots too, but something in our strategy has to be changed and military power alone can't win this since the terrorists have a safe haven in Pakistan. Unless of course we would flatten Pakistan as well but then they would go to.....

[heartc]

Originally Posted by Schroeder

Or shall we continue what we did over the last 8 years?
Did not really get us anywhere, did it?

It did.

1. There were no more attacks on the US during all that time.

2. The attacks on Madrid and London were EXACTLY designed to exploit the weakness of Western societies and make them vote for governments that would reduce the military threat against the enemy by withdrawing from the fight, and at least in Spain it worked.

3. The West is sitting in Afghanistan, and at least some members of the NATO alliance are engaging the Taliban in earnest, which makes it harder for them to recruit and train in what was an undisturbed safe heaven prior to the invasion. It would make it even harder for them if some of the other NATO members would get off their asses.

4. An enemy of the West with the potential to develop WMDs - maybe falsely identified as being in possession of them, since he was in the past - has been removed, and replaced with further presence of the West in the general area of where the threat originates, which again makes it harder for the enemy to operate, network and rally. The notion that Saddam Hussein was indeed an asset these days because of his secular government style is ridiculous. He might have been in the 80s, but later he was an outspoken enemy and it is ridiculous to believe he did not and would not conspire with other enemies of the West because of their religious background. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend". Saddam kept them at arms length, but that sure didn't stop him from lending a hand and he sure didn't stop them from conducting their operations. He handed out money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers for Christ sakes.

I think the West was on the right track. Naturally the road is rocky, mistakes happen and there might always be better ways to tackle the threat. Wishing to talk with them because "No, we are not winning" is not one of those.
Meeting over a coffee with him while only a fool would believe that his scientists are not busy building a nuclear bomb meanwhile, is not either.

[heartc]

Originally Posted by Enigma

Every comparison you made per the enemy was an organized, uniformed military backed by a state or government. Terrorists are not. It's a big difference. You also clearly didn't read the article, either. And, the same question applies to you: Do you suppose that Secretary Gates, Gen. Petreus, and President Obama are all weak minded defeatists?

"Terrorists" are terrorists because they engaging their enemy in a conventional way would see their demise quickly, while in earlier times they might have still been able to do that. Instead they learned to exploit the weaknesses of inter-Western relationships and its domestic policy by engaging in acts of terror. It is their most effective and only way to fight. That shouldn't stop us though from destroying them on open battlefields if they or their allies are foolish enough to go there, and neither from identifiying them as a hostile force against us that and whose sponsors must be destroyed / stopped / bullied.

To your second point: A military member, such as a General, can only act within the realms, limits and conditions set by the politicians. It is the politicians (and in a free society, also their voters) responsiblity to make sure that an effective campaign can be fought. If the military is constraint by politics, it might have to consider options it might not consider otherwise.
Anyway, if the General's ideas of talks are about "divide and conquer", I'm all for it.
But what Pres. Obama said was "No, we are not winning in Afghanistan" and "I would like to talk to them, but it's so difficult". **** that. If you figure you can't do it and achieve anything with it, then don't think aloud about it, because it's a sign of weakness for them. Oh, and saying "No, we are not winning" to international press is just that, too.

Oh, and btw:

""If you talk to Gen. Petraeus, I think he would argue that part of the success in Iraq involved reaching out to people that we would consider to be Islamic fundamentalists, but who were willing to work with us," said Obama.""

I thought there was no success in Iraq? Surely that was the notion that Pres. Obama built half his campaign on?

The US lost South-Vietnam because of the nuclear threat from the Soviet Union and because of the hippies back home. They might lose against the radical Islamic / Islamist threat for the same reasons, minus the nuclear threat, and this time with much worse implications for the West, especially Europe with her ever growing Muslim minorities.