EPTObama wants $33 Billion more for the War - Page 3
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Deleted User 3420
24492 Posts
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Archerofaiur
United States4101 Posts
On January 15 2010 02:40 Wr3k wrote: If your gonna go to war, at least finish the job, I don't necessarily think the wars were a good idea, but once the ball is rolling you can't just fuck off and not finish the job, good on Obama. Here is a great question. Why not? Your assuming that the instability and damage caused by you to continue waging war will be less than the instability and damage occuring if you leave. | ||
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GreEny K
Germany7312 Posts
On January 15 2010 01:13 jello_biafra wrote: War is expensive business, this comes as no surprise. Yeah, it's even worse when it wasn't needed. | ||
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starcraft911
Korea (South)1263 Posts
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semantics
10040 Posts
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Not_A_Notion
Ireland441 Posts
On January 15 2010 02:46 Archerofaiur wrote: Here is a great question. Why not? Your assuming that the instability and damage caused by you to continue waging war will be less than the instability and damage occuring if you leave. Generally leaving a central government with little or no means to assert control leads to a failed state. Incidentally since the Iraq surge in 2007 Iraq has seen an improvement in its failed state Index, moving from 2nd behind Sudan to 6th, not a huge increase but certainly an improvement that was correlated (I won't conclude causation on 1 observation) with an increase in troop presence. So the anecdotal evidence suggests that the presence of an army that backs the central government is beneficial to the countries stability. Another example here that is off topic + Show Spoiler + According to the political economist Paul Collier, Oxford, the 2 main risks to a weak state are rebellion and coups. In the case of Zaire, President Mobutu at the time thought the chances of a coup were too high, so he practically dismantled the army. The upshot was when the far far far smaller Rwanda invaded they were able to overthrow the government with consummate ease. In this case not having a large standing army contributed to the fall of the state and since this lack of an army was due to fear of a coup the presence of a foreign army that supports the central government does not pose the threat of a coup (well I don't believe Obama would order one  and so has the upside of helping quell rebellion but not the downside of a coup which would be equally bad for the nation | ||
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iloveHieu
United States1919 Posts
On January 15 2010 02:43 nttea wrote: Most definitely not. But really the uninformation goes both ways (: Yet I see a lot more non-Americans speak their unwanted comments about the US when they're in the dark than the other way around. Maybe it's just me. | ||
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Archerofaiur
United States4101 Posts
On January 15 2010 03:25 Not_A_Notion wrote: Generally leaving a central government with little or no means to assert control leads to a failed state. Good now predict what happens if we stay. Good points of reference would be a country that is similar to Afghanistan like say Afghanistan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Afghanistan | ||
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Not_A_Notion
Ireland441 Posts
On January 15 2010 03:34 Archerofaiur wrote: Good now predict what happens if we stay. Good points of reference would be a country that is similar to Afghanistan like say Afghanistan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Afghanistan Well if the US and indeed NATO as a whole is trying to turn Afghanistan into a tributary state or a colony then they are doomed to fail just as Russia in the EDIT * 80's excuse me* and the UK in the 19th century. If they are trying support the central Afghani government then they have a chance, nothing of course is guaranteed but I'd rather Hamid Karzai in power than the Taliban given their track record. | ||
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Archerofaiur
United States4101 Posts
On January 15 2010 03:38 Not_A_Notion wrote: Well if the US and indeed NATO as a whole is trying to turn Afghanistan into a tributary state or a colony then they are doomed to fail just as Russia in the EDIT * 80's excuse me* and the UK in the 19th century. If they are trying support the central Afghani government then they have a chance, nothing of course is guaranteed but I'd rather Hamid Karzai in power than the Taliban given their track record. You can hold up any thing you want and say "No this time it will be different." But that doesnt change the fact that America is single handedly trying to prove every lesson of history wrong. And so far History appears to be winning. | ||
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Broken.Mind
United States364 Posts
On January 15 2010 01:43 Jibba wrote: Attempting to streamline the military into lighter, modular forces isn't a bad thing, it was just near impossible to make that transition during an actual war. Rumsfeld may have been a great peace time Secretary. While it's fun to say in pop culture that the WMDs were fabricated, it's simply not true. I know it's not in your style to do any research, but the US army deployed fully expecting its soldiers to be attacked with chemical weapons, and most of the IRG forces expected they'd have the weapons available to attack with. No one in the international community realized Saddam had them destroyed after Desert Fox, which is exactly what he wanted. I'm sure there's some corporatism involved, but that's the way the American political system works and has always worked. There's always an economic component, and I don't think they ever tried to hide the fact that oil played had a role in rebuilding the country. In fact, I'm almost positive Wolfowitz, as big of an asshole as he is, openly said as much. It certainly isn't the only factor, however, as there are way better countries to invade if you just want oil money. It may not be as much fun, but you can't ignore the political or social motivations as well. The evidence the Bush administration used to support the case that Saddam had WMDs was misconstrued. The threat Saddam posed to the U.S. and his "WMDs" were exaggerated to gain public support for the war. In fact, the Bush administration leaked stories to the press and then went on news talkshows and quoted the stories as evidence that Saddam had WMDS and supported terrorism. After the gulf war, the U.S. had a containment policy of Iraq and continued to strategically bomb targets to prevent Saddam from ever rebuilding a strong army and develop weapons programs. Ironically, Desert Fox occurred under the Clinton administration, which was a missle strike that destroyed the majority of Saddam's weapons and his capability to make them. As for Wolfowitz, he really is a warhawk and he has wanted to get rid of Saddam since the first Gulf War. What is scarier than Wolfowitz's obession with getting in to Iraq, is the fact that President Bush truely thought that he could transform the middle east with democracy. He believes it can work anywhere and that the Iraqis would realize how superior our system of democracy was compared to their own and conform. Now I admire the fact that Bush wanted to transform the middle east into something better, because I feel that in some way we all would like to see positive change over there. However, it was a miscalculation to think that we could solve 2000+ years of fighting with the removal of Saddam and the implementation of a puppet government or at the very least a government that would be pro American. It is important to note that there were no Al Qaeda fighters in Iraq until we got there. | ||
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HnR)hT
United States3468 Posts
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Misrah
United States1695 Posts
1. Saddam was a bad guy. I would venture to guess that Most Iraqis were rather happy with the crazy man out of the picture. 2. America was doing the right thing in that respect, however we now are facing the problem of pulling out. 3. I don't think that much for thought was given to what our prolonged millitary stay has done to the Iraqi people. Frankly, we had gone to liberators- and now we are nothing more than an occupying force in there eyes. We over stayed our welcome big time. 4. Going back to point 3- we are so deep in Iraq now, because of the fact that we had to *conveniently* destroy iraqi public works buildings, generally leaving the cities in disarray, with no electricity and running water. So then one must ask- was iraq better with saddam and running water/ electricity, or is it now better with the US of A slowly rebuilding everything we blew up- all the while our army is slowly becoming nothing short of an occupancy? Frankly there is no right decision, and Obama the christ cannot rectify this situation, nor can a measly 33billion. I have said this years ago, and i will say it again: Iraq/Afghanistan is our new Vietnam. We just can't leave. We will never leave. So yay for insurgents and the like. Acting like the world police force is slowly bleeding the taxpayers to death. | ||
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Not_A_Notion
Ireland441 Posts
On January 15 2010 03:41 Archerofaiur wrote: You can hold up any thing you want and say "No this time it will be different." But that doesnt change the fact that America is single handedly trying to prove every lesson of history wrong. And so far History appears to be winning. History doesn't say anything about relative merit of the Afghan central government and the Taliban EDIT Or other insurgent groups. Personally what I want to see is a moderate (by central asian standards) Afghan government with de facto control over its territory and an eventual withdrawal of NATO-ISAF. I do not believe it is in the best interest of the people of Afghanistan that the Taliban or other extremist insurgent groups should be back in power, nor do I believe that these groups are the natural leaders of Afghanistan as opposed to the current central Afghani government | ||
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Draconizard
628 Posts
On January 15 2010 04:04 Broken.Mind wrote: The evidence the Bush administration used to support the case that Saddam had WMDs was misconstrued. The threat Saddam posed to the U.S. and his "WMDs" were exaggerated to gain public support for the war. In fact, the Bush administration leaked stories to the press and then went on news talkshows and quoted the stories as evidence that Saddam had WMDS and supported terrorism. After the gulf war, the U.S. had a containment policy of Iraq and continued to strategically bomb targets to prevent Saddam from ever rebuilding a strong army and develop weapons programs. Ironically, Desert Fox occurred under the Clinton administration, which was a missle strike that destroyed the majority of Saddam's weapons and his capability to make them. As for Wolfowitz, he really is a warhawk and he has wanted to get rid of Saddam since the first Gulf War. What is scarier than Wolfowitz's obession with getting in to Iraq, is the fact that President Bush truely thought that he could transform the middle east with democracy. He believes it can work anywhere and that the Iraqis would realize how superior our system of democracy was compared to their own and conform. Now I admire the fact that Bush wanted to transform the middle east into something better, because I feel that in some way we all would like to see positive change over there. However, it was a miscalculation to think that we could solve 2000+ years of fighting with the removal of Saddam and the implementation of a puppet government or at the very least a government that would be pro American. It is important to note that there were no Al Qaeda fighters in Iraq until we got there. Saddam was actually very anti Al Qaeda, and Bin Laden once listed Sadam as one of his prime targets in the region, right up there with the Saudi royal family. The Bush administration's idea was that if Iraq could somehow be transformed into a functional democracy it would serve as a paradigm for the rest of the Middle East to follow. The fact that Sadam was also a brutal dictator was just an added bonus. I suppose the goal was noble enough, if a bit naive, but the previous administration made several large miscalculations and botched a lot of the execution of the original plan. | ||
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Archerofaiur
United States4101 Posts
On January 15 2010 04:21 Not_A_Notion wrote: History doesn't say anything about relative merit of the Afghan central government and the Taliban. Personally what I want to see is a moderate (by central asian standards) Afghan government with de facto control over its territory and an eventual withdrawal of NATO-ISAF. I do not believe it is in the best interest of the people of Afghanistan that the Taliban or other extremist insurgent groups should be back in power, nor do I believe that these groups are the natural leaders of Afghanistan as opposed to the current central Afghani government "This time will be different." | ||
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Not_A_Notion
Ireland441 Posts
Well if you've nothing new or constructive to add I'll be off | ||
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Misrah
United States1695 Posts
On January 15 2010 04:30 Not_A_Notion wrote: Well if you've nothing new or constructive to add I'll be off so ignorant...... or naive i can't tell. | ||
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Shizuru~
Malaysia1676 Posts
On January 15 2010 02:44 travis wrote: relatively speaking, 33 billion is nothing money numbers and figures has been blown so out of proportion these days, that 33 billion doesn't seem that much anymore....... but for us, a billion dollar is still shit load of money, government spends Trillions(billions are so last decade) these days but the average joe still have got less than thousands to spend... | ||
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Undisputed-
United States379 Posts
On January 15 2010 02:18 Amber[LighT] wrote: Are all Europeans this uninformed about America? Have you been reading this forum its a joke lol | ||
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