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ELVIS
10-16-2009, 10:18 AM
Ron Paul (http://www.infowars.com/saving-face-in-afghanistan/)

This past week there has been a lot of discussion and debate on the continuing war in Afghanistan. Lasting twice as long as World War II and with no end in sight, the war in Afghanistan has been one of the longest conflicts in which our country has ever been involved. The situation has only gotten worse with recent escalations. Things are getting worse precisely because we are sending more troops and escalating the violence.

The current debate is focused entirely on the question of troop levels. How many more troops should be sent over in order to pursue the war? The administration has already approved an additional 21,000 American service men and women to be deployed by November, which will increase our troop levels to 68,000. Will another 40,000 do the job? Or should we eventually build up the levels to 100,000 in addition to that? Why not 500,000 – just to be “safe”? And how will public support be brought back around to supporting this war again when 58 percent are now against it?

I get quite annoyed at this very narrow line of questioning. I have other questions. We overthrew the Taliban government in 2001 with less than 10,000 American troops. Why does it now seem that the more troops we send, the worse things get? If the Soviets bankrupted themselves in Afghanistan with troop levels of 100,000 and were eventually forced to leave in humiliating defeat, why are we determined to follow their example? Most importantly, what is there to be gained from all this? We’ve invested billions of dollars and thousands of precious lives – for what?

The truth is it is no coincidence that the more troops we send the worse things get. Things are getting worse precisely because we are sending more troops and escalating the violence. We are hoping that good leadership wins out in Afghanistan, but the pool of potential honest leaders from which to draw have been fleeing the violence, leaving a tremendous power vacuum behind. War does not quell bad leaders. It creates them. And the more war we visit on this country, the more bad leaders we will inadvertently create.

Another thing that war does is create anger with its indiscriminate violence and injustice. How many innocent civilians have been harmed from clumsy bombings and mistakes that end up costing lives? People die from simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time in a war zone, but the killers never face consequences. Imagine the resentment and anger survivors must feel when a family member is killed and nothing is done about it. When there are no other jobs available because all the businesses have fled, what else is there to do, but join ranks with the resistance where there is a paycheck and also an opportunity for revenge? This is no justification for our enemies over there, but we have to accept that when we push people, they will push back.

The real question is why are we there at all? What do our efforts now have to do with the original authorization of the use of force? We are no longer dealing with anything or anyone involved in the attacks of 9/11. At this point we are only strengthening the resolve and the ranks of our enemies. We have nothing left to win. We are only there to save face, and in the end we will not even be able to do that.


:elvis:

Seshmeister
10-16-2009, 10:36 AM
Paul is correct.

FORD
10-16-2009, 01:06 PM
Foreign policy is one of the few areas where Paul is consistently right on.

(Drugs and the Federal Reserve would be the others)

letsrock
10-16-2009, 07:30 PM
He shoulf read History. We were not the first in Vietnam.
Jobs that fled from Afghan? Really the drug trade is doing well over there.

This is all about a pipeline being built.

letsrock
10-16-2009, 07:31 PM
He shoulf read History. We were not the first in Vietnam.
Jobs that fled from Afghan? Really the drug trade is doing well over there.

This is all about a pipeline being built.

Nickdfresh
10-16-2009, 07:54 PM
I agree the US needs to reduce its Afghan commitment---especially if the fake-populist, corrupt gov't of twats in Kabul continues to undermine us---but Paul is an old school Isolationist that would have tickled Hitler's ballsack with his tongue if this were 1940...

Seshmeister
10-16-2009, 09:50 PM
Bush did so much damage I think a year or two of US isolationism might be a good thing.

As I've been posting for a while I can't see any point in this Afghan shit especially now. If Taliban start terrorist camps after we leave then just bomb them or whatever but even that I don't get. The last London bombers didn't get trained in Afghanistan. The 9-11 ones were trained in the US.

If you think about it this terrorist training camp thing doesn't really stand up. In the real world especially now with the internet and everything else terrorists do not need to go through some Rockyfuckingesque training montage climbing up monkey bars and over rope bridges and so forth in order to blow shit up.

The Afghan war at this point is about sacrificing our money and the lives of our young people in order to try and save the face of some pretty dumb and vain politicians after yet another big wrong decision.