Dear God, Why do we keep fighting these wars?

[classy]

For the last 8 years we have heard every excuse in the book and none of them make sense. We have been "occupying" Iraq for God only knows what? We went in there for WMDs, nada. Spending billions fighting for people who don't want us there. We are sending more troops to Afghanistan and now the Afghan President wants to talk with the Taliban to try and achieve peace. Wth?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091203/ap_on_re_as/as_afghan_karzai

These mongrels have been killing their own people and you want to talk with them. We are financially ruining our own country and sending our men and women to die for what exactly? And this stupid argument about winning is so dumb it boggles the mind. We are fighting and we don't even who is the enemy. And these countries want these animals to be among them, so why should we fight to change their minds. We should bring our troops home starting tomorrow. Arm our allies over there to the gills and rebuild ourselves here. When they get out of hand just smoke the whole country and be done with it.

 

[dahunan]

Our soldiers are money for defense industry corporations and Blackwater, Halliburton/KBR et al

 

[rudder]

Believe it or not... there are people in Afghanistan and Iraq who are very thankful to no longer have to live under the oppression of Saddam or the taliban. The problem is there was never a long term plan. Yes, they tend to kill themselves... so probably nothing will stop that after the last of the U.S. troops leave.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Nice rant! And I agree.

The real reasons why we are over there escapes most people

1. The economics of war - padding the pockets of defense contractors and feeding the American industrial war machine, producing everything from fighter jets to K rations to army boots keeps people employed and provides ever higher military budgets. Hell if we brought home all the soldiers, shuttered the factories and laid off a big chunk of the military brass the unemployment rate would double. War is a profitable business, what other business can generate demand at will and pass the bill to the taxpayer?

2. Control and manipulation of oil and oil prices - we continue to rely on the middle east to support our oil consumption habits while American oil companies rake in billions and truly control foriegn policy decisions in this country.


For a decade or longer our leaders have allowed the outsourcing of our real sustainable manufacturing base to third world countries while transforming our economy into an energy/military/service based model. If you figure in the military cost of our energy policy we are really paying $20 a gallon to support our misguided energy policy and to support the corporate interests and politicians driving the policy

 

[al981]

oil. oil. oil.

and more oil.

see overthrow of iran. us lies/hypocrisy at its finest.

 

[Patranus]

I am pretty sure that the USA and the world left Afghanistan to the Muslims to govern after the Soviet Union left resulting with the Taliban government, safe-harbor for Al Qaeda and its training camps, and culminating with the attacks on 9/11.

 

[Pens1566]

I am pretty sure that the USA and the world left Afghanistan to the Muslims to govern after the Soviet Union left resulting with the Taliban government, safe-harbor for Al Qaeda and its training camps, and culminating with the attacks on 9/11.

I think you should post this same info more often. I've only seen the same line like 10 times in the last 2 days.

 

[Patranus]

I think you should post this same info more often. I've only seen the same line like 10 times in the last 2 days.

Well, some people simply do not understand history.
How many of these type of threads need to be posted every other day?

 

[brandonbull]

You are right. THe US has wasted untold billions fighting Terror the last 8 years. We could have used the money to develop oil alternatives and pretty much bankrupted the true income sources for Al Queda. We could be light years ahead of the rest of the world in oil alternative sources and created a new industry and exports.

Thank God that people in the US are still clinging to their petty manufacturing jobs and ME oil or we might be in a sound position for the future.

 

[Robor]

Well, some people simply do not understand history.
How many of these type of threads need to be posted every other day?

This from the guy who posts copy/pasted walls of opinion text from right wing blogs?

 

[dahunan]

if people understood half of the oppression/theft/manipulation we have done to middle eastern societies they could understand some of the hate
Operation Ajax anyone?
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-index.html


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'état

The 1953 Iranian coup d’état deposed the democratically elected government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq.[

 

[Lemon law]

The point being, the entire point of the US intervention was to get one tiny organization, namely Al-Quida. We totally failed in that mission, and somehow decided on getting a homegrown movement, namely the Taliban instead.

We want to believe that the Taliban are a bunch of animals, but they choose to regard themselves as freedom fighters with a mission of repelling the Western oppressors. Something the USA loved and subsidized when the Russians were the foreign oppressor being given the ole Afghan heave ho, but now that the shoe is on the other foot, they become terrorists?

And the truth is somewhere in between.

But as long as we prop up a turd of a corrupt government, and do not fix the anarchy our military occupation has towed in its wake, a homegrown movement like the Taliban will continue to extend its control.

As for Al-Quida, we don't even know if they are in the region anymore, and Al-Quida can pick and choose between many unstable countries to use as a base(s) of operation.

In terms of Karzai talking to the Taliban, it may be a good idea to reduce violence. After all, they were the government of Afghanistan for quite a number of years. And Nato came in guns blazing and declared its right to kill any Taliban on sight. And then we expect the Taliban to not respond in the same way to Nato????????? Which is almost the generic equivalent in the USA of the Republicans doing the same to the democrats in the USA or vise versa.

Sadly, Karzai has been trying to promote talks with the Taliban for years now, and the Taliban has basically refused thus far. Nor has Nato been eager either. But as long as both sides have a kill on sight metric, we can only forecast continued violence. And General patraeus has already stated we can't kill our way out of the Afghan occupation. GWB tried it and we have moved backwards ever since.

 

[Lemon law]

accidental double post.

 

[StageLeft]

Afghanistan is probably beyond the hope of an extra 30k, it's just another endless drawn out cluster.

 

[bamacre]

Dear God, Why do we keep fighting these wars?

Because we keep electing presidents who keep us in a state of war.

 

[lokiju]

I like the rest of the world still don't fully understand why we went to Iraq over Afghanistan as a priority and are not ramping up our focus in Afghanistan.

The ONLY thing I can think/hope is that those who are in charge know wtf they're doing but can't let the cat out of the bag, but that seems unlikely...

 

[Adrenaline]

You are right. THe US has wasted untold billions fighting Terror the last 8 years. We could have used the money to develop oil alternatives and pretty much bankrupted the true income sources for Al Queda. We could be light years ahead of the rest of the world in oil alternative sources and created a new industry and exports.

Thank God that people in the US are still clinging to their petty manufacturing jobs and ME oil or we might be in a sound position for the future.

I work in the oil industry and I don't see oil going away for the next 40 years or more. There isn't anything that is economical now that is safe to take it's place.

If the US would drill in Alaska and off our coastline we would have a crapload more oil available to refineries here and become less dependent upon foreign oil.

Just wait until cap and trade hits for carbon emissions from refineries, then we can talk about how much more money big oil companies are supposedly making off oil alone.

 

[Budmantom]

We surrendered last night.

 

[GroundedSailor]

if people understood half of the oppression/theft/manipulation we have done to middle eastern societies they could understand some of the hate
Operation Ajax anyone?
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-index.html


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'état

The 1953 Iranian coup d’état deposed the democratically elected government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq.

This incident is arguably the beginning of modern Islamic terrorism and rebellion against the west. This led to the Iranian revolution & hamas etc. Of course displacing the Palestinians around the same time only added fuel to the fire.

 

[MovingTarget]

Short answer - because too many people have been conned into thinking they are a good idea by those who profit off of war. The Military-Industrial Complex has incredibly deep pockets.

 

[Ausm]

To pacify the neocons.

 

[Patranus]

This from the guy who posts copy/pasted walls of opinion text from right wing blogs?

Really? Please show me one post that is "walls of opinion text" copied and pasted "from right wing blog"...just one...or shut the fuck up.

 

[Budmantom]

To pacify the neocons.

Obama does that by bowing to all the foreigners leaders...... or is that some sort of sexual gesture?

 

[Dissipate]

I'm currently profiting from these wars. Most expensive shit I ever saw in my life.

 

[Lemon law]

Obama does that by bowing to all the foreigners leaders...... or is that some sort of sexual gesture?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think Budmanton has nailed it, except he is exactly 180 degrees off the right end of the nail.

We in our arrogance think that its all about top foreign leaders or our Prez kissing the correct influential top leadership butts.

But that is exactly the wrong song man, it may fool some or the people for a short time, but at the end of the day we have to sell these wars of occupation to the Iraqi and Afghan people themselves. And if the Iraqi and Afghan people decide our presence is a stinking turd, no amount of force will prop us up as we risk a powerful backlash.

After all, we supported a Baptista in Cuba and ended up with a Castro instead, we supported a Shah in Iran and ended up with an Ayatollah instead, and we will not be the first empire to lose it all by ignoring the interests of the governed.

And in fact, the good ole USA owes its nationhood to the British, who also presumed what us colonists thought did not matter.