POTUS's Afghan Speech Tonight

[Dudley]

However the suggestion that we fund the war effort with a "war tax" is just another way to punish those who make money, and by the way, who do not vote for Democrats.

Isn't that true of taxes in general? With the possible exception of use fees and consumption taxes.

[casingpoint]

Stupid is as stupid does. No quite sure just what that means, but it seems apropos to the war in Afghanistan.

[Purplehood]

From my own personal experience at "nation-building" in Afghanistan (I was on a Civil Affairs Team if I failed to mention it previously), we are throwing money into the wind over there.
It is analogous to trying to use bandages on wounded people that actually need surgery and stitches to hold them together; it is simply inadequate to the task.
Afghanistan is a tribal "union" that has little to no sense of a larger community from one valley to another (speaking strictly for my experience in an Eastern province).
There is no infrastructure. You don't know when the Police are going to give up their guns to the Taliban for $100.00 each and "surrender" and run off. There are no paved-roads or bridges that last beyond the next flash-flood. There is no bureaucracy to support automobile licensing, registration, tax-collection and the myriad of governing entities that we in the USA take for granted. This ALL needs to be built up, staffed and trained.
I would love to go back and do what I did again, but I know that without any sort of deeper commitment to real "nation-building" that we are just spitting into the wind. And I really wonder, is it our business to go in and build them a new country in the first place?

[frazzled]

And I really wonder, is it our business to go in and build them a new country in the first place?

No, not at all. The only reason we are there is because Al Qaeda attacked us and the Taliban refused to deal with them. Had the Taliban wiped them out as requested we would not have gotten near the place. As long as Al Qaeda doesn't build a base there that we can't hit I could care less who "runs" Afghanistan.

[marksiwel]

And I really wonder, is it our business to go in and build them a new country in the first place?

No, not at all. The only reason we are there is because Al Qaeda attacked us and the Taliban refused to deal with them. Had the Taliban wiped them out as requested we would not have gotten near the place. As long as Al Qaeda doesn't build a base there that we can't hit I could care less who "runs" Afghanistan.

And thats how we got attacked in the first place.

[surprise_i'm_armed]

Support the troops - bring them home.

When we see bad guys in their training bases, sic the drones
with Hellfires on them. By the way, one Hellfire costs $77,716.
I've seen Apaches use them to kill one man, rather than using
the 30mm cannon, which would seem more cost efficient.

Afghanistan is where empires go to die. The US is in no better position
to "win" (whatever that means) than Alexander the Great, the British,
or the Russians.

Tightening up our own US borders and watching threats from within would
probably keep us as safe, and be a lot cheaper than trying to occupy a
country and wipe out every cockroach Taliban.

SIA

[Oldgringo]

surprise_i'm_armed wrote:

Afghanistan is where empires go to die. The US is in no better position
to "win" (whatever that means) than Alexander the Great, the British,
or the Russians.

That's the point I, and others, have apparently failed to make several posts ago.

[surprise_i'm_armed]

Oldgringo:

Forgive me if I have restated your position.

I believe my last comment then was "preaching to the choir"?

SIA

[The Annoyed Man]

A military mother's take on the president's speech
December 02, 2009
Beverly Gunn
American Thinker

The stage was set at West Point last night and the backdrop was the Corps of Cadets, who served as props for the President's speech. It was not a proud moment. I saw all those young men and women, who are chosen and a part of the top ten percent of the greatest minds of their generation, and I wept.

To use them as props seemed to me to serve as the worst insult ever offered by a leader of a nation. Yet, as I pondered the speech, the audience, their circumspect behavior, and the fatigue that washed over many of these young folks, I wondered if the White House understood the length of the cadets duty day, for it wasn't over after the speech. These fine young people left the speech and got back to being serious cadets, studying for upcoming semester exams, and finishing projects.

The days rarely end for these young people. Many went back to their cadet hall and spent the rest of the night making up for the hours they spent waiting for the President and the time it took to make this speech.

I can speak to both the feelings of a parent of those in the military who are serving and as the mother of a former Air Force Academy Cadet. I can say we are extremely worried. We find ourselves purposefully locked in a no-win situation by a Commander who seems not to understand either the sacrifice the military makes or the goals in winning a war. Instead we hear mewing about end games and final timetables, all which are received as signs that encourage our enemies.

I look back to the Vietnam war, the war of my youth and that which my husband fought two tours in. For me, then, it was a war very far away and being raised in the ranch life of the hill country of Texas, I rarely contemplated a war that seemed so far away from home. The first really serious thought I had about the war in Vietnam came in, strangely enough, my Algebra class, when our teacher, a retired Colonel who had taught at the War College, pierced the small minds he taught by writing simple quotations on the blackboard each day. Only rarely did he ever comment about them. The day I read this quotation my world began to open. The words said simply,

"Somewhere out there a man died for me today, that I might live free. And I must ask and answer, 'Am I worth dying for?'"

I remember sitting in my seat, riveted by reading the words, and the impact they made on my heart, lasts even still today. And I wonder about all those in the field of battle today and for our children, whose hearts are as cold as stone over the course that lies ahead. I wonder, has our President ever thought of the price of duty that he asks of us today, with no end game or victory in sight, and whether anyone serving wants to give a life so cheaply? For if we are not in this war to win, and see to it that our enemies are clear about the cost of attacking the freedom of our nation, then we would be much better off not having begun the battle. And yet as I write those words I think of all who purchased my freedom and how I desire that my children and grandchildren live in freedom.

You see, Mr. President, that is why we serve. We only ask that you do not see our children and our family members as good photo op!

Mrs. Gunn is a simple Texas rancher. She is married and has a son and a foster daughter now serving. She lives in East Texas. Mrs. Gunn is a simple Texas rancher. She is married and has a son and a foster daughter now serving. She lives in East Texas.

[marksiwel]

using the military as a photo op is nothing new. For example See every president for the last 20 years.

[Zee]

using the military as a photo op is nothing new. For example See every president for the last 20 years.

See: Mission Accomplished

[Oldgringo]

Oldgringo:

Forgive me if I have restated your position.

I believe my last comment then was "preaching to the choir"?

SIA

No apologies are needed.

My position is that wars are for winning AND if we can't subdue/convert the enemy (whomever that is) with local help by date certain, we leave and let them kill each other off secure with the fear that we will retaliate an eye for an eye ten thousandfold for any later transgression against the US or its peoples. We will not stay there ad infinitum spending American lives and money trying to help people who won't help themselves. Enough is enough already!

[Zee]

Cut & run

[The Annoyed Man]

using the military as a photo op is nothing new. For example See every president for the last 20 years.

See: Mission Accomplished

Hey... at least those weren't "in the enemy camp."

And I agree, by the way. American presidents have been photographed with the military going back to Abraham Lincoln. I merely posted that article because it was a different perspective. Here's another perspective on this administration's military photo ops (my emphasis in red):

Source: The Cable
Exclusive: White House aides insisted F-22 be removed from Obama speech venue

When President Obama spoke to troops at Alaska's Elmendorf Air Force Base last month, the unit there parked a shiny new F-22 fighter plane in the hangar. But according to multiple sources, White House aides demanded the plane be changed to an older F-15 fighter because they didn't want Obama speaking in front of the F-22, a controversial program he fought hard to end.

"White House aides actually made them remove the F-22-said they would not allow POTUS to be pictured with the F-22 in any way, shape, or form," one source close to the unit relayed.

Stephen Lee, a public affairs officer at Elmendorf, confirmed to The Cable that the F-22 was parked in the hangar and then was replaced by an F-15 at the White House's behest.

The airmen there took offense to the Obama aides' demand, sources told The Cable, seeing it as a slight to the folks who are operating the F-22 proudly every day. They also expressed bewilderment that the White House staff would even care so much as to make an issue out of the fact that the F-22 was placed in the hangar with the president.

A White House official, commenting on background basis, told The Cable that yes, there were discussions about which plane or planes would be in the hangar, but that they were not meant as an insult to the pilots and other personnel who work on the F-22. The official couldn't elaborate on why the White House aides felt it necessary to get involved in the matter in the first place.

The official pointed to Obama's speech to the troops that day, where he praised both the 90th Fighter Squadron, known as the "Dicemen," and the 525th Fighter Squadron, the "Bulldogs," both of which operate the F-22.

Even so, the Air Force personnel thought it odd the White House wanted to display the older plane rather than the more advanced plane that, in the eyes of its supporters, represents the latest and greatest in American aviation.

The Obama administration fought hard and successfully to cut off production of the F-22 at 187 planes, a number Defense Secretary Robert Gates endorsed but that was hundreds less than originally planned and about half of the 381 planes Air Force leadership lobbied hard for in the years preceding Obama's inauguration.

"It's one thing to be against further production; quite another to slight the folks who are flying them in the operational world," one source said, adding that "the F-15 pictured was put into service roughly around the same period when Obama graduated from college. It's vintage."

This president is politically tone-deaf, and it is going to cost him in 2012 — if he's dumb enough to run for reelection.

My point as regards the topic of this thread is that there are two kinds of photo ops with the military for a US president — one in which the military is used merely as a prop, without regard to honoring those assembled there (as demonstrated by the F-22 story above or Obama's West Point speech); and one in which the president comes to cheer on, celebrate and or grieve with the military its triumphs and its tragedies (as demonstrated by the George Bush in "mission accomplished" and recently at Fort Hood). One is the venal use of the military for purely political reasons, and the other is a show of genuine appreciation.

I am sure that if you were to go ask — privately — most people currently in the military if they feel appreciated by the current administration, you're not going to like the answer, particularly from the pilots of the 525th Fighter Squadron.

[Oldgringo]

The Annoyed Man wrote:

This president is politically tone-deaf, and it is going to cost him in 2012...

Gentlefolk, hoping and praying alone will not make this happen. The opposition must provide realistic, viable and enthusiastic candidates who can cause the current POTUS and his minions to be voted out of office in 2010 AND again in 2012.