As always, Nicholas Kristof put it well with his column comparing the costs of health care reform with increasing our troop levels in Afghanistan. Some seem to talk war as though it's this easy option-- just add this many troops and all will be well. Being as old as I am, I heard all of that with Vietnam. They argue, we have to do it because we are in a war. A war against Afghanistan or exactly who? From the last I heard they estimate there are 100 Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. So what is this war actually about? Are we ever told what any war is about? Some think they are still fighting the Vietnam war and cannot put it behind them. For how long will we be fighting this one?
33 comments:
That we attempt to justify wars of choice and give them moral ground is a harbinger of our collapse as a civilized nation.
As corporate lobbyists buy legislation, I wonder how long it is before we no longer bother to justify these wars with morality and just enter into them without much fanfare. Americans are becoming more and more dumbed down by society's distractions. So many distractions, so little awareness.
So we told the people of Afghanistan "Help us defeat the Taliban and Al Qaida and we will help you have freedom." Now you want us to run away from that commitment and let the Taliban come back and impose sharia law on the people and put them back in the 15th century?
Do you favor taxes for it this time, ingineer? Are you among those who support someone like Senator Coburn who is blocking veteran benefits? Have you begun to understand what the cost of what we have already done is going to be for some families where their soldiers were permanently disbled?
What I feel is that the Afghani people have to fix their own problem. Do we tell them they cannot have the Taliban if say the majority of them want that leadership? Do you plan on staying them forever to insure they choose governments we approve of? Do you understand that they don't like occupation? Did you read what our ambassador there is saying about not putting in more troops? What about the corrupt leader, Karazi, who we put in place who just won an election apparently by fraud? How do you fix that? Guns? What are you expecting from our troops when they are already overstretched with some going back to war for the fifth time? I don't begin to understand people who think like you do.
And would you go to Somalia with your permanent army next? They do terrible things to their people also.
Mostly though what gets me is how people like you think we can fight these wars without destroying our own economy. I see clearly where we will be getting this permanent military with no jobs in the US for young people, but without the jobs, how were you thinking we'd pay for it? Bush put it on the cuff. How many years do you think you can do that?
What really irks me is the people who say what you do are also the ones who want tax cuts. If you really want an enlarged war, then I hope you also want tax increases!
Yes I want more people to pay taxes. Right now 40% of Americans do not pay income tax. They have no skin in the game. Everyone that makes over $15,000 a year should have to pay something. Even if it is only a few hundred dollars. That part of the Bush tax cuts should be changed.
So with your logic I guess we should pull our troops out of South Korea and Kosovo too? Because it is their responsibility to govern themselves and if the Serbs or the North Koreans want to crush the opposition it is not our problem.
I guess we should have just let Hitler take Britain and Russia and North Africa and waited until he bombed New York before doing anything about it. Oh wait New York has already been attacked in this war. I guess we wait until 100,000 or 1,000,000 are killed. At what number of dead Americans would you be willing to fight? Or would you just start wearing a burka and not drive a car and not talk to men that are not related to you.
So we attack Saudi Arabia next? I am assuming since you worry about a powerful Middle East nation, who actually could do us damage that they are on your agenda. That's where people live with those rules that you mentioned and from where most of the 9/11 terrorists came.
At least now I know how you plan to fight all these wars. Tax the working poor, who are barely having enough to keep their homes and eat; and take their children to fight the wars because those kids can't find jobs. Amazing logic on your part but you are following in the path of the Neocons. So who needs logic, right? Rah rah.
As for the rest of what you said, the insults to me personally about my lack of patriotism and my stupidity to not understand that we fought the Iraq war because they were really the masterminds behind 9/11 and that we left bin Laden alone for those years because... oh I forget why but for all of that, well maybe you might study a history book of Afghanistan, look into what happened to the Soviet Union who had the most powerful, standing army in the world at the time they decided to subdue Afghanistan (a military friend of mine told me that about them back then). But you won't do that. Logic is not a part of anything you said.
I am not going to continue this argument with you here as it's gaining me nothing. I will say that if I got more of what you just put out, I'd quit this blog. It's tempting right now anyway. I realize that suits the right wing just fine but it might suit me too. Trying to reason with people who don't use reason is an exercise in frustration.
Two minds with a single thought. I also posted on the Kristof article today. Great minds think alike, huh Rain? ;-)
I like what you have said here and don't blame you a bit for not wanting to argue with ingineer. My blood pressure says that I shouldn't say another word on this.
I did not mention Iraq and I did not question your patriotism. If you read that into what I said, that is not what I meant. I feel that you have attacked me personally by some of your mis-characterizations about how I feel about taxes and wars. I have a son and a daughter and one son in law in the Marines so please do not try tell me how I feel.
I asked a couple of questions about where you draw your line. You did not answer them. It appears from your statements that any military engagements started during a democrat presidents term are OK, but any started during a republican administration are not OK. I was just trying to see where you stand on the issue. Perhaps I could have chosen a better way to say what I did.
I do not like the system in Saudi Arabia, but believe that is one nation where diplomacy and patience will pay off eventually. I will stop commenting on your blog for a while or at least keep my comments to non-controversial issues.
Yesterday, Woody Harrelson--the actor, who is very very bright and a "thinking" person, and who is against the war, said on The View, that this war was about Oil!
INDEED!
Like you, I remember VietNam too....And here we are, once again.
Iraq relates to this because it's why we did not finish Afghanistan when we had the chance. We have since seen a build up of Taliban forces and today found out they are getting some of their money from our contractors who pay them to not attack them.
This is going to be a hot button issue because if Obama builds up the war in Afghanistan, it will suck us dry for money and resources.
As for my favoring wars that Democrats started, I'd say the Vietnam war was started by a Democrat and I did not favor it.
There are times that I feel we need to fight and one of them was to get bin Laden but we didn't do that, did we? We let him go. I do not believe we had any right to go into Iraq and it might or might not turn out good for the people there. We will know when we withdraw. If it was successful, then they will police themselves. If we were not, it will turn nasty again. Can we stay there forever serving as a police force? Where do we draw the line?
What the first President Bush said is we have to have a withdrawal plan. How do we know when we won? Obama seems to be listening to that and asking for it now. I hope he sticks to it because it won't be easy when anybody who suggests leaving is suggested they would let al Qaeda win or something which makes equally no sense.
I am sure it's tough to have your kids in the military right now; but I think that is why we need to be supportive of the knowledge that our military cannot do more. They have done too much already. It's hard to believe the burden it places on families to go to war time after time and face the fear and loss of a parent at home.
The more that comes out about the corrupt government in Afghanistan, the more it seems we lost our chance. I wish it was otherwise but the war in Iraq took what we could have put into Afghanistan. History will decide if it was worthwhile.
I hope that we can both comment in the future without offending each other. It can be hard.
We are in Afghanistan to get oil?
All war is folly. That being said there are people in this world who want to impose their will on us-there's the rub. I never knew that Woody Harrelson was a thinking person. Is there any oil in Afghanistan ? In the words of that great American Rodney King, "Can't we just get along?" :-) Humor aside, I wonder sometimes why we are in countries where a lot (if not a majority) of the people hate us for being infidel Americans.
the Soviet Union wanted Afghanistan for a pipeline for their oil supply which is extensive.
Rain . . I got here late. Wow! So many strong opinions. Sorry to see you beating imagineer66 over the head. Seems to me that there were plenty of reasons to go to war with Iraq - but not many reasons to stay there and try to convert their brutal, medieval, tribal, society. That troubled part of the world is saddled with a terrible religion that fosters and condones radical fundamentalist terrorism as well as the ugly heritage of Sharia law. They must fend for themselves.
Now, Afghanistan. I wonder if we wouldn't be better off to stop fighting them if they would agree not to provide sanctuary for terrorists. We've proded them and they have struck back - yet I don't think they really want a war with us. They are a bunch of religious thugs and opportunists who simply want to run Afghanistan. Let'em.
Our immediate problem is al Qaida. These guys are serious trouble and an active threat to all non-Islamic nations. They must be purged everywhere and America needs help to get it done.
Our mass of troops should come home a.s.a.p. - and we should begin high pressure diplomacy to get other nations to join us to gang up on the al Qaida morons.
Let's get out of Iraq and Afghanistan and focus on the real terrorists like the al Qaida bunch with help from England, Israel, Germany, India, and perhaps even China.
So much for my 2 cents.
Dixon
Me beating him, Dixon!!!! Did you see what he said to me. No man would take another saying such a thing to them. Good grief, just read the last paragraph of his slamming me. If I don't favor a war in Afghanistan I should be prepared for the Taliban to come over here and force me to wear a burqua... excuse me but was that nice? I was so mad it's lucky I could write anything logically after that AND I hate being angry over such things.
Although in this case, I think that we should have intense feelings-- all of us. We should not pretend nothing big is happening. We are asking some people to die, to be crippled, to live with terrible memories the rest of their lives and if we can't have strong feelings about that (on both sides of this debate), it would mean something had died inside of us.
Basically I agree with what you said other than that I don't see we had a reason to invade Iraq. We could have killed Saddam many other ways (we have since proven we don't mind using methods that are not exactly legal when the cause is great) and been less caught up in responsibility for the country afterward.
The problem with bin Laden, assuming he's even still alive, is that for some reason somebody didn't want to get him when they had the chance. If you read anything about Tora Bora, you see that we had the chance and we turned it over to someone else, tribal leaders who warned him and helped him out of there. Why that happened, we can only guess and right wing will likely see it other than left wing.
Basically though I agree with what you said. Somehow we have to get Pakistan to realize they should not give a haven to those who would do terrorism and likewise any other country in the world. If they know where they are, they should go after them or let us do it.
When we went into Afghanistan, we didn't ask for the cooperation of the people. We looked at their government, who said we won't turn him over, gave them some time to think it over, and began to bomb. I don't think that was a mistake. Sometimes you have to do that and in the case of any place that gives haven to al Qaeda, we should go after them. You are right though and most of them today aren't even there.
In Afghanistan if we would figure out who the good guys are, not easy, we could give them help as we did during their war against the USSR. The problem is obvious for doing that given the end result of that; but the country has to deal with its own problems or this will never end.
Rain: When I was reading these comments I wondered what Ingineer had said that set you off. It was obvious you were offended, but not obvious as to why. At least you've made that clear now. But what I inferred from his reply was a question of what you do feel is important enough to fight for.
I did not think he was implying that you were unpatriotic. I believe he was making a point that sometimes doing nothing is not an option as the alternative is unthinkable, as in Hitler's case or how women are treated under the the Taliban's strict laws.
As you have to realize, nearly all of your commenters agree with your view, so I find your more thoughtful responses are when you get someone who doesn't, such as Ingineer. I may not agree with your viewpoint, but at least it helps me to understand it a bit more. I get nothing when you get only glowing agreements from your readers.
Well ingineer got me irked on several levels, Rita but I didn't go into them all. Practically everything he said like expecting the working poor to pay more taxes and then implying I wouldn't fight for anything and that Afghanistan is the equivalent of Hitler, that I would be an appeaser, or that our staying in North Korea was the same as the men and women fighting an active war.
I feel sympathy for people who live under a system like Afghanistan's but have you been reading what is going on in Somalia? It's as bad as are many other places. I wish there was more we could do but I suspect we will beat our heads against the wall-- which is what I often feel where it comes to right versus left politically. Not to say right is wrong and left right but we just don't appear to see the same world.
Our biggest hope in that region is really that Iraq will succeed in forming a better system for itself. Time will tell on that. Or if the Israelis and Palestinians could work out a peaceful accord. Friedman said he thinks it will take us stepping out of the way for that to happen. It might be we can do more in the region by providing strategic help but not fighting a war. I don't know. But if a person knows anything about the history of Afghanistan, you know they will not take well to us occupying them... and if we have 100,000 troops there, it will be an occupation for who knows how long. :(
Basically I agree with you also that when people articulately post a disagreement with what I have put out, it's healthy as readers then can consider both sides. It's not easy to do-- on either side as feelings are intense as they should be about fighting wars.
If I didn't make that clear enough, and maybe I didn't. What I consider worth fighting for is when we or our allies are attacked, when we have a strategic interest that has been endangered but not to spread democracy around the world with a bullet. We don't even have a democracy but rather a republic, a representative government and we do not vote on everything that comes up as we are seeing with health care and this war. So self-defense or a strong ally being attacked pretty much is why I would say yes to a war. When someone starts taking over territory in the world, it's pretty obvious that eventually other countries will be forced to do something about it. Better sooner than later.
I think we should try diplomacy as much as possible before we start shooting though. Pat Buchanan wrote a book indicating that WWII was not necessary IF the world had reacted sooner to what Hitler was doing. I don't know. I mean I tend to think sometimes there is no choice for war. Unlike my friend, Parapluie, I believe in evil and it won't ever negotiate reasonably.
"Some think they are still fighting the Vietnam war" We are, and the minute we stop we lose the truth. There are, on any given day in America, over 100,000 homeless vets suffering the neglect of honor.
Rain, I would like to apologize for offending you. I did not mean to upset you so much. Your statements aroused a passion in me and I was in a hurry when I commented, so I just let it all fly. I felt that you were attacking me personally in some of the things that you said.
I know that you are a true American and I would not question your patriotism. We disagree greatly on how to deal with many issues foreign and domestic, but hopefully can be civil in our disagreements.
We did confer with the Afghan Northern Alliance, who were fighting an insurgent war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Taliban controlled most of the country but not the entire thing. We had Special Forces units with the Northern Alliance very soon after 9/11 helping them fight. Al Qaida knew this would likely be the case after the 9/11 attack, that is why they had people posing as a TV interview crew assassinate the leader of the Northern Alliance a few days before 9/11.
Somalia is a failed state and a train wreck. We tried to help and bailed out after we got our nose bloodied. There is likely to never be a peace there unless it is started at the barrel of a gun. Right now the only people with power are the people with guns. And they are not very nice. If a government and law and order could be established, then they may have a chance.
Well I am sorry also, ingineer as I didn't want to hit at you personally either. We have always been able to discuss issues without doing that but some things are very intense and the choice of when and where we go to war is one of them.
And MandT, you are right and I had not thought of it that way but the consequences of Vietnam are with us and we are still fighting it on many levels, not the least of which are the terrible way our veterans were treated when they returned home.
Rain,
Please consider defining "Evil". It is an inflammatory word which clouds logical thought. Just because I choose not to call any behavior "Evil" even Hitler's. In his case his bad behavior is just as horrible when described as bad. I think the word "Evil" is part of our cultural cosmic view. "Evil" means the opposite of a loving God's behavior. The French have a different cosmic view with no word other than "mal" for bad. I admire their view.
I might do a blog on the word sometime. In my mind, to only have the word bad doesn't say enough. It would be like only using the word good. There are degrees.
There are those who do bad things but are not evil. Evil is beyond that. It represents someone or something that does bad for the joy of doing it, who will tell you one thing to your face and immediately do something else at your back. When someone has reached the stage of evil, there is no reasoning with them. I think of the serial murderers in our country, some who have killed many just for the joy of doing it. Nobody who ends up in their power can reason with them because the basis of thinking is totally different. Some would say they were crazy but they are not as they can function in the world. They are just totally out of society's realm for how they deal with people. We use a lot of words to describe it and when it reaches the worst level, we call it evil.
I have mentioned before a book I liked very much called People of the Lie and it was about human evil written by a psychiatrist. his point in the book was that often evil people aren't even recognized by those around them as being the bad ones. They may be parents who delight in putting down their children and the children do something bad, which society labels evil but it's a reaction to how they were raised.
We have discussed this many times before and I don't think there's any changing either of our minds. I don't throw the word around lightly and am trying to think if, in my judgment, I have met any one I would label evil. I think not but I have sure met some who were plenty bad.
On this one, we have had to agree to disagree and that's not likely to change given this has been a debate we have had probably going back 40 years :)
Good definition of evil, Rain. I would say Hitler and many of his top staff, but not all of them were evil. Sadam Hussein was evil. Most criminals are probably not evil they are just bad people or do bad things, but some like Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dalhmer were evil.
Sorry, Parapluie, but I agree with Rain on this one. Words have consequences and there are some crimes so heinous that the word 'bad' in insufficient. There are degrees of bad. A child misbehaves and we say they are being bad. An adult steals and it is bad. But brutal murders are beyond bad and there has to be a word to distinguish that from just 'bad'. Only the word 'evil' will suffice. Logical thought demands it.
Afghanistan is quite the boondoggle. Time to support the troops by bringing them home. But will the Military Complex allow them to return home? If Obama decides to leave Afghanistan, get ready for the fear mongering by Right-wing propaganda outlets. The usual suspects will be in full regalia and as loud as a NASCAR race. The Right-wing will be vamping up the fear. Consequences of giving up our occupation of a foreign land that houses and trains terrorists will be heard 24-7.
If we continue to fight terrorism with a standing army, we will lose. That's the skinny of it in my eyes.
Good story in The Nation.
How the US Funds the Taliban
Rain and Ingineer66 you kids kiss and make up and act like good Christians! LOL All humor aside, I think that a process was started at 911 that will ultimately lead to some very bad consequences for the West and the world and it will take many years to play out.
I actually like Rain's definition and use of the word "Evil". But unfortunately it is not used so carefully. When the definition is fuzzy, it is a dangerous word. Words like "Evil" are very pertinent to the division of the radical Right and Left in our country. Here is a micro-example of the big picture.
I know a 15 year old boy who uses the word like slang. If he trips over a step, he labels the step "Evil" rather than thinking he is growing fast and needs to be careful. He needs to realize his own awkwardness will go away when he is used to being larger.
If we pull out of Afaganistan in even a measured predictable way, the transition will set up dangerous word slinging.
The 15 year old boy will be in the middle of this meyham as he approaches 18 years. He will be seeing the world as very insecure for his future. Seeing adults so fired up will race to his hormones. He will be understandably paranoid to the point of esculating his fasination for guns. His mother who has been forbiding himfrom owning a gun will no longer be a factor when he is 18. He will continue to plays games where he is constantly crushing and destroying "Evil". He goes to church and hears the word "Evil" used in religious faith terms. He sees the world in black and white "Good" vs. "Evil". There is a diagnois for this counterproductive dysfunctional social process - community sanctioned criminal psychosis - to me much more illuminating than the word "Evil". Labeling something "Evil" just puts it in a catagory so one doesn't have to deal with the situation as it really is.
To me, the child you are describing, Parapluie, has an emotional problem, but that is really that he cannot or has not been taught to differentiate between degrees emotionally. That is very typical of children but it should change as they mature where they can recognize that something that is 'bad' (say you used that word) may have varying degrees of response that are appropriate. If you did a PC and got rid of the word 'evil', he'd still be doing what he is with 'bad.'
Fundamentalist churches of all sorts believe in a Satan and evil that he generates. That is just a fact that we have to learn to deal with; but to take from the rest of us a word which helps us recognize with what we are dealing, that is a handicap in the name of PC that I think is crippling.
We can recognize evil and not use it as a word just for political gain. We can also recognize when someone else has used it that way and file that where it belongs.
The toy world for boys is a 'minefield' for parents to navigate. To be frank if you have raised boys, you know that they will pretend they have guns or swords whether we buy them for them or not. I suspect it's testosterone. So what do we do with that knowledge? Direct it and teach them that for instance it's not evil when a coyote kills a lamb. It's a natural event but bad news for the lamb and the owner of the lamb. Good news for the coyote family. We can use examples and show where something becomes evil. We can take time to talk to them about the words and not expect them to know it all without our help. BUT we can also be teaching them how to recognize real danger and what to do about it because to pretend real danger and sometimes from someone evil doesn't exist is to ignore what is out there.
Incidentally by the time he reaches 18, he may have done a lot of that maturing in terms of understanding degrees of emotional responses and character qualities. Boys develop slower than girls-- or so I am told :(
Incidentally for those wanting to better understand the complexities of what is going on in Afghanistan, Dion put in a very good link in his comment above.
I became so caught up in the discussion here that I wrote an excessively long comment, so I concluded to just post it on my blog.
I read Joared's blog on it and it's worth going to visit it. This was also good this morning: Frank Rich-- Linking Killeen to Kabul
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