The House's vote yesterday on emergency funding for the Afghanistan war shows a significant eroding of support for President Obama's war policy -- from members of his own Democratic Party.
There were 102 Democrats voting against the $33 billion in war funding. That's more than three times the number of Democrats (32) who voted against a similar funding bill in June 2009. (This year's war funding bill passed, 308-114.)
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2010/07/democrats-obama-afghanistan-war-/1?csp=obnetwork
Well, the Pentagon has had egg on its face lately, that might be most of it.
Quote from: Jenne on July 29, 2010, 02:14:50 PM
Well, the Pentagon has had egg on its face lately, that might be most of it.
I think they hear voter rumblings about the cost. We are getting deeper in debt and domestically we are in the tank. People are also slowly beginning to realize this is a waste of time.
Some of the drones have crashed, and I don't know what they cost each, but by the time recovery teams get to them they have been stripped by locals. Good old American technology being passed on cheerfully.
It is estimated we are going to all of this trouble for about 500 people, who are invisible. They are hunting ghosts. Bin Laden has probably died of boredom while waiting to be found. With the border situations in the area and the remote terrain the borders are less than lines in the dirt, so we have no idea where to find them.
The entire scenario disgusts me.
I think that there's little or no sympathy for the "we're bring Afghans their FREEDOM" reasoning the Bush and later Obama administrations have been trying to sell as well. But Obama RAN on the premise that he'd be pulling OUT of war, not escalating it. So add to the the Pentagon shinanigans, and yeah, it doesn't surprise me the House Left (which, like the House Right, tends to be more party-platformed) would do this.
Seven years and $90 billion and as soon as we leave, Al Queda will be free to set up shop again...
:lulz:
Maybe this was just to break up the monotony.
Quote from: Ratatosk on July 29, 2010, 03:19:17 PM
Seven years and $90 billion and as soon as we leave, Al Queda will be free to set up shop again...
:lulz:
Maybe this was just to break up the monotony.
What makes you think they ever broke the shop down?
Yeah, I think it was just temporarily re-located to Pakistan.
Quote from: Doktor Charley Brown on July 29, 2010, 03:20:03 PM
Quote from: Ratatosk on July 29, 2010, 03:19:17 PM
Seven years and $90 billion and as soon as we leave, Al Queda will be free to set up shop again...
:lulz:
Maybe this was just to break up the monotony.
What makes you think they ever broke the shop down?
Well they had to break it down to move it across the street to Pakistan! ;-)
LOL Jenne beat me to it!
Quote from: Ratatosk on July 29, 2010, 03:49:35 PM
Quote from: Doktor Charley Brown on July 29, 2010, 03:20:03 PM
Quote from: Ratatosk on July 29, 2010, 03:19:17 PM
Seven years and $90 billion and as soon as we leave, Al Queda will be free to set up shop again...
:lulz:
Maybe this was just to break up the monotony.
What makes you think they ever broke the shop down?
Well they had to break it down to move it across the street to Pakistan! ;-)
LOL Jenne beat me to it!
:lulz:
Quote from: Ratatosk on July 29, 2010, 03:19:17 PM
Seven years and $90 billion and as soon as we leave, Al Queda will be free to set up shop again...
:lulz:
Maybe this was just to break up the monotony.
Silly squirrel, the war isn't about Al-Qaeda.
QuoteEver since the continents started interacting politically, some five hundred years ago, Eurasia has been the center of world power.... It is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America.... How America 'manages' Eurasia is critical. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world's three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail Africa's subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania geopolitically peripheral to the world's central continent. About 75 per cent of the world's people live in Eurasia, and most of the world's physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for about three-fourths of the world's known energy resources.
Afghanistan is the gateway to Central Asia, which is the pivot point of Eurasia. Al-Qaeda are a useful causus belli, who were being kept in a box for a rainy day.
Quote from: Cain on July 29, 2010, 05:16:01 PM
Quote from: Ratatosk on July 29, 2010, 03:19:17 PM
Seven years and $90 billion and as soon as we leave, Al Queda will be free to set up shop again...
:lulz:
Maybe this was just to break up the monotony.
Silly squirrel, the war isn't about Al-Qaeda.
QuoteEver since the continents started interacting politically, some five hundred years ago, Eurasia has been the center of world power.... It is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America.... How America 'manages' Eurasia is critical. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world's three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail Africa's subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania geopolitically peripheral to the world's central continent. About 75 per cent of the world's people live in Eurasia, and most of the world's physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for about three-fourths of the world's known energy resources.
Afghanistan is the gateway to Central Asia, which is the pivot point of Eurasia. Al-Qaeda are a useful causus belli, who were being kept in a box for a rainy day.
Where is that quote from Cain?
Quote from: Doktor Charley Brown on July 29, 2010, 12:02:49 PM
The House's vote yesterday on emergency funding for the Afghanistan war shows a significant eroding of support for President Obama's war policy -- from members of his own Democratic Party.
Poor
LBJ Obama. :sad:
Cain: get this--I'm at an Afghan wedding in Los Angeles earlier this month (on July 4th, of all strange dates to be at an Afghan wedding, but I digress). This woman sitting near me, a total vacuous cow, but she says,
"Did you hear, Jennifer, how Afghanistan is now a rich country?"
I said, "No, do tell."
She replies, "Yes, did you hear how they found all these mining things, these precious minerals, in the hills and mountains there? Oh yes, they are going to be rich over there now."
Oh lordy. I managed to somehow NOT break it to her that this just means Afghanistan will become another 3rd world country (a la African nations that seek to mine themselves into oblivion and end up further impoverished and in civil war) that will suffer at the hands of Big Bidness, and that China has already moved in to take over those particular "delights" of her homeland http://www.slate.com/id/2257716.
Quote from: Doktor Charley Brown on July 29, 2010, 05:23:04 PM
Where is that quote from Cain?
Zbigniew Brzezinksi's The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And It's Geostrategic Imperatives. Brzezinksi was a national security advisor to Carter and remains influential in American foreign policy thinking.
Quote from: Jenne on July 29, 2010, 05:23:52 PM
Cain: get this--I'm at an Afghan wedding in Los Angeles earlier this month (on July 4th, of all strange dates to be at an Afghan wedding, but I digress). This woman sitting near me, a total vacuous cow, but she says,
"Did you hear, Jennifer, how Afghanistan is now a rich country?"
I said, "No, do tell."
She replies, "Yes, did you hear how they found all these mining things, these precious minerals, in the hills and mountains there? Oh yes, they are going to be rich over there now."
Lail. I'm sure there were Russians saying the exact same thing in the 1980s, since it was Soviet-era surveys we used to discover this.
GOOD THING AFGHANISTAN HAS ALL THAT WEALTH, OR IT MIGHT BE A REAL SHITHOLE BY NOW :lulz:
Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 29, 2010, 05:23:20 PM
Quote from: Doktor Charley Brown on July 29, 2010, 12:02:49 PM
The House's vote yesterday on emergency funding for the Afghanistan war shows a significant eroding of support for President Obama's war policy -- from members of his own Democratic Party.
Poor LBJ Obama. :sad:
I sense you are lacking sincerity. :D
Quote from: Cain on July 29, 2010, 05:29:03 PM
Quote from: Doktor Charley Brown on July 29, 2010, 05:23:04 PM
Where is that quote from Cain?
Zbigniew Brzezinksi's The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And It's Geostrategic Imperatives. Brzezinksi was a national security advisor to Carter and remains influential in American foreign policy thinking.
Quote from: Jenne on July 29, 2010, 05:23:52 PM
Cain: get this--I'm at an Afghan wedding in Los Angeles earlier this month (on July 4th, of all strange dates to be at an Afghan wedding, but I digress). This woman sitting near me, a total vacuous cow, but she says,
"Did you hear, Jennifer, how Afghanistan is now a rich country?"
I said, "No, do tell."
She replies, "Yes, did you hear how they found all these mining things, these precious minerals, in the hills and mountains there? Oh yes, they are going to be rich over there now."
Lail. I'm sure there were Russians saying the exact same thing in the 1980s, since it was Soviet-era surveys we used to discover this.
GOOD THING AFGHANISTAN HAS ALL THAT WEALTH, OR IT MIGHT BE A REAL SHITHOLE BY NOW :lulz:
Thank you.
Quote from: Cain on July 29, 2010, 05:29:03 PM
Quote from: Doktor Charley Brown on July 29, 2010, 05:23:04 PM
Where is that quote from Cain?
Zbigniew Brzezinksi's The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And It's Geostrategic Imperatives. Brzezinksi was a national security advisor to Carter and remains influential in American foreign policy thinking.
Quote from: Jenne on July 29, 2010, 05:23:52 PM
Cain: get this--I'm at an Afghan wedding in Los Angeles earlier this month (on July 4th, of all strange dates to be at an Afghan wedding, but I digress). This woman sitting near me, a total vacuous cow, but she says,
"Did you hear, Jennifer, how Afghanistan is now a rich country?"
I said, "No, do tell."
She replies, "Yes, did you hear how they found all these mining things, these precious minerals, in the hills and mountains there? Oh yes, they are going to be rich over there now."
Lail. I'm sure there were Russians saying the exact same thing in the 1980s, since it was Soviet-era surveys we used to discover this.
GOOD THING AFGHANISTAN HAS ALL THAT WEALTH, OR IT MIGHT BE A REAL SHITHOLE BY NOW :lulz:
:lulz:
Very nice... and a very good quote too!
Quote from: Jenne on July 29, 2010, 02:26:01 PM
I think that there's little or no sympathy for the "we're bring Afghans their FREEDOM" reasoning the Bush and later Obama administrations have been trying to sell as well. But Obama RAN on the premise that he'd be pulling OUT of war, not escalating it. So add to the the Pentagon shinanigans, and yeah, it doesn't surprise me the House Left (which, like the House Right, tends to be more party-platformed) would do this.
Obama seemed to be pretty clearly saying he was going to put more troops and effort into Afghanistan during the campaign to me. I heard him saying he was going to pull out of Iraq and put all of that (plus more) into Afghanistan. On the other hand Obama is well known for saying things in a way that everyone will interpret as what they want to hear. I would have preferred to hear him say he was pulling out of both, but my cynicism may have caused me to mishear in any case.
Yeah, Obama clearly ran on an escalation in Afghanistan, I remember that very well. It was one of the reasons I was skeptical of his whole "change" mantra. That he was against the Iraq War initially (American troops are still going to referee in the upcoming civil war) and against Guantanamo Bay (not the concept of indefinite detention itself....just it happening at Camp X-Ray) made every idiot pundit with half a brain cell put him into the "dirty fucking hippy" category because, as we know, pundits are fond of labelling and not fond of thinking
Whoops, yeah, I conflated the two regions. My bad.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2010-08-02-afghan-poll_N.htm
QuoteWASHINGTON — Public support for President Obama's Afghanistan war policy has plummeted amid a rising U.S. death toll and the unauthorized release of classified military documents, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll shows.
Support for Obama's management of the war fell to 36%, down from 48% in a February poll. Now, a record 43% also say it was a mistake to go to war there after the terrorist attacks in 2001.
The decline in support contributed to the lowest approval ratings of Obama's presidency. Amid a lengthy recession, more Americans support his handling of the economy (39%) than the war.