A Mirror of Vietnam?

[SpellAndShield]

The justification for going into Iraq was all lies, and manipulation. There were NO WMD's, and there are more terrorists in Iraq NOW, than there were shortly before we invaded. That war was counter productive in more ways than one.

 

Afghanistan was supposed to be all about getting Osama. Well, we have him, now why are we still there? To continue to support the corrupt, puppet government we installed?

 

I did not agree with either war. Iraq was flat out stupid, (and that's why bush sr. DID NOT go to Baghdad when he was already there, with enough force to removed good ol' Saddam.) We have spent north of trillion dollars on the country, that we will never see a dime of back, and for what? So we can install a government friendly to IRAN?????? Brilliant!

 

The US needs to figure out that you cannot install a democratic government at gunpoint, in a country that has never had one. (and doesn't even really want one....) The only way the government in Afghanistan is going to stay in power, is to keep american troops there. Bad Idea. I would also point out, that when the taliban was in charge, opium production there was basically non-existent, today? 80% of the worlds opium comes from Afghanistan.

 

Then we have Libya.... and Yemen.....

 

Our economy is in the toilet, jobs are fleeing the country wholesale, unemployment is at an all time high, the government borrows 43 cents of every dollar it spends, yet, we have money to burn in useless wars, for people that don't want us there in the first place, in countries that will go right back to exactly what they were when we arrived, once we are gone. I do not support ANY of the current wars. I do, however, support our troops, they weren't the ones that decided to wage these useless wars.

 

You forgot Somalia.

[HeyYou]

Are we back in there again too? We didn't learn from our last little foray into that tiny little country?

[SpellAndShield]

Are we back in there again too? We didn't learn from our last little foray into that tiny little country?

 

The whole mess there now is our fault; look up the Ethiopian invasion pushed by Bush Christmas time 2005, not to mention drone strikes and CIA torture prisons.

[HeyYou]

Are we back in there again too? We didn't learn from our last little foray into that tiny little country?

 

The whole mess there now is our fault; look up the Ethiopian invasion pushed by Bush Christmas time 2005, not to mention drone strikes and CIA torture prisons.

 

I can't say that I am really surprised. I will shamefully admit I actually voted for Obama, as I expected he would not be just a repeat of bush era politics. Sure fooled me now didn't he? I won't be voting for him in 2012. I just hope there is a viable alternative that I can stomach voting for....

[draconix]

Ron Paul, while Republican, is actually very much against the current wars and police state that the US has become (or been,) and strongly backs the constitution, realizes that it's there to limit government rather than for governments to derive power from. He strikes me as the only real option.. Not to mention that he called our economic meltdown years before it happened, and up to now. Aims to end the Fed, free us from the unconstitutional Federal Income Tax, and did I mention, getting our government's d*ck out of all the hornets nests around the world? And he hasn't changed his position once since the '70's. It's amazing.

 

At any rate, something's got to give. Hopefully before we're all dead.

[Vagrant0]

Maybe the reason that Vietnam is so similar to Afghanistan/Iraq is because that's how modern warfare goes now. Guerrillas on one side, and a superpower on the other. I don't think we have much of the old days when people just got in lines and shot each other.

This actually.

 

The reason being that this form of warfare tends to result in fewer casualties, less destruction, and fewer civilian losses. If this was being fought like wars of old, 2000 wouldn't be the number of soldiers killed in a war... It would be the number killed in a day... Not counting civillians caught in the crossfire. Post WWII most of northern Europe was ravaged, with millions of displaced persons. The people of today don't have the slightest idea of what sort of destruction and death war really brings.

[RZ1029]

Unfortunately, nukes usually result in many more civilian deaths than a conventional war, even as the war is being run now.

We'll let the human rights activists go in first, to protest using a nuke against civilians. That clearly was an AK-47 in glass form the activist was holding. They were enemy combatants, I swear.

[marharth]

Ron Paul, while Republican, is actually very much against the current wars and police state that the US has become (or been,) and strongly backs the constitution, realizes that it's there to limit government rather than for governments to derive power from. He strikes me as the only real option.. Not to mention that he called our economic meltdown years before it happened, and up to now. Aims to end the Fed, free us from the unconstitutional Federal Income Tax, and did I mention, getting our government's d*ck out of all the hornets nests around the world? And he hasn't changed his position once since the '70's. It's amazing.

 

At any rate, something's got to give. Hopefully before we're all dead.

Ron Paul is great for foreign policy and war. I hate most his economic views (besides his view on the federal reserve) and social opinions though.

 

I honestly don't know if Ron Paul would be worth it to get us out of war. Plus everyone on the right hates him in congress, and so does everyone on the left. Wouldn't work out to well for him to get stuff passed.

 

That being said, even if he did get elected I doubt he could get support from congress on much.

[LeopoldCrank]

USA needs another fresh war ASAP to recover its economy...

 

The last thing USA needs is another war. You think, after every major war that, not only America, but any country has been in, their economy has gone to crap. World War II was a huge example; just take a look at what that did to Europe. During the Cold War, the most peaceful time was (believe it or not) during the dying years of the Vietnam War. Why? America's economy was in the worst shape it had been in since... ever. As such, it wasn't in a position to continue battling with the Communists in the Third World and with the Nationalists in Vietnam. The period was called detente, and this ended once America was once again back on its feet and the Soviets had invaded Afghanistan in 1981.

 

And as always with these debates, I shall point out once again that it is completely America's fault that it had to face Afghanistan again. After they abandoned it to the Mujaheddin after the Soviets, the situation that has since come about was simply natural evolution around a power vacuum. Was their justification to go? Yes, I'd say so. But the reasons behind its inevitable instigation are inexcusable, and the blood of all those killed in the present conflict, natives or otherwise, are completely on the hands of both Reagan and George Bush I.

[LeopoldCrank]

The justification for going into Iraq was all lies, and manipulation. There were NO WMD's, and there are more terrorists in Iraq NOW, than there were shortly before we invaded. That war was counter productive in more ways than one.

 

Afghanistan was supposed to be all about getting Osama. Well, we have him, now why are we still there? To continue to support the corrupt, puppet government we installed?

 

I did not agree with either war. Iraq was flat out stupid, (and that's why bush sr. DID NOT go to Baghdad when he was already there, with enough force to removed good ol' Saddam.) We have spent north of trillion dollars on the country, that we will never see a dime of back, and for what? So we can install a government friendly to IRAN?????? Brilliant!

 

The US needs to figure out that you cannot install a democratic government at gunpoint, in a country that has never had one. (and doesn't even really want one....) The only way the government in Afghanistan is going to stay in power, is to keep american troops there. Bad Idea. I would also point out, that when the taliban was in charge, opium production there was basically non-existent, today? 80% of the worlds opium comes from Afghanistan.

 

Then we have Libya.... and Yemen.....

 

Our economy is in the toilet, jobs are fleeing the country wholesale, unemployment is at an all time high, the government borrows 43 cents of every dollar it spends, yet, we have money to burn in useless wars, for people that don't want us there in the first place, in countries that will go right back to exactly what they were when we arrived, once we are gone. I do not support ANY of the current wars. I do, however, support our troops, they weren't the ones that decided to wage these useless wars.

 

I don't want to come off having flamed you, just making sure I say that first before I tell you what I'm about to say.

 

Afghanistan had an incredible small amount to do with Osama. People need to learn to see past political rhetoric. Was the Cold War really about ideology? If you listened to what politicians said; Acheson's rotting apples, Eisenhower's Domino theory etc, then you would believe so. But actually, it had far more to do with the economic incentives in maintaining effective control over Europe and the Middle East which America had c=gained over the course of World War II. But they couldn't just say that. Enter rhetoric; giving people a reason that they want to hear.

 

Osama was used because of 9/11. People wanted to see him dead after what he did, which is completely fair enough. But America has been involved in Afghanistan for ages. They abandoned it to the Mujaheddin in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union, and this was about going back to clean it up. Plus, oil was also a incentive of course