Afghanistan War

[Mish]

Another problem is the ease with which these wars got started. I bet when Bush was presented with an option to invade both Afghanistan and Iraq he was told, "give us a few hours and we will bomb them to stone age and everything will be over, no more worries". What he and people in US probably won't told was "give us the order and we will plunge US into a long quagmire stretching for decades and costing hundreds of billions of dollars and hundreds of lives of US soldiers if it's not planned properly". If you ask me Bush needs to be prosecuted for giving the order and riling up the country for war as an example for others in the future, so these kinds of decisions aren't made in haste.

That's exactly why any decision to go to war needs to be made with long term plans in mind and the public needs to be informed accordingly. The public needs to be weary of the real costs of starting a war and the price they will need to pay if they do not oppose it from the get go.

[IndiReloaded]

You would really promote bombing this??

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mazar-e_sharif_-_Steve_Evans.jpg[/url]

Want a radical solution? Make Afghanistan a world centre for peace and education or business for 100 years (like Hong Kong or India). I'm serious.

[CocoChanel]

True. If we just went over the bombing every sq mile of their territory it would be a devastating to their culture, yes?

[Gribble]

We can build another over the rubble in a few hundred years when the area's inhabitable once more.

[IndiReloaded]

I guess... not quite what I had in mind.

[Mish]

If any kind of indiscriminate killing in the area is carried out the effects and consequences for US will be both horrific and devastating. Most of those Middle Eastern governments now friendly to US will be overthrown by fundamentalist extremists who are already waiting for a perfect opportunity and not just small countries like Afghanistan, but Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia. There will be a move to forge a Middle Eastern Islamic Republic like the one which existed not so long ago. Forget Vietnam, there will be terror on a massive scale and hundreds of thousands of American lives will be sacrificed to the point that US will probably seize to be a superpower within a year. This coincidentally is exactly what Al Qaeda is fighting for.

[Cbrider]

I guess... not quite what I had in mind.

Haha, he got you there Indi.

I don't want to kill mass amounts of people in the name of world peace, but its proven time and time again. The only way to send a clear message is through a show of brute power.

People will die in order to reach a state of peace. What has to be weighed is the initial cost vs the long term cost. If we would have plowed Afghanistan into the ground the first time, we would have saved thousands of lives, both military and civilian.

We are a violent race, promoting peace during a volatile time has never worked well. You have to establish domination before peace can be achieved.....unfortunately.

[IndiReloaded]

Hiroshima... *and* Nagasaki...

??

[Gribble]

If any kind of indiscriminate killing in the area is carried out the effects and consequences for US will be both horrific and devastating. Most of those Middle Eastern governments now friendly to US will be overthrown by fundamentalist extremists who are already waiting for a perfect opportunity and not just small countries like Afghanistan, but Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia. There will be a move to forge a Middle Eastern Islamic Republic like the one which existed not so long ago. Forget Vietnam, there will be terror on a massive scale and hundreds of thousands of American lives will be sacrificed to the point that US will probably seize to be a superpower within a year. This coincidentally is exactly what Al Qaeda is fighting for.

Then you nuke them. And you nuke the next bunch. And the one after that. You keep nuking until there's no one left. Then you've got world peace.

[Mish]

Then you nuke them. And you nuke the next bunch. And the one after that. You keep nuking until there's no one left. Then you've got world peace.

US is not the only place that has nukes. Once those nukes start flying, once the radars around the world pick them and unleash their own retaliatory payload that's it say goodbye to the nuclear proliferation treaties and the world. It will be a suicide homicide, nuclear winter and the end of human race.

[Lipp]

For a moment there I thought y'all were joking around. Apparently not.

Maybe you'll realize what you're advocating once fighting an enemy that actually fights back, and not a dysfunctional country on the other side of the world where it becomes a matter of stepping out just for the sake of saving money and some military personnel.

Hell, any country getting nukes as protection is justified with this approach.

[Primo]

Alot of guys in the service who will talk about it, will tell you unless the rules of engagement are changed, we will accomplish nothing except getting more soldiers killed. They're in a total war and are ruthless, we're held accountable for every life we take.

Gribble & CB hit the nail on the head, the objective will only succeed with an extreme, all out, win at all costs effort.

[Gribble]

US is not the only place that has nukes. Once those nukes start flying, once the radars around the world pick them and unleash their own retaliatory payload that's it say goodbye to the nuclear proliferation treaties and the world. It will be a suicide homicide, nuclear winter and the end of human race.

Exactly.

World peace.

[doppelgaenger]

I was in the Middle East last summer. It was very beautiful, the people there were nice, and I am totally against bombing it.

There are still many issues that are of global responsibility, particularly of the USA. Sounds like some of you need to review what happened at the Summit meeting this Fall.

[Junket]