On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 7:00 PM, PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > First I refer both Kevin and everyone else to the transcript of the > President's speech > (http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/12/01/obama.afghanistan.speech.transcript/index.html), > which will answer some of the questions Kevin raises.
Well, I was just in a particularly snarky mood, earlier. I'm not now, but OK, I'll bite. Fasten your seatbelts, kids. > This seems like a strange observation Kevin - Obama explained why we > need to be in Afghanistan in the first part of the speech. He did not > just say we need to be there. He explained that al Qaeda and the > Taliban, after escaping to safe havens in the mountains of Pakistan, > have been trying to overthrow the elected Afghan government, taken > control of large parts of Afghanistan, and engaged in terrorist > attacks against Pakistan. Elsewhere in the speech he explains that al > Qaeda has continued to plot terrorist attacks against the US from its > safe havens, and that the US has arrested persons sent to the US by al > Qaeda to engage in terrorist acts here. 0see in particular paragraphs > 9 and 17 of the speech] Al Queda can plan their attacks from the parking lot of the Starbucks a block from my house (I'm not unconvinced they don't... some nefarious people frequent that Starbucks). Kick 'em out of Afghanistan, they move to Pakistan. Kick 'em out of Pakistan, they move to Turkey. Or India. Or Cleveland. If Obama's rationale for sending my nephew to fight in Afghanistan is because we cannot allow it to be a safe haven, we're going to have to invade every sovereign nation on the planet, since they are all potential safe havens. And the parking lot of the Starbucks a block from my house needs to be bombed, too. > I don't really understand the point Kevin is making here. Obama spend > quite a bit of time explaining each of the three parts of this plan. I > don't think Kevin has made any real substantive criticism or question > about parts 1 and 2. OK. Substance. I can do substance. Why are we sending the military to remove them from a part of the world nobody (including the United States) wants anything to do with? Afghanistan is a nation of rocks, dirt, and poppies. Why not shut down their airport and let Al Queda sit on a rock, eat dirt, and enjoy the hell out of the poppies? And why involve any civilians in this fool's errand? Obama wants to order the military to go murder guys in mountains, I can't stop him. But I can be critical of any plan involving sending in Halliburton or any of the other big post-military-action companies to profit from our little killing spree... er... I mean... commence reconstruction efforts. You want to know when I'll support helping Afghanistan getting an infrastructure? When their women can both sit in the stands and play in a soccer game while wearing short shorts and a tight fitting t-shirt. The problems of Afghanistan have very little to do with Al Queda... their standards are repressive and don't fit with these modern times. Eliminate Al Queda and you still have an extreme and oppressive faction of Islam controlling the region. So... what... we gonna stick around and take out every Muslim extremist in Afghanistan? Because that will take longer than 18 months. > As to question number 3, As to question #3, the mention of Pakistan was the beginning of what will become the next stage of troop deployment. Within the next 18 months, Obama will have no choice but to send in troops to assist in stabilizing Pakistan... in the interests of our national security. Of course, he wouldn't have to do that if he wasn't sending 30,000 troops to Afghanistan now, but he is, so he will. This speech was the start of a smarmy marketing campaign to convince Americans that Pakistan is where we need to be. And he did it under the pretense of justifying the 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. > 3. Kevin wrote: He quoted Eisenhower... odd choice. > > Why is this an odd choice? Eisenhower was the most successful US > General of the 20th century, and also President of the United States. > The quote was in the context of paying for the surge in Afghanistan, > and Eisenhower is the recognized expert source on balancing real > military needs against domestic economic needs. And Obama is none of the above, and the mention of Ike serves as a reminder of that. Eisenhower could speak about the need for war and the economics of an entrenched military on foreign soil because he has the expertise and first-hand knowledge. And Eisenhower, as president, made decisions and ordered his generals. He didn't capitulate when his generals came to him with bullsh*t ideas (he had more than enough bullsh*t ideas of his own, as it turned out). > 4. Kevin wrote: "When this war began, we were united." Speak for > yourself, jackass. > > See paragraph 5 of the speech. Obama recounts the history of the US > invasion of Afghanistan. The support in both houses of Congress was > unanimous (well, unanimous in the Senate, and in the House unanimous > save 1 - I believe that was Barbara Lee, a representative from > Northern California). Obama also demonstrates how united the > international community was in support of the action (NATO and the > UN). He did not cite polling data, but I believe polls from that > period will show overwhelming support from the US population for the > invasion. I wasn't in Congress. I wasn't polled. But I wrote every politician who represented me urging them to reject this bone-headed idea then, and now I get to do it again. The day Bush started babbling about wanting Bin Laden "Dead or Alive," I knew we weren't out for national security or global peace. We were bloodthirsty. We were out for our pound of flesh. I don't support revenge campaigns. > I see McCain has endorsed the Obama plan here, with the > exception of the timetable for withdrawal (odd, since this is the same > failed argument he made about Iraq. Apparently a President McCain > would be making open ended, ten-year plus commitments to expanding > troop presence in both Iraq and Afghanistan - yikes!). We'll still be in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan in 10 years. If Obama kept to his timetables, Gitmo would be closed and most of the US troops would be out of Iraq by year's end. > Come to think of it, it would not be a bad idea if there was a constitutional > amendment requiring every President ordering troops into battle to > have to do something like that first. I think there should be an amendment stating the president must lead his troops from the front line with no Secret Service protection... congressmen and women, too. > he has always promised that if elected he would bring the war in > Iraq to a close, and redeploy US troops to Afghanistan to finish the > job there. Tonight he just kept that oft-repeated promise, and those > of us who wish he could have found another way out of this problem > have no grounds for complaining - he is doing what he said he would > do. I had a really snarky response to this, but is was way, way over the line. What happened this evening on television was a marketing ploy, and not even a well-crafted marketing ploy. The reason the venue was chosen was because young recruits respect the chain of command and would never call the POTUS out on his crap (the way a certain junior politician did a few months back). If you happened to watch the pre-show/warm-up on the web, a very well-mannered man in uniform stood at the podium and reminded those in attendance that applause was welcome when called for, but that was about all they were allowed to do. In other words, they were given a direct order to shut the hell up. It is no different than Republicans holding town halls, then filling the room with their own people. They are conditioned to only compliment the emperor on his new clothes, and not mention that he is standing naked before them. I tried (and admittedly failed) to approach the speech as a media event, but here is why I thought it worth posting comments to a media-related board: Who was his audience? Not the people in the room, or he wouldn't have been pointedly addressing the Afghan people. Why the mention of Pakistan so many times when he's supposed to be explaining sending troops to Afghanistan? Because he is planting the seed in the minds of everyone watching the speech. Why mention wartime presidents when he says he doesn't want to be a wartime president? Because he wants to be a wartime president. Last but not least, I'll check with my nephew, but I'd wager my one good eye that he and his USMC friends will tell me this speech lowered the morale of the men and women in uniform. They've already seen evidence that President Obama couldn't keep his promises. Hearing him formally announce yet another escalation in force, followed by another set of promises of withdrawal... ugh... I couldn't imagine being in the military and hearing that. -- Kevin M. (RPCV) -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
