Pentagon Papers II
- Thread starter Boom_70
- Start date
Bubbler
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2004
- Messages
- 26,759
Stoney said:
Oh for Christ sake. Who gives a ****? If its a situation that isn't advantageous for us to be in, pull out.
I'm tired of our policies being based on this ****-swinging, face-saving, "What will the world think about America!!" hysterical bull****. First of all, I don't think "the world" gives a flying **** about our prestige or perceived loss of it.
We could pull out of Afghanistan tomorrow and it wouldn't change the fact we have the most powerful military on the planet. I love how some of the biggest hawks for war become the biggest pussies when it comes to how our country is perceived. It totally betrays the lack of confidence they have in this nation to begin with that it takes a war to show what we're all about.
Gorbachev said it best a few years ago. The addiction to winning clouds our judgment on everything.
Many among us, especially on the GOP side, have this scoreboard mentality when it comes to foreign policy, which is stupid, unrealistic and unsustainable because wars and countries are never won and lost in a vacuum, especially in a place like Afghanistan, which has confounded western intervention (Britain several times, Soviet Union, etc.) for its entire history.
Boom_70 said:
Without troops on the ground, drone attacks won't accomplish much beyond pissing off and radicalizing the people, providing more motivation and support for future 9/11s.
The drone attacks have been an unmitigated PR disaster when it comes to the muslim people whose hearts and minds we were supposed to be winning over. And continuing to do it after we've withdrawn and surrendered the territory would be viewed terribly. Drones/covert ops can't prevent the Taliban from re-taking Afghanistan, and they can't prevent the Taliban from exacting vengeance and slaughtering every Afghan citizen that ever supported or was sympathetic to the U.S. Only ground toops can do that.
So we're gonna allow all that to happen, yet continue to blow **** up and kill people from the air seemingly with no overriding purpose and no end to it in sight? That policy would be the greatest ****ing recruiting tool Al Qaeda and Taliban have ever had.
From a journalistic standpoint it seems like the perfect situation for The Times. Papers released by a third party source keeps The Times from looking like the bad guy as they have in the past. It gives them plausible deniablity for the sources, yet still allows them to provide context.
micropolitan guy
Well-Known Member
Nobody wants to commit deeper to it, but pulling out right now would be viewed as Al Qaeda North Vietnam defeating us. So we remain stuck in this middle zone cluster****.
I've already seen this movie, back in 1968, when we found ourselves in another unwinnable war.
And I forget, did Australia fall to the Communists like those who espoused the domino theory said it would?
I've already seen this movie, back in 1968, when we found ourselves in another unwinnable war.
And I forget, did Australia fall to the Communists like those who espoused the domino theory said it would?
From John Kerry speech before Foreign Relations committee in 1971. The parallels are striking:
"In our opinion, and from our experience, there is nothing in South Vietnam, nothing which could happen that realistically threatens the United States of America. And to attempt to justify the loss of one American life in Vietnam, Cambodia or Laos by linking such loss to the preservation of freedom, which those misfits supposedly abuse, is to use the height of criminal hypocrisy, and it is that kind of hypocrisy which we feel has torn this country apart.
We are probably much more angry than that and I don't want to go into the foreign policy aspects because I am outclassed here. I know that all of you talk about every possible alternative of getting out of Vietnam. We understand that. We know you have considered the seriousness of the aspects to the utmost level and I am not going to try to dwell on that, but I want to relate to you the feeling that many of the men who have returned to this country express because we are probably angriest about all that we were told about Vietnam and about the mystical war against communism.
What Was Found and Learned in Vietnam
We found that not only was it a civil war, an effort by a people who had for years been seeking their liberation from any colonial influence whatsoever, but also we found that the Vietnamese whom we had enthusiastically molded after our own image were hard put to take up the fight against the threat we were supposedly saving them from.
We found most people didn't even know the difference between communism and democracy. They only wanted to work in rice paddies without helicopters strafing them and bombs with napalm burning their villages and tearing their country apart. They wanted everything to do with the war, particularly with this foreign presence of the United States of America, to leave them alone in peace, and they practiced the art of survival by siding with whichever military force was present at a particular time, be it Vietcong, North Vietnamese, or American.
We found also that all too often American men were dying in those rice paddies for want of support from their allies. We saw first hand how money from American taxes was used for a corrupt dictatorial regime. We saw that many people in this country had a one-sided idea of who was kept free by our flag, as blacks provided the highest percentage of casualties. We saw Vietnam ravaged equally by American bombs as well as by search and destroy missions, as well as by Vietcong terrorism, and yet we listened while this country tried to blame all of the havoc on the Vietcong. "
Hopefully as now head of The Foreign Relations Committee he feels the same way about Afghanistan.
"In our opinion, and from our experience, there is nothing in South Vietnam, nothing which could happen that realistically threatens the United States of America. And to attempt to justify the loss of one American life in Vietnam, Cambodia or Laos by linking such loss to the preservation of freedom, which those misfits supposedly abuse, is to use the height of criminal hypocrisy, and it is that kind of hypocrisy which we feel has torn this country apart.
We are probably much more angry than that and I don't want to go into the foreign policy aspects because I am outclassed here. I know that all of you talk about every possible alternative of getting out of Vietnam. We understand that. We know you have considered the seriousness of the aspects to the utmost level and I am not going to try to dwell on that, but I want to relate to you the feeling that many of the men who have returned to this country express because we are probably angriest about all that we were told about Vietnam and about the mystical war against communism.
What Was Found and Learned in Vietnam
We found that not only was it a civil war, an effort by a people who had for years been seeking their liberation from any colonial influence whatsoever, but also we found that the Vietnamese whom we had enthusiastically molded after our own image were hard put to take up the fight against the threat we were supposedly saving them from.
We found most people didn't even know the difference between communism and democracy. They only wanted to work in rice paddies without helicopters strafing them and bombs with napalm burning their villages and tearing their country apart. They wanted everything to do with the war, particularly with this foreign presence of the United States of America, to leave them alone in peace, and they practiced the art of survival by siding with whichever military force was present at a particular time, be it Vietcong, North Vietnamese, or American.
We found also that all too often American men were dying in those rice paddies for want of support from their allies. We saw first hand how money from American taxes was used for a corrupt dictatorial regime. We saw that many people in this country had a one-sided idea of who was kept free by our flag, as blacks provided the highest percentage of casualties. We saw Vietnam ravaged equally by American bombs as well as by search and destroy missions, as well as by Vietcong terrorism, and yet we listened while this country tried to blame all of the havoc on the Vietcong. "
Hopefully as now head of The Foreign Relations Committee he feels the same way about Afghanistan.
micropolitan guy said:
With all due respect, this is NOT like Vietnam and, in my opinion, a far messier no solution situation.
In Vietnam, we could walk away and be done with the place. We might've had our tail between our legs, we might've suffered humiliation, but we knew they weren't gonna continue to attack us after we withdrew. But you can't just walk away from a war against organizations whose very purpose is to bring you down. They will never stop coming after you as long as they exist and have the capability.
And walking away now will only empower them and give them greater ability to plan and carrry out future 9/11 type attacks. It'll be giving them back the safe haven country to rebuild their networks and facilities, except this time they'll KNOW we won't be coming after them with troops after we tried for a decade and failed. And I'd think the inevitable perception that they "defeated" the great Western power will attract tons of new radicalized muslim youth to their ranks from all over the world, all still hellbent on destroying us. There was no real threat of that when we walked away from Vietnam.
It truly is the ultimate cluster****. We can't afford to stay in, there doesn't seem to be any way to actually "win" ****ing thing, but walking away could have utterly catostrophic future consequences. So we just stay stuck in the middle. **** if I know what to do. **** if anyone does.
Stoney said:
But that assumes that the people who would attack us are still in Afghanistan.
We could have fought our way to victory in Viet Nam with no guarantee that the Russians would not attack us.
We are in a situation with no defined end game to victory.
Boom_70 said:
If they're not, it's only because our troops are there. If we pull out and cede control over the territory back to the Taliban, they'll be returning and rebuilding the very next day. You don't honestly doubt that, do you?
Armchair_QB
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jun 11, 2003
- Messages
- 36,813
RickStain said:
Pakistan has nukes.
RickStain said:
The difference is that the Pakistan Government and military was supposedly on our side and helping us combat them, whereas in a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan they will have an absolute safe haven with aid and assistance of the Government.
The other issue is that, having now gained a stronger foothold in Pakistan, enabling them to also seize control over the Afghan govt and military machinery (what there is of it) would provide even more leverage for them to attempt to seize control of the Pakistan Government and nuclear arsenal.
Withdrawal doesn't mean that they'll give up what they've gained in Pakistan, it'll only means that they now have Afghanistan AND a solid chunk of Pakistan, and with no more American troops around to impede them from advancing further in a country with stored nukes. Yet another reason why withdrawal is a far dicier issue here than it was in Vietnam.
