Give the new Socialist government in Spain this much credit - they are trying to meet the U.S., Britain and its allies half-way. Although determined to pull his country's troops out of Iraq in June, Jose Zapatero has doubled the amount of Spanish soldiers, from 125 to 250, to help keep the peace in Afghanistan.
As I read the news about Zapatero's Afghanistan fig-leaf, I got to thinking about the run-down to the November presidential election. Anti-Bush zealots will be rolling out, among their many reasons to vote against Bush, the assertion that he threw us into two wars.
You know, if you want to dismiss the Iraq War as superfluous, unnecessary, imperialist, blood-for-oil, based-on-lies bullshit, more power to you. How anyone could not see the bright side that was the capture and arrest of Saddam Hussein and the complete smashing of the Ba’athist state, is beyond me. OK, the allegations against Saddam Hussein were based on erroneous information, but the supply and gathering of information is a human endeavor. I can delve more into this in another entry, but for now, I will allow that it’s understandable to be cynical about the Iraq war - especially if you simply go on just the gut instinct to question the Bush Administration’s motives and weed out the baser instincts of the terror-abetting, Islamo-fanatic, anti-American segments that were a significant part of the anti-war movement.
The Afghanistan war was different. We had just been attacked by a terror network with provable ties to the heads of state in Afghanistan, known as the Taliban. The Taliban repressed the people of their country and the first step in fighting a war on terror, and to express our displeasure over 9-11, was to attack that regime. It was a calculated war, motivated only by the desire to knock out a festering Islamofascist ulcer on the face of the Middle East.
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— go to most recent comments1 - Doc
Take off the GOP hairshirt buddy...even Michael Moore supported the Afghanistan campaign. Which is why many of us liberals are mad about how it's being handled now because they had to trot into Iraq so shortly after.
Got Osama?
You can quit the liberal bashing on that one.
2 - Shark
Very few people, liberals included, opposed the war in Afghanistan.
So set up another straw man while I pull up a chair and ponder your banana slug IQ.
re: "For those who wish to complain that Bush dragged us into two wars, I ask: Did those lives that perished on 9-11 mean anything to you at all?"
Is your IQ high enough to understand what a hideous, despicable remark that is? To use 3,000 dead as leverage to berate the dreaded liberals? As if ANY 'LIBERAL' values human life less than you?
Manning, you're either a moron or a worm with no conscience.
And I'm pretty sure the relatives of those 3,000 dead would probably agree with my sentiments when I say:
FUCK YOU.
3 - Michael Bravo
There are way too many conveniently omitted historical avenues, down which United States of America funded those same Afghani mujaheddin to drive out Soviet forces (which, not surprisingly, were out to get rid of that "festering ulcer" on the borders of their empire; it was a huge drug trafficking hub in those times, too); the same United States of America funded someone named Saddam Hussein to be able to keep tabs on the Middle East oil comings and goings and issue vague threats towards Iran & company; and where to the utmost surprise of NATO (I gather) those same Albanians they were "saving" in Kosovo are now kicking the crap out of the Serbs who have the unhappy role of living there since who knows when.
And what seems most cynical about it to me, is this kind of blessings-bestowed rhetoric, talking down to the rest of the world and the people living under the american bombs and gunfire of the US Marines, talking down from the country which didn't have armed conflict on it's mainland territory since the Civil War. One would think that the 9/11 disaster would have shocked the awareness of the populace in the USA into the realization, that they are working to create more and more enemies for their own country, and to actually increase the probability of such horrendous events. Alas, it didn't happen, or if it did, it doesn't show.
My point is - if you want to go to war, then go. But don't try to dress up the facts about what is actually happening.
4 - Tom
Liberals are acting two faced. They are jumping on the Dick Clark bandwagon, saying we should have been proactive before 9/11 knowing full well they would have protested any military action pre 9/11
If we didn't invade Iraq, and he supplied nuclear or biologial weapons to a terrorist group and Chicago became a quiet neighborhood, then they would say he should have acted.
All I ask is for some intellectual honesty, and a star to sail her by.
5 - Shark
Yeah, Tom, and who was crying "WAG THE DOG" when Clinton sent missiles flying?
"Liberals" don't have an exclusive on the Janus face.
btw: "if we didn't invade Iraq" (for non-existent WMDs) the reconstruction of Afghanistan might not be in such a crappy, de-evolving state of chaos and anarchy.
Hypocrites.
6 - Ms. Tek
Sorry, I don't see where most liberals or moderates were against the Afghan War. There was a factual reason to go there. Osama lived there. Al Queda training camps were there. Al Quada had attacked the World Trade Center. There was a smoking gun and just cause.
Comparing Afghanistan to Iraq is like comparing a apple with Chocolate milk.
7 - Jeff
I'm sick and tired of you people telling me that apples are somehow different from chocolate milk. Apples were trying to get weapons of mass destruction and they would have given them to chocolate milk. Get a clue.
I'm done now.
8 - Ms. Tek
But chocolate milk didn't need them. Chocolate milk gives some people gas. So do green apples!
9 - Joe
But God didn't make little green apples...
10 - Hal Pawluk
Liberals are acting two faced. They are jumping on the Dick Clark bandwagon, saying we should have been proactive before 9/11 knowing full well they would have protested any military action pre 9/11
That's another false generalization.
Most people in America, of any or no political stripe, agree that more could have been done against terror pre-9/11 but they also think that this does not mean that Bush is to blame for it. There may be some on the extreme left who think so, but not nearly as many as those on the right who think abandoning the war on terror in Afghanistan to invade Iraq was a good idea.
The original post was a straw man, arguing against a false premise. Most accept the US invasion of Afghanistan as part of the war on terror so what's to argue?
11 - mike
One thing prowars might want to do is address how to pay for our great Iraqi and Afghan adventures. The cost of occupying these two countries is running at between 1 and 2 billion dollars A WEEK!!!! A WEEK!!! That's not sustainable even with a growing economy.
Tax increases will be necessary unless whole domestic departments like the EPA and Education and the Park Service are eliminated. They might be necessary even then.
So, all you great patriots, let us in on the great secret: who's paying for it?
12 - Tom
Any excuse to raise taxes to fund your socialist utopia.
We should cut the park service, NEA, and other groups. They are worthless.
13 - Mark Saleski
TalkRadioRegurgitation(tm)
14 - JR
We should cut the park service, NEA, and other groups. They are worthless.
The Park Service is responsible for policing the federal monuments in D.C. I guess you care more about cutting taxes than about preventing a terrorist attack on the Mall. Osama thanks you for your support.
15 - mike
Ok, the park service and the NEA are still small numbers. Any body willing to take out Education and Environmental Protection? That's what it's going to take.
Bush II = high taxes to pay for the bloated U.S. military.
16 - Shark
Their #1 goal has always been to bankrupt the nation; in Republian Economic Vernacular, it's called "Starve the Beast".
17 - JR
"They" being the Republicans or the terrorists?
18 - Hal Pawluk
"Starving the beast" is a Republican construct (look it up - lots of info on line) from the Reagan adminstration.
The idea is to cut revenues so much that spending on social programs will have to be cut.
This administration has an added twist: they are cutting revenues by reducing taxes on unearned incomes.
The end point is that only wage-earners pay income tax, in addition to having no social services.
19 - Eric Olsen
I would have to agree that all but the far left and way-way far right were for the war in Afghanistan. The big split comes with Iraq, which is indeed more problematic than Afghanistan but I have never doubted was the right, if not, in retrospect, the immediately necessary thing to do.
But I would also agree with Mark that those who decry Afghanistan are beyond hope. They are.
I remember talking to a woman science writer who I much admired at the time about Afghanistan right after the bombing started and she was beside herself with indignation that we would dare do such a thing. Suddenly it occurred to me: this woman is an idiot, which in subsequent dealings is exactly what she turned out to be.
20 - mike
The ultimate goal for many of these wackos is to convert to pure consumption taxes and abolish the income tax.
Next year, we will hear Limbaugh and others announce that the increased gas, Social Security and other such taxes that Bush will propose are not actually "taxes," they're only "revenue enhancers"; only income and investment taxes are taxes, therefore no one's taxes are actually going up.
But then Bush may have to impose a war tax to further keep the military from imploding and Limbaugh will announce that's not a tax either; it's just a temporary little surcharge thing.
Just want to get those GOP talking points out there on the table.
21 - mike
"but I have never doubted was the right, if not, in retrospect, the immediately necessary thing to do."
So you support massive tax increases and/or savage spending cuts to pay for it? May need both, so do provide details. From now on, no one who supports the war in Iraq can do so without an explicit statement as to how to pay for it. The credit card is maxed out.
22 - mike
The answer in Afghanistan was not a "war" but a police action that bypassed the state and aimed directly at al-Quada. Would have worked; instead we are running a failed state fighting fourth generation guerillas. By the very terms of engagement, the war in Afghanistan is over. The United States has been defeated.
23 - Eric Olsen
Yes, surely the Taliban, which explicitly supported al Qaeda in thought word and deed, should have been left alone in some kind of serpentine neutron bomb police action swerving around it and surgically targeting al Qaeda, leaving the enlightened and smoothly functioning "government" in place. This would have made more sense than clearing all the hopeless pieces of shit out and starting from scratch.
24 - mike
Al-Quada was harboring the Taliban, not the other way around. Had we focused exclusively on al-Quada, the Taliban would have collapsed as a consequence, and the U.S. would not now be running a failed state against resurgent guerillas. It would be the Afghan people's responsibility to build a new government, while we focused exclusively on busting up terror networks.
My foreign policy is not only cheaper, it's much more tough minded. The hell with all this do-gooder save-the-world crap. It's worse than pacifism, and almost as harmful.
25 - JR
The Taliban declared themselves the official government of Afghanistan. We were attacked by a group of terrorists, and pursued justice against that group. The Taliban (government of Afghanistan) hindered us. Therefore we declared war on Afghanistan, and removed said uncooperative government. Seems reasonable to me.
Personally I thought we should have wiped the Taliban out before they blew up the Buddha statues. In fact, we ought to get the United Nations to pass an international law banning the destruction of historical landmarks; they're far more valuable humankind than homocidal religious fanatics.