Political Crossfire Forums

[thundertaker]

I absolutely agree with the invasion, occupation and rebuilding of Afghanistan in the wake of the 9-11 attacks. I also believe that's were the soldiers in Iraq should be.......

[Cal-Pak]

I supported the invasion of Afghanistan mainly as a response to the attacks on 9/11. That's just common sense.

My complaint was how it was done, with so few troops. I mean we have at least 4 Army divisions who have units on "24" hour stand-by. With the ability to deploy around the world in 48 hours or less. For situations exactly like this. I always wondered why we didn't send those units from the 25ID, 10th MT, 82nd Airborne, 101st Airborne, 75 Rangers, and the Special Forces, not to mention any Marine forces available, within hours of the decision to go.
Get 10,000 troops on the ground the first week, then build up to 100,000 or more as quickly as possible. Instead of sending a few thousand troops in all.

But as time went by, and along with what US Retard posted above, and the book by that CIA agent whose name I can't remember, who had Bin Laden cornered and asked for US Rangers and got no response.
That coupled with like half of the Bush administration taking part in that 1998 document about how Saddam should be overthrown. And how Iraq was one of the Bush administrations top priorities right after the elections.

Then how they wanted to blame 9/11 on Iraq, even asking how Iraq pulled it off, right after the attacks, even after staffers/CIA assured them it was Al Qaeda who attacked us.
(All this can be found in a simple google search, it' just late and I'm tired and have searched for all this stuff before)

This is just my opinion, but it seems it may be far closer to the truth than a wild conspiracy. But this administration wanted desperately to invade Iraq. Not sure why, they just ached to.

Which is why when the Taliban disappeared, and Bin Laden escaped. The focus was quickly shifted to Iraq, instead of finishing off the Taliban or securing Afghanistan.

Actually attention was shifted to Iraq way before any of the stuff in Afghanistan was stable enough too.

ADDITION: Oh, the mentioning of US Retards post and such, was to show how/why we needed Bin Ladin. We needed a "Global War On Terror", to allow Bush to go into Iraq. Without associating Iraq with 9/11, like they did. The American people would never have supported a war in Iraq.
Which, as I'm sure I plainly stated, is what I believe Bush and his gang always desperately wanted to do.

[Snake]

I was not opposed to the invasion of Afghanistan, nor will I be opposed to the invasion.

[evilWombat]

In view of U.S. Retard's statements, I have to wonder: Why? Why would the U.S. seek an excuse to invade Afghanistan if there actually was no threat. If you really think it's all "blood for oil", Iraq has more oil. Also, after 9/11, Bush had more important things to concentrate on than a wild goose chase in Afghanistan. Obviously, he had some significant motive to make him drop other plans and commit to invade. If the terrorists were elsewhere, he would have been insane to invade Afghanistan instead (well... more insane than he is).

Nation building is dangerous and arrogant but it was needed here. Since the Taliban provided shelter and support to our adversaries, they had to be deposed. This left us with the burden of creating a government to replace them. The Taliban came to power in a period of warlordism and anarchy. Without a central government, anarchy will return, then the Taliban will return. And without the removal of the Taliban, we cannot remove the terrorists.

[mendosan]

The main problem is in southern Afghanistan, its unhelpful to talk about the whole of Afghanistan or Afghans as being a homogeneous blob.

I think part of the problem, is there really is no infrastructure to build on in southern Afghanistan, it would be fine if we went in and smashed everything then all we would have to do is put it back together, currently it seems a few army engineers are expected to build 500 years worth of Infrastructure.

Another problem was deviating from tried and tested methods, instead of creating secure areas then advancing out from there, for political reasons forces were spread out which put an enormous strain on troops expected to fight 24 hours a day virtually surrounded by the enemy, for no other reasons than to prop up corrupt local politicians.

The other problem is corruption in the central goverment which undermines democracy and the rule of law, and pushes people to the Taliban.

Another problem is the poppy crop, for some bizzare reason NATO is commited to destroying part of the crop which is lubicrous, if some one tryed to take your lively hood away from you you would fight them so you can feed your children wouldn't you?

[Zampano]

But though I was at that point opposed, I was in the stage of life where I had romantic views of peace and stupid stuff like that: My opinion from then is unreliable.

[Saracen]

Zampano wrote: But though I was at that point opposed, I was in the stage of life where I had romantic views of peace and stupid stuff like that: My opinion from then is unreliable.

Meaning?