I would suggest the Unted States propse that it will continue to stay in Afghanistan for a period of two years if Europe – which won’t send combat troops- foots the bill. If Europe will not foot the bill, the U.S. should withdraw to a base on the promise it will bomb – without warning- all training camps and everyone moving by land from Pakistan to Afghanistan.

This is one Canadian who is sick and tired of seeing the United States pay a disproportionate price for everyone’s security.

Conyers: Obama war plans “embarrassingly naive”
Barack Obama had better prepare himself for just as much skepticism
on Afghanistan at home as he got from Europe. Obama wants $75 billion
more allocated for the efforts in Afghanistan……

Gospel Moody on April 9, 2009 at 4:03 PM

I don’t know what the heck you are talking about.

Let me straigthen you out, smart people are what drives society. The Precedent is NOT a smart person. Neither is Conyers.

Your diatribe against smart people is silly and totally incorrect.

I’m going to take a moment just to savor the irony of Obama having to rely on “the Party of No.” That stone will bcome embarrassingly hard to cast again, won’t it? I can’t wait for this vote, which looks to be gratifying on every level.

Rep. John Conyers (D., Mich.) dismissed Mr. Obama’s plans as “embarrassingly naive,” and suggested that the president is being led astray by those around him. “He’s the smartest man in American politics today,” Rep. Conyers said. “But he occasionally gets bad advice and makes mistakes. This is one of those instances.”

I’m sorry but his intelligence IS the problem. Smart people make the most and biggest mistakes. They make as many mistakes as mentally challenged people do but the result is more devastating because people believe them since they are smart. We need smart people because every once in a long while one of them will come up with an idea that brings humanity forward. But, really, we need to keep them on a leash like pets. People of average intelligence make the fewest mistakes. The graph I saw from the studies that have been done makes a perfect reverse bell curve. Also, smart people usually don’t make good leaders. I assume all this is due to them living in the abstract instead of the real world.

Keep them on a leash.

This really is a “hearts and minds” conflict, with the competing force being Islam. Without a strategy for erradicating Islam from their hearts and minds and replacing it with something constructive, how can we make what we might call progress?

My fear is not the Mr Obama will abandon the mission but that he will throw everything into it, stirring up huge trouble along the way, because his ego sees the opportunity to prove himself by bringing forth a cosmopolitan, latte drinking, community of sophisticates amidst the romantically rugged landscape.

catlady on April 9, 2009 at 2:41 PM

But, Obama is going to close Gitmo and bring some of those dear unfortunate souls to the U.S..

“He’s the smartest man in American politics today,” Rep. Conyers said. “But he occasionally gets bad advice and makes mistakes.

Can Conyers say oxymoron?

The facts are that during the debate where foreign policy and the war was discussed, McCain ate his lunch. There is no question and no point in even arguing. When questioned about Afghanistan, McCain gave a detailed answer involving in-depth knowledge of even individual tribal regions and their unique challenges. I was actually very impressed with his insights. Obama’s answers were generally a deer in the headlights agreement with what John McCain said; repeatedly, for that entire area of questioning. He truly looked bewildered. The joke at my house was that if Obama won, he’d have to make John McCain SECDEF because he didn’t have a cogent plan himself but seems to admire McCain’s grasp of the war. All Obama could say was that he agreed with what McCain said but oh, he’d be able to do it better and faster. Well here we are, no?
He has no different plan for withdraw from Iraq than John McCain and isn’t even prosecuting it any differently than George W. Bush did in the first place. There isn’t a dimes bit of difference between what the theater build up discussion was this time last year for Afghanistan under the Bush Administration than what Obama is doing right now. Yet the media and Obama’s starry-eyed followers are proclaiming what a foreign policy genius he is.
Where the rubber hits the road, there is still a war being waged. Now, he doesn’t even seem to be maintaining confidence from his own liberal colleagues that he’s prosecuting the war in a way they’d see fit. Heaven help us.

catlady on April 9, 2009 at 2:41 PM

The Russians would be stupid to be laughing at us considering the comparison of casualties and loss of material. They suffered nearly 15,000 dead in regular army, irregular forces and civilians in nine years. As far as equipment goes it was even worse. Take just helicopters. The Soviets lost the equivalent three whole US Army Aviation Brigades worth of helicopters. There are approximately 120 or so helicopters in a US Army CAB. The Soviets lost 333 helicopters.

FIFY Rep Conyers

Obama can count on Republican support for the funding

I don’t know why they should. Obama has advanced no real strategy to win in Afghanistan. Nor did Bush before him but so long as Iraq was the main battle ground in the WOT, it might have been necessary to de-emphasize Afghanistan. Now that we have succeeded in Iraq not strategizing in Afghanistan is no longer acceptable.

catlady on April 9, 2009 at 2:41 PM

I don’t think there is anything mystical about Afganistan.

We “could” win there IMO, but trying to build a Democracy there is counterproductive to our interests.

An Islamic Democracy is an oxymoron… as Turkey continues to show… may be stable for awhile (in historic terms), but won’t be at this time of history, and is NOT a long term freind to the West.

Real key is that to disrupt an insurgency, your enemy cannot have a safe haven in which to train, hide, and supply… you need secure supply lines… and you need a freindly populace…

Iraq shifted when the populace got the clue that the Americans were on their side… the “awakening”… but I don’t see that happening in Afganistan.

Add in that they HAVE a safe haven in Pakistan… and our lack of secure supply lines… and you have a recipie for disaster.

We knew Obama was naive a long long time ago…tried to warn the populace, but they were just too hung up on HopeyChange.

Republicans need to put an ultimatum to Obama: No funding for Afghanistan without funding for missile defense.

No, that’s the kind of BS the democrats do. If you believe that winning the war is important, you don’t tie its funding to some other, unrelated thing. That’s just crass politics.

dmann on April 9, 2009 at 2:06 PM

Every time I think spring has come, we get another snow storm & 7+ inches of snow.
Am I ever ready for spring. Ugh.

I think that we will NEVER win in Afghanistan, ever ever ever. Look guys the British, Russian, God knows who else have tried for over a hundred years now, and this godforsaken hell hole is just not a country you can go in and “win” in. There is NO military strategy that can be used for victory in that country NONE. I love our military, and if they are there I will support THEM, but this is one arena that we should have just stayed the hell away from. The Russians are laughing their asses off at us about this. History is repeating itself for the umpteenth iteration.

That said, Iraq was a victory for our military, and if the politicians would move over our guys would wrap things up the right way, and get home when that country was stable.

That said, I tend to agree with a previous post, I think Obambi will get denied and then go “oh well” and pull out. It will be interesting to see.

The WSJ points out that Obama routinely voted against such funding requests while a member of the Senate…..

He actually voted when he was in the Senate??

Who knew.