Ah, the old “anyone who disagrees with me to the tiniest extent, or even fails to live up to my level of outrage, is automatically a mouth-breathing idiot and an embodiment of evil right up there with Hitler” routine. It’s a classic. Not often seen 'round these parts, but surprisingly effective.
I know you’re joking, but please don’t compare Der Trihs to Condescending Robot. Robot makes Trihs look like the voice of cool reason. Trihs is a…problematic…poster, but he can make lucid, even witty points from time to time. Robot reads like somebody trying to come up with an exaggerated parody of Trihs’ worst aspects.
See the last paragraph in post 36.
Ah, missed that.
Keep quiet and pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
It’s not that most Americans don’t care: they actively approve of them.
This could be explained by social distance theory.
As for retreat: if I were president, I’d place the responsibility of protection of US soldiers on the US trained troops of the Afghan National Army. Either that or UN troops.
Two problems with that. First, the Afghan National Army is as reliable as a glass crutch. And our NATO allies want out as badly or more so than we do, and they more or less hold us responsible for the situation. What do we say? “We’re going to bugger off, now. Cover us until we’re gone and good luck!” The natural human reaction is likely to be “We? You started this mess, how about you cover us while we scamper away, and good luck to you!”
There was this movie called Charlie Wilson’s War that kind of speaks to the issue in a round-about, indirect sort of way. We defeated the enemy in order to lose spectacularly. This is what we are seeing in the Pashtun-Afghan-Kashmir neighborhood, military solutions being applied to social/civil problems. I think Hafez was nominally successful using that approach in Homs several years ago, but he is having a nice dirt nap now while his son is trying to rein in the long-term result of that kind of arrogance.
No, that poll says they approve of the drone strikes, not of civilians dying. I mean, I approve of the drone strikes. If we’re going to be bombing or targeting people, it’s safer for us to use an unmanned drone than a plane, isn’t it?
I am reminded of the late Tuli Kupferberg, poet, beatnik, and original Fug. Wrote a very short sf “story” that was included in an anthology.
It seems there was this H-bomb, and he was depressed. All the other H-bombs tried to help, tried to coax him to tell them why.
“I want to be a bullet”
“A bullet! A bullet! You’re a thirty-five megaton thermonuclear bomb! Why would you want to be something so insignificant as a bullet?”
“I miss the personal touch.”
Does anyone on these boards ever stop and think “Y’know, if a bunch of people are telling me I have a problem, maybe I just might possibly kind of potentially have a problem…”
Or, if you can be brutally honest with yourself: “Maybe I should stop being an asshole.”
You did say “Here’s the thing, about the drone attacks and all, honestly, I don’t think most people care all that much.”. I assumed the “and all” encompassed all aspects of drone strikes.
My position is flawed elucidator, you’re right. There have been several incidents of “friendly fire” from ANA members. However, it’s not the first time the US would have had to retreat from hostile territory.
Well, yes, of course I have! But my enemies would never believe it. One of my friends might, but the other would remain suspicious.
I don’t think the drone strikes in Yemen are there to cover our retreat from Afghanistan.
The purpose of the drone strikes is to disrupt terror networks, kill their leaders, and hinder their ability to carry out large scale attacks. At the risk of committing post hoc ergo propter hoc they seem to have been fairly successful. Loss of civilian life is terrible of course. But there would be an even greater loss of civilian life if Al Qaeda and its allies were able to regroup and commit atrocities on the scale of 9/11 and the African embassy bombings.
It’s easy to post on a message board from a position of glib moral superiority. It’s also infantile. The real world is a messy ugly place, forcing us to choose between the bad and the terrible.
This isn’t to say there aren’t arguments against drone strikes. As I implied, they may not be that effective at their purpose. But neither Condescending Robot nor Grumman nor anyone else on this board has offered those arguments, to my knowledge. All they offer is the infantile outrage of the armchair idealist, and an ugly implication that Obama’s motivation is nothing more than a bloodthirsty desire to kill civilians for some reason.
A quibble. A minor point, perhaps, but that’s the trouble with quibbles.
“Friendly fire” is usually used in the context of an accident, misdirected artillery rounds, and such. Attack by soldiers who are ostensibly allied with us but are deliberate and conducted with malice aforethought…that’s enemy action.
And, yes, I clearly remember American withdrawal from hostile territory. Helicopters, panic and horror. Had hoped not to see it ever again, but I was a much younger fool then.
And for decades, I was sure I’d never see a worse President than Richard Milhous Nixon.
The withdrawal of US forces from Vietnam was relatively smooth, and was over in 1973. You are describing the evacuation of civilians in 1975 after Congress had passed a bill prohibiting the re-introduction of forces into that country. There is no reason to think that withdrawal from Afghanistan need be any more complicated than withdrawal from Iraq.
Iraq has roads. And ports. A government that does not evaporate outside the city limits of Baghdad. I sincerely hope your optimism is well placed. I sincerely doubt it.
Well he is our Lord and Savior.
And this recent painting illustrates that fact.
Try not to worry too much about it. If Reid doesn’t win that filibuster fight, the President for Life Amendment hasn’t much of a chance. For now.
Oh, please. You trumped up a misplaced analogy with the fall of Saigon, and you’re going to double down on that? You tell us… how does the Taliban military might compare to the North Vietnamese? Is it two or three orders of magnitude smaller? Give us a glimpse of the “panic and horror” that accompanied our troops exit from Vietnam that you are so afraid of.
Seriously, it would be a lot easier to just admit you made a mistake.