I wasn’t speaking to you. There were a couple of other people who pointed out that if you look at Obama’s statement in a dark room, squinting through a kalidescope, it might appear that he said something like “I will invade Pakistan”, even though he didn’t.
Sorry for the confusion.
I’m not worried about Obama invading Pakistan, and yeah, I agree that it’s distorting his statement to say he would. Having said that, I don’t see McCain’s Afghanistan policy as being significantly different from OBama’s at this point. Both talk about sending more troops there.
Don’t be too complacent, though, about the lack of potential for acivil war there, just as there is in Iraq. The country may not be divided much on religious fault lines, but it is very much divided along ethnic fault lines. It’s a much more difficult country than Iraq to manage from a central government due to its mountainous terrain. And… there’s no oil money to hand out as bribes to keep the peace.
One has to wonder at what point does the US lose its resolve to keep fighting in Afghanistan, and whether that would be a good or a bad thing.
But, that means there’s little ethnic cleansing we have to abet there, no separations we have to enforce, as has been the case in Iraq. No need to create the fiction of a unified country there, since it’s already a fiction.
And that was part of Bush’s legacy - he has held onto the same tired view that his father held, that a closed line on a map and a name with a title on it in the largest city constitutes a nation and a leader. “We” didn’t defeat the Taliban there, we provided the military force for one alliance of ethnic tribes to defeat others that were under their influence, driving them all the way out of Kabul.
[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
OK folks, we’re debating someone who can only win by playing the MoDo “all Dem men are women, all Dem women are men” card.
Sam, you’ve jumped the shark.
Nah, I was making an oh-so-subtle satirical comment on the excessive Obama-love I’ve been reading these days. For example:
Funny, I’d always thought of Liberal as a pretty butch sort of guy, you know, swarthy, rugged, thick beard covering a Heisenberg dueling scar. Or maybe not…
I know it was “only” an Indian war, and it was only a few months, but surely Lincoln’s service in the Blackhawk war (including as elected captain of one Illinois regiment) qualifies him for one of these lists?
All activities for bears of very little brain. Look at the results for confirmation.
Orwell.
You’re are presuming cognition where the evidence suggests otherwise.
Death is peaceful.
That’s a very fair question. IMO, it hinges on Iraq and any differences there. If the troop level in Iraq isn’t drawn down significantly, then no troops actually exist to be sent to Afghanistan. Obama is planning to significantly decrease our troops in Iraq. I’ll simply say it’s unclear that McCain is planning to do so to the same extent. So where does he get the soldiers to send to Afghanistan?
I see the same dynamic with their economic plans. Both of them announce plans that spend far more than any additional revenues/savings they have. So they’re just lying and hoping money magically appears to help them out. But with that said, McCains magic is roughly three times bigger than Obamas. (Hmm… that’s a good slogan. McCain: Three times the magic as Obama.)
It’s the getting there that is stressful!
Yeah, I’m sure there’s some of that out there. WTF does this have to do with this debate, here on the Dope?
I suppose I could precede every mention of McCain with words like ‘senile’ or ‘angry’ or ‘nutcase’ or something, but it’s not going to make my arguments any stronger, and would rather be a red flag that I wasn’t debating in good faith.
Lincoln’s enlistment lasted three weeks and he never saw combat.
Yeah, because everyone knows that getting a Master’s Degree in a complicated subject like National Security Strategy is for people without brains…same goes for being on the Armed Services Committee, or being an officer in the Navy for over 20 years. Only stupid people can do that!
:rolleyes:
I feel the need to point out that I am not necessarily for McCain nor against Obama…but I am against McCain being portrayed as something he isn’t, which is stupid, or somehow incapable of being a leader. He already HAS been a leader(he is CURRENTLY a leader as a US Senator), on many levels, and is an eductaed man. But, he is OLD and prone to misspeaking and gaffes of that ilk that make him unattractive to me, because I’m not really sure if he’s fit to be President if I can’t really grasp what his actual positions are because he may not know as he may be going Ronnie Reagan on us.
By the way, good point, Sam. We should all be on guard against excessive partisan enthusiasm, like wildly exaggeratng the prescience and intelligence of our preferred candidate. Your example is a beacon to us all.
I love how the Republicans are desperately trying to spin Obama’s popularity as a negative. They would KILL to have a candidate who could pull that kind of tail. The pictures alone are killing them. Even the latest McCain attack ad features shots of Obama speaking to huge enthusiastic crowds and sinking a 3 while playing basketball with the troops. Meanwhile, their own guy is getting a growth removed from his face and uncomfortably holding hands with the Dalai Lama.
Somehow, all this is supposed to be bad for Obama. His popularity is “scary,” and “like Hitler” (the Hitler association was actually made by Fox News when Obama gave his Berlin speech). Those are some awfully sour grapes the Republicans are sucking on right now.
The fact is, a lot of stupid people have been on the Armed Services Committee. Brains help, but aren’t a requirement.
And all that other stuff was a long time ago. He doesn’t seem to understand strategy now. Like it or not, Iraq doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Obama has been able to explain how his plans for Iraq fit into an overall strategy for that part of the world. McCain hasn’t, as best as I can tell.
And that’s true across the board. The pieces of McCain’s campaign don’t fit together. He actually does have a proposal that would have been a decent climate change bill a few years back. But now he’s against increasing electricity costs, and wants to lower gasoline costs. How do you slow global warming if you keep petroleum cheap, and do the same for electricity, regardless of the source?
IOW, the evidence that McCain is capable of thinking strategically now is sorely lacking.
How’s he led within that body?
I don’t think that is correct. We just rotated 3 brigades out of Iraq that we did not replace. That’s exactly the number that Obama is talking about sending to Afghanistan. But there are other options out there, too.