After Six Years, 'We're Worthless'

Expect the same thing to happen in Afghanistan.

 

I said it before we got involved...this was a bad idea. It continues to be a bad idea.

You can't bring about sweeping, fundamental change without a religious reconciliation in this region.

 

I'm beginning to think that some cultures simply cannot sustain a free government.

 

You are correct, rbell. And no amount of American blood and treasure can change that fact.

 

Many here want to withdraw from Afghanistan ...

What is hard to expect, is if we all leave Afghanistan, and you leave Irak, what do you think will happen (i'm asking a true opinion, an idea of how things would turn there) ?

 

If these people can't govern themselves after 6 years...:BangHead:

 

In what ways to Americans govern themselves? We vote but nothing of importance changes.

 

EXACTLY. That's my opinion.

 

I absolutely believe that this is correct. Still, we have to realize that the best we can hope to do, under currently reasonable standards, is a stalemate with the Taliban. There are too many factors that are currently "out of our hands" in the region. Assuming, then, that we cannot realistically leave and that victory, as we had initially hoped, is elusive...what is a reasonable approach? I would like to hear your ideas.

 

The whole situation with Iraq and Afghanistan is symbolic of a Cold-War mindset of the military complex. You can't fight a war like this in a new century using the mindsets and models of large, multi-theatre conflicts. It doesn't work.

 

There is an alternative. Leave the Afghans to their own devices in governing themselves and simply tell them that any time we see the first al Qaeda tent pop up that we will destroy it with drones/bombs/missiles.

 

I still get to wake up and go to work for who I want to.
I still get to spend my money that I bring home, (taxes, etc, are another thread), on things that I need, and want, and that my family needs and wants.
I don't know about you but I've been voting so I can keep my way of life.
What important changes do you want?
More abortions?
More money for those that don't work, who are not of this country?
I'm all for LEGAL immigration.
What important changes are you talking about?

 

This would seem like an ideal approach, but it simply doesn't produce results. Note that this idea has been proposed many times over the past several years as a solution to dealing with the undersized allied force in Afghanistan, yet the intelligence community lends no support to it. While we will have an occasional success using this method (the recent strike in Somalia), the successes are few and far between (As we see also in Somalia). AQ gets to party almost unhampered, with only an occasional airstrike that gets disproportionately covered in the news. If you want to see what that looks like, simply look across the border into the tribal regions of Pakistan. Mysterious (and unclaimed) airstikes hit their mark from time to time, yet Bin Laden and Mullah Omar are more than happy to continue running their show from that neck of the woods. In my opinion, If we follow this policy in Afghanistan, it will be to our own eventual detriment.

There are also changing winds; we should see which way they will blow before changing our entire theater policy.

God bless,
Crucified

 

We do not have to realize that at all. We so soon forget history. When we finally went into Iraq with a mass of troops and cleared it out it then became a settled place. Add to that the Iraqi's grew weary and began to stop supporting the terrorists. The same thing is happening right now in Pakistan. The general population is growing weary of the militants. Go in with mass troops get it under control, and give them security long enough to get their own government, police and military established to keep the peace.

 

>I still get to wake up and go to work for who I want to.

And you can go to church, own guns, write nasty stuff about Obama.

Evidence that our owners have gotten MUCH smarter in the last 100 years.

>I still get to spend my money that I bring home, (taxes, etc, are another thread), on things that I need, and want, and that my family needs and wants.

If 40% of your life's energy goes to paying taxes then you are 40% a slave.


>I don't know about you but I've been voting so I can keep my way of life.

But both parties are owned by the same people. Only thing changes is the names of the tax collectors.


>What important changes do you want?

Since you asked: <G>

First, a change in the "non-profit" part of the tax code. All "non-profit" means is that there are no stockholders to syphon off profits. Instead, the management syphons off the profits.

Further, people with billions in assets don't want more cash. They want more power over their serfs. The "non-profits" control trillions in stocks and vote their shares. It doesn't hurt them when they send American jobs off shore.

Second, I want job protection tariffs for American manufacturing workers. You think it's fine when American union workers lose lobs to American scabs and it's fine when American scabs lose lobs to off shore scabs - so that you can save $40 on a $400 set of tires?

Think it through . . . when manufacturing wages in China come up $10/hour and manufacturing wages in the US come down $10/hour then American and Chinese manufacturing workers will be roughly at par. Then what happens? What will be the tire manufacturer's incentive to raise their worker's standard of living? A person going to buy more tires if he had a higher standard of living? I don't think so.

H. Ford said he paid higher wages so that his workers could afford to buy cars but that argument no longer applies because even people on welfare can afford to buy cars and every other sort of basic consumer product that the rich people have. One can only wear out so many sets of tires.

Third, I would propose changes in inheritance taxes. I would put a 100% tax on excess of (maybe) 1000 times median family income. These days that would be around $50,000,000.

Fourth, I would post the county voting lists on the web. That would at least let people check for dead people and phony addresses.

Fifth, I would eliminate cash folding money and make coins up to $5 denomination. People could use cash to buy a paper but couldn't put enough cash in a suitcase to bribe a politician. Everything else would be electronic transfer. This would greatly hinder thieves, dope sellers and tax cheats . . . half the US economy.

Then I would eliminate all federal income and business taxes and impose a 2% electronic transfer tax, 1% on each end of the transfer.

 

I can honestly say, thank God billwald isn't in charge.

I may have finally found someone with worse ideas than Obama. It took a while.

 

Yep, he'd have us rejoining the mother country because we separated from them with an illegal war. Secondly, he'd have us all broke and destitue in short order. Thank God he isn't and charge and thank God that many Americans are starting to wake up to the fact that people who think like him are in the white house.