Trump Sends More Troops to Afghanistan

[Breccia]

About damn time this got its own thread.

As I've posted elsewhere, Breitbart is fucking pissed. They've written no fewer than five stories about it in the last 24, accusing him of breaking campaign promises. And, since this is Bannon we're talking about here PLUS of course all of Trump's speeches and tweets, that such an assertion is correct.Oh sure, people like @CostinR will say things like "he never once said during the campaign we should get out of Afghanistan" which is kinda funny, but, let's face it, Trump's broken so many campaign promises, saying that this is one of them, the odds are pretty good even if you knew NOTHING about the situation.

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Well, good on Trump for listening to his generals.

There is that, even if the plan forwarded was incredibly vague, mentioned no specific actions or numbers at all, and at times contradicted itself. Basically every news outlet said he was stepping back and letting his military handle it (Trump even used the words "micromanage" to defend why the Commander in Chief shouldn't be involved in a war zone). Of course,

a) Trump said he knew more than the generals about fighting ISIS. He either lied, or he's choosing of COURSE he lied.
b) It's still a broken promise. Even Mike Pence said so.

[Etselion]

So, a five times draft dodger will send an unknown number of troops to die in Afghanistan for this?

[Breccia]

So, a five times draft dodger will send an unknown number of troops to die in Afghanistan for this?

Wait, battlefields? We still have those?

[Edge-]

So, a five times draft dodger will send an unknown number of troops to die in Afghanistan for this?

https://twitter.com/ABCPolitics/stat...60739980767233

"...have the Taliban understand that, 'You will not will not win a battlefield victory'. We may not win one, but neither will you."

Our top diplomat, folks.

[Breccia]

Our top diplomat, folks.

He's a mathematician. He clearly knows the number of "battlefields" will be zero. We won't win one, they won't win one, the Swiss Guard won't win one. That's not how that fight goes anymore. We're not fighting an army.

[Merie]

We can't let Afghanistan descend into chaos. The first time Afghanistan descended into chaos we got Osama bin Ladin, who came to Afghanistan to kill Russians but soon got the idea of starting a Caliphate.

Today we are fighting the Caliphate in Syria.

Idiots. We got Osama because OUR OWN COUNTRY trained him and armed him. If we had just stayed out of it altogether, the Taliban and Russia both would have been doing our work for us.

[Breccia]

Another key feature of Trump's speech was working with India.

We don't have an ambassador to India.

[Deleted]

It's a good thing we didn't elect that absolute warhawk Killary Klinton, eh @Theodarzna?

Massive difference between someone who wants to go to war with Russia and someone who wants to go to war with the likes of Afghanistan, Venezuela and North Korea.

[Breccia]

Massive difference between someone who wants to go to war with Russia and someone who wants to go to war with the likes of Afghanistan, Venezuela and North Korea.

Yeah, it's not like Trump bombed Syria, which is backed by Russia and said during his campaign would start WW3. I mean, that would have been soooo hypocritical.

[Skroe]

Absolutely. Regardless of the content and political affiliation its pretty hard to argue that a post that contains less than a line of text and throws out 2 insults to an unknown group of people is quite blatantly trolling. But because the mods are liberal and agree with the subject matter... they'll let it slide.

Case in point. Post #72. This is pretty much par for the course here in political discussions. Where a moderator will ignore the report of the thread/post, and add to the echo chamber. I use the term "add" loosely as it quite easy and cliche to bash the sitting President, especially when he is a dolt, even an easier when you oppose him politically.

The point though is that if I had used the same verbage to attack the "liberals" of this forum. It wouldn't have gotten past page 1 before being closed and corrective action taken. If though "republicans" are attacked they drag their feet in taking action... if they take action at all.

Oh brother, not this shit again.

A couple years back I used to go 14 rounds with the "liberals" here twice a week on all sorts of issues. My 3 favorite posters are all extremely liberal and I agree with basically nothing on them. But they have illustrated a thoughtfulness I respect and admire. And then Trump's fat head showed up. Unlike the fraud alt-right and clickservatives here, I actually have conservative principles and know what they mean, so right now I'm in alliance with the liberals and moderates. We're Team Sanity.

The mods here don't have a liberal bias. Not remotely. It's a bullshit whine by members of the MMO-OT right who are absolutely terrible at debate and have paper thin skin. They lose their temper, say something stupid, and get banned. *I've* been provoked, lost my temper, and got banned. Sometimes for a month. And I'm Mr. Attack-Attack-Attack.

The people complaining about liberal bias here need to grow thicker skin, because the problem is on their end, not MMO-OT's mods end. We just went through a week and a half of the Alt-Right and Alt-Lite here excusing and whataboutism domestic terrorism. If I had it my way, I would have IP banned all those people. I know a good half of them are just saying shit to get a rise out of people.

But it's not my house. It's theirs. So we play by the house rules, and the house rules are more than fair.

What to know what gets the faux-conservatives her banned? They're angry people who know basically nothing about what they're talking about. They know WHAT they want, for sure. Their anger drives that. But they have a paper thin justification for WHY they want it. And when challenged on that point, they invariably get person. Because they're kind of morons, because frankly, the much better educated and more informed liberal contingent here, has on countless occasions displayed a much firmer grasp of indisputable facts.

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Massive difference between someone who wants to go to war with Russia and someone who wants to go to war with the likes of Afghanistan, Venezuela and North Korea.

Trump bombed Syria and stepped up operations there. Which is exactly the thing Hillary was accused of doing that would precpitate World War III.

Of course World War III didn't actually happen because the only people who thought that was a legitimate risk are shockingly stupid people. Russia nuke Europe and America for Assad? Even for shooting down a few jets? Give me a break.

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Another key feature of Trump's speech was working with India.

We don't have an ambassador to India.

An Indian-US alliance is so natural and so necessary, that it has to be at the center of the US Asian-Pivot. Bush initiated it, Obama ramped it up hugely. Trump must continue it.

India is going to be our secret weapon against China. If we have to sell out Pakistan for that, small price to Say. India is far more valuable to our agenda.

[Breccia]

India is going to be our secret weapon against China. If we have to sell out Pakistan for that, small price to Say. India is far more valuable to our agenda.

It does seem realistic that we can't be both bested buds with India and Pakistan at the same time. Hadn't thought of the China angle.

[Kujako]

It's all good guys! Trump has a plan! It's "to win". Not sure why no one tried that before now...

[Theodarzna]

See Democrats, the Middle East wars were never going to win either way. :3

[Shaderas]

Finish the job this time will you?
Last time you pulled out of the middle east early they started to go blow themselves up here in Europe

That was the mistake.. never pull out

[Breccia]

It's all good guys! Trump has a plan! It's "to win".

"That's great, Mr. Trump. When will this happen?"
"I won't say."
"How are you going to do it?"
"I won't say."
"How many troops will this take?"
"I won't say."
"So...you won't way what, how, or when. Can you at least tell us who is doing this?"
"Oh, my generals. I don't want to touch this mess."

[Skroe]

It does seem realistic that we can't be both bested buds with India and Pakistan at the same time. Hadn't thought of the China angle.

Well a few things.

During the Cold War, the US and Pakistan had an on-off alignment while the US and India had lukewarm, complicated relations. India was not a Soviet ally (as a leader of the Non Alignmed Movement) but had often times friendlier relations Soviets than the US. Both sides really screwed the pooch and there was some bad history.

In the 1990s India and the US started moving close together, but two things happened.

First, Pakistan developed nuclear weapons... the first Islamic State to do so, at a time when their relations with India, particularly over Kashmir, were in a terrible spot. The US was faced with a choice: it could either relieve Pakistan of those weapons, or in an attempt to stop both the spread of nuclear weapons, arm sales to Iraq and a potential India/Pakistani nuclear war, become Pakistani's nuclear monitor and pull relations tighter. The US did the latter, and it got deeper, secondly, after 9/11, because our involvement in Afghanistan continued.

Also notably, during the Indian/Pakistani face off, Bill Clinton told the Pakistanis that if they Pakistan used nuclear weapons, the US would intervene, on the side of the Indians. The US-Pakistani alliance had a firm limit.

India is, in every way, positioned to do better than Pakistan, and the US and India have been rewriting their relationship for most of the past decade and a half, and it's far better. In fact, Lockheed Martin is moving their F-16 production line there, and the US gifted India aircraft carrier nuclear propulsion and electromagnetic catapult technology... technology China is decades away from mastering.

This is notable as one only has to look at Iraq and Poland. These, like India, are countries that used to equip in fight in the "Soviet" model. They used soviet equipment. They used soviet tactics. They had soviet organization. Both have painstakingly been progressively converted to fight like Americans, organize like Americans, equip like Americans. We're starting that same process with India. It will take decades. But the end point is a military that is compatible in terms of equipment, standards and training with Western forces. So if we need to fight somebody today, say China, they can interlock as seamlessly as possible. But to be clear we're at the very, very start of this and India has an independence streak that will make doing that as we have in South Korea, Japan, the ex-Easter Bloc and so forth, more challenging.


This entire thing though will end with the US having extremely warm relations with India, rather bitter relations with Pakistan and the US-Indian alliance looking warily at China. If India is strong, particularly as a Naval and Air power, it will be basically impossible for China to move it's power projection into the Indian Ocean in any meaningful way.

If there is one thing the US has to forestall though, it's a Chinese Naval base in Pakistan. We need to keep tight enough relations with Pakistan to see that that doesn't happen.

[Breccia]

@Skroe, what would you say to the Blackwater founder who says Trump's Afghanistan plan is 'Obama-lite'?

[maomoa]

Actually he didn't specifically outline the "win" strategy. Now we're at what 10% of what we were during the height of the war... in terms of number of troops? Its pretty safe to say that if we couldn't do it with 13,000 then we aren't going to do it with 1300. So the assumption is MORE troops.

He could just be planning to do it 100% with drones, and fuck non-combatants.

Nice troll thread though... lets see if mods do their jobs, you ARE clearly liberal... so probably not.

Next pro-Trump troll thread, you'll be the first one asking for it's removal, right? RIGHT?

[Blur4stuff]

What constitutes a cleaned up Afghanistan? No more people left that hate the USA and western culture in general?

What could Afghanistan look like in 5, 10, or 20 years that will make it different from today because of US troops?

[Adam Jensen]

About damn time this got its own thread.

As I've posted elsewhere, Breitbart is fucking pissed. They've written no fewer than five stories about it in the last 24, accusing him of breaking campaign promises. And, since this is Bannon we're talking about here PLUS of course all of Trump's speeches and tweets, that such an assertion is correct.Oh sure, people like @CostinR will say things like "he never once said during the campaign we should get out of Afghanistan" which is kinda funny, but, let's face it, Trump's broken so many campaign promises, saying that this is one of them, the odds are pretty good even if you knew NOTHING about the situation.

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There is that, even if the plan forwarded was incredibly vague, mentioned no specific actions or numbers at all, and at times contradicted itself. Basically every news outlet said he was stepping back and letting his military handle it (Trump even used the words "micromanage" to defend why the Commander in Chief shouldn't be involved in a war zone). Of course,

a) Trump said he knew more than the generals about fighting ISIS. He either lied, or he's choosing of COURSE he lied.
b) It's still a broken promise. Even Mike Pence said so.

Sure, but I can be happy that he's at least smart enough to listen to his generals.