"The Pentagon has ordered roughly 1,250 Marines serving as trainers for the Afghan security forces to stay on the warfront almost a month longer to continue a mission that military leaders say is a top priority, according to a senior military official." - Posted on USA Today (Aug. 5)

What? This is nonsense! 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit and now 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment? All soldiers deserve rights to come home and have a great time with family! This is utterly Bush's failure to get rid of Al-Qaida from the first place ever since 9.11 !

You got the nonsense part right. Your entire post is just about as ignorant and nonsensical as it gets. "Soldiers" -- you mean Marines -- deserve a right to come home and have a great time with family?

WHEN the mission is accomplished, Corky. No Marines I ever knew except for the few crybabies who think like you would consider anything else.

This would be YOUR utter failure to comprehend even the topic on which you comment even at the rudimentary level, starting with you calling Marines "soliders," and moving along to the part where they are fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Get a game or stay on the bench, junior.

__________________
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing” - Edmund Burke

*sigh* While trolls are sometimes amusing and even entertaining, this one is simply pathetic.

__________________
"Why, it appears that we appointed all of our worst generals to command the armies and we appointed all of our best generals to edit the newspapers. I mean, I found by reading a newspaper that these editor generals saw all of the defects plainly from the start but didn't tell me until it was too late. I'm willing to yield my place to these best generals and I'll do my best for the cause by editing a newspaper." -- Gen. Robert E. Lee

I wish somebody would define what WINNING is in Afghanistan.

Right now, I have no idea what the mission in that nation really is.

It was driving the Taliban out of power.

Seems to me that has been done as well as we can do it, given that the Afghanistani people seem to be more sympathetic to fundamental Islam than to secualry humanist democracy we seem to be pushing.

Unlike Iraq, the Government in Afghanistan is VERY weak and can not trust most of its troops. NATO and the US are there to prop that Government up and to try and train military and police.

I do not foresee any end in sight for that mission, Afghanistan is a nation that has to many groups that hate each other and are to independent minded, they still have warlords.

We leave and the Country will fall to the next dictator or group that imposes draconian restrictions on the people.

__________________
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd. Indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.

-Bertrand Russell

Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable

-Laurence J. Peters

I never said that you had no right to have an opinion. I just said that it was, in fact, worth nothing.

-Maineman ( on 12 June 2007)

So now Afghaistan is a protectorate of the USA?

When did our original mission (which was to track down the alQuada forces and drive out the Taliban goverment) morph into that endless mission?

I don't recall Congress signing onto that mission.

Yet the Dems want it to be that. It makes no sense to leave when it will just become a haven again for the terrorists. Just the reality that is Afghanistan.

__________________
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd. Indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.

-Bertrand Russell

Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable

-Laurence J. Peters

I never said that you had no right to have an opinion. I just said that it was, in fact, worth nothing.

-Maineman ( on 12 June 2007)

So we have a permanent force in Afghanistan unless we can somehow convince those people that it is in their best interests NOT to tolerate or harbor Islamic forces that hate the USA.

Since I think it unlikely that anything we can do for them will make them like us...

.. we might as well declare war on the people of Afghanistan, then, since what you're telling me is essantially that they have declared war on us..only not officially.

What a remarkable SNAFU our foreign policies have lead us into.

[quote=RetiredGySgt;738605]Unlike Iraq, the Government in Afghanistan is VERY weak and can not trust most of its troops. NATO and the US are there to prop that Government up and to try and train military and police.

I do not foresee any end in sight for that mission, Afghanistan is a nation that has to many groups that hate each other and are to independent minded, they still have warlords.

We leave and the Country will fall to the next dictator or group that imposes draconian restrictions on the people.[/QUOTE]

and what in the Constitution makes THIS OUR MISSION? Babysitting the world with my and your tax monies?

[quote=Care4all;738683]Our National Interests make it OUR mission. Protecting ourselves from Terrorists makes it OUR interest and our Mission. By the way, NATO provides most of the troops at the moment.

__________________
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd. Indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.

-Bertrand Russell

Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable

-Laurence J. Peters

I never said that you had no right to have an opinion. I just said that it was, in fact, worth nothing.

-Maineman ( on 12 June 2007)

[quote=RetiredGySgt;738693]stop them at the border from coming in here ret sgt, simple as that....


What makes it our NATIONAL interest and what in the constitution makes this constitutional?

[quote=Care4all;738701]Like we stopped 20 MILLION illegal Mexicans?

__________________
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd. Indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.

-Bertrand Russell

Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable

-Laurence J. Peters

I never said that you had no right to have an opinion. I just said that it was, in fact, worth nothing.

-Maineman ( on 12 June 2007)

I think I understand RGS's position.

If we abandon the role of overseeing Afghanistan, it becomes a haven for international terrorists who WILL make it their business to attack us worldwide.

After all, isn't that what prompted us to invade to begin with?

Thinking of Afghanistan as a nation, rather that what it apparently is, a wild land, one with no real central government, one run by primative warlords and rule by the sword, is the problem.

The fact is that we do not even have the ability to prevent Afghanistan from being the number 1 source (90%, I'm told) of the world's opium.

Now, if we cannot even prevent the culture of gigantic fields of opium poppies, one wonders how effectively we can surpress the much less obvious terrorist activity in that land.

But I do NOT wonder why we might WANT to stop international terrorists from making that wild land a haven for their activities.

Not one bit.

I only wonder if it even possible to do that?

No one used the term.."winning" except you. There's a difference between "winning" and accomplishing your mission. You could be losing a war and still accomplish your mission (not an implication). What he's saying, is that marines are not going to come home (or even want to) until they know they've completed their mission. Basic common sense

__________________

We could probably prevent the culture of those gigantic fields of opium poppies if we had any real urge to. Messing with Afhganistan's #1 cash crop is NOT winning the hearts and minds of whoever IS on our side.

__________________
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing” - Edmund Burke