Print
E-mail
Share
digg
Newsvine
Facebook
Stumble
Technorati
reddit
Fark
twitterLetter to the editor:
We must consider exiting Afghanistan
Thursday, Nov. 5, 2009 | 2:03 a.m.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney says President Barack Obama is dithering on Afghanistan. White House spokesmen respond by saying he is deliberating. One thing is certain: The president is trapped in a situation with extraordinary complications abroad and potentially explosive political problems at home.
The Afghanistan situation involves not merely the Taliban and the Karzai government but India, which supports the Karzai government on the one hand and undermines the Pakistan government on the other by keeping troops on its border. This, in turn, excuses Pakistanis from tackling the Taliban and al-Qaida there, although because of the tacit alliance of ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) with the Taliban, it is not clear they would do so anyway.
We should let the competing forces in Afghanistan fight it out alone, treating the conflict as a civil war. NATO is not sufficiently concerned to send an equal force and to operate with gloves off — and it has not.
The question the president is apparently considering about Afghanistan is whether to send more troops and how many. The question that should be considered is: Should we have any troops there? If the president cannot demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that the country’s security is essential to our national security, then we should leave. We have spent too much time in the Middle East trying to salvage an oil empire that is rapidly becoming a hollow shell, undermining rather than strengthening us.
Discussion: 17 comments so far…
Post a comment
- Most Read
- Discussed
- Most E-mailed
- Franchione potential early candidate for UNLV football post
- Police: 3 arrested in officer’s death have gang ties
- Big fight headed for a New Frontier?
- Mayor: Morale not good among LV city employees
- MGM Mirage (finally) makes George Strait show official
- Hotels rein in risque advertising campaigns
- Creditors want to expand probe of Station Casinos deal
- $60 million to stabilize neighborhoods buys five homes
- Reserve Rebels didn’t have time to panic
- Funny Face: Carrot Top’s stage act a mask of contradictions
Blogs
Elsewhere
Marquardt v. Sonnen scheduled for UFC 109
Bloggity, Bloggity, Bloggity
Will a fourth consecutive title by Jimmie Johnson be good or bad for NASCAR? (1 Comment)
Top Chef: Las Vegas
The Jet Stream: And then there were four
Top Chef Episode 12: On keeping it simple
Miech Again
Chilly start for Chace, but Stanback says he'll warm up (1 Comment)
Elsewhere
Harvard Poker Pro: Texas Hold 'Em skills can help traders
Oscar De La Hoya wants to see Pacquiao/Mayweather
- Live chat
- Tuesday, noon PST
- Chat with Krista Creelman
- Problem Gambling Center executive director Krista Creelman will answer questions about gambling addiction from Las Vegas Sun readers from noon to 1 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. ... Submit question
Calendar »
- 21 Sat
- 22 Sun
- 23 Mon
- 24 Tue
- 25 Wed
-
UFC 106 at Mandalay Bay Events Center
Mandalay Bay Events Center | 7 p.m. to 11 p.m.
-
The Four Tops at The Orleans Showroom
Orleans Hotel-Casino
-
Julio Iglesias at the Las Vegas Hilton
Las Vegas Hilton
-
The Four Tops at The Orleans Showroom
Orleans Hotel-Casino
The Sun
Locally owned and independent for more than 50 years.
The people are against the Obama escalation for one of two reason, either they are anti-war or they cannot support more troops in Afghanistan if Obama is commander in chief.
We have a weak administration with no stomach for defending America.
A war council of Joe Biden and General Jones.
If Obama is going to follow advice from Not Smarter Than A Light Bulb Biden then we should leave the country immediately.
I hope Obama is smarter than that.
He has waited until after the elections to announce the decision he probably made a month ago.
I hope it is not a let's take parts from Plan A and Plan B to make a Plan C.
He should either accept the general's plan or just get the heck out of there.
My guess is that he will reject Biden's advice and go with the general's plan but try to do in a way as not look like he is sending a bunch of troops over there. I hope that does not ruin the general's plan.
So Sgt Rock - in your analysis, Obama is going to try and do something politically advantageous for himself, rather than what is right for our country or Afganistan. Thats the problem with this president - he won't make the hard decisions unless it makes him look good. This job requires hard decisons and you will not please all the folks all the time, but that seems to be Obama's mantal. He needs to get out of campaign mode and do his job, which he has not done in 10 months in office. I don't know if Obama has the courage to do whats right.
The United States stormed into Afghanistan in 2001, forced the Taliban from their ruling power since the mid 90's and have been occupying the country ever since. Our Governments reasons for attacking and occupying this country have change many times since we attacked this country with guns ablazing.
Along with our troops being killed since our invasion started we have killed countless innocent Afghani's since that fatefull day. It wouldn't have mattered to the Afghani's if it were the Russians, the U.S., France ,etc. who would be invading, they would have fought any country who would be attacking them.
The citizens of the United States were standing together after 9/11 and we were believing anything the Bush administration was telling us as most of us were in shock after that tragic day.
It has been eight years now and there still has not been an investigation into the events before during and after 9/11. Just recently more than 85,000 family members friends and love ones of the victims who died and/or are dying from the events of 9/11 signed a request to have a question put on this Novembers ballot in New York to be voted on whether to have an independent investigation to find out what happened on 9/11. Even they had more than enough signatures their request was turned down.
Let this go to show some of you who everytime someone talks about 9/11 and it does't match the conspiracy theory that the Bush Administration gave us just remember, every story that has been told up to now is just that, a conspiracy theory, because there has never been any investigation.
This also proves that over 85,000 friends and family members are not satisfied with the explanation our last administration gave us.
Two words to solving the Afghan problem. Agent Orange.
58K died in Vietnam. 25K of that number died during a 5 year periiod, while Nixon was devising his EXIT strategy. The best strategy for Iraq-NAM and Afghanistan is for Obama to immediately initiate the military draft. Body-bags holding the remains of rich WASP kids would go over like a TON of bricks, and we would be out of both countries by the weekend. Let's hold a real draft. 55% of the soldier-draftees killed in Vietnam were Black like me, and we only comprised 12% of the nation's entire population. Even Hitler would call this culling. Hmmm! I served in 3 deployments to Vietnam and I never met ONE Mormon. Did Mormons cull Black men too? AWOL-MIA: Commie-siders like Hatch and Mitt. Where is that Beck nutjob?
lcdrmandingonamvet: You sir are telling a lie.
12 per cent of Viet-Nam dead were black. Not 55 per cent. I doubt if you did 3 tours in Nam. You sir are a LIAR!
The premise of the president being trapped is bogus Mr. Weiss. Are you saying that Obama didn't know we were involved in a conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. Did his aide pass him a note on inauguration day saying .."oh by the way Mr President, we have troops Iraq and Afghanistan and we got you...you're trapped"?
Second response to this posting. It's always been about oil. It has to be about oil. Most liberals ignorantly think that if we just all drive Prius' we can stop buying il from the middle east. Everything in our society is carbon based (read oil) Crayons, Plastics, medicines. We MUST continue to rely on middle east oil even if we all do start driving Prius'. All the plastic (look around you and see what is made of plastic) cannot be generated from solar or wind energy and it doesn't come from the Plastic Tree either. Morons
LV_Tom .......
Morons, far from it!
You are correct when you say that we depend upon oil for our very survival, but that doesn't mean that we should remain tied to oil forever, particularly foreign oil. We import 70% of the oil that we use and a fair amount of that oil is Middle East Oil.
With that being said, we're capable of decreasing our dependence on foreign oil if we have the "balls" to do so......
Of course, the last four presidential administrations did next to nothing in terms of decreasing our dependence on foreign oil. Both George W. Bush & Dickie "Darth" Cheney were in bed with big oil. Boy, did those two idiots have oily feet!
Remember the energy conference that Cheney chaired very early in the first Bush administration? Cheney refused to release any information that was part of that conference (said it was a matter of national security...) and the media was not allowed to attend the conference.
It's very plain to see what that conference was all about....oil, oil, oil, oil, and our continued dependence on oil! That was the energy policy endorsed and followed by the Bush administration...
I find it somewhat sad but yet funny....George W. Bush is the only president in our history who went to war to obtain oil and got NONE!
Icdrmandingonamvet-I don't know where you get your numbers about Viet Nam deaths but someone is lying to you. According to the Department of Defence there were a total of 58,193 military deaths in Veit Nam. Of these 7,264 were black. That is only about 12.5%, which approximates the percent of blacks in the total population. Go check your numbers and don't rely on figures Al Sharpton gives you.
According to DOD, 589 Mormons were killed in Viet Nam.
Hey jlb101: Don't even bother (Icdrmandingonamvet) is just an angry old black man everyone of his posts is nothing but garbage he lives a hateful empty life.
The previous admin. jumped into both Iraq and Afghanistan half cocked with no "strategery" to quote GWB. Now you have a president who uses intellect and a thought process along with concensus building to clean up this mess. A lot of people don't get that according to the post here. As for you worthless racist here quibbling about what race gave more in Viet Nam...They all gave their lives equally no matter the number and you do a grave diservice to their memory and sacrifice with your posts here.
"Now you have a president who uses intellect and a thought process along with concensus building to clean up this mess."
It is the consensus of myself and my two friends, George and Dick that the President's intellect and thought process will take him three years before he figures out that HE'S OUT OF HERE!!!
LV4LIFE-You have a president who totally lacks the intelligence to figure out much of anything. Mr. Bush confered with his commanders in Iraq and Afganistan every week to listen to their concerns and try to give them the support that they need in some very difficult situations. We now have a fool in power who is still trying to find Iraq and Afganistan on a world globe. He has talked with the Afgainstan commander once and Iraqi none. Obama has no idea what is going on. Maybe it takes a nuclear attack on Washington to wake this idiot up. It would be too late for him.
President Obama will make the right decision.
He will also be in office for 8 years.
The naysayers on the right-wing have no
leaders, unless you include Rush.