Barack Obama's wars without end

[CHIMO]

Another day, another attack. On Friday, the Taliban celebrated Afghanistan's independence day with an audacious assault on the British Council office in Kabul, which killed nine people. The day before, insurgents killed at least 25 people after a roadside bomb ripped through a minibus in the western province of Herat and a suicide car bomb exploded at a US-run base in the eastern province of Paktia.

Earlier in the week, on Monday, insurgents in Iraq launched their most deadly attacks of the year. At least 70 people were killed and more than 300 wounded in a series of co-ordinated strikes across the country, involving car bombs, gunmen and suicide attacks.

A decade on from 9/11, bloodshed and chaos continue to plague Afghanistan and Iraq. A US state department report published on Thursday revealed that the number of terrorist attacks in Afghanistan had jumped by 55% last year; in Iraq, attacks were up 9%. The US-led invasions and occupations of both countries have been a dismal failure – thousands of lives lost and trillions of dollars squandered. The presence of western troops in Muslim lands has provoked more terrorism than it has prevented.

In his book, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, the US political scientist Robert Pape analysed every known case of suicide terrorism between 1980 and 2005 – 315 attacks in total – and concluded that the "specific secular and strategic goal" of suicide terrorists was to end foreign military occupations. "The tap root of suicide terrorism is nationalism," he wrote; it is "an extreme strategy for national liberation".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/19/barack-obama-kabul-iraq-afghanistan

[LaurenG]

1. What for one thing these are not Obama's wars. He didn't start them anyway.

I am really not happy with him but the title of this just reeks. x(

[ixion]

2. Like it or not, he owns them now

[mike_c]

3. they're Obama's wars now...

:puke:

[Fearless]

4. Umm... He extends them... He owns them now. The builder doesn't own the house after a sale.

[frylock]

6. you can't double down in country and then deny ownership..

obama campaigned on taking ownership.

[MisterP]

8. I was going to join in in laying into your post--but I reconsidered, and now want to ask

why you felt the President had to be defended on this issue; why did the headline by itself warrant a response? what made you feel it was inaccurate? even if it was something on the spur of the moment that you might regret in hindsight, I'm curious on the process behind the post. If, for example, you believed Obama was doing his darndest to end the wars, but something was getting in the way, and criticizing Obama for the wars only played in the Republicans' hands, what sources would you draw on? Would it be some post made on Kos or OFA? Even if the root beliefs were totally irrational, I want to trace them.

[LaurenG]

9. Oh dear you were going to lay into my post? Did you read the others as laying in to it

as well? I didn't take any of them that way but maybe I misunderstood them. And you don't get to trace the root of my beliefs with my help but feel free to do a search. :)

[Divernan]

12. Clue: A vomiting icon(post 3) indicates someone is laying into your post.

As did the other responses. You were politely asked to explain your reasoning, and you responded rudely. We can't read your mind, you know.

You're not ashamed of the basis for your opinion, are you?

[LaurenG]

14. I guess I figured most of us know each other

and where we stand on issues. And no I don't think a threat to lay into my post followed by a demand is a polite way to ask me anything. For the record I thought a :puke: was disagreement, I didn't interpret that as laying into me.

What is your reason for choosing my post to ask about? Was it the fact that I said he didn't start the war or the part where I said I didn't like the post title?

[Booster]

5. We are just as stupid as the Russians were; spending money

we don't have on a war (invasion) we will never win.

[Citizen Worker]

7. Just today we learned that we will continue to occupy Iraqnam "beyond 2012" and Vietghanistan "at

least until 2024." How's that for hope and change?

[Robb]

10. Heh. Not yet two years ago, this author chided Obama for not "surging" enough.

Stood with the real hawks and said he was a half-million troops short of COIN doctrine (edited to add: in Afghanistan), said he and Brown were weak in their commitment.

I am darkly impressed he has the gall to say, today, "Putting more boots on the ground was a gross misjudgment."

[Divernan]

13. Serious charge. Where's the link to back it up, please?

[Robb]

15. "Not a surge, but a ripple in Afghanistan"

My mistake, he wanted a half million.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/dec/02/afghanistan-counter-insurgency-strategy">Not a surge but a ripple in Afghanistan

If this is a counter-insurgency strategy, even with these extra troops from the US and UK, it's woefully undermanned

by Mehdi Hasan

(snip)

Take a look at the numbers. Coin is manpower-intensive. The US army's own much-lauded counter-insurgency field manual, co-authored by Petraeus in 2006, emphasises the importance of "troop density", or the ratio of security forces to inhabitants: "20 counter-insurgents per 1,000 residents (or 1:50) is often considered the minimum troop density required for effective Coin operations".

In Afghanistan, with a population of roughly 28.4 million, the 1:50 ratio means the size of the US-led coalition force should be about 568,000 troops. But Obama's plan to deploy 30,000 extra US soldiers and marines takes the total number of coalition troops to only 130,000 – including 32,000 non-US troops in Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf). This is more than 430,000 troops short of the number needed to satisfy Coin's own textbook definition of "minimum troop density".

Coin supporters, however, point to additional support from Afghanistan's own security forces. Does this make a difference? Even adding in the 97,000 Afghan police officers and the 100,000-odd Afghan soldiers leaves the US-led coalition force more than 200,000 counter-insurgents short of the "minimum".

[Fuddnik]

11. It's Obama's war. It's Pelosi's war, It's Reids war. And It's Boners war.

I knew this shit would never end, when we took over Congress in 2007, and despite campaign promises, Reid and Pelosi mad sure the war kept getting funded.

We had huge majorities in 2009, but kept funding the wars.

That's why I resigned from my DEC in mid-2007, and switched to "No Party Affiliation", later that year, after Telecom immunity, and Patriot Act renewal.

It's the Democrats war now, just as much as the Republicans war. No matter how much they try to bullshit people otherwise.