was Afghanistan expected?

[mkultra]

Poll question: was Afghanistan expected?

based on your recollection of Obama's campaign rhetoric, did you expect that he would ramp up Afghanistan in this way?

[noamnety]

1. Not to this extent exactly

but I understood through his rhetoric he wasn't going to end the war either in Afghanistan or Iraq.

I think some people still believe he will withdraw all troops from Iraq. I would find that funny under other less serious circumstances.

[mkultra]

2. perhaps you shoudl have voted no

that was the point of the poll. I dont expect us to be completely out of Iraq. Ill be happy with a major draw down.

[noamnety]

4. My vote was more accurate as a yes, I think.

This didn't entail any surprise on my end, certainly. I was giving speeches at local events prior to the election (prior to the primary election even) identifying him and Clinton as NOT being antiwar candidates despite what people wanted to believe.

I was with one of his full time paid campaign workers earlier this week - their reaction to the speech was "This is Bullshit!"

That was a (smart) person who didn't see this coming, despite how involved they were in getting him elected. That surprised me.

[Sparkly]

3. "In this way," NO. nt

[mkultra]

8. im glad you noticed that.

it was an important part of the poll.

[timeforpeace]

5. No one expects the Afghan Escalation. Better empires than ours have been broken on those sharp

stoney shores. And so it will be once more.

[arcadian]

6. By definition campaign rhetoric isn't to be taken seriously.

[mkultra]

10. i think most people know

that what is said before may have to change depending on how things change.

[TheBigotBasher]

11. That is one of the reasons

people become cynical of politicians. Campaign rhetoric should be taken seriously. What happens as a result of false promises is that people run to the other side, which has pushed the US so far to the right that mist GOP members would no longer be allowed in even the most Conservative of European Conservative Parties. The Democrats then chase them even further to the right.

Politicians should deliver what they promise. Simple as. If they do that, they may find getting back in somewhat easier.

[ClarkUSA]

28. Funny how some here like to define what's "rhetoric" and what's a "promise" they were denied, eh?

:eyes:

[mkultra]

34. for arcadian, its whichever he needs at the moment

[Ozymanithrax]

7. He said he was going to do it...

Afghanistan did not change radically since his inauguration, even with the extra troops he added then.

He did it.

[HughMoran]

9. He said it over and over again

Voting no is nothing more than a protest vote. Either that or we have low information voters here - which I don't believe.

[Cha]

48. "Low information voters"..that would be

fauxsn00ze viewers who are the least informed Americans.

[ClarkUSA]

52. As well as the FauxRage whiners who are the loudest of Americans.

;)

[Cha]

59. There's something to study

in the psychological realm..why are the fauxrager whiners, the loudest?

[ipaint]

12. Yes, he made it clear the majority of his policies

would be neo liberal.

Of course the campaign was a 2 year infomercial filled with much more progressive left leaning images and the slogan "hope" everywhere. How many homeless, no health care and hungry people can you be seen hugging and handing free lunches to before people start believing you are actually understanding and empathizing with their plight.

But then you watch the rich get bailed out, the health ins. companies write the so-called reform bill and the lower class kids flocking to the military and on to war because college isn't an option and you realize you've been duped and it's your own damn fault for believing.

[Douglas Carpenter]

13. yes he did say that,,,but I was hoping that in this case he would not follow through

I do not believe anything good will come out of this...but time will tell.

[mkultra]

22. well, i have great respect for this perspective

i don't necessarily agree with it but its genuine and honorable.

[impik]

14. Of course. Only those who were not listening

during the campaign - Or simply heard what they wanted to hear - can be surprised now.

[Skittles]

15. nothing Obama has done - or not done - has surprised me

[TexasObserver]

16. THIS is the campaign rhetoric he chooses to honor?!

Of all the things I thought he was just saying to win the election, his Afghanistan spiel was at the top of the list.

[mkultra]

33. i guess when his presidency is over

you can look back and tally up what actually was honored and what wasnt. Until then, your just guessing.

[TexasObserver]

36. Can I help you?

Can I help you understand the difference between "you're" and "your" in usage?

I can also show you how to use capital letters and punctuation, if you really want to learn. I believe adult literacy is important to the country, so I offer you my help.

[mkultra]

37. i think your time is better spent developing

common sense approaches to common systems than worrying about copy edit on an internet message board. kthxbai

[TexasObserver]

47. More gibberish.

Do I need to explain what that word means?

[mkultra]

50. see, there's that common sense thing again

just keep plugging away at it. You will get it one day.

[Raine]

17. He said he was going to do and he did

no surprise to me.

[elana i am]

18. it's what i expected which is why he wasn't my first choice

there never has been and never will be anything remotely progressive about obama. having said that, i am very pleased with the job he has done so far. he's having to dismantle piece by piece the brick walls being thrown up in front of him at every turn. and i translated hope and change to a gradual shift in the course of the big ship, not pulling a u-ey.

what i didn't anticipate was the levels of deceit and vileness that the repugs would stoop to. i mean, i know they're lowlife scums, but i wouldn't have ever dreamed that every last one of them would be completely and utterly devoid of ethics, morals and basic human decency they would lie like rugs about obama. if i saw a repug in person right now i don't think i would be responsible for my actions.

also, having a father who is retired air force, he gives me some perspective on the war issue. he was a procurement specialist. fortunately his active duty was all stateside and had more to do with fuel, aircraft parts and munitions than supplies and troops being sent overseas for the gulf war, but he tells me that getting out of a war is every bit as time and labor intensive as getting into one. he says there's no such thing as just picking up and leaving and he told me to chill and wait and see what obama is going to do, because expediting a pull-out would require an increase in both troops and supplies.

[mkultra]

25. were there reall any viable choices that where not hawkish?

by viable i mean choices that could have won the general? Edwards doesn't count because he took himself out.

[ClarkUSA]

19. Yes. And I don't remember one iota of Obama Outrage over it last year or even earlier this year.

So it's funny how much there is now by the usual suspects. :eyes:

[Proud Liberal Dem]

42. There was SOME

as I was rather surprised to find out when talking about Afghanistan and our continued involvement there. I always thought focusing more on Afghanistan (and withdrawing from Iraq) was something that most of us generally agreed upon. :shrug:

I guess not.

[jefferson_dem]

20. There are two answers...

Yes and "I wasn't paying attention".

[mkultra]

26. people that are outraged because they werent paying attention are being foolish

some are totally aware that it was going to happen but remain outraged.

[treestar]

21. Of course

He would end Iraq, and concentrate of Afghanistan.

Escalation and all those terms are unfair. It's just the way it would and should have been had the neocons not gone into Iraq. Could have been over by 2005 or earlier.

[spiritual_gunfighter]

23. if there was a 3rd choice I would have chosen that

Obama made no secret on his hawkish nature of Afghanistan but during the campaign he said he would send two combat brigades. Not really what he has done.

[mkultra]

27. thats not really true

in fact, i think this kind of thinking is shrinkingly dull minded for a group of people that i considered intelligent(until now at least). I think anyone intelligent would expect him to make a decision based on the need he perceives at deployment time. There are many reasons why not making these troop levels choices in advance is foolish and people who think this should reconsider how ignorant it makes them appear. Aside from these common sense reasons, if im not mistake, he said "at least two brigades" and supporting non combat. which is fairly close to what has been deployed. if im not mistaken, he is sending 20K combat and 10K training troops.

[ClarkUSA]

29. Exactly.

:thumbsup:

[spiritual_gunfighter]

30. I guess you havent been paying attention

He will have sent a total of 51,000 troops since March not to mention around the same amount of contract personel. A modern warfare combat brigade on average is around 5,000 soldiers, talk about "dull minded". If you feel like throwing around insults like "dull minded" and whine about DU not being the way it used to be, maybe the amount of people on DU unhappy with this decision should tell you something about where DU is at, not about where it was.

What was "dull minded" was the decision to send 51,000 troops to a place where there are 100 AQ fighters. In October General Jones said this:

JONES: Well, I think this is one of the central issues and, you know, it could. Obviously, the good news is that Americans should feel at least good about in Afghanistan is that the al Qaeda presence is very diminished. The maximum estimate is less than 100 operating in the country. No bases. No ability to launch attacks on either us or our allies.

Now the problem is the next step in this is the sanctuaries across the border. But I don't foresee the return of the Taliban and I want to be very clear that Afghanistan is not in danger -- imminent danger of falling.

And another view coming from Sen. Feingold

Feingold: Why Surge Where Al Qaeda Isn't?
by Sam Stein

One of the fiercest critics of the proposed surge of U.S. forces in Afghanistan warned on Sunday that the policy would distract America from the pursuit of global al Qaeda networks.

During an appearance on ABC's "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) demanded that one question be answered when considering the implementation of the president's surge policy: Why send troops where al Qaeda isn't?

Pakistan, in the border region near Afghanistan, is perhaps the epicenter , although al Qaida is operating all over the world, in Yemen, in Somalia, in northern Africa, affiliates in Southeast Asia. Why would we build up 100,000 or more troops in parts of Afghanistan included that are not even near the border? You know, this buildup is in Helmand Province. That's not next door to Waziristan. So I'm wondering, what exactly is this strategy, given the fact that we have seen that there is a minimal presence of Al Qaida in Afghanistan, but a significant presence in Pakistan? It just defies common sense that a huge boots on the ground presence in a place where these people are not is the right strategy. It doesn't make any sense to me.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/06/feingold-why-surge-where_n_381729.html

What is "dull minded" are the small minority of DUers championing a faulty policy based on a non-existent threat. So feel free to lament how much "DU has changed", but maybe the reality is that DU hasn't changed, you have.

[mkultra]

31. you cant see the forrest for the trees

the point of his strategy, at least as he indicated, was to start advancing assistance to pakistan so that they could push these groups out. The simple fact is that these groups can flow back and forth between Afghanistan and Pakistan unhindered and pakistan is very aware of this. Mushareff carefully played both sides of the issue by taking US assistance but trying to appear anti-western to his populace. he knew that he did not have the force needed to push these groups out so he had to live with them. The new government is in the same position.

Obama has made it clear that his intention is to help Pakistan force these groups out. If his happens, and the Taliban is in control of any region in Afghanistan, they will pour back in.

The strategy is sound and i couldn't care less about the actual "numbers" of committed troops as long as its enough to to the job. My personal preference would be to flood the country with troops and solve the problem quick so we could pack up and go home.

I understand and respect those who feel that war is never the answer. We are far to war like. but these guys are real and mean to do us harm. We probably deserved to get our teeth knocked out. hopefully we can go back to actual peace time when this is over.

[spiritual_gunfighter]

35. We are currently fighting a war in Pakistan

off the books using the CIA, contractors, and in some cases JSOC. If you want to argue that an additional 100 thousand troops are in Afghanistan to offer support for the current CIA conflict in Pakistan, it seems a bit much doesnt it?

Helping Pakistan root out AQ and stabilize a government that may be weeks away from falling, is justified in my opinion. But sending a 100 thousand troops to Afghanistan to fight a proxy war with Pakistan, seems pointless.

[mkultra]

38. as long as the border between the two is fluid

Both must be approached at the same time. Otherwise Afghanistan will become Cambodia.

[spiritual_gunfighter]

40. By putting a 100 thousand troops in Afghanistan

and the CIA fighting a war using Blackwater and JSOC in Pakistan? I guess if you are okay with it.

[mkultra]

49. i am, the more the better

i think a larger deployment is the only way to solve the problem. When we don't give the generals enough people, they tend to struggle. Part of the reason we had so much trouble in Iraq was because rumsfield wanted to do it with fewer troops. Once you decide to do something like this, its much better to overwhelm them, finish it, and get the hell out. To me, more troops means faster solutions.

[PBS Poll-435]

24. Yep. nt

[Adelante]

32. Absolutely nt

[SKKY]

39. Anyone who is surprised by this move clearly paid no attention...

...he said it on multiple occasions.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

41. Yes- for anybody paying attention to the campaign it should have been

Granted, most of us hoped he might do something different but, frankly, I always expected him to do something in regards to the Afghanistan/Pakistan situation other than withdrawal, at least initially. He kept saying that he was going to draw down our forces in Iraq and move them over to Afghanistan to pursue Al-Queda and their once before and likely would be again benefactors, which he correctly IMHO identified (as did many other Democrats at the time and long before were arguing) as being what we should've been doing a better job of since 2001/2002. Whether he can pull a better situation out of a "surge" or not remains to be seen but, honestly, yeah, it was expected.

[LWolf]

43. Yes.

It's one of the reasons why I never supported him.

[polichick]

44. Being expected doesn't make it right or smart. nt

[mkultra]

51. it makes outrage neither.

[polichick]

53. Speaking out about the mistake of escalation in Afghanistan is hardly "outrage." nt

[mkultra]

55. true. And what goes on here is hardly just speaking out.

[polichick]

56. What else could it be? This is a message board - speaking is the only thing possible.

[mkultra]

58. it could be spin

[rebel with a cause]

45. Yes!

He has said this is what should be done all the way back to 2004 when he ran for the Senate. Talked to him about it several times. This and health care and other things that he has proposed now. Argued with him a couple of times back then but no surprises now.

[iceman66]

46. Yes.

I'm surprised he didn't do it sooner.

[WeDidIt]

54. Nah, I thought Obama was a lying POS

:sarcasm:

[TheKentuckian]

57. It was pretty clear but still a pretty poor idea

which, in my opinion has become more and more clear since the campaign.

There are too damn many ifs, buts, hopes, expectations, and anticipations to actually be a plan. We might as well write a letter to Santa or cross our fingers for all the good that 100k troops and 100 billion a year buy (plus contractors and the loot they demand).

[IndianaGreen]

60. It was unexpected that Obama would bow down to the generals in the Pentagon

President Truman would have fired McChrystal and Petraeus for their insolence in placing the military above civilian authority. Obama surrendered to them!

[polichick]

61. That's how I see it. And he may have surrendered on healthcare too...

A while ago Big Ed asked Sen. Harkin whether the prez/WH has surrendered, and he answered that he (Sen. Harkin) and others haven't surrendered, they're still fighting for the public option. He affirmed that the prez did not mention the public option or abortion in his pep talk.

[branders seine]

62. No,

to the extent he was specific at all in the campaign, he promised a much more modest escalation, and one with a much more clearly defined mission.