bilmardre's Comments (250)

“Which gets me to the question, if liberals believe that the Afghan government is just a puppet, and Al Quaeda is significantly weakened, why have they not spoken up more for the withdrawal of our troops before now, you have had 8 years? Why the relative silence until now?”

“I think just about everyone knows that.”

“What are you talking about? Obama doesn't support "war of choice".
He was against the war in Iraq from the start, and said all it would do is draw attention away from Afghanistan, which it did. And 9 years later, hear we are.”

“I don't understand that logic. Why leave 20,000 troops to toil and die in a under resourced effort?
Why leave 100? If the call is to remove all troops now, why wasn't the call to remove the 20,000?”

“I think the plan is weaken the enemy, drive them out of population centers. Do our best to stand a competent Afghan army and police force, and turn it over to them, let them deal with a weakened Taliban and Al-Qaeda, and get out. That is the best we can do, but in my mind it must be given an honest effort.”

“You have got to do better than that.”

“No, I understand completely. I don't think it is a good idea to pull out of Afghanistan after spending 9 years of blood and treasure with the Taliban resurgent.
Although I don't like it, I think it is a better idea to do the job right instead of ignoring it for 9 years then saying I quit.”

“Whiberals!”

“Your post only makes sense if you believe Obama has done nothing since becoming President.
And I for one will ALWAYS bring up Bush, because I think it is important to see the distinction that Bush was given 8 years to bring this Country to it's knees, and Obama is given less than a year to clean it all up.”

“Well, it is good to tell it as it is, as you see it. But I think it would only be considered courageous if there was something serious at stake, like the safety of Americans or something like that.”

“Good questions. But I have a question I have asked over and over, and have yet to get a answer.

Why did liberals let the Afghanistan war drag on for almost 9 years and basically say nothing?
If there was one anti-war protest against Afghanistan will someone please let me know.

(Of course the MSM also said nothing, but I no longer expect anything from the MSM).”

“Absolutely!”

“"A grimmer view is that Obama has fallen under the influence of military-financial interests, and Washington's rabid neocons who seek permanent war against the Muslim world. Obama's "surge" may only expand, intensify, and prolong the Afghan conflict"

The above is a good statement, but I would argue it is all of America that had fallen under that influence, allowing the Afghanistan project to drag on for 7 years, under resourced and basically ignored.
Obama made a difficult decision where there was NO good decision. He decided to resource the effort correctly for the first time, weaken a insurgent Taliban, train and prepare Afghan forces to take responsibility, and get out. That is all that can be done. This is what should have been done 7 years ago.

The other options, just leave with a resurgent Taliban, basically telling all Americans that the blood and treasure spent over the past 7 years was for absolutely nothing.

Or let it drag on for another 7 years.”

“I am confused about a couple things. We have been in Afghanistan for 7 years. The effort there has always been secondary to Iraq, yet we have spent billions there and lost many lives. We have been there for seven years and Congress, our media, nobody has ever asked the question why. I don't recall one antiwar protest against Afghanistan. So the question is why have we lost lives and treasure in Afghanistan for 7 years?
This is the question the media would be asking the President if he had decided to arbitrarily pull troops out on a given date. Other questions they would be asking, why did we leave with the Taliban growing in strength? How could you leave a unstable Afghanistan with a Islamic nuclear neighbor? What was the deaths of those American soldiers for? Why did we spend billions there? These are the questions the media would be asking Obama over and over. This in no way should have swayed Obama's decision, and I don't think it did. I think he chose the best of the bad options he had. But this would have been the media environment had he chosen differently.”

“Only Bush can start a war of choice in Iraq and get re-elected and let Afghanistan drag on for 7 years.
Obama would never start a war. He gets enough criticism trying to end them.”

“Obama can not dictate we have a public option. Each Senator has a say in that, and Obama can not force them to change their minds. Banking reform is coming, though the GOP is going to fight it. We will never have full employment.”

“Well, you could just tell them the truth, in fact they died for no reason, the past seven years was for nothing.”

“Not just a nice phrase if it was your son or daughter. I am sure the parents would want answers as to exactly why we have been in Afghanistan for the last 7 years. And why just arbitrarily decide to leave on this date?”

“We are getting out of serious trouble. Whats amazing is that Bush was re-elected and, well he doesn't speak so well.”

“Sure didn't vote for letting it drag on for another 7 years or just leaving without putting in a honest effort to make things right.”

“Wow, that's some good revisionist history.
Not one of the perpetrators was Afghan or Taliban, but ALL were members of Al-Qaeda, who had bases in Afghanistan under the protection of the Taliban. The leader Bin Laden who approved the 9/11 attack and provided monetary support was offered Afghan citizenship by the Taliban.”

“Which politician do you know is going to go home and tell their constituents that lost sons and daughters in Afghanistan, "sorry your son died for nothing, but at least we spent billions in the process. Hopefully when the Taliban takes back control of Afghanistan they will not offer their land and resources again to groups who have declared war on us, and if we're lucky they won't meddle too much in nuclear Pakistan"”

“Sad that now Democrats not only have to perform their traditional role of cleaning up the GOP's economic messes but now have to clean up their National Security blunders as well.
The GOP wasted billions and many lives letting Afghanistan drag on under resourced for 7 years because they were distracted by their adventure in Iraq. Now 7 years later the Taliban is resurgent, with a nuclear armed Islamic neighbor. It takes a Democrat to resource the effort correctly and set a timetable for us to begin getting out.”

“What I was told was we haven't had health care reform in 60 years, we have been dithering in Afghanistan for 7 years while losing lives and spending billions in tax payer money but thats pretty much OK, The Country was on the brink of financial collapse, even with all the geniuses we seem to have with their opinions, and we are trying to wind down from a war of choice, which was good enough to get the sponsor re-elected.

I think we are a Country primed and ready for Palin.”

“My biggest fear when Obama was running for President was he would get into office and try to clean up corruption only to find corruption was the only thing holding the system up.”