T
theophilus777
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Which you entirely missed w/o having someone else to point it out to you. You really think your finger is on the red button? We need to coin a new term: "Obama complex"
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Good response. Somewhere along the way, they always try to turn everything into a discussion about him.
I'm not sure, but I think it's a general purpose sympathy generating misdirection. Which is ironic, since Bergdahl certainly sounds like he may be suffering the same condition. If nothing else, this thread serves as a wonderful demonstration of how facts are secondary to ideology in so much political discussion. You have 2 guys who sound quite similar in a lot of ways, but who people either condem out of hand or desperately cast as a tragic hero depending on party affiliation.
How does this compare to the one jailed? Well, it doesn't. He was discharged before his arrest. I don't see anyone saying Berghdal should've been left to rot, only that its very fishy to trade the 5 most dangerous terrorists on the planet for him, and even worse to simply let them go, which is basically the final disposition of that case.
I think both these guys should be treated similarly, meaning do what we can to bring them back. It is the inequality in our approach to them that has me mad at Obama, and I think he rightfully deserves that.
That's only because they haven't had time to get back into terrorist mode. Give them time, and thank BarackFirst of all, these guys might have been "the 5 most dangerous terrorists on the planet" 10 years ago -- not so much anymore. The more dangerous ones are the ones we couldn't catch; the most dangerous ones are the ones we don't know about... yet. Don't mistake fame for danger.
Second, we kind of had to let them go as part of the trade -- that's more or less how these prisoner exchanges work.
That's only because they haven't had time to get back into terrorist mode.
Or driving, frankly, if he is supposedly really that unwell.Well, quite. PTSD is awful, I could tell you stories that would turn you white. But, generally speaking, it doesn't make one lose one's common sense nor basic presence of mind. If this guy is SO unwell that he can't cope finding his way around a place he's been before, really, he's not the sort of person I'd be comfortable around knowing he was heavily armed.
There's nothing wrong with having PTSD, and it certainly doesn't make anyone more likely to start blazing away indiscriminately. It does, however, make one prone to extremes of emotion, and if this guy is so deeply affected, one doesn't wish to imagine how volatile he could be.
They don't care about "peace" they just want it to be theirs.
Who said their goal needs to be realistic? It's what they want.
They have the guns -- who says they need to be "legitimate"? Power doesn't need to be "legimitate," it just needs to be secured.
Wrong, wrong, and more wrong -- all they need is to have a political goal THEY THINK is attainable and reasonable; they do.
Iran used to be, and may again be, the boogyman for quite some time
, and while their government is certainly something that bears watching, they're in the middle of some long term social reforms that might mellow them out....
.... unless the US intervenes and makes things worse, which, given our history in the area, is more or less a given.
You still haven't demonstrated that you understand what my tactics are -- you've gotten them wrong every time you're tried -- so you're not really in a position to say this.
They have a goal. Either show them that their goal is unattainable, or find a way to give them what they want, and the problem is solved. They want us out of "their" territory. If we no longer need to be there, everyone wins.
Simple -- we didn't learn our lesson from Vietnam; but that doesn't mean we couldn't learn because we didn't win, as you claimed.
Have a political goal for the region and achieve it -- either militarily or through some other means. I really can't make it any simpler.
Armed conflict was a mistake, since I think our ideal political goal should be "wash our hands of the whole thing and have nothing whatsoever to do with the place."
And that's the problem -- nobody defined "winning."
war is a political action with a political goal, and we couldn't decide on a goal in Vietnam: were we stopping the North Vietnamese incursion, or were we "advising" the South Vietnamese to train them how to do it themselves? We never could make up our minds about that, could we? So until we have a goal for the Middle East and a plan for how to achieve it, why should we be there?
"Losing" what? Our national pride doesn't handle "losing" very well, but pride alone shouldn't be our reason for continuing -- another lesson we didn't learn from Vietnam; necessitating Nixon's "peace with honor" speech to extricate us.
You shouldn't need Sun Tzu to tell you to bail when a conflict isn't worth it anymore. When the political goal of an armed conflict is no longer attainable, but you continue fighting anyway for no other reason than to "win..." (win what?) then you're not fighting for a cause anymore; you're just.... fighting.
Less Sun Tzu, more like Kenny Rogers: "You gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em..."
All the more reason to publicly wash our hands of the whole thing. They'll probably never like us because of our role in creating Israel, but they despise us for our continued support of it.
I say, time to cut our losses.
If you can't beat 'em, bribe em -- as long as it's subtle? Workable, IF Christians could be counted on to be subtle... I don't see it happening.
Look what happened in Japan; the Shimabara Rebellion and 250 years of strictly enforced isolationism. You expect better luck in a region which already has no reason to trust our motives?
And suppose what they want is for us to go away and leave them alone? Would you comply?
Perhaps, but instead our goal was to assist them in developing a stable gov't that was beneficial to us.
Which wasn't going to happen since our goal (a stable, allied Iraq) couldn't be accomplished through military means. We're the ones who destabilized it when we overthrew Hussein.
Take Khomeini out of the equation, and Saddam "suddenly" becomes a brutal dictator whom the people of Iraq need to be "liberated" from -- which ended up turning loose all the creeps that his brutality was keeping suppressed.
Besides, we supported Hussein (brutality and all) against Khomeini, and then turned on him when he "suddenly" became a liability -- the people of the Middle East remember when we pull stunts like that, even when we pretend to forget.
As long as you're remembering it, try to understand it -- that wasn't some terrorist shoe attack; that was one of the people we were there to "liberate." Didn't seem so grateful, did he? How many millions of others do you think regret they weren't within shoe-throwing range?
"Winning," "losing". . . you keep throwing these words around, but what exactly are we fighting for? Give me an answer before trying to justify continuing the conflict.
But the Taliban would still be in charge -- and I don't think they'd take kindly to us trying to buy off "their" people with food and medicine.
Those humanitarians and their aid would quickly become targets, which would necessitate our sending in armed forces to protect those targets, who would in turn become targets themselves... which would necessitate more armed forces...
See where this leads?
Right -- you think the Taliban is afraid of bad publicity?
Or driving, frankly, if he is supposedly really that unwell.
Bergdahl is already in the US (Bowe Bergdahl returns home — to a long road ahead | Fox 59 News – fox59.com), so that part of your prediction fails.In all likelihood Bergdahl will be kept in Germany until the media fervor dies down. Then he'll be quietly returned to America to live out his days at the pay grade he achieved when he was upped in the ranks after deserting his post. And quite possibly helping the Taliban counter American troops movements.
That would be the mode where one practices terrorism
Anybody can, not everyone does
And seeing as how terrorism has gone on just fine while these five men were in the hole, it seems their absence didn't change a thing. So why not do something useful with them, and get an American POW back?
I wouldn't call giving the enemy a huge boost to morale (and that's the best case scenario), being anything other than completely stupid...
The fact these guys are likely to return to terror or help recruit people into terrorism makes what the Obama Administration did completely insane.
How many of those illegals come packing heat?
If that was what some liberals consider thinking things through, it's no wonder Obama has been such a failureIt's okay that you didn't see it before -- our friends on the right need practice in the subtle art of thinking things through.
Call it a learning experience and move on.
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