What were/are your thoughts on the war in Afghanistan? (Fixed version)

[Clintonista2]

Just curious because I've found that many on the left are split on this issue, while the right seem unified in their goal to simply ignore it.

Reposting this poll because the last one was glitched.

[XemaSab]

1. It's the real front in the war on terror

and that's where our resources should be.

[Clintonista2]

2. Personally, I'm kind of mixed

I think that it was a good idea to go in, for the exact reason you mentioned, but at this point it's become so neglected and mismanaged that there either needs to be a MASSIVE injection of troops/resources, or we need to get out.

[glowing]

3. Bombing people who have nothing to do with 9/11 isn't going to do anything

but make more terrorists and more dead people.

[Narkos]

7. Curious, if you were the President

how would you have responded to 9/11? Not flaming here or anything, honestly curious.

[glowing]

11. First, I would try to heal the fear and pain. Second, I would have run a full

investigaion into why this occurred in the first place. Third, once we had established who was behind the attack and had the evidence, present it to the world and I would say most world leaders would help in finding the attackers and turning them over.. or at least allowing a special ops team in to try and route out bin Ladin if it was bin Ladin at all... Remember, on the day of the attack, bin Ladin said he didn't do this.. and then the Bushies whisked the bin ladin family safely out of the US and back to Saudi Arabia, then bin Ladin said he did it... When, after 7yrs there are more questions than answers, you have a problem. We are not more secure today than 7yrs ago, actually we are less safe. More agencies to deal with taking more freedoms from citizens and less real measures that do protect the country. Bombing innocent people who had nothing to do with the attack is like bombing Tampa.. because a homicidal maniac is murdering people at night.. so, in order to rid society of this menace, we just take the entire city out.

[elocs]

4. Afghanistan is the 3rd world country where superpowers go to be brought to their knees.

Move from Iraq to Afghanistan where the war seemed more justified and the US will end up being forced from the country. They do not want us there and we will never win. We've learned nothing from history concerning Afghanistan.

[David Zephyr]

5. I opposed it and wrote about my opposition here at the DU in 2001.

It's all in the archives.

We have no business whatsoever dropping bombs on villages in Afghanistan or anywhere else.

Our collateral damage there to innocent civilians has been as bad or worse than what the Saudi Arabian billionaire, bin Laden, did to us here.

America needs to deal with the root of terrorism.

Sadly, too many "Democrats" have bought into the "war on terrorism" which immediately and conveniently replaced the "war on communism" which immediately and conveniently replaced the war on fascism, Nazis and the Japanese.

Gore Vidal said it best: "perpetual war for perpetual peace".

If we didn't have the military complex, how on earth would Lockheed-Martin make their next quarter to satisfy their stockholders and keep that gravy train going? What would Blackwater and Halliburton do?

Lennin said that the last stage of imperialism is always war. Well, it's arrived and we are here to witness it.

[readmoreoften]

6. Proud to be a member of the majority (thus far at least)

[immoderate]

8. Terrorists are criminals, not combatants.

I thought everybody knew that. :shrug:

--IMM

[spindrifter]

9. Until the U.S. learns this is not

a war, they are going to trounced.

[ConsAreLiars]

10. Always strongly against. An occupation army could never meet any of the alleged objectives

of the invasion. In fact, it was the worst possible move if diminishing the power and influence of the murder gang or destroying them was the objective. Of course, despite the popularity of that deception, that was neither the goal not the intent. It was geopolitics and resource domination being played with the same mindset and knowledge of real world stuff as the average (or below) college freshman playing a game of Risk.

Getting bin Laden and that gang would have been EASY, compared to the impossible goal of brutalizing the Afghan people into submission to an occupying gang of terrorists and mass murderers, if that had been the goal.

[MH1]

12. Other - mixed feelings.

In a nutshell: There's probably a better solution than military, but I can see a rational argument for going in... but if you go in militarily, follow up with all the economic aid and support to keep the Taliban from coming back... it would require a VERY long commitment (and as I know now, some creative rejiggering of our policy with regard to opium - which is needed anyway). If you aren't going to do it right, DON'T DO IT. Which means that it is obvious the BushFuckEverythingUpThatYouTouch Administration should not have ever sent our troops in.

Also I have heard that we could have had bin Laden turned over to us by the Taliban, without invading. OBVIOUSLY, if true, that is what we should have done. But then, the military industrial complex would not have gotten their windfall.

[ThomWV]

13. 9/11 justified a massive and swift police action, but not a war no matter where it was to be fought