Its Official. 1000th US soldier killed in Afghanistan

[Mari333]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35534294/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/

bring them home.

[Don Caballero]

1. The war would be over if the Shrub focused on Af/Pak instead of Iraq

We cannot place blame on President Obama for these deaths.

[ixion]

3. to quote a phrase: "Yes, we can"

nice try at passing the buck, though. :eyes:

Yes, BushCo invaded the sovereign nations(s), but Obama has kept us there, and in fact escalated the Afghanistan occupation.

[vadawg]

8. rofl, i think for the past year or so hes been the guy giving them their orders

so id say they buck stops at him..

[Don Caballero]

14. President Obama is giving the orders

He is cleaning up after the previous administration's mistakes. But we cannot blame him for the mess we are in. The Iraq war will officially be over very soon and our presence in Af/Pak will be transitioned to a lesser role.

[vadawg]

21. yeah okay so he never had the power just to withdraw over these past 14 months

any time he wanted, whether you like it or not these deaths are on his watch so hes responsible. Now i dont think he could have withdrawn but he still made the decision..

[tekisui]

11. Yes we can. Obama escalated,

a full third of all those deaths have come in Obama's first 14 months. He expanded and escalated. It has nothing to do with dubya anymore.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

16. Oh stop it. Afghanistan helped to bring down the of the USSR and it is draining us of

our resources...our soldiers and our treasure.

Meanwhile, we are there for one main reason and it has nothing to do with Al Quaeda and all to do with the oil/gas pipeline.

www.ringnebula.com/Oil/Timeline.htm

And know what else? The minute that Obama CHOSE to escalate this senseless war, he owned it.

[Don Caballero]

18. President Obama had to escalate in order to end it sooner

[Binka]

19. Sure. That's Like Fucking For Virginity.

Epic FAIL.

[Don Caballero]

28. The Af/Pak War was stagnant when President Obama took office

If he did not change course and escalate our occupation would drag on for years and years. The strategy being employed now guarantees the war will be over sooner. The Iraq War is basically over. A little over a year and we will be out of that country.

[Bragi]

35. You're right that the war is over

The Taliban won it some time ago. The question is how many more Americans and Afghans need to die before the foreign troops finally pull out.

Obama was wrong to escalate this war, which is now his. The remaining question is whether he will try to hang in rather than admit defeat.

If he stays, it will completely undermine his Presidency.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

30. .....

:applause:

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

29. The way to end this MESS is to just get out. They had to escalate to protect the pipeline.

Our military is free protection for the oil business.

[Don Caballero]

31. The pipeline conspiracy theory has never been proven

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

33. Did you even click on the link? Didn't think so........

[Mari333]

32. Gosh I have put so many people on ignore on here

god forgive us for allowing our children to be sent off to die in corporate wars of profit.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

34. And I wouldn't be surprised if over half the people you put on ignore are younger than us Mari and

have no sense of the Real History of our country.

[Mari333]

36. I am afraid you may be right

they never experienced Vietnam, and have played way too many World of Warcraft video games.

the MSM has not covered the truth on the ground, either.

and there is no draft.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

37. Whereas, my sons 22 and 19 have had their history lessons from me and I am petrified

that eventually there will be another draft. I refuse my sons to be fodder for as how Henry Kissinger phrases it

"Military men are just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy." - Henry Kissinger, quoted in "Kiss the Boys Goodbye: How the United States Betrayed Its Own POW's in Vietnam"

[ixion]

2. Another dark milestone for the US Empire...

:(

Stop occupying sovereign nations. We should be out of Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan and Yemen and on and on.

[bdamomma]

4. Those soldiers need to come home what a waste of life.

:-(

[Soylent Brice]

5. K&R

[Starry Messenger]

6. .

[bigtree]

7. what a waste

[era veteran]

9. The Rumsfeld Doctrine totally fucked up this correct war

Invading Iraq was criminal. Invading Afghanistan was the right thing to do after 9/11. The prosecution of the Afghan war was stupid. We let Osama get away because we were too cheap to use our soldiers and used the warlords instead. Remember Tora-Bora? If you think we should not have gone to war after 9/11 when should we go to war? There is an extra circle of HELL for the neo-cons! I despise the waste of war, but we could not let the attacks on our country go without striking back. We have wasted way too much time with the incredible millstone of Iraq around our necks. We need to finish this.

[Robb]

24. I don't completely agree, although I am quite cynical.

For example, I believe it was all about energy. Many probably do, but I expect my opinion on the matter is a little less popular and considerably more nuanced.

Invading Iraq was obviously ill-intentioned from the get-go. I don't think anyone disagrees with that at this point.

But few consider that moving into Afghanistan was inevitable, even before 9/11. 9/11 made the decision easier, although Bush et al rather botched the mission there, thinking (incorrectly) Iraq was a bigger prize.

Stabilizing Afghanistan quickly and decisively -- and yes, by that I mean ousting the Taliban completely, and seeing the casualties we're seeing now -- could have been part of a strategy to secure US energy needs for another generation. Instead, China has now secured its more significant needs for a few years with the Turkmen gas we should've had our eyes on.

Instead, we "took" Iraq, and secured our own energy needs for a paltry few years and made a few people wealthy.

Soldiers are always asked to fight for ignoble things like this, it's been the same for thousands of years. The real shame is that those that died didn't even do so securing the best energy deal for their country.

The irony most will miss here is that while we've lost the energy prize, the only thing left actually turns the war there into a moral one. Ousting the Taliban and paying back Afghanistan for the generation of crap we left it to in 1989 is actually the "right" thing to do, in a very simplistic sense.

[era veteran]

25. Excuse me but fuck the energy prize

The moral prize is the one we should be after. Killing 3000 innocent people deserves payback. We did screw over the Afghans after the Soviets but we should do it right now. Peace

[Robb]

27. I'm certainly not defending it.

Just trying to explain what we were doing there in the first place.

The Taliban killed thousands of innocent people in their own country long before a splinter group of their thugs did 9/11. They've "had it coming" for a long time. And it's good they're getting it.

I just don't think it's realistic to think that's the reason we got into it. More an excuse, IMO. That we happen to be doing the "right thing" in Afghanistan at the moment is something of an accident.

[tekisui]

10. One third of all US deaths have come under Obama.

[spanone]

12. last night on pbs newshour they showed the recently killed...mostly kids

20 thru 26 years of age....no other 'news' channels appears to give a shit about our dead soldiers

[cowman]

22. Hell

in Vietnam the average age was 19. I was 18 when I arrived in 1970. I got orders to Vietnam after I finished my Seabee training in Port Hueneme, Ca. but had to wait in Guam until my 18th birthday. Guess it would have looked bad if I were killed while I was still 17

[cowman]

23. I hope

the troops come home soon. This war, like Vietnam, is a waste of young lives, Afghan and American, and all other nationalities alike, and a waste of our national treasure

[Tim01]

13. That's expensive oil. nt

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

15. Thank you President Obama. It's your war.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

17. And how many INNOCENT Afghan civilians?

[JohnnyLib2]

20. Here is one: LaRue Co. (KY) Marine dies in Afghanistan

www.thenewsenterprise.com/cgi-bin/c2.cgi?053+article+News.Local+20100222164901053053006

RIP, young man

[951-Riverside]

26. Lets see... 2,976 victims died on 9/11 ...4,378 soldiers died in Iraq and 1,000 in Afghanistan

people (some innocent) have been assassinated, kidnapped, held without trial and tortured by private contractors and CIA agents, thousands of solders missing limbs or suffering from major injuries and thousands of Iraqis are dead...

Meanwhile Osama Bin Laden is still unaccounted for and to add insult to injury you can't even get the FBI to list him for the sept 11th attacks on their most wanted page http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/topten/fugitives/laden.htm

...So my question is, WAS IT WORTH IT? :cry: