[les3547]

when we are in a time of political voting, and there are candidates advocating war, particularly advocating the continuation of war in an invaded country for the same reasons they are (the exact reasons aren't really relevant mind you when you are speaking of the continued killing of people in an invaded country that is suffering terribly at the hands of the invaders just as equally or worse than they suffered at the hands of the 'enemy') then in my view you are pandering, the same as they are. this is a forum for political discussion. that means the things that we say, the things that we defend and reject can in fact when coupled with the things that politicians are saying, have an effect how people here might vote. now, that may be a bit of a stretch to think you actually might but the definition fits, you might not be pandering for any politician in particular, but you are doing the job wether you meant to or not. as far as I see. I didn't say that, for the sole purpose of insulting you. you clearly think I did, but I did not. is it insulting? I can see that it is. I chose it because I felt it a fitting description, and for no other reason. but again, I'm not sorry if it hurt your feelings, just because its a strong word. if you disagree with my view, fine you are welcome to do so and I'm not going to waste time arguing over wether its an appropriate one.

again, you are welcome to disagree, as I am sure you do. thats fine. is it insulting? yes. but so is your flawed to the very core ideology in that you can somehow justify the continuation of suffering, murdering, and destruction of a people and culture for idea of 'defeating an enemy' until the job is done. we ARE the enemy. and the jobs will NEVER be done, unless the afghans do it themselves. I find it incredible that a person of seeming intelligence can't seem set his views aside for one moment, take a look at history and see the errors of your beliefs. you can't separate the war from the 'humanitarian'. we tried that in Viet Nam. it didn't work. this is why I have been telling you to familiarize yourself with that history. something you have clearly yet to do. we tried everything you are advocating already. IT DOESNT WORK. what abut that do you not get? how you can, in your mind, separate a perfectly find mind you, humanitarian necessity from the war when we are the invading force that is the direct cause of a majority of the suffering that is happening right now is just simply beyond me. the 'shoot em up and hand em a band-aid' trick didn't work in Viet Nam, it won't work here. you want to address cultural things that you don't agree with? suffering of women at the hands of cultural and religious ideologies? look at Viet Nam. there is still suffering of people there due to religious, cultural, governmental ideologies. what are we doing with our military to put an end to it? nothing. because we learned in the mid 70's that was to do no good because we couldn't defeat an enemy we couldn't define. and we couldn't help people while destroying their country and their lives.

you want to help those people? the end the war NOW and send the UN and as many charity organizations in as possible, work with the government through diplomacy to help change what you don't agree with.

or better yet, stop trying to play nanny to a culture you don't understand and accept that not every country will meet your ideologies. if Afghanistan wanst things different, the Afghanies will rise up on their own and make that change. but they can't do that when they are being controlled and have to fear the invading army saying 'were here to help' and we continue to not be able to separate the 'enemy' from the innocent and continue to step on their culture.

you clearly don't get it. so stop this nonsense and pick up a history book. then maybe you'll understand where your ideas completely fall apart in practice, no matter how well intentioned they may be.

stop advocating war. stop advocating destruction of people and culture. stop advocating death. and stop pandering it here politically. because when you advocating keeping our military in Afghanistan thats what you are advocating. there is no separating the good intentions from the bad things that happened but we didn't mean them to, and the Afghanis won't separate it either. we are an invading army, and we need to leave now. we can't defeat and undefinable and un recognizable enemy of 'terrorist' any more than we could defeat the 'communist' in Viet Nam. we should have learned that by now. the best thing we can do for the afghan people is to leave their country. support the arab uprising politically and let the afghan people know that we as a nation support them fixing things on their own, if thats what they want. you clearly don't understand war. I get the idea that you think we need to help. I understand and respect that, but your idea of how to do it is and WILL fail. we will pull out eventually, with the country likely worse off than it was before we invaded, just the same as we did in Iraq, and just the same as we did in Vietnam in 1975. learn history before speaking of the present, much less the future.

I've tried several times to answer your post point by point as one answers a reasoned argument, but I can't do it because rather than a reasoned argument, your whole post is a lie. I said virtually nothing of what you accuse me, and you persist in your ridiculous definition of pandering. You either still haven't understood the meaning of the word, or you are stubbornly pretending your misinterpretation is in some twisted way correct to keep from looking like a fool. To top it off, you turned two-faced since, according to your own absurd definition, nobody can express an opinion to others without pandering, which means your several paragraph rant is pandering.

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Last edited by les3547; 03-22-2012 at 11:30 AM.

[les3547]

ROFL!!! You sound like a Neocon propaganda automaton. And a low quality one at that..

Do you know how to make your case without insults?

[GeneV]

Now there is concern that we are sending prisoners to camps where they are tortured. Rights group: Afghan detainees tortured - Times Union It does not appear that NATO operates the camps, but that they are known to be places where torture happens.