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I think wishing that we would stop getting HIS friends killed and alienated from the world isn't the worst of things to wish.
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I can't imagine myself thinking, "Gee, I wish that they would kill more Canadians and fewer Americans."
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: I can't imagine myself thinking, "Gee, I wish that they would kill more Canadians and fewer Americans."
I think it's more like Raymond Arnold's words.
"Canadians shouldn't be there anyway, let the Americans die needlessly if they don't want to leave."
But I agree in that I personally do not value the lives of American soldiers more than Canadians, or any country for that matter.
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quote:Originally posted by youngnapoleon: ... Funny, considering that Europe has been meddling in the Middle East since the fall of the Ottoman empire (not including the repeated British invasions of Afganistan), while America has just started.
I'm not sure what the argument is here. Are you saying that Germany should stay out of Afghanistan because of the general crummy European results in the Middle East? Because if so, I'm there right with you! I don't see how thats an argument for the US and Canada continuing on though.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: ... "Canadians shouldn't be there anyway, let the Americans die needlessly if they don't want to leave."
Mostly this, it isn't much about value though.
It's more about results. If you accept as a premise that I do that the war is unwinnable, all you can really do realistically is shift around casualties between the various occupying forces.
Our Conservative government in one of their rare wise decisions has stuck to the timetable of a withdrawal in Summer 2011, despite strong pressure from Clinton. It is now unanimous among all five parties that the war was a bad idea. Given that we're only in Afghanistan in order to preserve good relations with the US after saying no to the Iraq War, the whole thing is especially pointless. Also since, since the earliest realistic election will be in Fall 2010, there is basically no chance of us getting out any sooner.
Things are pretty different in the US situation. Your timetable is still fluid and public perception of the war is still changeable, as quick examples.
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Nu, if you cannot win a war then yes, it's reasonable to cut your losses. But even then it seems hard to argue that something which will lead to increased losses is good on the grounds that it makes it easier to convince people that you can't win. You're arguing for more losses so that you can minimise the losses; this appears a bit backwards.
Then there's the wider question of what you mean by 'win'. To create a stable liberal democracy in Afghanistan is clearly untenable without an amount of political will that we do not have. To create a regime centered on Kabul which is, at least, strong enough to keep the Taliban at the level of regional guerrillas does not seem quite so unrealistic. If you insist that victory must mean remaking Afghanistan in our image, you will certainly be disappointed; but then, letting the perfect be the enemy of the good often leads to disappointment. As long as the Afghanis are not sponsoring international terrorism, that looks like a win to me; that's what the war was originally declared for.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: You're arguing for more losses so that you can minimise the losses; this appears a bit backwards.
Counter-intuitive yes, but it doesn't make it wrong. Setting aside the morality of it, thats why some countries have a death penalty for murderers, to deter a greater number of possible murders by specifically killing a murderer.
Going back to the issue, combat losses can have two deterrence effects. First, they deter a country from future wars. I think we can establish that while it is extremely unlikely that Canada will invade someone in the near future, the US is already rattling its sabre on Iran. Second, they deter a country from extending a war. In this case, I've already shown above why this affects the US more than Canada.
So if we must (or could) "distribute" combat losses, thats the reasoning.
As for the latter point, you're more optimistic than I am. The Soviets left their puppet government around after they left and it didn't last particularly long. I don't see why an American one would fare particularly better.
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Mucus, I'm not entirely sure that's the case with the death penalty. I think personally that it is used more as punishment, not a deterrent. Considering every study shows it doesn't deter anything, I think that's fairly well supported. Just my opinion though.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: Considering every study shows it doesn't deter anything ...
*shrug* Here's a dozen that don't fit into every.
quote:According to roughly a dozen recent studies, executions save lives. For each inmate put to death, the studies say, 3 to 18 murders are prevented.
The effect is most pronounced, according to some studies, in Texas and other states that execute condemned inmates relatively often and relatively quickly.
The studies, performed by economists in the past decade, compare the number of executions in different jurisdictions with homicide rates over time — while trying to eliminate the effects of crime rates, conviction rates and other factors — and say that murder rates tend to fall as executions rise. One influential study looked at 3,054 counties over two decades.
“I personally am opposed to the death penalty,” said H. Naci Mocan, an economist at Louisiana State University and an author of a study finding that each execution saves five lives. “But my research shows that there is a deterrent effect.”
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There's a difference between "used as a Deterrent" and "actually successful at Deterring." The entire notion of scientific reliable studies to figure out how legislation affects crime is a pretty modern invention.
I don't know how the actual percentages break down, but I'm sure that over the course of history, there's been plenty of people who saw the death penalty as pure punishment, and plenty of people who saw it as a deterrent, and plenty of people who saw it as both.
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(On the semantic issue, I personally use deterrent as a reason for punishment (like so) rather than as two different sets. But meh)
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That's a perfectly valid view, but there are plenty of people who genuinely care specifically about the punishing aspect, regardless of its usefulness as a deterrent. Revenge as opposed to justice, as it were.
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Interestingly enough it is generally the people least educated on war that declare a war to be unwinnable.
Regardless of it being "winnable" the United States was obviously attacked on 9/11 and the Taliban Regime based in Kandahar was obviously supporting the party guilty of those attacks. Being a member of NATO and the notion that an attack on one nation is an attack on all makes it seem rather logical that every member of NATO should be participating in Afghanistan.
Now, we can argue about was 9/11 actually an attack by another nation, or if the Taliban harboring Bin Laden connected it enough to 9/11 that the NATO treaty should go into effect, but really the fact is that NATO is mostly a joke now.
What is generally irritating is that everyone scorns the United States for looking after their international interests, when really every other nation does the same thing. What really irritates most people is that the United States is the only nation at the moment that can effectively project power on a world wide basis. The fact that we do so without the desire to add a fifty-first state is generally lost on most of the world.
That and the general argument that the last person failed so you will well is a very, very, very weak one. Especially given that the situation is much different. The funny thing is that by following the kind of advice you would give for American foreign relations is what led to many of the problems that the United States and the rest of the world have to face at the moment.
The belief that just letting things go and they won't come back to haunt you is not one that I am fond of.
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Also side note, the wikileaks information is currently being used by the Taliban to kill various Afghani nationals who were shown to either work with coalition forces in Afghanistan or be receptive to western influence in general. The double edge of poorly applied good intentions.
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Under what conditions would you consider the war in Afghanistan to be "won?" How can NATO and Afghanistan get from the current state to that state?
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Personally, I would say that if a stable popularly elected government could maintain power in Afghanistan and keep it from becoming a destabilizing influence in the region.
This could be done by destroying the Taliban's logistical infrastructure in the region, applying lethal force to Taliban leadership, mass education for the bureaucracy in Afghanistan, agricultural education, education in civil engineering, construction etc.
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I am less ambitious: I would consider an ongoing civil war between a Western-puppet regime in Kabul and a Taliban regime in the outlying districts to be a victory. Talibani guerrillas fighting for control of their own territory are not state sponsors of terrorism. Afghanistan has never had a powerful central government whose writ ran among all the tribes, and why should we care? Let the tribes ignore Kabul's taxes if they like, just so they are not supporting al-Qaeda cells in their midst. And the path for getting to this state seems fairly straightforward: You just need an Afghan military capable of defending Kabul and surrounding regions, and getting a sufficient share of the pie that it finds it worthwhile to do so. In other words, a tribal militia, which we can subsidise with heavy weapons. There is no need for a professional force of soldiers-not-warriors loyal to the nation rather than the President, which is what we've been trying to build so far.
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I agree with KoM, we don't need Afganistan stable, but we need the Taliban to be unable to sponsor terrorism. Pakistan must also be taken into the equation. The Taliban have had a string of sucesses in Pakistan and the people often support them. If the Taliban capture nuclear warheads destruction on an unprecedented scale will be unleashed on Israel, and maybe on America as well.
Mucus, what my point was is that you hoped the Muslim backlash fell against America instead of the European NATO countries, which is ironic considering that Europe has been interfering with Islam since the Crusades.
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quote:Originally posted by Black Fox: Interestingly enough it is generally the people least educated on war that declare a war to be unwinnable.
That would seem to imply an odd situation where people are generally the most educated on a war and its consequences *before* a war and progressively become less educated as they fight it
quote:Originally posted by Black Fox: The funny thing is that by following the kind of advice you would give for American foreign relations is what led to many of the problems that the United States and the rest of the world have to face at the moment.
I on the other hand am amused that you think I've given advice for American foreign relations in this thread. I think my attitude is generally summed up as "Canadians shouldn't be there anyway, let the Americans die needlessly if they don't want to leave."
quote:Originally posted by youngnapoleon: ... Mucus, what my point was is that you hoped the Muslim backlash fell against America instead of the European NATO countries ...
*shrug* What would that accomplish?
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