Sunday, September 20, 2009

So ... how's that Afghanistan thingy going?


Oh, dear ... not so well. But the best part is Blogging Tory Celestial Junk's "Junker," standing there, arms akimbo, tapping his little foot in annoyance in the comments section:

Endulge [sic] me. How do you envision Afghanistan 10 years from now, if the UN/NATO mission stays vs. if they leave?

This is the mark of the clueless yob who, having been warned repeatedly by his front-seat passenger not to drive while intoxicated, finally veers the car off the road and, ending upside down in a smoking wreck in the ditch, turns to the passenger and says in an aggrieved tone of voice, "So, you really think you can do better? Then you take the wheel."

Sorry, Junker, but you and all your fridge magnet-owning, yellow ribbon-festooned, red t-shirt wearing buddies own that clusterfuck now. And we here in SaneLand have every right to point out what a mess you've made of it with no obligation to give you any advice as to how to extricate yourselves from there.

We told you for years not to put your fingers in the woodchipper. And after you've gone and done it -- with predictable consequences, I might add -- you really don't have the moral high ground to demand to know how to make things right again. We owe you nothing more than a tired explanation that you really shouldn't have done that in the first place.

BONUS TRACK: Following one of Dawg's links, we end up here, where we learn:

Goal: Ability of Kandahar's administration to provide basic services to "key districts" of the province by 2011

Progress: Five of the 50 schools in Canada's "signature" school-building project are complete, and 28 are under construction. Surveys this spring indicated residents are less satisfied with the education available. Rehabilitation of the Dahla Dam, another signature Canadian project, continues.

Wow ... we're building the Afghanis 50 schools! That's so awesome! Maybe if we have some building material left over, we could build one more.

It's just a thought.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Difference between you and I, is I have met the people you would have us abandon... But it is all relative eh?

Your supporters have already stated my opinion is irrelevant.

So, instead, I will call it like I see it. Once again, you prove to be completely ignorant as to the question posed, and so, you choose to go the path of screeching stupid and ignorance.

How exactly are you different from suzy all caps?

You are not. You just have a different axe to grind in your ignorant stupidity.

Dr.Dawg said...

This is supposed to be a refutation? This all you got, alpha-boi?

The weakness of your side of the argument is always quickly exposed. The namecalling and invective start almost immediately. There's never any substance, just insults interspersed with mindless appeals to patriotism and glory and all those other empty concepts that got hundreds of millions of people killed in the last century.

Give it up. The war's over. You just don't know it yet.

sooey said...

It's hard out there for a New Conservative cheerleader - what with the troops telling the truth about the mission and the brass caught lying about it.

Lindsay Stewart said...

dear alpha, on the issue of supporting the troops, i do so by hoping that they come home safe and that they do so as soon as is possible. support for a mission is not necessary to the support of the troops. the mission is the dictate of the civilian government and in this instance, it is a mission that is no longer viable. there is no victory to be had. we have displaced theocratic warlords and replaced them with a blend of theocratic, regional/racial and narco-warlords.

the mission has failed to capture bin laden, the instigator of 911, the face attached to the initial impetus to go to afghanistan in the first place. the mission has failed to rout out the fundamentalist lunatics or to improve the lot of the citizenry. the mission has failed to fix the political system, instead of a corrupt theocracy with no hint of democracy, they have a corrupt democracy with a heaping helping of theocracy. the mission has failed to win the hearts and minds of the afghans or the pakistanis and whatever initial popular support for change has long since been squandered.

here at home there is little sense of what the mission is even supposed to be any more. it has turned into a nearly decade long quagmire with no end in site. should we end our military commitment in 2011, the mission will continue to fail until eventually the americans and whoever is left of the coalition throw up their hands and shrug, another failure of western nation building.

should i put on a red t-shirt now?

This Is Me Posting said...

Thanks for the link to Attawapiskat, CC. Depressingly enlightening.

CC said...

You know, Alpha Male, given that you are currently a serving Warrant Officer, it's quite possible that your military superiors would not look kindly on your Internet shenanigans, particularly your relentless name-calling and denigration of people whose only sin is to have an opinion of this current mission.

And given that an unnamed commenter once passed on your actual identity to me some time back, you might want to tone down the bluster just a wee bit.

If you catch my drift.

liberal supporter said...

Your supporters have already stated my opinion is irrelevant.
Looks like AM has been attending "Neo"'s school of misrepresenting other peoples' words.

I pointed out that a soldier's opinion of the war is irrelevant. That was in the context that they are expected to follow orders as best they can, and without question (aside from following clearly illegal orders, such as massacring civilians, which is not the issue here).

Has the military changed, AM, so that soldiers now debate their orders with their superiors? Do we now have a vote as to whether a specific operation should proceed and how it should be executed?

You appear to be following our current Harper regime's attempt to make their political fortunes indistinguishable from patriotism. You would have us believe that it is somehow a left-right issue. If that is the case, then I submit that the "right" has an unrealistic "if you build it they will come" attitude. Recall that the Iraqis were supposed to line the streets throwing flowers like they did in France when the Allies liberated them in WWII. Why didn't they? As usual, the "right" did something that on the surface could be good, but they botched the implementation and the details. Recall that the US and Canada were both led by the "left" in WWII, while the Brits had one of the few truly great people of the "right", who was the replacement for the more typical Conservative appeaser. Why do we never hear about WWII as the triumph of the "left"? Even though in fact it was. We hear the myth of Reagan defeating Communism, and the claim this is a triumph of the "right". Why the difference? Perhaps the "left" does not need to puff itself up as the right wingers do endlessly, just as you are doing now.

I sincerely hope you are not an active duty CF, since your condescending attitude would go a long way to explain why we are not winning hearts and minds, why we are not achieving more than "poster child" token successes against a much larger grim reality, and why none of our original objectives have been achieved. If you are representative of our military's moxie, then as "Neo" would say, "I fear for my country".

Anonymous said...

Ahh, well, there is the threat of removing anonymity... Sweet.

And yet, you are still wrong. Surprise. and dog, I do not bother with refutation any longer, as frankly, you clowns do not bother with listening.

So, since freedom of expression is only for those that believe as CC does (remember all the crying way back when?), I will take my leave for good.

Clearly wasting my time here anyways. Only insults available for those not of the ilk. (I did NOT cast the first stone, that was cast a couple of weeks ago by none other).

liberal supporter said...

Looks like yet another phony, pretending to be military, cuts and runs.

Ti-Guy said...

He just doesn't seem to have a clue how he comes across. Barking at everyone at demanding support? Who does he think he is?

And as if what anyone says here will cause soldiers in Afghanistan to suddenly become riddled with self-doubt and insecurity and lose the will to fight. Are they really that fragile?

No. It just strikes me as a ploy to keep everyone from focusing on the fact that no one seems to know why we're even in Afghanistan anymore.

KEvron said...

"If you catch my drift."

why don't you withdraw that.

KEvron

KEvron said...

"I did NOT cast the first stone, that was cast a couple of weeks ago"

nah, i'm pretty sure i've been callling you names for more'n a year now....

KEvron

Dr.Dawg said...

Good Jesus, first a bunch of namecalling, then a flounce?

Classic. If I didn't know better, the word "n00b" would come to mind. How long has this guy been on the net?

KEvron said...

oh, ferfucksake. name-calling is what this cunt of a blog is all about.

KEvron