Marched, wrote letters, played the Veteran card... the whole bit.

In our area, anti-war demonstrations are attended by Q-tips... white hairs only.
Forgive me for being a curmudgeon, but I don't see younger people involved at all. Maybe they're just too worried about the economy and jobs, but still....

Half of our antiwar group "support our President" (they mean Obama) in the continuing war in Vietghanistan.

I'm not just discouraged, I'm depressed.

how much attention THIS story gets by the end of today. Just out of curiosity, I looked at the # of hits other sites were getting compared to this story, and lesbian prom dates are getting WAY more attention that HARD news about incredibly important stuff that TRULY deals with the economic and political health of this strange land. And THIS site attracts WELL informed folks..... Ms Bigmack

None of us seem to have any input in what's going to happen in Vietghanistan.... it's all just spinning from all sides.

Let's meet here two years from now. If it's a mess, one group of us gets to call the other assholes. Same the other way if it's all squared away.

If we have to parse the meaning of "mess" or the meaning of "squared away", let's pretend that "mess" means the Taliban are still fucking things up, and "squared away" means that the Taliban - or their descendants - aren't fucking things up.

There has never been more than 20,000 Taliban fighters, there is now less than 100 Al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan.  We've been there for 8 years.  We have 100,000 troops there, plus another 100,000 "contractors".  We have control of the air and the only major weapons systems in the area.  And the Taliban are resurgent.  Desertion in the Afghan Defense force is over 50% and retention after expiration of enlistment is 10%.  Afghan commanders have sold their troops' ammo.  The Taliban are using the Afghan army boot camp to train their fighters.  That way, when they defect, they take their uniforms and weapons, too.  They can't defend themselves, and we can't turn a 14th century tribal culture into a 21st Century democracy in a few years by bombing them.  

The hard-core have bugged out to Pakistan, and we certainly can't invade there. Our military is stretched to the breaking point.  One major reason we left Vietnam was that our military was collapsing.

The Soviets had over 100,000 troops in the country (at any one time), and lost 14,500 dead and 54,000 wounded.   They lost 330 choppers and 150 tanks.  A million Afghans died.  Two million were displaced.  The Afghans were firing at the Soviet  tanks while they were crossing the border back into Soviet territory. They will do the same to us.

Then there's the money.  1 soldier = $1 Million per year.  100,000 soldiers = $100 Billion... Plus over $600 Billion for the military budget.  We pissed away 2 $Trillion on the Iraq War, and we've got about $650 Billion into Afghanistan.  We simply cannot afford it.  No more wasted money. No more wasted lives.

Then there's the "moral" dilemma. From a former Petraeus advisor:
"the US had killed 14 mid-level or lower level al-Qaeda leaders since 2006 but the strikes had killed 700 civilians. "That's a hit rate of two per cent on 98 per cent collateral. It's not moral."' We can't bomb or "drone" our way to morality.

Sorry for the copy & paste here, but the Commandant of the Marine Corps during the first part of my time in the Corps says it better than I can...

`I believe that if we had and would keep our dirty, bloody, dollar soaked fingers out of the business of these (Third World) nations so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a solution of their own. And if unfortunately their revolution must be of the violent type because the `haves' refuse to share with the `have-nots' by any peaceful method, at least what they get will be their own, and not the American style, which they don’t want and above all don’t want crammed down their throats by Americans.' –
Gen. David Shoup, United States Marine Commandant Medal of Honor recipient.

Thanks for the note "back!" I TOTALLY agree - SCARY AS HELL! Ms Bigmack

that the US is a "world power!" Hell, we can't even control our own banking system.

And so much for the quaint notion that a strong military is the key to "real" power!

Ms. Bigmack

and I'm not even jealous. Just PROVES his good taste, but I AM glad she's across the continent from us! Ms Bigmack

There are ignorant progressives just like there are cold winter storms on a warming planet. Denial is more that "just" the name of a big river. But I bet when you're sick, you take science's word for what caused the problem, and for what to do about it. Ms Bigmack

Goldman-Sachs execs will get pancreatic cancer?

Does that make me a bad person?

that means anything goes!

Time for the Dems to clobber the banksters and brokesters . It's not like the Dems would be losing friends and money.

Fuck 'em and fuck 'em good!

say it, if only to yourself.

I'll be clearer. Our outfit... Marines... got our asses handed to us on several occasions. Non-battles we referred to as "the battle of the next trail bend."

But let's count "real" battles. The US lost any battle in which the US left the field to the N. Vietnamese. We lost at Khe Sahn, at Hamburger Hill, and Tet was a victory even though the North didn't keep any of the territory it attacked. The North had 16 air aces, the US had 5. We lost nine planes for every one the N. Vietnamese lost. We lost the battle for hill 861, lost in the battle during Operation Kingfisher, lost the battle for Kam Duc, lost the Battle of the Slopes, lost the battle of Dai Do, lost the Battle of Ong Thanh, lost the Battle of Two July, lost the Seige of DakTo, lost Firebase Mary Ann, lost the Battle of Ngok Tavak, lost the Battle of Lang Vei, lost the Battle for FSB Ripcord, and finally lost the Battle of Koh Tang.

In Vietnam, we faced the collapse of the military.. not my words, but those of Col. Robert D. Heinl, Jr., published in Armed Forces Journal, 7 June, 1971
http://libcom.org/history/vietnam-collapse...

Three Presidents, 58,000 US lives and 350,000 casualties, two million Vietnamese dead, 6 million acres poisoned with Agent Orange, and around a $Trillion in total costs.

In 1975, Army Col. Harry Summers went to Hanoi as chief of the U.S. delegation's negotiation team for the four-party military talks that followed the collapse of the South Vietnamese government. While there, he spent some time chatting with his North Vietnamese counterpart, Col. Tu, an old soldier who had fought against the United States and lived to tell his tale. With a tinge of bitterness about the war's outcome, Summers told Tu, "You know, you never defeated us on the battlefield." Tu replied, in a phrase that perfectly captured the American misunderstanding of the Vietnam War, "That may be so, but it is also irrelevant."

We lost.

It would only leave us with ICBMs, MRBMs, air-launched cruise, surface-launched cruise, air-delivered nukes, nuke backpacks, nuke grenades, etc...

No mission for billions of bucks worth of subs.

We can't afford it!

While we hate them and know they are turds.. the teabaggers are (more or less) human beings, too.

They sure are the most vulnerable. Too bad Fux Snews, the Fundie churches, the corporations, and the Repub party won't let up on them.

Just go ahead and fuck with the Social Security that people are getting... or about to get.

Us old farts think that our SS entitlement is chiseled into the stone right below the 10 Commandments. Comes right from Je-fucking-hova!

You will see little old blue-haired ladies in the streets with pitchforks!