I disagree that any death now in Afghanistan will be useless. I can only guess the fear among the decision makers, as you point out, is that a total withdrawal will only invite the terrorist to return.  If that should happen those men and women who have already made the ultimate sacrifice truly would have died in vain. Also clearly the Afghan military isn't ready to do much of anything yet.  So it's vital some U.S. troops remain behind in an instructional capacity as well as having sufficient troops on the ground to repel any possible attack on our personnel. Hopefully it doesn't come to that as the President has said we will be adopting a defensive posture and will no longer be on the front lines. We got into Viet Nam strictly on an instructional capacity and in providing weapons to the South Vietnamese. Look how that ended.  It is NOT vital that some U.S. troops remain behind in Afghanistan. The Afghans are not willing or able to provide their own defensive force. That's exactly what was tried in Viet Nam with Vietnamization. It didn't work then and it won't work now. I was against sending troops into Afghanistan from the beginning because we lacked clear goals (Pres Bush). Yes, we momentarily decreased al-Queida and Taliban activity in Afghanistan, but we will never completely eliminate it. Even if we stay and continue to spend $ billions and countless American lives, we will not win that war. We can't do anything about the lives lost to date, but all loses since Obama took office is on his shoulders. Telling the world that we will be leaving by 2016 only strengthens their resolve and they know they can just lay low and pick off as many Americans as they can until we get out. "we will be adopting a defensive posture and will not longer be on the front lines"Since when has there ever been "front lines" in Afghanistan?!? There's no such thing. Obama knows that (or should) so it's just eloquent BS. As long as US troops are in Afghanistan, their lives are in danger. How many times have "friendly" Afghani's suddenly turned on our troops and gunned them down! Too damn many! We keep trying to fight WWII tactics over and over and it does not work against guerrilla warfare. We found that out in Viet Nam, the Soviet Union learned that in Afghanistan, and we did it again in Iraq. Now we are still trying it in Afghanistan. We cannot fight and win a guerrilla war with WWII tactics. Granted, we have somewhat improved our tactics and significantly improved our technology, but we are fighting people that wear no uniform and can become a non-combatant by simply dropping or hiding their weapons. Then when your back is turned, they retrieve their weapons and kill you. They use women and children as just another weapon. Bush sent troops into Iraq under false pretenses (WMDs). We eliminated Hussein and removed his lackeys, but we can't claim true victory there. There were no WMDs. We withdrew and left some "advisers" behind, but that country is still in turmoil and is still struggling to form an effective democratic republic. That second Gulf War cost us many lives and billions of $ and only temporarily set back Islamic terrorist threats. Wars are nasty business. Which is why the people making these decisions need to tread carefully. Personally I wish that President Bush would have used the tactic of drone strikes and bombings sanctioned by President Obama. That way we most likely wouldn't have troops still on the ground after a decade. But it is what it is.I agree and support that approach.As for Obama being a laughing stock I don't know about that. Clearly most of the world was ready for Bush to leave office. If John McCain was president right now judging by his rhetoric we'd have wars all over the place. I think the majority of the globe is grateful that Obama is President. And not because they consider him weak.We can only guess as to what would have happened under a McCain presidency, just as we can only guess what a Hillary presidency would be like. I intended to vote for McCain until he started toeing the Republican party line. Yes, I voted for Obama in the first election, but quickly regretted it. Oh, I admit that some countries actually love Obama. But his reputation in many other countries is not good. I don't doubt that they majority of the globe is grateful that Obama is President. He stated in his own book that he wanted to decrease Americas position of power and promote appeasement. And I would disagree that many countries see him as weak. I think he's worse than weak, he's ineffectual.
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