Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Where Are the Brave Military Voices Against the Forever War?

theamericanconservative.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 124 posts

Re: Where Are the Brave Military Voices Against the Forever War?

#41

Post by jMyles »

euyyn wrote: post #33
jMyles wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the strategic purpose of invading Afghanistan was to demonstrate to every country that shielding those who commit acts of war against the United States is itself an act of war against the United States In hindsight (actually, even it seemed even at the time) it was probably better to offer a more mature presentation to the world community about what we knew about Al Qaeda, why we believed some of its associates to…

> what we knew about Al Qaeda, why we believed some of its associates to be in Afghanistan, etc. I was living in Spain and no one needed the US to explain why they "believed some of Al-Qaeda's associates were in Afghanistan". I'm not sure if you didn't watch the news through that time or what, but the Taliban were very upfront about having Bin Laden. E.g.: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/taliban-wont-turn-over-bin-lade.…

They were up-front about having Bin Laden, but not about harboring "Al Qaeda" - a phrase which Bin Laden didn't use in any public media appearance until a month later.

They wanted evidence that Bin Laden had anything to do with the attacks (which of course he denied).

Why not deliberatively and carefully provide this evidence to the world instead of rushing into a war? What's the strategic value there?

Re: Where Are the Brave Military Voices Against the Forever War?

#42

Post by 0xbear »

RUG3Y wrote: post #2

After returning from Iraq, I was jaded. Young when I started, I thought we were doing a good thing. My idealism was stripped away pretty quickly. After being stateside for a while, there were rumors that our unit would be deploying to Afghanistan. A Lt. Colonel came and gave a presentation to the company about conditions there. During the Q.A., I stood up and asked, "Sir, what are we really doing there? For the life…

Afghanistan I do sorta get why the US got involved. I think it’s impossible to “win” there, but I get the involvement. But Iraq was a completely retarded situation. Funding goddamn terrorists in Syria was retarded too. Regime change is retarded in general, aside from the dramatic events like WW2. It never works. Land war on the other end of the world serves only one purpose: just to show that the US government is a dangerous psychopath who will fuck you up at the slightest provocation, or sometimes even without one. Experts in geopolitics (ie George Friedman) call this “projecting power”. A secondary goal is to destabilize regions so that other countries are affected and they don’t consolidate their power and threaten the US interests. A good example are Georgia and Ukraine: crises were created out of nothing to keep a festering boil on Russia’s ass. It’s actually not a bad strategy, but it does tend to backfire, and when it does, it costs a ton of money.

Re: Where Are the Brave Military Voices Against the Forever War?

#43

Post by RUG3Y »

le-mark wrote: post #35
AcerbicZero wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a similar experience, except in the Army "Reserves", in Iraq, and asking my "stupid" question to our Major instead of a Lt. Col. My rank didn't survive the deployment, as I was attached to another unit at the time and asking questions put me high on his shit list. I guess I was lucky my home unit was kind enough to return the stripes before my inglorious departure a few after that deployment. You are 100% right…

I think it's more of a situation where, no one at that level is going to change anything, so just talking about the absurdity is frowned upon just for the simple reason of negatively effecting moral, and negatively impacting your next promotion review. Independent thought? Bah! I found the Army to be highly political, everything anyone with rank did was intended to bolster their reviews in the eyes of their superiors…

Spot on. I don't think the military is a place for people who think too hard. I don't want to make blanket judgements though because I met a few excellent people that earned my respect and I'm happy to know them.

Re: Where Are the Brave Military Voices Against the Forever War?

#44

Post by RUG3Y »

0xbear wrote: post #42
RUG3Y wrote: post #2

After returning from Iraq, I was jaded. Young when I started, I thought we were doing a good thing. My idealism was stripped away pretty quickly. After being stateside for a while, there were rumors that our unit would be deploying to Afghanistan. A Lt. Colonel came and gave a presentation to the company about conditions there. During the Q.A., I stood up and asked, "Sir, what are we really doing there? For the life…

Afghanistan I do sorta get why the US got involved. I think it’s impossible to “win” there, but I get the involvement. But Iraq was a completely retarded situation. Funding goddamn terrorists in Syria was retarded too. Regime change is retarded in general, aside from the dramatic events like WW2. It never works. Land war on the other end of the world serves only one purpose: just to show that the US government is a d…

It's also highly immoral. Destabilization and war in foreign lands results in devastating consequences for the civilian population. The US Government has a lot to answer for, and likely never will.

Re: Where Are the Brave Military Voices Against the Forever War?

#45

Post by walshemj »

maxxxxx wrote: post #27
RUG3Y wrote: post #2

After returning from Iraq, I was jaded. Young when I started, I thought we were doing a good thing. My idealism was stripped away pretty quickly. After being stateside for a while, there were rumors that our unit would be deploying to Afghanistan. A Lt. Colonel came and gave a presentation to the company about conditions there. During the Q.A., I stood up and asked, "Sir, what are we really doing there? For the life…

Afghanistan actually made more sense than Iraq since the Taliban were harboring Al Qaeda. So when 9/11 happened, it made sense to go after them. Iraq never made sense on the other hand.

But they dropped the ball due to the obsession with Iraq and let him get away

Re: Where Are the Brave Military Voices Against the Forever War?

#46

Post by RUG3Y »

jMyles wrote: post #41
euyyn wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what we knew about Al Qaeda, why we believed some of its associates to be in Afghanistan, etc. I was living in Spain and no one needed the US to explain why they "believed some of Al-Qaeda's associates were in Afghanistan". I'm not sure if you didn't watch the news through that time or what, but the Taliban were very upfront about having Bin Laden. E.g.: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/taliban-wont-turn-over-bin-lade.…

They were up-front about having Bin Laden, but not about harboring "Al Qaeda" - a phrase which Bin Laden didn't use in any public media appearance until a month later. They wanted evidence that Bin Laden had anything to do with the attacks (which of course he denied). Why not deliberatively and carefully provide this evidence to the world instead of rushing into a war? What's the strategic value there?

Capturing one guy is a symbolic gesture anyway.

"Well, we had thousands of civilian and US military casualties, but we got Bin Laden! It was totally worth it!"

Re: Where Are the Brave Military Voices Against the Forever War?

#47

Post by maxxxxx »

jMyles wrote: post #41
euyyn wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what we knew about Al Qaeda, why we believed some of its associates to be in Afghanistan, etc. I was living in Spain and no one needed the US to explain why they "believed some of Al-Qaeda's associates were in Afghanistan". I'm not sure if you didn't watch the news through that time or what, but the Taliban were very upfront about having Bin Laden. E.g.: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/taliban-wont-turn-over-bin-lade.…

They were up-front about having Bin Laden, but not about harboring "Al Qaeda" - a phrase which Bin Laden didn't use in any public media appearance until a month later. They wanted evidence that Bin Laden had anything to do with the attacks (which of course he denied). Why not deliberatively and carefully provide this evidence to the world instead of rushing into a war? What's the strategic value there?

"They wanted evidence that Bin Laden had anything to do with the attacks (which of course he denied)."

What are you talking about? Bin Laden took credit for 9/11 immediately and it was pretty clear that they had their training camps in Afghanistan. Nobody denied that.

Iraq was a different situation. to go there the US had to make up things.

Re: Where Are the Brave Military Voices Against the Forever War?

#48

Post by ashark »

jMyles wrote: post #31
ashark wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, by '09 there was clearly no reason. When they originally sold the war they played up Al Qaeda's size, power, and level of infrastructure (specifically in Afghanistan) so, assuming you believed that[1] the original invasion kind of made sense. [1] personally, my suspicions that the claims that this organization was so huge and capable and dangerous, yet had only just now managed anything so big and had totally f…

Here's that interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGhGHxw0mSo It's shocking now to watch. How did anyone ever buy this? I remember being 18 at the time and thinking it was completely ludicrous. I wonder if anyone seriously believed it or if it was just the story that the media needed to hear to feel less sheepish about acting like this war made any sense.

Heh, we must be around the same age.

Man, I went to Wikipedia because I was curious whether the timeline and events I had in my head for the early let-the-inspectors-back-in demands and the later, infamous leave-or-die "ultimatum" Bush leveled against Hussein right before Iraq invasion was correct (there's very little about all that, and I found some material on the ultimatum itself but never the actual word "ultimatum", which is weird since that's what everyone called it at the time and a big deal was made of it) and now I'm all pissed off again that Bush & Co. aren't in prison for life, from reading all the war lead-up material, including some of the suspected-at-the-time-and-now-confirmed stuff about how they were planning to invade no matter what. Wow, there are some emotions I hadn't felt in a while. Nostalgic, I guess.

Re: Where Are the Brave Military Voices Against the Forever War?

#49

Post by notahacker »

the-dude wrote: post #6
zeveb wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For the life of me, I can't understand the strategic purpose of invading Afghanistan. They're not even the ones who attacked us on 9/11. The Afghan government at the time offered sanctuary to Al Qaeda, refusing to hand over its members after they had declared war on the U.S., attacked USS Cole, hijacked four civilian aircraft and crashed them into the World Trade CEnter & the Pentagon, killing thousands; the strate…

They did not refuse to hand over OBL, they wanted to see some proof. Which was of course a-OK for the US, they did not want OBL, they wanted to invade.

I don't doubt the US was happy to go to war (and do doubt Bin Laden would have gone quietly if the Taliban had said "you're welcome to come and arrest him") but it's something of a stretch to imagine Afghanistan only wanted to "see some proof" even if that was one of their stated positions.

The Taliban had spent the last three years refusing multiple countries' requests to extradite Bin Laden for other bombings and was lead by a man married to one of Bin Laden's daughters who compared the notion of handing over Bin Laden as a betrayal akin to the "end of Islam"

Re: Where Are the Brave Military Voices Against the Forever War?

#50

Post by Clubber »

bryananderson wrote: post #39
MrZongle2 wrote: post #21

I was in Iraq in 1991. My friends and I were astounded when we heard of the cease-fire; we could easily push towards Baghdad and take care of Saddam Hussein, who was clearly the Hitler of our time. "We'll be back in a decade" I thought, as it seemed as if we were leaving with our work unfinished. I was off by a couple of years, but in 2003 when we went back into Iraq to finally take care of Hussein, I was pleased. Of…

I agree with most of what you're saying, but I'm not buying that these things (peace, environmental action, science investment, etc) aren't happening because the masses are being stymied by the powers that be. On the contrary, I don't see the masses caring about these things at all. Do you? I don't see the majority of the people demanding action against (or even acknowledging the existence of) climate change. Nor do…

>We, the People, have made it abundantly clear that we are fine with the status quo.

Whether you lean D or R or neither, do you really believe Trump was a vote for the status quo? The Ds got shut out and the Rs are breaking apart and can't even work as a party. Things are changing, I just don't know if it's for the better.

Post reply on HN