Commanders Post at The Warpath - View Single Post - Eight Long Years: Where Is Osama Bin Laden?

djnemo65 · 10-07-2009, 08:04 PM

Afghanistan has no significant oil, or any natural resources other than smack, and our presence over there is not related to procuring oil or anything else. Had they not attacked us on 9/11 we would not have invaded (as opposed to Iraq, the plans for the occupation of which go back to the Clinton administration). Although FRPLG is partly right when he says that we made a commitment to staying there upon the firing of the first shot. That is not necessarily true, but if we are to see the mission through to its conclusion - which at this point I understand to be the emergence of a stable functioning democracy - it will take several years (decades even) and several hundred thousand more troops. Indeed, current counterinsurgency theory suggests that 1 soldier is needed for every 50 civilians in order to successfully pacify a population, which would put our troop requirement there at well north of 500 thousand. Given that the political will doesn’t exist for that kind of commitment, a much more protracted, and probably ineffective American presence there is likely.

But let's talk about what this war is really about. It's certainly not about oil. We'd get about as much oil invading the Bahamas, and I don't buy the leftist conspiracy theories that the war is about protecting pipelines either. That makes no sense. You don't spend billions and billions in resources to preserve what amounts to a drop in the bucket of the global oil supply. But it's not about Bin Laden either, who as 12th pointed out, probably isn't even in the country any more, and at this point is nothing more than a figurehead within Al Qaeda.

It's about that nuclear armed behemoth to the south, whose crippled government is hanging by a thread with an internal insurgency miles from the capital and ready to step on its throat. Were Afghanistan to destabilize, or were its radical Islamist forces left without anyone to fight, they would be sure to further destabilize Pakistan in turn. We can't have this. Moreover, by building a permanent American military presence over there, as we are currently doing, we give ourselves access to Pakistan should things take a turn for the worse.

I have to believe everything else is peripheral at this point. So in answer to the question, who cares. Killing Obama would be a huge story in America's dumbed down sound bite culture, but it wouldn't amount to a damn thing.

10-07-2009, 08:04 PM	#23
djnemo65 Playmaker Join Date: May 2004 Posts: 2,836	Re: Eight Long Years: Where Is Osama Bin Laden? Afghanistan has no significant oil, or any natural resources other than smack, and our presence over there is not related to procuring oil or anything else. Had they not attacked us on 9/11 we would not have invaded (as opposed to Iraq, the plans for the occupation of which go back to the Clinton administration). Although FRPLG is partly right when he says that we made a commitment to staying there upon the firing of the first shot. That is not necessarily true, but if we are to see the mission through to its conclusion - which at this point I understand to be the emergence of a stable functioning democracy - it will take several years (decades even) and several hundred thousand more troops. Indeed, current counterinsurgency theory suggests that 1 soldier is needed for every 50 civilians in order to successfully pacify a population, which would put our troop requirement there at well north of 500 thousand. Given that the political will doesn’t exist for that kind of commitment, a much more protracted, and probably ineffective American presence there is likely. But let's talk about what this war is really about. It's certainly not about oil. We'd get about as much oil invading the Bahamas, and I don't buy the leftist conspiracy theories that the war is about protecting pipelines either. That makes no sense. You don't spend billions and billions in resources to preserve what amounts to a drop in the bucket of the global oil supply. But it's not about Bin Laden either, who as 12th pointed out, probably isn't even in the country any more, and at this point is nothing more than a figurehead within Al Qaeda. It's about that nuclear armed behemoth to the south, whose crippled government is hanging by a thread with an internal insurgency miles from the capital and ready to step on its throat. Were Afghanistan to destabilize, or were its radical Islamist forces left without anyone to fight, they would be sure to further destabilize Pakistan in turn. We can't have this. Moreover, by building a permanent American military presence over there, as we are currently doing, we give ourselves access to Pakistan should things take a turn for the worse. I have to believe everything else is peripheral at this point. So in answer to the question, who cares. Killing Obama would be a huge story in America's dumbed down sound bite culture, but it wouldn't amount to a damn thing.