We have 5 million threads about Iraq. What about Afghanistan? Does anybody remember we are there too? We have people doing good and also dying there too.

i think the reason why people forget about afghanistan is because "iraq was unjustified" or "we had a reason to go to afghanistan because of bin laden".

Ahhh how soon we forget! I agree, its rather sickening that everyone talks about Iraq this, Iraq that... yet they forget we still have many troops in Afghanistan. I bet if some sort of conflict started happening in say Africa, they would EVENTUALLY forget about Iraq as well. :no

Well people are deployed in Africa too, but there's no controversy over Afghanistan or Africa, so no one here is having such doubt and strong emotions about the justifications. Everyone knows we have people dying in Afghanistan, I'm sure that we would be the last group of people to forget that.

You don't see the media or the administration talking about Afghanistan either... sad.

I have brought Afghanistan up several times. I have not forgotten and do not think we should be there either. We were attacked by Al-Qaeda, not Afghanistan. The men on the plane were mostly Saudi, yet we did not go there did we. We were not attacked by any one country we were attacked by a group of terrorists, to keep invading other countries on that basis is wrong.

Didnt we go into Afghanistan because the Taliban were harboring Bin Laden?

I tend to concentrate on Iraq more because dh has been deployed there so often. I don't forget about other places though. I know the media does though.

Poor Afghanistan. According to the UN standards for life, it's failing like every one. And, you're right, it doesn't get as much media coverage because there's less "controversy..."

But hell, if we're talking like that, look at all the discussions going on about Darfur and it still hasn't been stopped. So, no, I don't think Afghanistan has been forgotten - it's just less convenient to talk about for many.

And, I'll just second what Green~Mammy said. The US is not the police force of the world. We can't keep going in and invading countries, and then hushing it up while we're still invading them.. no matter what the political reasons. This isn't Napoleonic times. We've moved past that. Why is the US trying to take over the world (re: invasion of countries, power hungry, not listening to world sanctions) too, when this lesson should've been learned with Waterloo?

Didnt we go into Afghanistan because the Taliban were harboring Bin Laden?

YES we went in there hunting for Bin Laden, it still is wrong to invade a country to uproot a terrorist sect. At the least we should of left when all efforts to find and capture Bin Laden failed. Yet we are still over there.

The UN has a purpose and we can not continue to just ignore the whole rest of the world (which is what we are doing by ignoring the UN) just because WE one country out of many do not agree with what the UN might say. (I use we in a general term as I happen to agree with a lot of what the UN is saying)

Then how should we stop the terrorists?

By doing what the rest of the world does putting their picture's on inter-pol, getting agents into their various sects, making arrests, having trials and putting them in jail, etc. You don't start WWIII to get rid of them if anything what we are doing is causing MORE terrorists.

You certainly do not arm one group of terrorist (Fatah), in order to try and get rid of another group (Hamas). Which is what we are doing right now. You also can not just round up hundreds of people because they MIGHT know something and torture them to find out WHAT they MGHT know. You can't hold them for YEARS with out due process, and you can not just toss out the Geneva conventions.

If you were being tortured wouldn't you say ANYTHING to get them to stop no matter if you were innocent? I know it happens but I am not sure I can say how I know it happens so I am stopping right there.

We're not perfect. I know people are tortured. I know this government is sneaky and underhanded.

Poor Afghanistan. According to the UN standards for life, it's failing like every one. And, you're right, it doesn't get as much media coverage because there's less "controversy..."

But hell, if we're talking like that, look at all the discussions going on about Darfur and it still hasn't been stopped. So, no, I don't think Afghanistan has been forgotten - it's just less convenient to talk about for many.

And, I'll just second what Green~Mammy said. The US is not the police force of the world. We can't keep going in and invading countries, and then hushing it up while we're still invading them.. no matter what the political reasons. This isn't Napoleonic times. We've moved past that. Why is the US trying to take over the world (re: invasion of countries, power hungry, not listening to world sanctions) too, when this lesson should've been learned with Waterloo?

Don't you know Disney has already done that? :giggle


Seriously, though. Everyone wants to shout how we are in Afghanistan/Iraq to help the people, yet no one cares that mass genocide is happening in Darfur.

Tawny, if we were to get involved with Darfur, do you think people would be offended(for lack of a better word) that we are sticking our nose in another countries' business. I fully agree we need to do something about Darfur. We just imposed sanctions. Short of military action, what else can we do.

Poor Afghanistan. According to the UN standards for life, it's failing like every one. And, you're right, it doesn't get as much media coverage because there's less "controversy..."

But hell, if we're talking like that, look at all the discussions going on about Darfur and it still hasn't been stopped. So, no, I don't think Afghanistan has been forgotten - it's just less convenient to talk about for many.

And, I'll just second what Green~Mammy said. The US is not the police force of the world. We can't keep going in and invading countries, and then hushing it up while we're still invading them.. no matter what the political reasons. This isn't Napoleonic times. We've moved past that. Why is the US trying to take over the world (re: invasion of countries, power hungry, not listening to world sanctions) too, when this lesson should've been learned with Waterloo?


:yes

Tawny, if we were to get involved with Darfur, do you think people would be offended(for lack of a better word) that we are sticking our nose in another countries' business. I fully agree we need to do something about Darfur. We just imposed sanctions. Short of military action, what else can we do.

I don't think it's sticking our nose in another country's business when there's a genocide going on. It's on a scale equivalent to the holocaust at this point, and
any arguments that the "holocaust was in Germany, mostly, and we don't wanna get involved in another country's issues..." would be cast off as absurd.

It's another country's issue when it's about civil war, or small terrorist sects (to get back on topic, re: the Afghanistan issue) or a bad dictator.

It's a world issue when there is a mass genocide going on based on race/religion/whatever.

So, in my mind, there's a huge difference between going in (being vague, I'm not saying the US should start another war by any means - it's a world, IE UN, issue) and DOING SOMETHING in Darfur, and invading a country to get out someone that is unpopular with the current administration (Bin Laden, Saddam), doing so, and then NOT LEAVING.

Are there terrible human rights violations in Iraq? Yes. Are there some in Afghanistan? Yes. Are there some probably even in the US? Yes. But at least none of those is a mass genocide/slaughter.

I think I topic/ :threadjacked. I'm sorry. :eek

Del Sadam killed thousands of Kurds in the 80's I think it is. Why isnt a dictator the world's business? We don't do trade with Cuba because of Castro. We tried to intervene but pulled out(Bay of Pigs). Afghanistan was also started in the 80's when we backed the Taliban against Iran. To me, all this is, is cleaning up prior adminstrations mistakes.

Tawny, if we were to get involved with Darfur, do you think people would be offended(for lack of a better word) that we are sticking our nose in another countries' business. I fully agree we need to do something about Darfur. We just imposed sanctions. Short of military action, what else can we do.

I don't want us to get involved with Darfur. I don't want us to be involved with ANYTHING outside our homesoil.

My point was just that everyone says we are supposed to be "helping" the Iraqi people, yet they don't think we should go to Darfur, kwim?

Isolationism only works for so long though. It can be aggravating to see all the bad in our society that we cant/wont help.

Isolationism only works for so long though. It can be aggravating to see all the bad in our society that we cant/wont help.

Del Sadam killed thousands of Kurds in the 80's I think it is. Why isnt a dictator the world's business? We don't do trade with Cuba because of Castro. We tried to intervene but pulled out(Bay of Pigs). Afghanistan was also started in the 80's when we backed the Taliban against Iran. To me, all this is, is cleaning up prior adminstrations mistakes.

thank you :agree

Don't you know Disney has already done that? :giggle


Seriously, though. Everyone wants to shout how we are in Afghanistan/Iraq to help the people, yet no one cares that mass genocide is happening in Darfur.
I care but I know what you mean. ;)

Isolationism only works for so long though. It can be aggravating to see all the bad in our society that we cant/wont help.

Except our nation has NOT been practicing isolationism since WWII. When we entered WWII we ceased keeping ourselves to ourselves and have never gone back to that state. Now we are so far from isolationism that our military is being spread extremely thin.

I KNOW from my own experience how undermanned just the Navy is. They are sending us (the Navy) to more and more places, starting more and more actions YET they continue to down size the Navy. It makes no sense at all.

I am glad to see that I am not the only one who hasn't forgotten the country where DB is serving! I can't say I agree with either war front but I don't know what the right solution was. We couldn't let Sadam stay, he was evil & the whole world learned from the mistakes made with other crazy leaders, the powers that be should have just been honest about it & that is why it is not forgotten. Everyone was perfectly honest as to why we invaded, and that is exactly what we did, Afghanistan and the media, wether liberal or conservative, thrives on negativity. But I certainly think about it everyday . . .

Except our nation has NOT been practicing isolationism since WWII. When we entered WWII we ceased keeping ourselves to ourselves and have never gone back to that state. Now we are so far from isolationism that our military is being spread extremely thin.

I KNOW from my own experience how undermanned just the Navy is. They are sending us (the Navy) to more and more places, starting more and more actions YET they continue to down size the Navy. It makes no sense at all.

That's what I'm saying. Isolationism is good in theory but it doesnt really work in the real world. We are unfortunately or fortunately the most powerful, wealthiest country in the world. It is natural that we are looked upon as the big brother of the world. Our military being spread thin isnt because of our diplomatic policies, its from the lack of foresight of those in charge. You can't take on the world with only 3 million servicemembers.
My dh just spent 7 months in Afghanistan, so we too, know how they are spreading the Navy thinly.

The US is NOT the wealthiest nation on the 2006 International Monetary Fund we ranked #4, on the 2007 CIA World Factbook we ranked #6. Luxembourg ranks #1 on the IMF and also #1 on the CWF BUT is actually below Bermuda which does not get a ranking. The way the figure it out is per the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) per capita.

We are not the wealthiest and we have a very high national debt (http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/). We need to be fixing our own vast and large problems before solving the rest of the worlds and creating MORE for ourselves. Also we have become dependant to China to remain afloat. I could not find what I was looking for exactly BUT here is a bit about what I mean (http://www.funqa.com/economics/4483-Economics.html). This one is more reputable. (http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/invest/extra/P140049.asp)

To an everyday person we are viewed as the or one of the wealthiest countries. Its where that whole spoiled ugly american thing comes from in part.