Op Ed By Linda Blimes And J Stiglitz

[Testvet]

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ss...ar_and_its.html

an opinion piece by Linda Blimes and Joseph Stiglitz authors of the Three Trillion Dollar War

[john999]

I saw a short film about some of our soldiers that are stationed at small, isolated firebases in Afghanistan. During the period that the journalist had contact with the soldiers at this base almost all had been wounded ,and most had been sent home. A whole knew batch had been rotated in as replacements. These guys are under almost constant fire. They are bait. This is going to be a hell of a war for the troops who are chasing the Taliban in that forsaken waste of desert and heat. The price will be high for decades to come. I think of Vietnam and I think these people have learned nothing.

[Testvet]

I agree it appears Afghanistan is worse than Nam in Nam they were fighting for Ho Chi Minh in Afghanistan they fight for their local war lord there is not a national party there just a bunch of narco barons

[john999]

In Vietnam the VC and NVA were hard core fighters who had a shared goal which was to liberate and reunite Vietnam. We fought in jungle and swamps and rice paddies. Afghanistan is much larger than Vietnam. We have few soldiers trying to fight an enemy that is spread over a vast area. We cannot defeat Taliban and hold all that territory. We fight and then pull out or leave a small group of soldiers to try and keep an eye on the Taliban. We had 500,000 troops in S. Vietnam. We have less than 100,000 in Afghanistan. I see this as a loser. Karzi is just a corrupt puppet who the USA wants to replace with someone who won't complain when we kill civilians. It is a mess. It is going to cost us and when it gets too hot the terroists like Bin Laden will just move to Somolia.

[Pete53]

I always wondered why in WWII after we had won in Italy that instead of invading Normandy that we did not just go up North to Germany. They claimed that the expected casualty rates in France were between 60% and 90% and yet we went.

The answer is the same as it has always been. Soldiers are expendable. We have no business in Iraq and if we need to take out the Taliban we need to go after them where they are. Same with North Viet Nam if we were fighting them we needed to steam roll them in North Viet Nam.

I am sick of seeing so many young men and women with missing legs and arms and crushed in skulls while the politicians play games.

I wonder how many divorces and broken familes are due to this War?

[john999]

Pete

These back to back deployments are probably resulting in many divorces and spouse abuse. In some cases both parents are in the military and both are deployed at the same time. The kids don't even know their parents. What stress! I picture these poor grunts walking up and down the hills and mountains in Afghanistan with 80lbs on their backs. Now that is torment in 110 degree heat. The USA supplied Stinger missles to the Afhans during the USSR occpation. I bet a lot of our choppers are going to also get shot down when they are flying around those mountains looking for Taliban. I see the USA walking into "The Big Muddy" step by step just like in Vietnam. 40,000 troops won't do, so we send 40,000 more and so on and so on. Even Alexandar the Great left Afghanistan in frustration as did the British and Russians. I hope Obama is not that dumb.

[Testvet]

John he added 20,000 at least Gordon Brown is catching hell in Britain over their losses, the British people are getting pizzed over all of the casualties in Afghanistan they have lost more their than they ever did in Iraq after Tora Bora back in what Dec 2001 all we have done is bomb civilians and a few Taliban and if we see a few Al Qaeda in Pakistan with a drone they drop a few missiles on them other than that our troops sit in OPs getting shot at by whomever passes by them they are now talking about putting those pink boxers that GI had his pic put on the front page of the NY Times during that fire fight I wonder if they gave him a Bronze Star for it?