You must have missed the part about his having only been in Afghanistan for a few months...and the real question, which was "Who are you to say what the United States should be doing, when there are others who have been there longer, studied it for years, and so forth?"
The debate about the wisdom of an escalation of military action, or even the criteria by which you can judge the mission as conceptually flawed (unwinnable for want of another word), reaches beyond this man's case.
The fact remains that you are advocating the opinion of a man who advocated escalation having been in the country for a matter of weeks. I am backing the position of someone who served an entire tour. Both positions are backed by enough individuals with either detailed knowledge of the region or experience in the region (or both) that we can get beyond the notionof credibility and actually debate the validity of each other's analysis.
You can't be bothered to do this, and readily admit you know nothing of the issues, so you rely on your generic skill in rhetoric. You thus attack the analyst rather than the analysis.
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I beg your pardon?
What it's "likely to land you" is a book deal and a lucrative spot on the lecture tour.
And mark my words, there is a book
.
The vast majority of civil servants prefer to keep their salary and pension, rather than a flash in the pan lecture circuit and book deal. It is disengenous to suggest that all critics are money grabbing media whores.
Those who sign the official secrets act also have no choice in their presentation of a one sided view of progress in Afghanistan.
But again, it's easier for you to attack the motivation of a critic than for you to address his criticisms.
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Add "the Aghanis", if you must. It doesn't change the criticism of an American who clearly believes that everyone everywhere thinks and reacts to things just like he would, and bases his conclusions on evaluations of what he would think or do in their circumstances...
Quite the contrary, the man was basing his critique of US policy on the premise that it is rooted to western conceptions of the role of central government. He is specifically criticising Washington's analytical framework as a product of an anachronistic mindset. How you think he is the one mostly lacking an apprecitation of the Pashtun mindset is mind boggling.
His views are also shared by many of the most respected analysts of Afghan history and culture and politics. It is not the cultural scholars, sociologists, historians and political scientists who are pushing for escalation. It is the military- who naturally want more resources. And some are even saying that 200,000 US troops are needed to do the job properly.
You should look at people such Rory Stewart- who has travelled the entire length of Afghanistan by foot, advises the US govt and testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
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Since I'm neither in the military or the government, I have no idea.
And neither do you.
The difference between us is that I know that I don't know...
So you have no idea why the military is asking for more troops. You have no idea what they are supposed to achieve or the benefits/risks? You question McChrystal's ability to make the judgement and Obama's to support it.
Yet you still argue in favour? When it's your money and countrymen carring the cost.
The difference between me and you is that I find this extraordinary.
Though I will say that I have at least some academic qualifications and professional experience to at least voice an opinion.
My opinion, for what it's worth, is that the objective is so conflated that nobody has distinguised the achievable from the unrealistic or diferentiated the time frame, money and manpower required for each- the stability of Pakistan. US national security, defeating the Taliban, beating AQ. I agree with Stewart- we tend to be pursuing five objectives at once, assuming that they all amount to the same thing. We thus get in a muddle.
To rebuild a Afghanistan, if it is at all possible, will take a generation. To pay for it we should be doing less for longer rather than throwing in all our chips and bailing after a brief surge.
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Sigh...
Where do you get your definitions, anyway?
If I tell you some bit of intelligence on your cell phone, that does NOT make your cell phone an intelligence tool...
The principle here is that as long ago as 2007, 150,000 Afghans a week were buying mobile phones and the number was rising exponentially. This is bringing communication to poor villagers who until very recrently rarely, if ever, used a telephone.
Ergo Jonny Taliban sees a convoy leaving and he phones his friend Jonny road side bomber or phones his friend who is expecting a bang on the door to head for the hills.
Mobile phones are not intelligence tools in terms of SIGINT, IMINT- however they are hugely empowering tools for the dissemination of intelligence. They make counter intelligence more difficult.
Intelligence is extremely time sensitive and in order to exploit it you need communications.
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Hilarious.
Maybe you could muster a specific quote?
Last time I did that you ignored it in place of a pun. Why should I waste my time. Quite why you expect US soldiers to have better local intelligence (power dynamics within a clan, location of village elders, local customs, local rivalries) is beyond me. If you read the book I mention, however, it is recalls case after case of the US ground forces failing to maintain operational secrecy.
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Are you saying that the support of drug lords is as valuable as the support of a superpower?
I am saying that the financial needs of maintaining a force effective enough to resist central control and maintain huge autonomous fiefdoms are being met by the drugs trade.
We are talking about a $4billion a year industry. The highest US funding for the Muj ever reached was $630 million per year in 1987. And let us not forget that it was distributed by Pakistan- so not all that efficiently used.
In many ways the exploding drugs makes the situation harder for the US. Obama is trying to get assurances that corruption will be tackled. However, that corruption is essentially driven by the drugs trade. Look at the people karzai has to deal with (and surrounds himself with- even his brother).
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The point here was that aircraft are high-value assets, and destroying large numbers of them was one of the main factors in bleeding the Soviets dry fiscally in Afghanistan. Yes, depriving their ground forces of air support was also important, but the Soviets lost there mostly because their economy could not sustain the costs being imposed on it any longer. Those costs were imposed largely as a result of American help. Field expedients like mortars firing chains, while impressive in their cleverness, were just not going to do what Stingers could do in that respect.
Stingers made the war more costly, that may even have been their aim, but they were not decisive in 'winning' the war. They did not account for the majority of Soviet losses, financially or in personnel. The reason that the Soviets ran out of money was because their mission, which was to establish a strong pro-Kremlin govt capable of stabalising the country without massive Soviet military presence, was unachievable. A cursory look at the reasons most of the country objected to such a pro-Kremlin Marxist anti-Islamic and corrupt Kabul government- the fact that precipitated Soviet military involvement in the first place, may be in order here.
You cannot detach the political conditions for military success- yet you consistently try.
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Were these written by guys aged 36 who had spent five months in country, by any chance?
I rest my case
__________________
"There are no stupid questions, but there are a LOT of inquisitive idiots"
Last edited by pigeonmeister; 11-03-2009 at 01:26 PM..
Do we really need to bring up the "oddly cut" video of the man with the semi-auto at the town hall meeting again?
Yes, I do very much consider that premise very self-evident. To me, this is akin to saying "Well, Fox news is biased and up front about it, but at least they present both sides".
Having a TV on 24/7 in the lobby, I've watched a lot of news. It doesn't take more than 15 minutes of viewing to see Fox and MSNBC is biased. MSNBC is just more smart about how they go about it.
Honestly, I don't feel compelled to record and cut together what I'm seeing to prove a premise I already see as amazingly obvious.
Go Ahead, give me the link to a video that shows how whatever MSNBC showed (which I don't recall seeing in the first place) was oddly cut.
If what you say is true-- if MSNBC is so biased so much of the time that they tell lies and half-truths-- shouldn't there someone else doing the work for you? Media Matters does a LOT on Fox- http://mediamatters.org/topic/onlyonfox/ - and doesn't exactly ignore MSNBC or anything either, but it's mostly tagged when they're "not liberal enough" (or, I guess more accurately, not pointing out truths helpful to liberals)- http://mediamatters.org/blog/200910280030 , http://mediamatters.org/blog/200910210020 just for example, which is not what we're looking for here.
The evidence I'm looking for might be somewhere in here- http://www.mrc.org/ -- but they're not as easy to navigate as Media Matters. I'll poke around a bit more later.
The wiki article suggests that their prime time lineup is biased, which I've agreed with, and that they run into trouble when they put radio guys on their network. That's not new info.
Look, I watch the Rachel Maddow show, (She's biased in many of the same ways I am. Many of the things she finds interesting, I find interesting too.) Occasionally I watch some BBC News (either the international stuff found on PBS or whatever the British are actually watching at the time). I was subjected to Balloon Boy. Other than that, I simply don't watch the news, cable or otherwise. I'm not sitting here twirling my mustache saying "I know what he's talking about, but I shall make him PROVE IT". I honestly don't have the background, I honestly don't know what you personally mean by bias, and what you do and do not count.
So it's fine if you wish to state your opinion that they're biased. I'll believe that you have an opinion that it's biased. I'll even believe the fact that the prime time lineup is to the left of other prime time lineups. And if you don't want to provide evidence of the network overall, that's fine. Fencing.net isn't homework. Just don't expect me to believe it.
Sorry, I have to go vote straight ticket Democrat now. (To be fair, Dems are unopposed in a couple elections, and in another, I simply like the Dem better than the Green candidate for petty reasons (those are the only two in that race). )
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Visit my non-fencing blog, mostly about food, at Coset The Table!
Truth to you means whatever promotes your position. I read the links and though mediamatters claims lies, there is no proof or evidence of any lies. If they (or you) don't agree with a position, its a lie
__________________
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Go Ahead, give me the link to a video that shows how whatever MSNBC showed (which I don't recall seeing in the first place) was oddly cut.
At the risk of reigniting the original debate... here it is.
(There's a version floating around on Youtube with the video untouched, exactly how MSNBC displayed it. I was too lazy to look for too long, but it really isn't much better.)
The gist of it is, they showed a man with an assault rifle strapped to his back, shot from the shoulders down. They then go into a spiel about possible racial overtones (i.e., they must just be a bunch of white guys pissed at a black President - talk about invalidation). The guy they were focused on was black, but the way it was shot this wasn't visible. This is a morning show, I take it, from the title in the video as well as the timestamp.
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If what you say is true-- if MSNBC is so biased so much of the time that they tell lies and half-truths-- shouldn't there someone else doing the work for you? Media Matters does a LOT on Fox- http://mediamatters.org/topic/onlyonfox/
Fox is easy. They don't really pretend (too much) that they aren't biased. MSNBC isn't as flamboyant about it. This is my point. It's not as easily picked up on as Fox's bias is...
Honestly, I think the issue is more reversed. It's not Fox being held up to the same level as other news sources (at least by most people not already into that), it's MSNBC being held up as far more valid when they are nearly as biased.
Hell, there's another video on Youtube of Joe Scarborough talking about how the MSNBC newsroom was booing when President Bush was giving his '03 State of the Union. You don't question perhaps that their reporting becomes tainted?
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- and doesn't exactly ignore MSNBC or anything either, but it's mostly tagged when they're "not liberal enough" (or, I guess more accurately, not pointing out truths helpful to liberals)-
Sort of like the way Fox smacks conservatives for not being conservative enough? I'm wondering about this source...
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The wiki article suggests that their prime time lineup is biased, which I've agreed with, and that they run into trouble when they put radio guys on their network. That's not new info.
I would argue if the prime time line up (which most people are watching) is obviously biased, that's enough to taint the network. This is similar to a segment of Jon Stewart's rant about Fox (watch it if you haven't yet, it's pretty funny). Those heavily biased people are the face of MSNBC, just as Beck and company is for Fox (even though Fox also claims that's not their "real news" and the "real news" remains unbiased).
This is really all addressed in Mr. Stewart's rant, just replace Fox with MSNBC and the talking heads of Fox with the talking heads of MSNBC.
__________________
"I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it."
Last edited by I_luv_saber; 11-04-2009 at 06:34 AM..
Maybe we can force people to watch CNN and MSNBC, or figure out some way to get eeeevilll Fox off the air. Its not fair. If people are too stupid to realize how bad Fox is on their own, clearly we have to do something to make them see.
"The nightly newscasts lined up in the usual order, with NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams drawing 8.1 million viewers; ABC World News with Charles Gibson, 7.3 million; and The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric , 5.3 million."
So, over 20M for "mainstream media" national outlets, and that doesn't count the local channels.
FOX is where people go to have their echo chamber.
__________________
"In theory, theory and practice are the same, but in practice, theory and practice are different."
There's a line in Tropic Thunder... "you never go full retard". Unfortunately FOX never got that advice. In fact, I can prove how retarded FOX is in just 2 words. You ready for it?
Homicide Bomber!
LOL... oh man, it's sad, really.
.
__________________ . "I don't mind being the smartest man in the world. I just wish it wasn't this one." - Ozymandias .
The debate about the wisdom of an escalation of military action, or even the criteria by which you can judge the mission as conceptually flawed (unwinnable for want of another word), reaches beyond this man's case.
Yes. But you are the one who brought him up, as though his lone opinion somehow proved something. I am just trying to demonstrate that possibly you have hung your hat on a verecundiam...
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The fact remains that you are advocating the opinion of a man who advocated escalation having been in the country for a matter of weeks.
One who was specifically selected by Obama ( praise be His name ), who after all can do no wrong, and sent to Afghanistan specifically to make that assessment.
You know, rather like Joe Wilson was sent to Niger to look into the yellowcake uranium business.
I'm sure that his conclusions were wrong because of that, too...
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I am backing the position of someone who served an entire tour.
No, you are not, because he did not. You are sloughing off on your research!
He was there 5 months. An "entire tour" for an employee of his class is one year.
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Both positions are backed by enough individuals with either detailed knowledge of the region or experience in the region (or both) that we can get beyond the notionof credibility and actually debate the validity of each other's analysis.
Then how about quoting some of them, as opposed to just saying that they exist and that their views back his up?
Here, I'll lead by example:
"I am currently serving in a PRT in Iraq. I trained with Matt in northern Virginia in April of this past year before we both moved on to our respective assignments. Matt is a smart young man who has honorably served his country, but by no means was or is he an expert on counterinsurgency, Afghan tribal culture, or US strategic policy.
My point is that as compelling as Matt's story sounds to civilians, it is a fairly typical story here in theater, and by no means gives one any special insight.
There are so many people here with the same experience---or much more experience---that would passionately disagree with Matt's assessment.
Maybe Matt is right; maybe not. But to present his memo and resignation as a significant event of a 'US official' with special insight is, with all due respect to Matt, patently absurd. He is a de facto contractor that was on the ground in his PRT about 4 months! On that, one assesses strategic counterinsurgency???
And I absolutely guarantee the only reason Matt warranted an audience with Holbrooke and sudden offers of a Kabul job on the Embassy's front office was that the State Department was well aware of plans to go very public at a critical time---plans for articles like this splashed over front pages, offers from detractors of Afghan policy to meet and speak, etc. "
By way of further explanation, a "PRT" is a Political Reconstruction Team.
Mr. Hoh was not a Foreign Service Officer. He was a "limited non-career contract employee" on a 1-year assignment, which he did not complete.
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The vast majority of civil servants prefer to keep their salary and pension, rather than a flash in the pan lecture circuit and book deal. It is disengenous to suggest that all critics are money grabbing media whores.
We'll see who is correct when the book comes out, I imagine...
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Those who sign the official secrets act also have no choice in their presentation of a one sided view of progress in Afghanistan.
The US has no official secrets act.
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But again, it's easier for you to attack the motivation of a critic than for you to address his criticisms.
It is easier still to point out that you are staking a great deal on an "expert" who is not only at variance with most opinion on the subject of Aghan policy but who lacks credentials as an expert in the first place.
If it were not for the fact that he is saying what you already chose to believe, I think you would have noticed this for yourself...
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Quite the contrary, the man was basing his critique of US policy on the premise that it is rooted to western conceptions of the role of central government.
You do realize that his saying that he was doing that is not the same thing as his actually doing it, right?
Even if he believes it, that is not evidence that his belief is correct.
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His views are also shared by many of the most respected analysts of Afghan history and culture and politics.
Sorry, you can't get away with the "many respected authorities agree with me" gambit. Although I do admire your attempt to combine the argumentum ad verecundiam with the argumentum ad numerum.
Either cite these anonymous worthies, or stop asserting that they exist and all say what you believe to be the truth...
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You should look at people such Rory Stewart- who has travelled the entire length of Afghanistan by foot, advises the US govt and testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
I shall do so when I may. Thank you.
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So you have no idea why the military is asking for more troops. You have no idea what they are supposed to achieve or the benefits/risks?
And again, neither do you. The difference is that you are setting yourself up as a counter-authority, and I am not.
I do not have the credentials to dismiss the military's analysis. Neither do you. Neither does Matt Hoh. And neither does the President. This is all I'm saying.
McChrystal says X. NATO commanders say X. Even Gen. Wesley Clark, former Presidential candidate and good Democrat, says X. So what leads Obama to believe that he knows better and say "Hold on, I in my vast military wisdom and experience am still not convinced of X?"
For that matter, I'll grant him the ability to think that he knows better. But even if he does, he should still have been able to make a decision by now! If he believes that all of his advisors are wrong and that Y is in fact the right way to go instead of X, then do Y! But do something!
And by the way---remember how you were insisting that he had to wait until the election business was resolved? Well, it's resolved. And yet we are still seeing stories about how a decision is "weeks away".
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You question McChrystal's ability to make the judgement and Obama's to support it.
I do?
I think your Inq-to-PM translation has gone horribly awry...
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Mobile phones are not intelligence tools in terms of SIGINT, IMINT-
Thank you.
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however they are hugely empowering tools for the dissemination of intelligence. They make counter intelligence more difficult.
And your point is?
My assertion was that the Soviets faced an enemy assisted by a rival superpower, one which provided the sort of intelligence which only a superpower can gather as one asset. I fail to see how cell phones are a refutation of this...
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Quite why you expect US soldiers to have better local intelligence (power dynamics within a clan, location of village elders, local customs, local rivalries) is beyond me.
Yes, I'm sure it is. And I'm sure that nothing is going to penetrate your invincible assurance that you are right.
But just as an exercise, ask yourself: What IS intelligence? How many kinds are there? And did I specify any given type when I brought the subject up?
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If you read the book I mention, however, it is recalls case after case of the US ground forces failing to maintain operational secrecy.
I have no doubt whatsoever that that is the case. No good plan survives contact with the enemy, and soldiers are human beings, thus fallible.
Now, what exactly does that prove, and how does it show that the Soviets had an easier time of it than we have today?
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I am saying that the financial needs of maintaining a force effective enough to resist central control and maintain huge autonomous fiefdoms are being met by the drugs trade.
And again, this makes the Soviet experience somehow easier than ours---how?
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We are talking about a $4billion a year industry. The highest US funding for the Muj ever reached was $630 million per year in 1987.
So many problems with that comparison, so little time...
Just to toss out a couple:
2007 dollars vs 1987 ones, are you adjusting for inflation? One suspects not.
You can tell what fraction of that $4 million ( accepting your figures for the sake of argument ) actually went to military support? One suspects not.
You'll have to do better than that, man, you aren't arguing with your chums down at the pub here.
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Stingers made the war more costly, that may even have been their aim, but they were not decisive in 'winning' the war.
According to...?
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They did not account for the majority of Soviet losses, financially or in personnel.
According to...?
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You cannot detach the political conditions for military success- yet you consistently try.
Sorry, I have seen no compelling rationale for accepting that statement as the self-evident truth you obviously want me to believe it to be. That you say it fervently and repeatedly does not make it true, and I see no reason to abandon the opinions of actual experts for yours on the grounds that believe it...
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Use the Shift key, people! Keyboard manufacturers everywhere are ineffably saddened when you ignore what they made just for you!
The issue I have the the organization that touts itself as being fair and balanced is that they are hypocritically not. The employ the windbags known as Sean Hannity, Bill O'Riley, and Glen "I can't stop breathing hard or yelling" Beck. These 3 morons spread their fear to people who don't go the extra mile to research just the crap that they are stirring. While people like Rachel Maddow and Keith Obermann are clearly not impartial to their politics, at least they are not running a campaign of fear to prey on the uninformed masses.
I don't want the death of Beck, Hannity, and O'Riley, I just want the death of their BS carrers.
The issue I have the the organization that touts itself as being fair and balanced is that they are hypocritically not. The employ the windbags known as Sean Hannity, Bill O'Riley, and Glen "I can't stop breathing hard or yelling" Beck. These 3 morons spread their fear to people who don't go the extra mile to research just the crap that they are stirring. While people like Rachel Maddow and Keith Obermann are clearly not impartial to their politics, at least they are not running a campaign of fear to prey on the uninformed masses.
I don't want the death of Beck, Hannity, and O'Riley, I just want the death of their BS carrers.
Dave
Yeah. Dont like what they say, lets kill'em. That 1st amendment is a pesky little bugger inst it? Maybe Obama can fix that too.
Yeah. Dont like what they say, lets kill'em. That 1st amendment is a pesky little bugger inst it? Maybe Obama can fix that too.
???? errr.... I don't see ANY reference to actually killing any of these people in Davesaint's post... Their careers, yes, but not the people... As for the First Amendment, I do not understand why you feel this administration is any more prone to reducing 1st amendment rights than any other prior administration... A condemnation of aggressive reporting by one or more news organizations seems to be the prerogative of sitting administrations starting with G. Washington all the way through to current day.
Personally, I would rather that these 'fine' commentators live to a ripe old age, penniless and lonely; with their careers in tatters sucking at the dried teat of fame, knowing that their quest for power through their use of fear and hatred, had ultimately failed because the people of our nation found truth and trust in our fellow citizens.
__________________
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'Allo, my name is not Inegio Montoya... You... you did not kill my father... eh, ...prepare to die anyway!
Last edited by erik_blank; 11-09-2009 at 04:20 PM..
Yeah. Dont like what they say, lets kill'em. That 1st amendment is a pesky little bugger inst it? Maybe Obama can fix that too.
Slim,
Reading is a skill. Obviously it is one that you lack. As I indicated in my post, the problem I have with people like Beck are the same as the people who shout Fire in a crowded theatre. What he does is dangerous and irresponsible. Any time that he would like to use facts and calm reason to rationally discuss the issues that our country is dealing with, I would gladly listen and even show some signs of respect for him. Unfortunately he and people like Rush use absolute falshoods to spread fear amongst people to boost his ratings. To me that does not fit into my feelings of free speach is all about. Fraud is a crime, and what people like him are spewing is nothing more than fraud. I just wish people would realize it so that we can get some reasonable quality journalism back in this country that is not bias by political rhetoric.
???? errr.... I don't see ANY reference to actually killing any of these people in Davesaint's post... Their careers, yes, but not the people... As for the First Amendment, I do not understand why you feel this adminstration is any more prone to reducing 1st amendment rights than any other prior administration... A condemnation of aggressive reporting by one or more news organizations seems to be the perogative of sitting administrations starting with G. Washington all the way through to current day.
Silly, it's because Barack Hussein Obama is (select all that apply):
[ ] The antichrist
[ ] Socialist
[ ] Radical
[ ] Black, and therefore racist
[ ] Kenyan
[ ] Muslim
[ ] Black-liberation-theology-radical-america-hating-christian
[ ] Using a teleprompter
[ ] Leeeeeebrul
[ ] Secretly a pawn of the British
[ ] Going to take away our guns
[ ] Going to exterminate the elderly
Absolutely anything he says or does is without exception the height of evil, destroying the constitution and must be stopped, preferably with a teabag.
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Does it sound logical that I would talk about the mother of a big white guy with a gun?
I'm wondering about this source...
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