I saw the news about the helicopter that was shot down in Afghanistan, and I am pissed. Its time to bring our troops home. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. We have wasted too many lives trying to help these shithole countries. Its like trying to help a woman that constantly dates douche bags. At some point, you have to just give up on them.

And why in the hell are we still sending money to these assholes just so they will pretend to be our friends? What are we getting in return?

The fact that we are STILL sending money to Pakistan after they protected Bin Laden, blows my fucking mind.

And where are all the liberal dickheads that were crying "unjust war!" when Bush was in office? It seems like they disappeared when Obama took office. Weird.

Ok, I'm done. Discuss.

I'm not sure if telling people to 'discuss' is intelligent on a forum that's predicated on ... discussions. :)


I have no clue what we're supposed to get in return. The way I see it, other countries are going to see Americans as arrogant people who think they are holier than others, thus can 'help' others. I think its going to cause more backlash on America than good.

I've felt like this for awhile and maintain, I think we should be working on our own country before trying to 'help' another country. And I understand one of our goals is to have any war or battle on their soil instead of ours.

---

Right or wrong, it's been like that for quite a while.

---

There is big time money at stake, that is why we continue doing what common sense tells us not to. We have a large military employing millions of people. We also have many factories producing weapons. It takes a lot money and people to run the last Roman empire. We will be riding this out until the end.

---

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." - Dwight D. Eisenhower 1961

Fucking A, I miss Carlin. He's right on all counts.

---

All I can say is that I'm damn glad I don't need to make the decisions about Afghanistan. We're damnned if we do and damnned if we don't, we made some bad mistakes during the invasion but we were pretty much screwed from the outset either way. Just because some people didn't want the Taliban there didn't mean they wanted us there any more, even if we would have taken out the Taliban and Bin Laden in a month we couldn't just up and leave, because then we'd be evil for just letting the country sit in disarray. Hearing about these SEALs going down made me sick to the stomach, but what is the right thing to do?

I disagree with Obama with a lot of things, but (his campaign/pre-campaign rhetoric aside) he's not made too many major missteps on the "war" front, at least as far as who we have to compare him to. Which is all the more surprising to me because he always struck me as strong on social matters and weak on economics and foreign policy on account of his education, work experience, and political history.

Bad analogy. The United States is more like the aggressive older brother who likes to order his younger siblings around, threatening to kick their asses if they don't do what he says -- and then getting pissed off when they tell him where to shove it. We are far more of a schoolyard bully than a benevolent best friend. We only charge in where we have interests we want to defend, the wants and needs of the country we are invading be damned.

Ever notice that we have never once in the history of our country invaded a major power? We have spent our increasingly scarce resources beating up on the little guys while frantically trying to buy the big guys off -- or scare them away with bluster.

We're not just bullies. We're obese bullies with a vicious streak.

---

Sometimes it's the right thing to step in. Other times, we should butt out and let them fight amongst themselves.
I also think we should stop paying other countries BILLIONS of dollars in relief. If they can't support themselves, they need to rethink their own actions. (Like popping out babies like they are PEZ dispensers).
We could stop our own financial bleeding if we would take care of us first, and if there is money left over, THEN send it to others.
JMO

---

---