some of that is my fault. Sometimes you type in these here boxes and you forget the deets about the posts you quoting from (in re: my mis-characterization of antineocon).

I wouldn't argue the point that the Bush years marked a breathtaking low in American behavior and esteem (that was certainly my experience living through it), certainly compared to the rock star status Clinton enjoyed overseas. It's just that statements like Americans showing up means the beatings stop struck me as particularly untrue. Also, my earliest experiences traveling abroad to Europe and the Middle East were characterized by the shock that people over there didn't see America in quite the same way I was raised to believe they saw us.

Re, you later post:

Maybe Iraq and Afghanistan didn't have to turn into the disasters they did. Certainly, the Bush admin displayed no class at all, cynically securing the oil and letting the art treasures, not to mention the people, go to hell. And maybe had they stopped with Afghanistan and did their damndest to turn it into a positive model of American intervention (providing security, building schools, roads, etc.), history would have recorded the whole matter differently. We'll never know.

I would agree that for whatever cynical reasons might have existed for the U.S. intervening in Bosnia, the result was not too bad and a hell on earth turned into a normal European country. It just seems the Bosnias are the exception and not the rule.

Those then are my points. And that I still do like your funny stuff better.

We now return you to regularly scheduled Heru, Sinnard, et al foodfight.

Prove a cake walk? Jesus on a stick, we did not even have to resort to conventional forces. Our special forces, air cover, teams from the CIA's Special Activities Division were first. They were soon joined by U.S. Army Special Forces from the 5th Special Forces Group and other units from USSOCOM. And Afghanistan was ours. (well, like so many other empires it was only apparently ours)

Are you going to play the propaganda card yet again that we "were only assisting" in a civil war? Bull-fucking-shit. We had picked our proxy government well in advance --- and as you should know the plan to crush Afghan was in the works before 9-11. Odd fact ain't it?

But so what? That was 2001 and here we are in 2009 talking about Obama'a own "surge" in Af-Pak. (what a dirty name, eh?)

How many decades before no foreign troops are in that poor country? How many more bombed wedding parties?

Our bombing caused many casualties

Caused? Nice past tense. What would say our bombs now are causing?

You really are a piece of work. Your obfuscation and excuses make you no better than the Office of Special Plans.

Like I said, we can leave Afghanistan whenever we please, but you don't want us to leave. That is a fact and you have not disputed it. You want the Military to stick around over there, you support the next Afghan Surge and our new mega base being constructed in the Desert of Death. You want us to stay so you can get off on exceptionalism.

Your stupid "humanitarian" plan will be undermined by the very force you rely on to give your stupid plan even the slightest hint of legitimacy. This appears to be entirely lost on you however, as you're too damn busy organizing your "facts".

If Uncle Sam's boot wasn't on Aghanistan's throat, they might actually have a say in the matter, but as it stands they don't, so they'll have to suffer through your stupid attempt to save a face that has ceased to exist.

Sometimes we don't run everything, or cause all of the destruction where our troops go.

Nice slogan, you should make it into a bumper sticker.

Keep apologizing for American Militarism, you appear to be really good at it.

All that torture talk and here you are apologizing for and making excuses for the torture taproot, our imperialist foreign policy. Pathetic.

ondelette

"Our bombing caused many casualties"

Caused? Nice past tense.

-- Chris Sinnard

That would be because he was providing information about specific events that took place in the past.

It does not matter that you can find places in the world were the poverty, pain, illness, hunger, stress, and so forth are worse than in Florida.(*) The USA government was established to take care of people in the USA. Get it? We are to protect our own and let the rest of the world attempt to live in peace.

What was it they like to say? "Yankee go home"? Yes that is the phrase --- Yankee go the hell home.

We outspend the entire world on military hardware and operations. What for? To protect Atlanta? No, to make the rest of the world do as we say.

And again, we crushed Afghanistan with our military might. The norther alliance would still be in the hills without American Military Power in 2001. That is the case.

-----------------

(*) But it is worse here than you might ever know. Just the migrant workers along would tare a man's heart out to see the suffering.

Well, even typos bother me. We need an edit feature.

alone/along tare/tear

Damn.

It sure is damn obvious that ondelette actually KNOWS SOMETHING when he posts.

Some of the other guys? Not so much.

To some of the other guys: it seems obvious that you'll never agree, but y'all look like a buncha morons. (I think you know who I'm talking to.)

The constant assholery is annoying but expected, but the "not knowing anything" issue is by far more damaging to one's credibility.

Nah, he is just trying to downplay the brutality of a war he doesn't want to see come to an end (yet). The Administration could change course tomorrow and announce plans to pull out, but ondeletee the humanitarian doesn't want that. How can we continue our civilian slaughtering drone strikes in Pakistan, that ondelette the humanitarian has long supported, if we aren't there not-occupying-but-doing-something-worse in the country? You see, we need to keep "doing something worse than occupying" Afghanistan in order to save Afghanistan.

I'll bet he is really antiwar though, in fact he is probably "even more antiwar than you", except when he isn't.