Boo Radley
DP Veteran
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2009
- Messages
- 37,066
- Reaction score
- 7,028
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Liberal
IMO continuing down a path you know is bad is far worse than ignorantly starting down the same path. Pres Obama knew the path we were on was wrong and continued down it. The beginning of Afghanistan was totally warranted. I think we both agree on that. As far as Iraq, Pres Bush, according to him, was led down the wrong path due to WMD's. Whether that's true or not we'll never know for sure. But the fact of the matter is that Pres Obama knew the road we were on and didn't have the balls to say "Screw it, I'm pulling us out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Both theaters are dead ends." Instead, he let the SOFA negotiations appear to fail (just my opinion) and doubled down on Afghanistan. He did the same thing Pres Bush did yet he knew the consequences already. Pres Bush didn't have the benefit of history and lessons learned. Pres Obama did. Yet he still doubled down in A-stan. In addition, he increased drone strikes, didn't close Gitmo like he said he would, and got into another ME theater (Libya). The dude's no less a warmonger than Bush and IMO far worse. Go ask a terrorist if he'd rather be waterboarded or hellfired. The only reason you give him a pass is because of that word beside your lean.
Hardly. Once we invaded, the options were poor from there after. Most of the damage was already done. As for waterboardng or hellfire, that's really a false choice. We were doing both under Bush, so eliminating one is an improvement. I don't approve of drone strikes, didn't for Bush and don't for Obama. But I won't pretend both are exactly the same. Bush walked us in there. In Iraq, Obama is walking us out. From the beginning, Afghanistan had more support. And people criticized him when they thought he wouldn't double down. I disagree with him on that and said so.
However, we will be leaving Afghanistan as well. It is just a matter of time. And it was inevitable, no matter who was president.