Maybe McChrystal did it intentionally…

I always read the Drudge Report,

Start right there. Shut the internet off, and you will be so much more educated.

@Daniel – Drudge is sort the right-wing version of Greenwald and Salon.

Not in my house. I still think we should have just made a parking lot of Afghanistan.

Seriously? The Russians couldn’t do it. What makes you think we could?

nope, the left uses tactics of happiness and love. :)

Oh I didn’t say he did… I mean I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out he did. Rumsfeld tried a few times and wasn’t accepted by Bush. The General might have wanted to return to Specops or he could have just saw where the war was going, how the deck was being stacked against him (as he might have seen it, no idea about reality) by the State Department, or just felt like the war was unwinnable and didn’t want his name attached to it.

arlene,

Daniel, do you have an alternate site? I’ve checked out other sites and I think Drudge is pretty even handed for a conservative

I thought you weren’t a conservative? I look at it right now (a slow news Saturday), and right now it is fairly benign. If you want a non-biased, comprehensive news source, check out Google News.

I’d have bombed them to smithereens and not attempted a ground war

This would not have worked (as it did not work for the Russians in the 80s either). Nor did this work for us in Vietnam. Do you realize how many bombs we dropped over Vietnam, and yet we still lost that war? Let’s just put our enemy in perspective. The Taliban shares ethnic brotherhood with about 45 million people. 45 MILLION people. We have to face the reality that a political compromise will eventually have to be reached with the Taliban. We could have defeated the Taliban if a certain previous president did not take his eye off the ball and focus on Iraq. But we cannot cry over spilled milk anymore.

Arlene, this is why I advise you to get away from conservative propaganda….er I mean news sources. They’re feeding you a bunch of lies, and destroying your humanity and morals. These guys from Fox and Drudge are drunk on stupidity, Arlene. Avoid them for your own good, and for the good of America.

Well you can just bite me.

Although I wasn’t bragging, I was telling. I’m sure as hell not ashamed ot it.

I know what it sounds like and my emotions war against the knowledge of the poor ignorant—mostly women and children—innocents of Afganistan. What would you have done after 9/11 oh enlightned ones?

Daniel I’m kind of a conservative and kind of a liberal.

D’Nesh d souza writes of the war against Islamic extremism that we can only win by anhilation. If I spelled that right. He makes sense to me.

Arlene,

It’s Dinesh D’Souza. You were close. Sadly, he does not know what he is talking about. I don’t know why he would make sense to you. He blames liberals for 9/11. Don’t be a fool to listen to this idiot, Arlene. He’s drunk his right-wing kool aid and cannot see reality. He’s projecting a perverted corrupted form of conservatism that will destroy your morality.

I’ve commented right here on Mormon Mentality before on what I would have done after 9/11. Long long ago. I would have transformed Afghanistan back when conditions were right for us to transform Afghanistan. That window of opportunity has been closed, possibly forever. We are faced with a future where the Taliban will still exist, and ironically, stronger than they were before 9/11. That’s just pathetic. And the problem is because of George W Bush, who decided America’s security was better served by going into Iraq. What a stupid idiot.

Arlene, you cannot annihilate your enemies anymore in this world without killing tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people. Over the past 100 years, the population of the world has exploded dramatically. Are you really willing to kill tens and hundreds of millions of people, Arlene? Is that the kind of person you wish to be remembered by your children? Especially when, if you were to believe the likes of Dinesh D’Souza, that would require also killing Americans? Because let me tell you, the likes of Dinesh D’Souza would have no problem killing American liberals if certain aspects of our society were not in their way to block them from doing so. If we were a more militaristic society, American liberals would be killed by the likes of Dinesh D’Souza. Is that really the kind of world you want to live in?

nope, the left uses tactics of happiness and love. :)

Didn’t you just cite a Mormonad? I’ll see yours, and raise you the one about the onion masquerading as a carmel apple…

Oh pshaw Daniel, I don’t even remember that, if I ever knew it. I just remember his book “What’s So Great About America?” I think you’re putting your own liberal slant to that. What I remember about it what he said about the psyches of those who promote terrorism. Which is my point about Afganistan.

Honestly, Daniel, what do you think should have been our country’s reaction to 9/11? What should have been our course of action? What would you have done?

Arlene,

Of course you don’t remember that. You don’t actually want to be associated with a man who blames Americans for 9/11, but that’s exactly what Dinesh D’Souza does. Here, read for yourself

In this book I make a claim that will seem startling at the outset. The cultural left in this country (such people as Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, George Soros, Michael Moore, Bill Moyers, and Noam Chomsky) is responsible for causing 9/11. The term “cultural left” does not refer to the Democratic Party. Nor does it refer to all liberals. It refers to the left wing of the Democratic Party—admittedly the most energetic group among Democrats, and the main source of the party’s ideas. The cultural left also includes a few Republicans, notably those who adopt a left-wing stance on foreign policy and social issues. Moreover, the cultural left includes organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Organization for Women, People for the American Way, Planned Parenthood, Human Rights Watch, and moveon.org.

In faulting the cultural left, I am not making the absurd accusation that this group blew up the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I am saying that the cultural left and its allies in Congress, the media, Hollywood, the nonprofit sector and the universities are the primary cause of the volcano of anger toward America that is erupting from the Islamic world. The Muslims who carried out the 9/11 attacks were the product of this visceral rage—some of it based on legitimate concerns, some of it based on wrongful prejudice—but all of it fueled and encouraged by the cultural left. Thus without the cultural left, 9/11 would not have happened.

Do you really believe that, Arlene? He’s taken the position of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, who said this just after 9/11:

“I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who try to secularize America … I point the finger in their face and say you helped this happen,” Falwell said, to which Robertson replied: “I totally concur.

Do you really believe that, Arlene? How does he know what the psyche of a terrorist is like? Is he a terrorist? He does, after all, blame innocent people for the crime of the century. That sounds like a terrorist to me. Maybe he does know what a terrorist thinks like because he IS a terrorist. Or maybe he’s just plain stupid and does not know a single thing about what he’s talking about.

What would I have done after 9/11? I would have done a Marshall Plan in Afghanistan. I would never have sent the Northern Alliance against Al-Qaeda, but would have had our soldiers go in there themselves. Cut off any escape for Bin Laden (as he apparently escaped toward Pakistan from Tora Bora). I would have pumped money into the system right away, had an American control the country for a while and slowly reset the country to what it used to be. Afghanistan actually had a fairly progressive life as late as the 1960s. It was actually a decent place. Then the Soviets showed up and truly destroyed the country. I would never have thought that our forces could handle two major wars at the same time, thus withdrawing forces from the true fight against our true enemy, into a fight against a caged enemy: Iraq. But then, I’m not the son of a man who was nearly assassinated by the leader of the caged enemy. I didn’t have daddy issues.

The point of focusing all efforts on Afghanistan would have been to show the Muslim world that Americans were not in a war against Islam. That our purpose was to benefit Muslim societies, not destroy them. If we are to follow the musings of the Indian terrorist, Dinesh D’Souza, we ought to be actively engaged in destroying the corrupt religion, Islam. Either we show the Muslim world that we are a peaceful nation, or we show them that we are an enemy. If we show them we are an enemy, we will never be at peace. If we show them we are peaceful, there is a far greater chance of actually living in a peaceful world. I don’t know about you, Arlene, but I prefer to live in a world where bad things occasionally happen because people make bad choices, but that we’re a humanity that generally tries to live in peace with each other, no matter how much we may hate each others’ guts. Should I take up my arms and go kill Dinesh D’Souza for essentially putting the blame of 9/11 on a guy like me? He’s siding me with the enemy, and I’m supposed to kill the enemy: if I were living under conservative ideology. Is that really the point of this life?

At what point, Arlene, are you willing to tolerate living in a world where your enemies will also be living? Are you willing to have your taxes raised so that your endless war can be paid for? Because to this point, STILL, neither the war in Iraq, nor the war in Afghanistan, have been paid for by actual funds. Are you not ashamed at this? These two wars, are yet to be paid for. We’ve been borrowing money from the Chinese in order to kill Muslims. At some point, we’re going to have to pay the Chinese back. That’s over $1 trillion dollars now. When are you willing to sacrifice your money in order for your war to be paid for? Or are you going to stand with those who send this bill to their children? Can you see why I have such disdain for today’s conservatives? Y’all don’t think this through very well.

I’ve written articles that blamed liberals for 9/11, Dan. Just like I blame J. Earl Carter for the hostage crisis. It’s not that big of a deal to point to the foreign policy outlook of liberals and show that they lead to a weakening of the US and an emboldening of its enemies, because they actually do. Furthermore, the intellectual pedigree of the notion that policies like the ones that you advocate will lead to the destruction of the US is quite distinguished. But, as usual, you’re arguing about the inconsequential, because you think it will allow you to score a rhetorical point on behalf of the ideology that you so tiresomely cheerlead for.

Afganistan was never a decent place, Daniel. You’re out to lunch.

Sun: you can almost say anything you want here. Knock yourself out.

The funniest part of that article, Daniel, is that the author left Afghanistan in 1968 to study in the west and pursue a career and never looked back — so much so that he even forgot about his book of photos that believes have a profound enough import to write an entire article about. Apparently, the irony of this is lost on the author, who appears completely in earnest.

It’s also funny to hear liberals, who are convinced that the US was a very nasty place in the 1950s, talk about Afghanistan in the 1950s as though it were an oasis in the wasteland of failed states between India and Turkey. And if you ever hear anyone even try to imply that Iran was better off in the 1950s than it is now, liberals will go positively ape-sh*t over the fact that back then the CIA propped up the Iranian government.

But yeah, Afghanistan. In the 1950s, that was the destination of choice for people in the know.

#24 your comment was in moderation… that’s funny… don’t you just delete peoples comments on your blog when they prove you wrong?

Arlene,

What would you expect of Afghanistan in the 19th century? How many regions of the world were developed and modernized back then? The US was barely beginning its industrialization. The British Empire had industrialized, but they did not export that industrialism to their colonies, or the territories they were attempting to colonize (like Afghanistan). Afghanistan was relatively peaceful throughout the mid-20th century, which allowed for great development, as you can see in those pictures. What ended up killing that was their location: sandwiched between the Soviet Union and India. Bad spot to be in.

So yeah, don’t listen to rabid Republicans. They are liars.

I’m so glad to see the unintentionally hilarious Daniel I know. I’m grinning ear to ear.

Annegb- funny how you think Al is one of the most unattractive men alive and how you wonder how Tipper ever ended up with him. Remember when she suffered the most awkward political convention kiss of all time in the 2000 Dem Convention? Priceless.

Drudge is excellent. WSJ, Drudge, RCP, HuffPo are generally good. HuffPo requires the most filtering of language and rants.