Please explain Cut and Run criteria in light of Afghanistan

If I made a mistake then I'd admit it.I explained why I used the words I did. I assumed Iano meant the Soviet border and he just told you that's what he meant. Am I supposed to apologize for understanding and operating with the terms he used for sake of argument?On top of that, with respect to Iran, Russia does share a border with Iran on the Caspian. If this isn't true I'd like you to explain that using your map.Your point that the terms were not wholly accurate was agreed to. Hence the clarification. Hmmm, perhaps you should lead the way. I didn't in any way think that modern Russia shared land borders with either Iran or Afghanistan. If you think that is what I thought or what I meant, then you are mistaken.Indeed you are speaking well beyond yourself. As it was I doublechecked maps of the entire region before responding to Iano just to be sure. If for nothing else I had not realized China shared a small corridor/border with Afghanistan and wanted to check on that.I thought about addressing the fact that modern Russia no longer shares a border with Afghanistan, but made the assumption (correct I might add) that he was describing sphere of influence based on the old border. Why open up a new argument, regarding projection of influence when I didn't have to?You were correct in pointing out inaccuracies, but at this point you're just plain wrong.

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

holmes writes: I think I proved my point in both cases. I predicted the response and it came true, thereby providing more evidence of my hypothesis concerning who will try to argue against geographic fact.Thank you for validating my theories concerning the inability to admit making a mistake on the part of both parties.Please feel free to continue to embarrass yourselves before the world.Edited by anglagard, : clarity

You don't honestly mean to tell me you believe public statements do you? That whatever the strategy may be that you should be made aware of it through Fox News? I think it should be obvious enough to anyone who wasn't inclined to rely on public prounouncements for their argument. Looking at situations as they patently are allows one to conclude a I concludeI remind you that basic elements of what I say came many years ago from someone who worked in a Clinton administration think-tank on such strategy development. To his mind it wasn't a question of "if" in terms of moving to stabilise ME oil supply it was "when". All the various potential risks are being constantly evaluted and plans are constantly being made, modified and scrapped in accordance with the lastest situation. In his time the risks were graded in terms of seriousness as follows:1 Pakistan/India to have a nuclear exchange
2.China to invade Taiwan
3.Move required to be made on the Middle East. Right, lets see what you have to say Israel doesn't need the US help to cope with any desire tending towards military retaliation from Iran due to Israel knocking out Irans nuclear industry. But Iran can hardly be expected to say "Oh well - at least we tried". There can be expected to be reaction. Not only from Iran but from the Arab world at large - especially given these fractious times. And what that reaction might entail is why the US is there, I argue. Can Iran use a threat to shut its oil supply to the West as a lever to extract support for UN embargo/ sanctions against Israel (and serious ones at that: demanding Israeli land for peace)? I say the West because Russia and China would likely support such a demand. If Iran can (and they can) then the US needs to be in a position to do something about it - and fast. Securing Irans oil production might be seen as a wild move but on the day Iran turns off the taps we get a mid-east oil crisis. The stock market would have a mickey-fit. And we have seen what happens when those occur. Also could Arab sensitivities be awakened/stoked so as to result in multiple suicide-attacks against various other facilities in the region? In Saudi, Quatar, Kuwait, Iraq. Of course they can: folk are mad enough at Irael during this period of relative restraint on their part (relative to a pre-emptive strike against Iran that is) Imagine for a second taking all the US military: personnel (140,000 or so as I understand it) and equipment out of Iraq and placing it on ships in the Gulf. A monumental task in itself. Now tell your own people and the world why you are sitting there in the Gulf. It wouldn't be acceptable. It would be blatantly obvious what was going on and couldn't be supported on the worlds political stage nor at home. That Iran, China, Russia and me (!) knows what is going on already doesn't matter - the US has a decent hand that can be played as it is being played in the geopolitical game of cards. The US needs to be near and ready. With bases operational and ready to go. Land, sea and air are routes they have available now. A sea base is not enough. I can hardly believe what you are saying Holmes. You seem to want to go chasing ghosts around the mountains of Afghanistan whereas they can set up anywhere. Look north of Afghanistan and what do you see? Muslim countries all over the place. Mujahadeen territory. What is stopping them stepping over the border? All the while the oil fields sit exposed.Your dealing with reasons NOT to set up a base in Afghanistan is weak:Landlocked Afghanistan is really, really landlocked. You have to cross a thousand miles of Pakistan to get to it from the sea. An unwilling Pakistan is a different kettle of fish than minisule friendly Kuwait. Not that it matters what Kuwait think if the ballon went up. Pakistan is another matter altogether. Apply Occams Razor here. The timeframe is instant response to trouble. Central location in the gulf means any area is equidistant from where your base is. Global reach is no use if it is a.s.a.p. local reach you need. Just look at the map and consider the logistical aspects. Good sea access/friendlier territory around you/Europe at your back/close to all critical areas/a good command of the surrouding territory from which to launch off elsewhere. This doesn't give you a firm base. It gives you a toehold. If that is all you want it would be better to settle down somewhere away from the oil fields so as not to be accused of oil grabbing. Protection NOW, this minute, is not the goal - it is putting oneself in a strong position to protect any/all oilfields in the whole region in reponse to a threat from anywhere in the region.But say you had Iraqi oil fields alone as secured, with Saddam presumably still in power. Now Israel/Iran (for example) goes off. You now have to conquer Iraq and set about establishing a base - right in the middle of a crisis. For your toehold is not necessarily in a good strategic position to to deal with the threat. Invading Iraq gave the US access to all the infrastructure required to establish a firm base. They moved at the time they moved and considered it necessary. A patch of sand with some oil well on it far from anywhere is a patch of sand far from anywhere - not something that is ready to be turned into a base. Airports, construction materials, roads, bridges etc are available in Iraq - not on a patch of sand. With Saddam gone who is left against you in the area? Forget Syria and Jordan. There is only Russian-backed Iran. One major foe and one major front (in the case that that front needs to be dealt with) Sitting in Kuwait with Saddam in power means that when/if the balloon goes up you have the distinct possibility of him acting crazy. Better take him out and remove any Iraqi threat. What would stop him lauching missiles at Iran or Israel simply in order to stir things up? He has done both before. You don't leave a mad man in control when the place is a tinder box already. Keep your eye on the oil. Its flow must be protected from any sudden major disturbance. There is no way around that. If you can come up with a better base for instant operations then suggest one. We can rule out Afghanistan at this point I think. And the carrier option too. Unless you would like to develop them a little moreEdited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Add another 140,000 or so to the 12,000 or so that are in Afghanistan - along with all the military equipment involved and see what happens. Would the US let China set up a large military base in Cuba?Oops...look like we don't have to bother with that scenario anymore. Afghanistan was never going to last as a base for the US it seems.

i guess one strategy to keep from admitting one is mistaken is to change the subject.Let's summarize. You claimed Russia shares a common border with Afghanistan, Are you still making that claim?Holmes claims Russia shares a common border with Iran, then states it is a common border somewhere in the Caspian Sea, blames you for meaning the borders of the old Soviet Union which has not existed for 15 years, and demands I apologize for pointing out this mistake.All I can say at this point is you two deserve each other.ABE - I'm done posting here, you both proved my point concerning the inability to admit a mistake, so I don't see how this debate can even be remotely productive.You both have made several other mistakes BTW, but I dont want to consume some dozen posts with your subsequent excuses.Edited by anglagard, : No reason given.Edited by anglagard, : No reason given.Edited by anglagard, : No reason given.

Er...Anglagard. I was looking at Google Earth when I was examining the poor strategy required for using Afghanistan as a base. It has this handy feature which puts the names of the countrys on the country so you know where you are. I am also aware that the former Soviet Union is former. Also my ex-girlfriend and myself planned out a journey she was planning to make to Taskent and the surrounding region. We spent quite a while on maps of the region..."bordering Russia territory" I said - not Russian territory. There is a difference - which is why I left out the 'n'. I'm sure you've heard the expression "sphere of influence" beforeGo on...admit it. You didn't spot the difference - you just leapt on what you thought was a mistake and you are not prepared to back down.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

I agree. What 9/11 did was wake the world up to something it hadn't really been seen before: creative terrorism. Terrorism that told us our societies structure was fragile, that you didn't need to hit it with tanks and nukes in order to cause a lot of damage. 9/11 didn't result in damage to our society - it announced to us that a lot of damage could be done to our society by employing relatively unsophisticated means. Means which use the weight and vunerability of the structure to bring the structure down. All you have to do is kick a leg out from underneath it - the structure will do the rest. Just like the twin towers collapsing.Earlier I pointed to how 3 x 10 planes knocked out of the sky over the ocean would cause disaster in the airline and associated industries worldwide. 10 planes out of the sky today. Another 10 next month and another 4 months from now and you shut an industry - that's all it takes.And thats peanuts when it comes to our vunerability regarding oil. Do some serious damage to oil supply and the weight of the worlds economy will do the rest. Like, if you can coordinate knocking 10 planes out of the sky its not that much more to coordinate 10 oil facilities in flames - say the 10 biggest facilities in the world I agree. But neither will trying to win hearts and minds. The minds that want our destruction already exist and are working towards that goal. Heart and minds is an impossible result to achieve in the short or medium (and perhaps even long) term. There is no point in wishing it were so and waiting around until it is so. The game is already on. There is no point in wishing your team to consist of other players. You play as you must now - not as you would want to then.The fight for survival might not be winnable. But that doesn't make it any less a fight for survival. It doesn't mean you sit around and do nothing. You prepare to protect that which makes you vunerable.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

An interesting paper on the subject: Don't you wish we had a hydroeconomy?

Too bad because I think if we could just apply a suitable noise filter this could be an interesting and important discussion.The invasion of Afghanistan was justified based on the claim that the Taliban were sheltering AQ and providing them with a base of operations.While it may well be true that the Taliban did provide a base of operations to AQ, the idea of invasion as a recourse falls apart on several points.First, a modern terrorist organization is not directly tied to some specific piece of land. You cannot occupy some point in space and by virtue of that occupation eliminate the terrorists.Terrorist exist on the same infrastructure base as their targets. To attack their infrastructure is to attack your own infrastructure.Afghanistan was NOT the infrastructure of the terrorists. They needed advanced communications and transportation, ubiquitous and anonymous transportation, advanced technology, advanced education facilities and an extensive and pervasive financial system.None of those factors were availble in Afghanistan except through portable units that connected the people to the infrastructure of the west.Invading Afghanistan was the first really stupid step in this fiasco. It accomplished nothing except waste resources. The terrorists simply moved on. Afterall, most of their planning, training, supply and financial infrastructure were not in Afghanistan but in Rome and Madrid and Berlin and Hollywood Park Florida and New York and Manila and Paris and London and Bonn and Rio and Toronto.Another claim has been that invading Iraq was to secure the oil supply. That also seems very weak and to accept that premise places the US and Great Britain in the same moral position as Imperial Japan. It is a claim that because we need some resource and have the technological capability to take the resource, we have the obligation and right to do so. Such an argument is without any moral redemption, it is far more destructive to the Western Political and Social system than any terrorist threat. It is disgusting and reprehensible.Edited by jar, : change subtitle

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Protecting ones way of life takes many forms. Not so long ago it meant going to Vietnam.I haven't claimed that a moral obligation is in any way involved. They are your own words not mine.

I admit I was skeptical of the Afghanistan invasion at the outset, partly because its mountainous territory is very difficult, and partly because it was based on the naive idea that Afghanistan was a terrorist nation. My skepticism has proven to be well founded. I would not call it a fiasco - at least not yet. A strategic blunder for sure, but hardly a fiasco.Iraq is certainly a fiaso. Moreover, it was easily predictable that it would be a fiasco. I strongly suspect that the state department and the CIA both warned Bush that it would probably be a fiasco. I completely agree.

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Compassionate conservatism - bringing you a kinder, gentler torture chamber

History may well show that this invasion was the turning - where the U.S.A began its slip from status of super power to a has-been nation.Protecting one's way of life - bah humbug.

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Compassionate conservatism - bringing you a kinder, gentler torture chamber

I would use that term, but in relation to the stated goal of eliminating the AQ threat. The key people we supposedly went there to get simply left. There was no real infrastructure base in Afghanistan, so that too remained unchanged.The rest, the claim that somehow we are securing a supply of some needed resource is simply absurd and totally immoral. What makes it even worse is the shere stupidity of the argument. In the time we supposedly have been acting to secure the supply of oil we have seen the price climb steadily.However, it is stil lower than the inflation adjusted prices of 1980-1982.You can see the historical oil prices here.Those justifications of our invasion of Iraq as an oil supply issue are no different than the Imperial Japanese justifications for their invasions of China, Korea and South-East Asia looking for raw materials or Nazi Germanys invasions of its neighbors for more land, coal and oil.It is a disgusting and reprehensible position.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

You can't seem to get anything right anglagard.Russia and Iran both border the Caspian sea. This gives Russia direct air and sea access to Iran. If you cannot admit this is true, then you have some serious reality issues.I did not "blame" Iano for anything. I looked at a map and took Iano's claim to be Russia's power projection ability based on the previous Soviet border. His responses, creating the exact argument I was trying to avoid, show that I was right. If you cannot admit this, you have some serious issues.I did not demand that you apologize for pointing out anything. I suggested that if you believe I really thought and meant modern Russia shared a land border with Afghanistan and Iran then you were mistaken. Not only were you wrong you are in no place to tell me what I know and meant. Given that, if you are so into admitting mistakes you could set an example by doing so.That you can't admit the above is telling. That you feel the need to alter what I said just now, is also telling.While I firmly deny making a mistake about where the actual border of modern Russia is with relation to those two nations, I admitted making a mistake in using language which was not clear. I just didn't use the exact words "I made a mistake". Not sure why you need those exact words to understand that. Oh oh of course. Well let me apologize right now for all those mistakes I made. Boo hoo. I guess I'll have to take them with all the seriousness of your other statements.If you have nothing to add to this thread, please take a hike.

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

You were yearning earlier that a "noise filter" be applied as this "could be an interesting discussion". You might consider applying the filter to yourselfI have not made any comment about the morality of it, nor am I justifying it.