Senator proposes permanent US bases in Afghanistan

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Senator proposes permanent US bases in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON – A leading GOP lawmaker on U.S. military policy says he wants American officials to consider establishing permanent military bases in Afghanistan.

Sen. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina says that having a few U.S. air bases in Afghanistan would be a benefit to the region and would give Afghan security forces an edge against the Taliban.

Graham tells NBC's "Meet the Press" that he wants to see the U.S. have "an enduring relationship" with Afghanistan to ensure that it never falls back into the hands of terrorists.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110102/ap_on_re_us/us_us_afghanistan

what do you guys think? i'm on the fence on this....
 
BAD idea. We can use established airbases to support the mission in Afghanistan. Making a permanent presence there will make for permanent hard feelings even among moderate Islamists.

Not to mention the costs of building, supplying, and maintaining permanent bases at a time when the last thing we need is more big bills.
 
Makes sense to me. However, the battle of public opinion (amongst Afghanis) must be won before that would be feasible.
 
Good Luck said:
BAD idea. We can use established airbases to support the mission in Afghanistan. Making a permanent presence there will make for permanent hard feelings even among moderate Islamists.

Not to mention the costs of building, supplying, and maintaining permanent bases at a time when the last thing we need is more big bills.
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so its a bad idea just for the money and because it will create "permanent" hard feelings....??

imo, we have either not done enough or done too much to create hard feelings with many islamists, america has been hated by many muslims long before iraq or afghanistan. seems to me that if we simply pack up and leave entirely, afghan reverts right back to where it was before we invaded because that is exactly what they did when russia left and given their economy i believe it has a 99% chance of reverting.

Voltaire said:
Makes sense to me. However, the battle of public opinion (amongst Afghanis) must be won before that would be feasible.
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true, but i don't think we will ever completely win that because we aren't a muslim conquerer or nation
 
China will soon be building bases of operation in Georgia and South Carolina, they figure it will save on transportation to Walmart stores and it will help their employees learn English. That way they can move forward into the 22nd Century even more strongly. A few Americans will be hired as translators and truck drivers at Chinese wages. The Chinese hope America will understand this is for their own good as while they once were a economic power, they are now just an arsenal of expensive weapons and several wealthy munitions families. Buying Chinese products will be good for the country that no longer makes anything except weapons and corporate propaganda. Oh forgot, trailer homes are still made here too. There are rumors Brazil may follow China's example and build bases of business operation in Louisiana and Alabama. After all it is a free market world today. Long live laissez-faire economics.
 
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midcan5 said:
China will soon be building bases of operation in Georgia and South Carolina, they figure it will save on transportation to Walmart stores and it will help their employees learn English. That way they can move forward into the 22nd Century even more strongly. A few Americans will be hired as translators and truck drives at Chinese wages. The Chinese hope America will understand this is for their own good as while they once were a economic power, but are now just an arsenal of expensive weapons and several wealthy munitions families. Buying cheap Chinese products will be good for the country that no longer makes anything except weapons and corporate propaganda. Oh forgot, trailer homes are still made here. There are rumors Brazil may follow China's example and build bases of business operation in Louisiana and Alabama. After all it is a free market world today. Long live laissez-faire economics.
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completely false analogy and not even oranges to apples, more like night and day....
 
Yurt said:
so its a bad idea just for the money and because it will create "permanent" hard feelings....??

imo, we have either not done enough or done too much to create hard feelings with many islamists, america has been hated by many muslims long before iraq or afghanistan. seems to me that if we simply pack up and leave entirely, afghan reverts right back to where it was before we invaded because that is exactly what they did when russia left and given their economy i believe it has a 99% chance of reverting.



true, but i don't think we will ever completely win that because we aren't a muslim conquerer or nation
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"Many" Muslims does not equate to mainstream, moderate Islam. They don't LIKE us much, but they do not HATE us either - unless we make it look like we're moving in permanently because we don't trust them to keep their house in order.

To be clear, I don't give a ripe pig fart what the extremists think and say - their leaders say anything to keep their power - and they keep their power by peddling hate.

Of course, support of the mission is first priority, no matter what one thinks about the mission itself. However, with bases already in place, (including temporary bases) plus the capabilities in our carrier task force groups in the area, there is no significant strategic nor tactical advantage to be gained by building permanent bases.
 
midcan5 said:
China will soon be building bases of operation in Georgia and South Carolina, they figure it will save on transportation to Walmart stores and it will help their employees learn English. That way they can move forward into the 22nd Century even more strongly. A few Americans will be hired as translators and truck drives at Chinese wages. The Chinese hope America will understand this is for their own good as while they once were a economic power, but are now just an arsenal of expensive weapons and several wealthy munitions families. Buying cheap Chinese products will be good for the country that no longer makes anything except weapons and corporate propaganda. Oh forgot, trailer homes are still made here. There are rumors Brazil may follow China's example and build bases of business operation in Louisiana and Alabama. After all it is a free market world today. Long live laissez-faire economics.
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China did not spend billions of dollars and and thousands of lives liberating Americans from a tyrannical government.
 
Voltaire said:
China did not spend billions of dollars and and thousands of lives liberating Americans from a tyrannical government.
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Neither did America. As in south Vietnam the government is corrupt in Afghanistan and Iraq was not only an illegal and immoral invasion that killed hundreds of thousands of innocents but will replace one bad gov with another.

http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2006/07/trapped-in-wrong-paradigm-three-handy.html

"I have occasionally mentioned that I very frequently challenge myself with regard to the validity of my own views. I think anyone who is seriously concerned with ideas, as I endeavor to be, must do this, at least to some extent. As new evidence accumulates, we need to ask ourselves: do my ideas account for these developments -- or do new events call into question what I had previously thought? Is this recent occurrence explained by ideas I have discussed before, or does this represent some new phenomenon? Do my previously-held views explain this development sufficiently, or do they need to be modified in some way? That's just a sample of some of the questions that come up as I continually examine and re-examine my ideas and theories; there are usually considerably more." Arthur Silber

http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2003/08/in-service-of-new-fascism.html
 
http://www.wealthdaily.com/articles/afghanistan-mineral-discovery-a-1-trillion-find/2553


Afghanistan Mineral Discovery: A $1 Trillion Find
U.S. Gov't Discovers the "Saudi Arabia of Lithium"
By Luke Burgess
Friday, June 18th, 2010

There's gold in that thar war!

Geologists working with the Pentagon claim to have discovered $1 trillion worth of precious and base metal deposits in Afghanistan.

U.S. and Afghan officials are hopeful that these mineral deposits will convert the war-torn country into a global mining giant, fundamentally altering the economy of Afghanistan and perhaps the war itself.

But there are serious doubts over the logistics of actually mining the metals in the near term.

And for investors, there are much better opportunities in safer, more stable regions of the world.

Mining in Afghanistan

Mineral discoveries in Afghanistan is nothing new. The country has a mining history that can be traced back for over 6,000 years.

Historical mining in Afghanistan was principally focused on the production of gemstones, with some of the world's oldest known mines established to produce lapis lazuli for the Egyptian Pharaohs.
 
It's a terrible Idea. Vietnamistan needs to end, congress is getting it's pocket's padded by the MIC!!!
 
evince said:
You know those rare earth metals China has a shit load of?

Guess what is in afganistan?
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Guess what is in Colorado? Want some shovel ready jobs? Talk Mr. It's only Green if it comes from Afghanistan into creating some jobs by opening up that mining in CO...

However, I did tell everybody that as soon as these were discovered we'd never let them go...
 
Good Luck said:
BAD idea. We can use established airbases to support the mission in Afghanistan. Making a permanent presence there will make for permanent hard feelings even among moderate Islamists.

Not to mention the costs of building, supplying, and maintaining permanent bases at a time when the last thing we need is more big bills.
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Are you going peecee on us now? Who care if some radicals have a hard-on for us?

I've long advocated a permanent base in Iraq. A satellite to it in Afghanistan would be fine with me.
 
Damn Yankee said:
Are you going peecee on us now? Who care if some radicals have a hard-on for us?

I've long advocated a permanent base in Iraq. A satellite to it in Afghanistan would be fine with me.
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As I said, I don't care what extremists have to say. Or are you implying that there is no such thing as moderate Islam?

But in the bottom line, it doesn't matter. We do not have the money to be building more bases on foreign soil, nor do we have the strategic nor tactical need to do so. We can reach anywhere we need to reach with current assets.
 
Good Luck said:
As I said, I don't care what extremists have to say. Or are you implying that there is no such thing as moderate Islam?

But in the bottom line, it doesn't matter. We do not have the money to be building more bases on foreign soil, nor do we have the strategic nor tactical need to do so. We can reach anywhere we need to reach with current assets.
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then you're ok with it reverting back to taliban style government? or most likely the taliban in truth....?
 
Yurt said:
then you're ok with it reverting back to taliban style government? or most likely the taliban in truth....?
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Where the hell did you grab that out of my estimate that the bases we have in place are adequate to supporting our mission there? Pure bullshit often referred to as a strawman argument.
 
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