lostfan

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 2, 2009 -> 08:39 AM) Not entirely true. They start with that, and do a hair folicle test later, for certain agencies. Or at least they used to. Also folks, keep something in mind - cutting your hair will have zero effect on results of a hair test, unless you shave it all clean off (which might be a tad bit suspicious). And as soon as it grows in a bit, they can test again. Generally speaking, for most government jobs they just do the urine test. You're right though, it'd be different if you were in a more sensitive type of job.

12/12. Hardest one was knowing who the chairman of the Senate finance committee is, and the exact troop levels in Afghanistan, but I happened to be watching CNN last night after Obama's speech where they said his increase would bring it to 100k.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Dec 2, 2009 -> 12:03 PM) I don't think sending tens of thousands of our young men and women to foreign lands to kill/capture/contain a few hundred virtually unidentifiable extremists is a good use of our time, resources, money, and lives. Add to that the tens of thousands of foreign civilians being killed in the crossfire and the increased negative perception from the Islamic world and it seems like a poor cost/benefit proposition. Increased domestic and global security measures would be something I'd rather invest in. Just look at America just before 9/11 and now. We are exponentially weakened with all these global conflicts we're trying to maintain. These extremists have nothing to lose by waiting this out as we occupy their lands and sink additional trillions of dollars into this mess. Foreign invasion and occupation will not eliminate terrorism. If we manage to bring Afghanistan to something resembling a conclusion and this means we're done with imperial-esque activities once this is over, then that's an acceptable compromise to me.

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ Dec 2, 2009 -> 11:56 AM) Than let the people of Afghanistan get rid of them. I'm just as skeptical of continued involvement as you are, but they really can't do that.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Dec 2, 2009 -> 11:07 AM) Matthews is an idiot.

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Dec 2, 2009 -> 10:37 AM) So you're saying you may have been one of those cadets caught during the speech yawning/falling asleep? haha Or trying to sneak pictures... rofl. Actually no I would've been intimidated as hell if the president was right there in front of me giving a national prime-time speech.

I would say Bush's pre-surge speech had about that level of detail. IIRC anyway. I was really pissed at him at the time and wasn't really listening that closely.

It's physically impossible to withdraw troops from Iraq immediately, and frankly right now they are coming out as fast as is reasonably possible. They're on a pace to be out entirely by the end of 2011. The whole "16 months" thing was just campaign rhetoric that got ratcheted up between him and Hillary in the primaries and was never seriously going to happen just like the whole "canceling NAFTA" thing.

Not really, those things are fleeting.

Ok, so I feel better about the fact that President Obama made it clear that Afghanistan wouldn't be an open-ended conflict.

QUOTE (LosMediasBlancas @ Dec 1, 2009 -> 03:57 PM) Hair testing is very expensive from what I hear, so unless it's a gov job, it's probably the 'wizz quiz'. The gov't doesn't even do that, at least in my experience. The military does Operation Golden Flow.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Dec 1, 2009 -> 03:28 PM) Keith, you'd enjoy this when you have the time. It really echoes what you said in terms of strategy. I read the first few pages and I'm thinking of North Korea.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Dec 1, 2009 -> 02:52 PM) So this may seem weird but does anybody know any detox methods for weed? A friend of mine just got a job offer a week ago and is worried about a drug test (and yes, it really is a friend). Any safe, proven methods? Kinda funny it was his first time doing it then got the offer (im guessing this helps with only a little bit in his system). He only did it once, a week ago? Just drink a lot of water and he should be good. If he has a normal metabolism the body should get rid of it in, say, 4 days. If he smokes every day, that's when the body starts storing it in fat cells before getting rid of it so that's why you hear people talking about the 30 days and all that.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Dec 1, 2009 -> 03:22 PM) Ask the Romans, Soviets, British (the list goes on) if this problem is unique the US. Cant conquer people who refuse to be conquered. We might have been able to get away with it in Iraq in 1991, but yeah the general thrust of your statement is true.

My point in bringing that up though was to say that wars always seem to have unintended or undesired consequences, even ones that everyone thinks was an overwhelmingly decisive victory like the Gulf War. The ability of the United States to beat on a much smaller, poorer country's military in a matter of days or hours has never been in question. It's the strategy behind it and the follow-up that's the problem.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 1, 2009 -> 02:52 PM) I completely agree on excessive force, which is why I think we did it right that time. The sanctions had major collateral damage, but the overall effort to stifle Saddam actually served its purpose quite well, at a much lower cost of life and money than if we had tried to march into Baghdad. The more recent Iraq war should illustrate that nicely. Furthermore, I don't think 9/11 is traceable to either Iraq war in any material fashion. The presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia was a mistake. Granted, there wasn't really any way to know that then as clearly as we do now and we're obviously not in the business of making bin Laden happy, but that was a pretty big deal in the Muslim world and did play right into the narrative that they were still developing.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 1, 2009 -> 01:59 PM) Agreed on your first part, if you go far enough back, Saddam's very presence and strength is partly the fault of the west. Kind of like the Israel/Palestine problem is ultimately caused by the creation of the Israeli state in the first place. But I completely disagree on the first Gulf War aspect. I think Bush I handled that exactly the way it needed to be handled. Pulling back to avoid the perception that we were killing indiscriminately, offering generous concessions, and establishing a permanent military presence in the Middle East to patrol Iraq's airspace and enforce sanctions? That seemed like a good idea at the time but ended up backfiring (see 9-11 to present). It would've been one thing if we supported the uprising after we rhetorically encouraged it but we didn't do that for some reason. I know a lot of my criticism of U.S. foreign policy has the benefit of hindsight but the common denominator in all of them is that excessive force doesn't work long-term, and we aren't consistent with any kinds of principles of who we support and why.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 1, 2009 -> 01:29 PM) There is no split. The blame is squarely with Saddam and his buddies. The majority of it, yeah, but if you look at the big picture and see how we were playing some realpolitik hardball with Saddam (only a couple of years ago he was an ally and we were all wink-wink about his intentions to invade Kuwait) and the more I think about it the more I realize how bad of a strategic mistake the whole thing was. We should've either done it, and gone all the way to Baghdad and gotten it overwith, or just left it alone.

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Dec 1, 2009 -> 12:40 PM) There are a few articles out there along these lines and its refreshing to see a more nuanced approach to whether or not this effort makes sense. There's too much polarity in our thinking. Either Afghanistan is the new Germany/Japan or its the new Vietnam in the punditocracy - and there seems to be no middle option of what it could be. I don't think the goal of the US is to nationbuild like they did in Germany or Japan. And I don't think the goal is to prop up a failed state like it was in Vietnam. I think the goal is to provide them building blocks to create a relatively stable state and on the other hand protect Pakistan from destabilizing itself. I wasn't originally going to read it but it acknowledges up front that there are reasons to be skeptical and says there isn't any one tangible thing to point to. I still lean towards "it's a waste of time" but I understand the arguments in favor.

The reason for that has everything to do with Israel, the article kind of glosses over/ignores that completely.

This article recognizes skepticism on Afghanistan and tries to explain continued involvement http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009...worth_the_fight

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Dec 1, 2009 -> 09:55 AM) Let's be honest that had more to do with the leadership of Iraq than the sanctions. I don't believe food aid or medical supplies were restricted due to the sanctions. Personally I wouldn't count the sanctions, but parsing out and rationalizing ends up being Orwellian doublespeak since the people who die don't care about the rationalizations (although in this case I would guess they blame Saddam, and not the US). However, the post-invasion deaths, even the sectarian violence we weren't directly involved in, we're ultimately responsible for, as much as I hate to admit it. That's what happens when you go into a major city and get rid of the police. Yeah you primarily blame the neighbor who robbed you, but the guy that eliminated the protection has to share some blame too.

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Dec 1, 2009 -> 09:53 AM) Dan Rather was on Rachel Maddow last night, apparently he spent a good part of the month in Afghanistan last night, and of course he's parroting a lot of the "there's no point" line that seems to be talking head CW these days, but he did talk about noticing a surge in what he calls soft power - the military and NGO's working together to build useful structures for communities, creating bottom up leadership. I don't claim to know a lot about this conflict, but it seems to me if the strategy has changed to squeezing out the Taliban and giving population centers in risky areas of Afghanistan tools to survive and grow (which is how the Taliban gain legitimacy in areas they initially control btw) I think we've found something that works. The goal in Afghanistan seemed unclear the last few years, now the goal seems to be shaking out to a somewhat stable and mostly harmless state and then we leave, hopefully with it in better shape than when we left. If what I understand to be the case is the case, it seems a pretty reasonable strategy and one with a pretty well defined goal especially in contrast to many of our recent foreign engagements. That's always been the way to go, unfortunately State only has a fraction of the resources DoD does and then we expect soldiers to be able to do diplomatic/humanitarian/police work and then wonder why they take so long/get poor results/fail outright. We have this strange obsession with military power in this country, and completely unrealistic expectations of what our military can do for us. It's there for one reason, an unfortunate reason that should be avoided but is necessary nonetheless: to kill a lot of other people really fast.

Something that needs to be pointed out now and again for people who think more blood is the answer. The vast majority of those people are innocent (although the US isn't solely responsible for all those deaths obviously, but those numbers are conservative estimates on the Muslim side), and people wonder why we have image problems in certain parts of the world and why nobody takes us at our word when we say we're there to help. War doesn't help in most cases. We can be our own worst enemy.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 30, 2009 -> 03:33 PM) Aren't these guys who are Washington Redskins fans mostly? They have got zero room to talk s*** about anyone. No they are mostly ex-military so they're from all over the place. The other Bears fan here is like the polar opposite of the kind of fan I am.