Originally posted by TheLonewolf
reply to post by Screwed
Try taking a walk thru a remote village in Afghanistan or Iraq and see how far that 'love' gets ya..You'll be on the internet within an hour of
your arrival getting your head sawed off with a knife..You might 'love' them but they sure as hell don't love you, and never will
And you, my friend, would be surprised at reality. Surely that is more true today than it was before our various occupations started, and I wouldn't
go willingly, any more than I would go walking through South-Central L.A., drug-war areas of Mexico, or the Kentucky hills, but it's not as bad as
you'd like to think.
Now if we continue occupying without making things significantly better for the people, it will get worse, the angst will grow, and rightfully so. You
have to remember, we were Afghabistan's heroes, aiding them against their previous invaders, the Soviet Union. Now we're the invaders. Do you really
think an Afghanistan left alone would be full of hatred for the U.S.? That would be like saying the US is full of hatred for Thailand. Why would we
hate Thailand? No good reason. But if Thailand was bombing us left and right, I guarantee we would despise them.
In the US, we don't think the same way about these things, because nobody can successfully invade and overrun us. I had read a white paper a few
years back (sorry, don't have it and can't find a link, but if you understand our military capabilities and strategic position, it makes sense.) It
is estimated that if China sent their full 200 million man military to attack the US, bringing them by air and sea, less than 100,000 would make it
onto US soil, and within 24 hours of landfall, less than 10,000 would survive. That would be 99.5% of their military dead within the first day. Of the
remaining, most would be killed or captured, or defecting within days, with literally less than 100 surviving through the week, and a few attempting
to become sleeper agents. A 200,000,000 man military force CANNOT even stage a viable attack on the U.S. Outside of a rare terrorist attack, we are
basically invulnerable, short of nuclear war. As such, we have a different mindset when it comes to how we feel about aggressors.
To Afghanis and to a lesser degree Iraqis, we are the equivalent of an advanced alien force invading the U.S. If that happened, we would use any and
all means necessary to battle the enemy.
Besides - why do we care what the Afghanis do on their own? Why do we care if they want to "wipe out the infidels?" I want to buy Apple Corp and
dissolve the company, and I also want to colonize and rule Mars, but neither is going to happen. Should Apple execs be spending their time trying to
imprison me to ensure their plans don't come to fruition? Should the CIA assassinate me so that I can't get my Mars colony going before the US govt
does? I'm just trying to understand why we would spend trillions of dollars and encourage terrorists juat because of some pipe-dream of a small
minority of radicals.
Geez, I was all over the place on that one. I hope you get the point, even though it went well beyond being a response to your comment as I intended.