Obama pulls out!

What a douche.

While I support pulling the troops out of Afghanistan, it always makes me nervous when the White House conflicts with military leaders on military decisions. I guess I'm just too ill informed to really have a distinct opinion on this yet, but I'd hate to cut the remaining 70,000 troops short just to fulfill a campaign promise in time for elections.

oldpbnoob wrote: stratoaxe wrote: Also-we need a new front to fight wars on. I'm tired of looking at the desert in military shooters. I'm thinking somewhere cold, but not Russia. Maybe invade Switzerland or something.   Wait a minute.... (scratches chin and looks north)

Edited by agentwhale007 - 23 June 2011 at 3:59pm

agentwhale007 wrote: It's a "where you stand depends on where you sit," idea.

Wouldn't that also mean that they would know better about how much we actually need over there? Canada is already leaving at the end of this year and the U.S. is supposed to be taking over the FOBs that Canada now controls when they leave. It just sounds kind of bad to me to cut back troops when spreading out.

I'm more inclined to think (partly due to Whale's comments, but I thought this beforehand as well) the military would choose the decision that best enabled them to succeed at whatever directive given to them. "Winning" is almost certainly the desired outcome, so military officials would likely not be very fond decreasing their personnel by the tens-of-thousands.

agentwhale007 wrote: stratoaxe wrote: it always makes me nervous when the White House conflicts with military leaders on military decisions. I agree, it can be a bit unsettling. However I'm also a subscriber of the Allison theory of organizational-processes model, in that people in the military are most likely, when asked for advice or presenting advice, going to give a pro-military estimate.  It's a "where you stand depends on where you sit," idea.  That doesn't mean the Pentagon is wrong by any stretch, but I also think that their own stakes play in to their rationalizations.  oldpbnoob wrote: stratoaxe wrote: Also-we need a new front to fight wars on. I'm tired of looking at the desert in military shooters. I'm thinking somewhere cold, but not Russia. Maybe invade Switzerland or something.   Wait a minute.... (scratches chin and looks north) I love it. And, for all the conspiracy nuts, they have oil!

Did you guys see the Daily Show, were they talked about Canada being the #1 supplier of oil. I lol'd hard.

GroupB wrote: agentwhale007 wrote: However I'm also a subscriber of the Allison theory of organizational-processes model, in that people in the military are most likely, when asked for advice or presenting advice, going to give a pro-military estimate.  Seems to me like this goes without saying.  If you are asking a military leader, who's job it is to achieve a military victory, of course their answer is going to be oriented towards military victory.  That's why the military is controlled by civilians.  Generals tell them what's best militarily, and the civilian decides if that's good for the country or not.

No. The civilian in charge decides if it's good for his election or not.


What's good for the country is getting rid of terrorists and their safe areas.

Edited by Linus - 23 June 2011 at 9:23pm

*Stealth* wrote: ... Over there they call us Terrorists.

So? lol.