People are saying some really ugly things here in Texas....

If you keep making statements like the one above, why should anybody take you serious?

Well, it was overthrown.

Exactly.

overthrown expelled

Well, the boss -- " Omar " was it ? fled in the face of military peril.
Hence, a reasonable argument can be asserted that it was expelled.

The Taliban WERE defeated and expelled from Afghanistan. They no longer impose their notions of strict Islamic Law on the people of Afghanistan.

The Taliban slipped over the border into the mountains of Pakistan where they were welcomed. Those tribal areas are fiercely independent, and the Pakistani government has almost no control over the area. The radical ideology of the Taliban and their hosts remains a danger to both Afghanistan and Pakistan. The U.S. government has been reluctant to carry out operations across the border into Pakistan. We are in a balancing act between hitting the Taliban's sanctuary hard, and preserving the soveriegnty of the Pakistani government whose assistance we require. As the Taliban has increased its attacks across the border, this administration has increased the number of strikes into the Tribal lands of N.E. Pakistan. That is hurting the Taliban, but at the same time it undermines our efforts to keep moderate Pakistani governments in power. A significant portion of the Pakistani population has always been supportive of the Taliban's radicalism, and the ISI was one of their main sponsors.

In the meantime, the U.S. has strongly supported improvements inside Afghanistan. The completion of the Ring Road should help, and our support of education, health, and other public works is money well spent. Still, there are major concerns. The central Afghani government isn't as stable as we'd like, and far too much of the country remains the province of local warlords. Exports of opium are up, and any effective attempt to suppress the trade might further erode support for the existing government. Putting boots on the ground and providing logistical support to Afghanistan is difficult, so we've placed probably too much emphasis on air power and the use of armed drones. It seems a relatively inexpensive means of countering the Taliban and Al Queda's efforts to return to power, but in the process we're alienating a whole lot of Afghani's who end up killed or wounded in the process. How many innocent Afghanis have been harmed, no one can say for sure because the radicals don't wear uniforms and a fanatic's corpse looks exactly like the corpse of an innocent villager who would just like a bit of peace and quiet.

The Taliban WERE expelled from Afghanistan, and if our forces were as evil as the Left would like to paint them, we might have cleaned out that rat's nest a long time ago. Or maybe not.

Asherman: I usually respect your statements and insights in political and historical matters.

But knowing myself a little bit of what's going on in Afghanistan, I'm sorry to say that your above post is untrue in almost every point.

Asherman's analysis ignores some hard truths of which he is either ignorant or wishes to ignore in order to make a partisan point. The Pakistanis were never our willing allies. Mushareff made a statement to his people within a week of the insistence by the United States that Pakistan provide us facilities to the effect that he had accepted the U.S. conditions with a gun to his head. ISI, the Pakistani security services (equivalent to Central Intelligence and the Federal Bureau of Invesigation) not only provided intelligence and logistical support to Taliban forces in Waziristan (the tribal region which spans both sides of the Pakistani-Afghan border), there is credible evidence from international security analysis sources (upon which American sources have never commented to confirm or deny) to the effect that ISI agents lead Taliban operations against American troops operating in and near Waziristan.

To mildly claim that the Taliban is a danger to Pakistan, too, as though they were our willing allies, suffering nobly for the alliance is disingenuous in the extreme, or naively ignorant. The Pakistani people are no friends of ours, and we can't even say today that ISI does not continue to support the Taliban.

But the most important thing to remember here is that the Canadians, the English and the Dutch have been fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, because American resources were reduced to a minimum in order to fight Baby Bush's dirty little war in Iraq. We left our legitimate war effort to prosecute an illegal and immoral war. You'll never hear about that from Asherman.

Yaknow, when you use the word "expelled", to most people that would suggest that the Taliban have actually left Afghanistan.

The Taliban were 'defeated' in the sense that they lost control over the government and of the parts of the country that was not actually controlled by other factions. They weren't 'expelled'. They continued to have influence in the Pashtun areas of Afghanistan.

Sure, the inability or unwillingness of the Pakistani government to crack down on the Taliban operations in Waziristan certainly helped them, and it's also certainly true that many Taliban left Afghanistan plan their operations from the Pakistani side of the border.

However, it's now more than seven years that Operation Enduring Freedom began, and US forces are still under attack by Taliban insurgents. They don't seem very 'expelled' to me.

clustered.

I live in Texas and I did not vote for Obama, but I too am surprised by how vehemently some people are reacting. I did not vote for him on the basis that I do not agree with some of his policy ideas and that I am concerned about his experience level. I do like him as a person, he seems very friendly and affable and idealistic. Personally he seems like a breath of fresh air and might be just what we need. I am looking forward to seeing how he does and hope that he can get things started on the road to change. I will admit that I am nervous about it to, McCain has much more experience and we as a country are in a very precarious condition at the moment, but nothing ventured nothing gained. People who are having issues about race just need to get over it and join the rest of us in the 21st century.

I replied after reading the first couple of pages only so if I am off topic at this point forgive me.

Asherman, I am not sure where you are getting your information, but you are mistaken about the current situation in Afghanistan as regards the Taliban.

If you are interested in the situation as it truly exists, I recommend that you do some reading of the current situation. I would further recommend using sources based outside of the U.S. for that information.

Asherman is one conservative I wished I could have read more of during the campaign (and georgeob1, and lash). He sees things through his own ideological lenses, but who doesn't? And he also analyses them, thinking not in a manichean (good vs. evil) way.

I, for one Obama supporter -albeit from the outside of the US-, am utterly tired of some of his followers, who send links as mantras, one longer or cornier than the other. And of course, I recognize, that the losing party -here in A2k- didn't take it easy on the defeat in 2004.

But there are levels, and I'm sorry Asherman is incapable of seeing them.
The racist, foul and beligerant tons of crap that have been posted by some of the right wing loonies bares no comparison to the whining -sometimes even humorous- from 4 years ago.
IMHO this has to do not with an innate lesser intelligence of the Conservatives, but with the "ugly things" the thread talks about.
Reasonable Conservatives -and I want to assume they are the majority- have little hope of the Obama presidency, but are willing to see what happens.
The unreasonable ones have thrown to the trash can the little that was left of their masks, and have shown themselves as what they are: racist fascists of the worst kind.
And I wonder, sadly, what percentage or the American people they do represent.

next time you visit your bro, I want in, dammit...

Both parties are full of raving loonies, and the middle has been getting squeezed since I have been cognizant.

Zap for prez, 2012...

(significant in many ways, no?)

How about listening to the officers and troops who are daily fighting against those radicals who want the world under the strict Islamic laws as they interpret them? I support and believe in our military from the lowest private to the highest commander. Instead of reading the propaganda of amateurs, read instead relevant articles in Parabola, the quarterly publication of the National War College, and other such unclassified materials. My specialty was China and East Asia, but I'm not completely out of touch with what's been happening in the rest of Asia over the past forty years, or so.

And so your miscreant family members and friends are supposed to represent all Texans?

That's a pretty bold statement.

Don't worry though, you're clearly an enlightened good guy.

At least that's what you've told us.

Your choice or their's?

Cast them aside Thomas or...get thee to a nunnery!

How sad it is that we may know or be related to people who disagree with us!

It's enough to think that we are to God as flies are to wanton boys.

Clearly, the Obama after-glow has been pretty flimsy.

At least I have something to say. You merely have a rather pathetic attempt at appearing superior, which you don't quite manage to pull off.

Have a nice night.

So you're the victim?

You get to libel Texans and no one gets to call you on it?

Yeah you have something to say, but drivel remains drivel.

Damn!

What a pain in the ass Finn is.

Here we are trying to pompously bloviate about how enlightened we are and how crude and moronic the "others" are and Finn has the nerve to interject his opinion that we are pretentious, sanctimonious jackasses.

Yes, you had something to say.

Proud of it?

Good post, fbaezer, but I still wouldn't vote for you for president

Aldistar, my thinking is pretty much like yours.