Obama made a terrible decision re Afghanistan

I don't know what waterbody is saying, so I welcome everybody else to respond to his inane questions.

I dont think the last decade addresses the issue of who benefited from arms sales since WWII.

A good question; we have sold arms to friends who later became our enemy, and visa-versa. It's a fools game that ends up killing our own soldiers - and nobody knows who ends up getting those arms sold to our so-called allies.

Does anyone know what ci is saying?

What he's saying is that in order to defeat the Russians when they invaded Afghanistan we armed the tribes that became the Taliban and AlQ. We armed them with stinger missiles and tons of arms which they stashed away for the day when Russia would leave in defeat.
We also taught them how to launder money and move it all around the world.

Yes, Panzade is correct. If he read History, he would be aware that the phenomenon he refers to is and has been almost ubiquitous. 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend"--You help the enemies of your enemies.

Why else did we pour millions and millions of dollars and equipment into the Soviet Union in the early forties? To defeat our enemies-Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. And, how did the Soviets thank us? Just three years after World War II ended and despite the Yalta Agreements, we became involved in a cold war with the Soviets.

There are numerous historical examples of this. The left wing morons who loved to show the former Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld, shaking hands with Saddam Hussein, five years before Desert Storm, do not understand that we were still angry at Iran for the hostage situation during the inept Jimmy Carter Days.

Don't they teach History in school anymore or has it all been relegated to Politically Correct BS?

That's common knowledge - thank you for putting it into simple English.

Weird stuff & very hard to comprehend, c.i.
A recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize putting the case for war in his acceptance speech.
I haven't heard, nor read, the whole text of Obama's speech yet, but I have heard snippets on the radio during the morning. ABC Radio has been playing congratulatory sound bites from the very far right commentators folk here (at A2K) constantly rail about.
Weird stuff, weird times ...

What can I say? Flabbergasted!

Well, it's certainly not what one would have expected in the circumstances.

But, msolga, you must know that President Obama is one of the most brilliant thinkers in the modern world. If you watch and listen for his future explanations, you will soon learn that he didn't really put the case for war in his acceptance speech. If you read "1984" you certainly learned that "War is Peace"--
A very difficult idea to accept but I am sure that President Obama can explain it to us!

Kudos on quoting 1984 but an "F" for not identifying Paul Wolfowitz, Scoop Jackson, Paul Nitze and Richard Perle as the neocon standard-bearers for "War Is Peace", The Bush Doctrine.

There was much of Obama's speech with which I agree, but to some extent I believe the kudos he has received from the Right are based on the facts that it was, in some ways, in stark contrast to other, more frequent, comments he has made, and that it was bound to puzzle, confound or infuriate the Left.

I believe the speech, in part, reflects a man forced to reconcile reality with ideology. It's interesting that it may have taken being personally responsible for the safety of his fellow citizens to reveal to him the reality that sometimes war is not only necessary, it is just, but I'm sure glad that it has.

But then, I'm not sure Obama was ever the pacifist many believed him to be.

He's not soft.

Despite the rhetoric in his speech about defending human rights, he was quite capable of steely indifference to Iranian citizens being killed in the streets of Tehran in order to advance his strategy of engagement with the murdering regime.

I have to admit I quite enjoy the consternation of so many of his supporter as a result of this speech.

My Goodness, he acknowledged that Evil exists and must be combated.

He praised America for it's role in militarily protecting the world from Evil.

He reserved the right to act unilaterally to protect America and its people.

I'm comforted that we don't have a truly pacifist president.

It can always be worse than it is.

I remain unconvinced that that was an appropriate declaration as a Nobel Peace prize acceptance speech. More to do with internal US politics than anything else.

well yes, of course it was.

So Finn, if Obama had a do-over, do you think he would have invaded Iraq?

Precisely! Peace Prize and increasing the war effort half way across the world is an oxymoron.

Afghanistan is not a threat to US security; they are more a threat to their neighbors. If war mongers inside of Afghanistan are a threat, it's up to the world community to stop them, If European and Asian countries are not worried, why are we the primary supplier of the military and treasure? Afghanistan is in "their" back yard, not ours.

Think about that statement for a moment... who are their neighbors, what do they possess
that can threaten security worldwide and what terrorist groups want these possessions?

A pretty brazen performance, really. But I guess he was in a bit of a pickle & felt some serious justification was required. I mean, it's rather a unique situation, isn't it?: receiving a prize for his efforts toward world peace while increasing troop numbers in a foreign conflict, all in the same week.

"cough" ... what efforts?