Comments on: Updated: 'Does It Really, Really Take 100,000 U.S. Troops To Find Osama bin Laden?'

By: CM Collins

CM Collins — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 22:21:22 +0000

PS: Pardon me, but I flip-flopped the parallelism. Nagl is US Major John Nagl, Ret. = counter-insurgency = lotsa troops; Peters = counter-terrorism = not so much.

By: CM Collins

CM Collins — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:58:06 +0000

The debate between counter-insurgency (lotsa troops) and counter-terrorism (not so much) (as exemplified currently by, e.g. Ralph Peters vs. Nagl), strikes me as BS. It’s a trap. Agree to 30,000 troops and three months later they’ll be a car-bomb emergency in whoknowswhereistan province requiring another, temporary, emergency, just-for-now-but-really-forever-brigade. Why do we care? Leave. We’ve still got what, a dozen carrier groups. We hear or see some crap going on down the road we can always go back. Same goes for Iraq. BTW, this costs a lot of money and we’re going broke.

By: Bob Harrison

Bob Harrison — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:55:07 +0000

Bob Byrd might have every slab of concrete in West Virginia named after him, but he seems like one of the only politicians left who cares about the Constitution and the separation of powers. While most of the democrats who protested Bush’s excesses fell silent with the arrival of Obama, Byrd continues to speak out against the wars and the “czars.” I fear his was the last generation that thought the constitution was more than an 18th century relic.

By: M. B. Moon

M. B. Moon — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:40:24 +0000

Hey. Can't we forget long past racial sins and just blame them on Lincoln, America's Stalin?

By: Hugo Schmidt

Hugo Schmidt — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:41:01 +0000

Republicans are forever maligning this old Southern gentleman for his past peccadilloes

That would be being an “Exalted Cyclops” in the KKK, yes?

By: Gringo Malo

Gringo Malo — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:40:50 +0000

Does the government really want to find Osama Bin Laden? After all, he plays The Boogeyman better than Bela Lugosi played Count Dracula. His visage is more menacing than Christopher Lee's. He's already frightened the American sheeple into accepting the TSA's outrageous searches of airline passengers, the FBI's eavesdropping on personal communications, and the odious Know Your Customer regulations that require our banks to spy on us. The guy is a government press agent's dream. Suppose that Bin Laden were captured and confined in an American prison (a fate worse than death). Then the government would need to create a whole new publicity campaign for the new boogeyman. With Osama already doing such a bang-up job, it seems a great deal of unnecessary trouble and expense. Besides, Osama's successor might not have the same star power. He might be some pudgy old duffer who looks like the geenie in an animated verson of Arabian Nights. Who the hell needs that?

By: David Smith

David Smith — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:01:45 +0000

Subscribing to the “originalist” view of the Constitution – as I’m sure most here do – I am skeptical about Sen. Byrd’s being a “stern constitutional scholar”, or at least the kind of scholar I could agree with. However, I must admit that I totally concur with his thinking expressed here. I must also admit (confess?) that for the last couple of years or so, I have become increasingly disturbed with the true direction we’ve taken with our two-front “war”. I say I’m an “originalist”; yet how does nation-building fit any original understanding of the government’s constitutional mandate to “provide for the common defense”? I and many Americans who think of ourselves as conservative believed and supported our war efforts, believing they were ultimately about defending our country, defending our kith and kin. I fear I/we have been and are inconsistent in that thinking. We need to wake up, reevaluate, and listen to any source, be it Republican, Democrat, Libertarian or Independent, so long as it is consistent with our true constitutional values.

And, yes, I know, Mrs. Mercer, I believe you have made a convincing case elsewhere that the Articles of Confederation were far better than the Constitution – and I think I agree – but as much as it has been flouted and ignored (steamrolled?) for longer than most will acknowledge or admit, it is the semblance of the Constitution’s framework and structure that still exists, and to which many of us have given our oaths at one time or another to “. . . protect and defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

By: Myron Pauli

Myron Pauli — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:46:56 +0000
Terrorists can hide in shacks in Montana, Motel 6's, and apartments in Hamburg. There are supposedly 100 AlQuedians in Afghanistan and it is absurd to think that 100,000 or 500,000 troops can root out every thug from every cave. Hooray for Byrd - it is CONGRESS which under Article 1 Section 8 has the power to declare war. Unfortunately, the bulk of the Congress is a corrupt doormat willing to give a blank check to whatever Kommandant-in-Chief rules as long as they can earmark for their funding bundlers. We could send 500,000 Americans over there and kill at a ratio of 50:1 and when we leave, Afghanistan will still be a dysfunctional collection of corrupt, Medieval, sexist, Islamic-fanatic, drug-dealing warlords. We're watching a pathetic remake of the Vietnam movie starring the dithering Nobleman Obama lacking the guts to advocate withdrawing from one of the least significant countries on this planet. Reagan might have been a doofus for going into Lebanon but when he figured out that no one had a damn clue how to "win" (whatever the hell "win" means???), he invaded Grenada in a diversionary move and GOT OUT! We need a better principled foreign policy.

By: james huggins

james huggins — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:42:52 +0000

It seems to me that we have mucked about
long enough in the muslim mess of the mideast,South asia etc. If we feel the need to go there with troops then let’s go there, get done what needs to get done and get out. Nation building in a place where people don’t think like we do is a lost cause. If we came away from the latest “stan” of our involvement and left a thriving western styled democracy it would soon melt away. A western democracy in a country without running water or electric lights is a pipe dream.

By: M. B. Moon

M. B. Moon — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:03:11 +0000

“Perhaps if Republicans adopted Byrd’s skepticism of war for the sake of war, and rediscovered authentic Taft Republicanism—they might even deserve to win the next election.” Ilana

How would we ever know? Republicans merely want power so Democrats won’t have it. They will lie to get power.

I have more hope that a Democrat will see the light than a Republican.

It seems to me that Republicans are deluded since they must justify Lincoln which requires extreme mental gymnastics.

That party should just dissolve in shame, destroyed by a good ole Southern boy (Bush).