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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (78848)	6/26/2010 7:34:00 AM
From: cirrus	Respond to of 149317

The Taliban seem to have little problem brutally crushing their opponents, and fear of Taliban retribution seems to be a factor in America's failure to gain widespread support among the population. Taliban caused civilian deaths don't seem to cause the same outrage as American caused civilian deaths even though the American caused deaths are generally accidental. The reasons are complex... the Taliban execute civilians on a personal level for perceived offenses while Americans come in with overwhelming firepower and destroy a house or a bus in seconds, killing dozens. It's far more complicated than that, of course, the Taliban are perceived as less corrupt than the Karzai government. Afghanistan is a tribal society in which outsiders - while the Taliban may not be mainstream Afghans, Americans might as well be from outer space. The list goes on and on. Bottom line? Obama may need to make a Reagan like decision... Reagan took flack from the right for pulling Americans out of Lebanon, retreating in the face of terrorism it was called, after some 200 Marines died in a suicide attack. Reagan, for all his faults, understood that America fighting an insurgency in a Muslim country was... well... not a smart idea. a fundamental aspect of warfare: You don’t go to war half-stepping. You go to war to crush the enemy. You do this ferociously and as quickly as possible. If you don’t want to do it, if you have qualms about it, or don’t know how to do it, don’t go to war.