NATO Summit: Canada declines to extend Afghanistan training mission

That's just historically inaccurate. Korea was a tie, Vietnam was a loss, both Gulf Wars were wins, yes, even the second. The lower level conflicts were mixed, Bosnia with NATO was a win too. Sudan was clearly a loss.

The War on Terror pretty much has been won. At least from the perspective of the average Westerner - who is worried about terrorism these days? Not many. But that being said, our involvement in Afghanistan is just political posturing at this point, and that's a horrific reason to throw lives and money away.

Korea and the Gulf Wars were clearly not "wins" no matter how you try to spin them. Yes, some military objectives were achieved (North Korean forces pushed back, Iraqi forces pushed back, Saddam removed from power) but those areas of the world remain absolute clusterfucks to this day and the U.S. and its allies have been dumping trillions of dollars and thousands of lives into those regions for decades.

So when's your congress going to repeal PATRIOT and relax TSA inspections at airports?

I said Korea was a tie. Pay attention.

South Korea would beg to differ, and as I said that one was a tie.

Iraq will require considerable time to recover, as three major wars and a decade of crippling sanctions won't heal over night, or even in a decade. The last US forces left just a year ago. However the military goals were reached, the political goals of a democracy were reached, and at this point it appears that Iraq is a stable government, unlike the constant cries that that could never be achieved and the region would balkanize.

Yes, it was expensive, and you could make a very good argument that we shouldn't have been there, but that's a different thing than whether the goals of the war were reached, and that's clearly a 'yes, they were.'

I wasn't aware that was the definition of 'win.' Personally I've said we should, but again that doesn't change the fact that the average Westerner gives one damn shit about terrorism these days. There hasn't been a successful attack in the West in 7 years.

But then, I was never so stupid as to think that the goal of the terrorists was to make our political situation unpleasant. No, the terrorists don't win by inconveniencing us, they won by achieving their stated goals, which was to kick the West out of the Middle East, and expand their influence in the region themselves.

Instead the cells were stamped out, the West's presence grew exponentially, and now almost uniformly their political leadership that started the process is dead.

That is a tangible goal. The War on Terror was a PR move, the elimination of any human action that could be considered 'terrorism' was never a political goal.

Again, the political goals have been achieved, regardless of the spin on them proferred by those believing we should have never used military force in the achievement of those goals.

Time to leave Afghanistan. The West still has a large presence in the Middle East, and the oil will continue to flow.

Now we're getting somewhere.

A war is won by defeating the enemy. How have we defeated the terrorists? Because by my count, there are hundreds of terrorist attacks around the world each month... some of which are aimed directly or indirectly at U.S. interests. You might want to argue that there hasn't been a terrorist attack on U.S. soil since Sepetember 2001, but that would be fallacy.

This is what I'm talking about. Regardless of the sound bites, the goal of the war on terror wasn't to eliminate all incidents of terror, or the concept of terror. It was to make the people in the West who were suddenly jarred by a horrific attack feel safe. To do that, the people responsible had to be destroyed, and their infrastructure that allowed such attacks to be carried out had to be destroyed.

That has happened.

No, I didn't say there have been no terrorist attacks since 2001 on American soil. However, there haven't been for years. The last successful terrorist attack on civilians in the West by Muslim extremists was 2005. The was a successful terrorist attack against the military at Fort Hood in 2009.

But overall, is terrorism a concern of the average Westerner these days? I'd say the vast majority of people are not concerned in their day to day lives. Terrorism is something that happens 'over there' - and as long as that is the case, then the Western governments are winning.

AQ is for all intents and purposes destroyed, to the point where the Muslim people have turned away from them and that OBL was actually trying to rebrand them because the AQ name was a detriment to their cause.

Excuse me.

How was World War One & Two not "clusterfucks".

World War One led directly to World War Two within two decades more or less. World War Two led directly to the Cold War and half of Europe being enslaved for 40 years.

And the U.S. dumped trillions of dollars into Europe and left hundreds of thousands of soldiers stationed in Europe over the years after World War Two.

You want a "good, clean war" with clearly defined good guys and villians, very well defined, achievable objectives, no messy aftermath, one that ends in a clear, distinct victory where everyone goes home happy and satisfied at the end?

Good luck.

I don't know of any.

Exactly. History doesn't know of any such thing. Personally, I doubt that there could be such a thing.

Except for the American Revolution, of course, when the brave, pure-hearted Americans whupped those evil Englishmen and brought freedom, democracy and enlightenment to the world!

Possibly. Though pretty bad for the substantial number of colonists who had supported British rule and for the Indians that the British had used to fight the revolutionaries.

^ It was sarcasm, Dayton. A joke. Not intended to be taken seriously.

The threat analysis has probably increased, not decreased. To a statistically very low level from a statistically even lower one.

The American Revolution is as good a candidate as any IMO.
See also the Spanish Civil War, the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 and Cambodian-Vietnamese War, all which achieved (or sought to achieve) laudable goals.

Uh... how were the objectives any more laudable for that war than the Afghan War?

Terminating the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge just as they were peaking? That goes way beyond what even supporters of the Afghan war claim that it intended.

OH! That's why the Vietnamese did it huh? Not b/c the Khmer Rouge were clients of the Chicoms or in response to Khmer Rouge incursions into Vietnamese Territory....

No. It was a humanitarian mission.

It wasn't entirely selfless, but it had that effect.

Actually, might as well add the UK's activity in Sierra Leone at the turn of the century. Tony Blair did the right thing before he did the wrong thing.

So again, how were the GOALS any different from the GOALS of the Afghan War. Those are what you said made the Cambodian-Vietnamese War laudable no.

Or is just that you are willing to overlook all the deaths that occurred during the Cambodian occupation and Civil War?

FTFY

I said that it achieved or sought to achieve laudable goals. The Vietnamese invasion achieved the goal of ending the slaughter of the Khmer Rouge, secondary though that might have been. NATO in Afghanistan put a bunch of warlords who are arguably as bad as the Taleban back into power. No comparison.

So you are saying that putting warlords in power was a GOAL of the US? It's one of the reasons we did the whole thing, to put some warlords in power eh?

The Spanish Civil War? One side fascists. The other side leftists, socialists, or something along those lines.

Oh yeah. Good vs. Evil there.

The warlords were a means to other ends that have largely been abandoned at this point - permanent military bases and so forth.

Ah right... back to the 'US had these really bad secret plans, but they just happened to abandon them but those secret bad reasons where the REAL goals behind the invasion of Iraq/Afghanistan/anything the US does' schtick again...

Oh, but throw in 'Since the Vietnamese were communists and anti-American they were obviously doing no wrong with their invasion and occupation of Cambodia.' That is a new one for you.

Strawmen. I don't support the political or economic program of Vietnamese communists, or factor in that they were "anti-American". And plans for bases in Afghanistan and Iraq weren't particularly secret.