Afghanistan War

[Cruelbreed]

Obama is going to be concentrating military efforts in Afghanistan.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/28/america/28policy.php

If we can get Iraq taking care of itself I might agree with this point. I believe we're spending far too much money in these wars and we're not getting much of it back in return if at all. The honest truth is we need to cut back on spendings, and these wars are probably a good place to start.

Still, it seems we'll be escalating the war in afghanistan.

[EXCONservative]

a manageable war in the long term because it extremely conventional / low tech but that being said...we will have to drastically reduce our high tech military programs.
We are still spending WAY too much on new aircraft carriers, subs, fighter planes, and a thousand other weapons we really don't need for years to come.
The Pentagon needs to decide whats really important.
If it's unwilling to put several programs on hold then we will simply run out of funding to fight any wars.
Tough decision but it will need to be done and done quickly.

[Cruelbreed]

It's actually a super tough decision. Give up all these weapons necessary to fight serious large scale wars in order to fight some piece of shit rats in the mountains? How does this effect our long term strength if we change for the shorter term?

[EXCONservative]

Look brother...I don't make the rules. I'm just telling you the reality of the situation.
Something will give sooner than later. The generals are going to have to decide what they need and what they don't.
The Soviet machine broke because it's government spent half of it's budget preparing for a war with the west that never came. They went broke.
Our Generals know this and will not let this happen.
We're all feeling the pinch now.

[Cruelbreed]

Look brother...I don't make the rules. I'm just telling you the reality of the situation.
Something will give sooner than later. The generals are going to have to decide what they need and what they don't.
The Soviet machine broke because it's government spent half of it's budget preparing for a war with the west that never came. They went broke.
Our Generals know this and will not let this happen.
We're all feeling the pinch now.

Amen and I respect your valid point, thanks for the good perspective. I agree, if we can fund ourselves with less expensive and numerous fighter jets we might be better off. The fact of the matter quality in terms of superiority may not always beat quantity. I suppose i'm thinking F-22 vs upgraded F-15, there's nothing wrong with dropping a few F-22's for numerous more F-15's. I do believe it's important to keep our research and development going though, we just don't need to build machines as early as we do.

[EXCONservative]

Well said. I believe in quality over quantity but there are always exception to the rule.
The German Army in W.W II needed more men, tanks and Planes against the Russian Army but never seemed to have enough and the over engineered weapons only had so much of a benefit.
The Russians used crude but reliable weapon systems to overwhelm the German Army.

I believe that in Afghanistan we more eyes in the sky and a whole lot more troop strength to overwhelm the taliban and present ourselves in much more of the country.
If that isn't possible then it's just a matter of time before we need to cut our losses.
Fight a legitimate war to win or don't bother at all as far as I'm concerned.

[sr338]

This finally got approved.

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2009/03/ap_afghanistan_032009/

I'm curious as to where all these are going to flow through, with Manas closing soon.