Trump and Carson say Afghan War was a mistake

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

Pro-Taliban

I'm willing to bet you're not a fan of Putin. Then...should we invade Russia?

If you say "no," then aren't you pro-Putin? No, of course not. You're just against war in that case.

The same logic used by so-called hawks (it's the government's job to kill bad guys) is also used by economic leftists (it's the government's job to provide the basic needs for all people) and theocrats (it's the government's job to enforce a code of morality on people), just re-arranged. The logic is that if something is bad, it's automatically the government's job to solve the problem--regardless of the life, liberty, or property it might cost. Statism comes in different forms, but it's the same basic principle.

So on Sep 12, 2001 the United States should have just shrugged its shoulders and said "Oh well"

The fallacy there is that it's the government's proper response to send people out to go to war whenever something terrible like 9-11 occurs.

No one (not just bobloblaw, but most people more "hawkish" than me) seems to get the cost of war. Lots of life on both sides, and even the people who survive are often mentally scarred--the suicide rate for veterans is tragically high (I forgot the exact number--it might be 22 a day, but don't hold me to it). And even if they survive and are mentally okay when they return, it's still time they could've used to do better things than destroy and kill (regardless the cause, even if it's justified, it's a terrible thing to have to do). And for anyone out there who doesn't care about, you know, life, it's insanely expensive.

Not saying that war is always bad (although I would say it almost always is), I'm just saying that you need to consider the ramifications of this. The number of Americans who died in Iraq and Afghanistan was a bit less than 7,000 (not counting deaths of our allies, innocent people over there, veteran suicides, or people with permanent physical or mental injuries, by the way), the number of those who died in 9/11 was about less than 3,000. Still a lot, and obviously horrible, but when your reaction to a tragedy is worse than the tragedy itself, you're doing something wrong.

Just food for thought, everyone.

31,000 Coalition  and allied Afghan casualties  and 26,270 civilians killed