# Afghanistan - is there \*ANY\* hope? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 14, 2001, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghanistan-is-there-any-hope/93296 "2001-11-14T11:53:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![istara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e79b87/32.png) [@istara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/istara)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2001, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghanistan-is-there-any-hope/93296/1 "2001-11-14T11:53:01Z")
> **[select the best cloud hosting companies](https://ananova.com/news/story/sm_448881?menu=news.latestheadlines)** > > Cloud computing is a technology where applications are deployed on immutable servers which increases performance and reduces time spent with long difference. Cloud computing itself referring to a r… ---
**Author:** ![pennylane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@pennylane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pennylane)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2001, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghanistan-is-there-any-hope/93296/2 "2001-11-14T12:00:23Z")
Warning! Sensitive people, don’t click on that link… ☹ ---
**Author:** ![aegypt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/76d3ee/32.png) [@aegypt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aegypt)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2001, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghanistan-is-there-any-hope/93296/3 "2001-11-14T12:11:15Z")
My God, what did they do to that poor guy? Goes to show what thirty years of war can do to people’s minds. ---
**Author:** ![istara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e79b87/32.png) [@istara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/istara)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2001, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghanistan-is-there-any-hope/93296/4 "2001-11-14T12:15:07Z")
Sorry I should have warned that it’s strong content. But right after seeing it, I just couldn’t find words. ---
**Author:** ![pennylane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@pennylane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pennylane)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2001, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghanistan-is-there-any-hope/93296/5 "2001-11-14T12:16:20Z")
Not necessarily, **aegypt**. The same thing happened during the India-Pakistan partition, and they didn’t have that excuse. There just isn’t any excuse for human brutality… ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Freedom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Freedom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freedom)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2001, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghanistan-is-there-any-hope/93296/6 "2001-11-14T12:21:32Z")
> [@](#): > > My God, what did they do to that poor guy? Without knowing anything about the guy killed, it may be premature to have sympathy for him. I can only imagine the relief some of those people feel now that the Taliban is gone. ---
**Author:** ![pennylane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@pennylane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pennylane)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2001, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghanistan-is-there-any-hope/93296/7 "2001-11-14T12:25:01Z")
I’m not feeling sympathy for him, **Freedom** , I’m feeling horror at the ruthlessness of those who did it to him. The point is not whether or not he deserved such a fate, but that these are the people now left in command. Oh well I guess they can’t be worse than the Taliban… ---
**Author:** ![aegypt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/76d3ee/32.png) [@aegypt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aegypt)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2001, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghanistan-is-there-any-hope/93296/8 "2001-11-14T12:35:18Z")
Same here. I have no reason to believe he didn’t do the same thing or worse to somebody last time _his_ faction conquered Kabul, but it’s still horrible. If we could see but a fraction of the things that have happened down there, we’d all be emotionally scarred for life. War’s bad, mmmmkay? ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2001, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghanistan-is-there-any-hope/93296/9 "2001-11-14T16:09:04Z")
Jeez, what do you think these people are going to do, put a flower in the barrel of some Arab’s AK-47 and say, “go to Pashtun now, and sin no more”? Allow me to make an uncited observation, please. Modern, rifle-ranged warfare rarely offers the opportunity to get a good look at one’s enemy in combat. As a result, combatants only know the loss of their own people at the hands of a largely invisible enemy. Furthermore, a common observation of modern warfare is that no matter how big and spectacular the explosion, there are always survivors who will continue fighting, which naturally adds to the perceived invincibility of the enemy. Also, in the fog of war, looting, rape, execution of prisoners, and all sorts of other nasty things are _part and parcel_ of armed combat. A psychologist probably wouldn’t score me too poorly for guessing that one reason why prisoners are so often killed just behind the front lines is because the victor finally gets to assign a face to an enemy–and then remove his aura of invincibility. That is just how it is, and it is not confined to any one nationality. Yes, Afghanis are noted for very rarely taking prisoners. Other nationalities noted for this same sort of behavior are the British, Germans, Japanese, Australians, New Zealanders, and yes, Americans. While I haven’t seen it myself, virtually everyone who has agrees that war is the ugliest goddamned thing you will ever live to see, and there is _nothing_ anyone can do to make it antiseptic. Don’t look at it if you don’t want to see it. _It is a good thing that war is so terrible; else we should grow too fond of it._ --Robert E. Lee ---
**Author:** ![pennylane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@pennylane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pennylane)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2001, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghanistan-is-there-any-hope/93296/10 "2001-11-14T16:21:14Z")
Nice quote at the end there, except that I think we’re already too fond of it…