Practically everyone now understands that the war in Afghanistan is going very badly. This is not because the Taliban and other “insurgent” forces are strong and their foreign foes weak. It is because of the Afghans’ indomitable spirit of independence that is only intensified by each civilian death due to house raids or bombs. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25998.htm
Graveyard of nations? yes, Afghanistan, for sure…
a playground of death were Great ( sic ) nations pit themselves against each other and bleed each other…
A Graveyard? yes…
in every sense of the word.
we are near bankrupt, morally, ethically, spiritually, financially hemorrhaging like a stuck pig, only hassle is we don’t know just what our endurance limits are yet…
What will it take to see we are so far out on a limb, when it will break, when we can still turn back?
Save what little ‘face’ we can?
Well, we have defeated them haven’t we? Despite what you bitch about, we’ve shown, or helped show, the entire Muslim world how brutal and despotic Al Queda and the Taliban are, they’ve both shown themselves to be completely at odds with any semblence of normal Islam and Muslims at large. Considering a few years ago Al Queda in Iraq held large sway over Anbar and cities like Ramadi, and now have been pretty much anihilated, goes to show that slowly the tide has turned against them.
Please, the Taliban controlled around 80% of the country, please don’t dress it up as if they just rule like a quarter, they had the Northern Alliance on the backfoot almost completely, and you know it.
Yes we should of just supplied the NA to do the dirty work so to speak, however, I’ve said before, since this was such a high profile campaign, the US did not have the freedom to do this, since the general public wouldn’t stand for us openly supporting the Warlords.
The wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan though expensive, accounted for around 1% of Military expenditure. These wars did not break the bank, otherwise you’d see a direct correlation between US economic performance, and the success or failure of the Military in the Middle East.
Again, the Iraqis themselves, whether you like it or not (I personally don’t) voted these people into office, and that’s the big difference between voting them in, than launching a coup and putting a boot on the population for 30 years. Oh, and that Iranian Ayatollah Al Sistani is completely at odds with velayat-e faqih, and generally supports religion out of politics.
This is the irony, from my standpoint, we liberate the Iraqis, they vote religious parties in, usually as a protest vote since they’ve had a secular government for the last 30 years which has been completely discredited, and people complain about it. You know I thought choice is one of the things we helped give them after all their years in bondage.
This is what irks me, you complain about how we’re failing, how we’re evil, how we do all kinds of terrible things, without giving second thought to the suggestion that maybe we’re able to change the situation, or maybe contemplate our mistakes to rectify the strategy of defeating these people.
So again, I’m with **PaulInSaudi **on this one
Oh and watch this about Afghan politics.
Without our intervention, she would never of have been there.
We didn’t “liberate them from bondage”, nor did we intend to. Our intent in Iraq was and is wholly a matter of greed and malice, and has been from the beginning.
It’s one of several stated aims, like invading Iraq was about WMD then other things. Whichever way you look at it we failed. Even the neocons and other idiots setting Afghanistan policy have now realised that and their latest idea is to split Afghanistan between the (I hesitate to use the term “pro-Karzai”) north and the Taliban south, a neo-imperial partition, with the only benefit I can see amongst many bad consequences that we’d be able to keep some sort of bases in the north. There really is no limit to the ways in which we manage to fuck things up in these countries.
If you’re gonna make assertions, the least you can do is back up this claim.
If that was the case we wouldn’t of installed Karzai as President, and held an election in 2005 to validate his legitimacy, would we? We would of done just what we did in Somalia when their warlords were vanquished by the Islamic Courts Union.
I’m sorry, it’s just I always believed that if you liberated a country from a dictatorship, and allowed all these various political parties to sprout, and actually entitle the population to have a voice in the actual government they elected, it usually meant they were liberated from bondage. So yeah, maybe our intentions could of been fallicious, however, surprisingly, something good came out of it. So why are you complaining about Iraqis ability to actually vote fairly freely in elections which actually matter, rather than just being a rubberstamp for approval?
But I can sum up the thread nicely:
Afghans and NATO allies fighting against Taliban = Not worthy
Taliban and Al Queda allies = Worthy of governing Afghanistan.
That’s the crux of the argument right? Because it’s sounding an awful lot like that.
A partition, I’ll ignore the fact it’s not actual US policy for a moment and that it’s actually an opinion piece by a FT contributor, but such a strategy is unworkable as it was suggested in Iraq, because Afghans themselves wouldn’t stand for some foreign suggestion to break up the country just because the Taliban have the upperhand. In fact, it would probably create more violence than there currently is, and provide a huge boost to the Taliban that the ‘Foreign occupiers want to break up the country, but we won’t we’ll unite it’
So again, I’ll state that this thread smacks of:-
Afghans and NATO allies fighting against Taliban = Not worthy
Taliban and Al Queda allies = Worthy of governing Afghanistan.
You’ll see the partition thing pushed more and more over the next few months. Blackwill is one of the US foreign policy high priests, for him to publish and op-ed like this means it’s a solution under serious consideration by the powers that be. I wouldn’t say the thread breaks down like you say. I don’t think that there are many people here advocating that the Taliban are the best government for Afghanistan, I would say that people probably think that the Karzai lot aren’t so much better to make it worth us being there.
LIAM, nobody wants the Taliban or Al Qeada to govern, but all options are just as bad. Al Qeada has 100 troops or less in Afghanistan. They are not going to govern. The Karzai government is illegitimate and corrupt. The people don’t want them, and we are identified as the force that keeps him in power.
There is no rosy scenario. A democracy is not going to happen. When we finally walk away, and we will, the warlords will begin to fight for rights to the drug trade and to install their own corrupt fiefdoms. Only now they are all better armed and trained. The people lose in every case.
No not all options are just as bad, where as with the current Government, there is ability to correct it, improve it, whilst having some semblence of democratic governance and an elected leader, do you really think the Taliban and their ilk will do the same thing? The Karzai government, even though it’s election was partly fraudalent, is ironically probably the most legitimate government in all of Afghanistan, because I don’t seem to remember anyone voting for the Taliban or various other assortments of warlords.
And again, this ‘when we walk away’ BS, just because we withdraw our combat troops doesn’t necessarily equate a withdrawal of support of loss of international focus on the region. We will still support the security forces of Afghanistan and the Government even after we’ve left, we’re still going to train their commanders and generals and troops, and mentor their government and direct them towards a satisfactory standard.
So again, you say no one wants the Taliban to govern, but the other options are just as bad, which implies why not just let the Taliban govern? Since they can’t do any worse. Which is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve heard.
Afghanistan has been through the following:
30 year civil war
no fully functional central authority for at least 10 years
no education, no development.
So, with this in mind, it’s going to take a little longer for them to be able to re-establish what they used to have before the Soviets invaded in 1979, isn’t it?
The Taliban are the main representatives of the Pashtun population who make up 40% of the Afghan population. If there were actual free elections in Afghanistan, if the Taliban could field their own candidates, they’d get the largest share of seats in any parliament. And we now know from the 90 000 reports that were leaked that even the non-Pashtun Afghans think that
“The general view of the Afghans is that the current government is worse than the Taliban.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/07/27/world/main6717377.shtml
They’re really not much better at all, if at all. And no matter what happens eventually we/other Afghan ethnic groups are going to have to negotiate with the Taliban and the Taliban are going to have a big say in Afghanistan’s future. To claim that we can alter this militarily or enforce our will if we just kill a few more people is an increasingly preposterous claim.
Here’s a Nicholas Kristof op-ed, citing in turn Greg Mortenson of CAI, that illustrates nicely just how expensive military occupation is compared to other ways of influencing countries.
I like BS statistics like this, because they totally ignore the fact that if this were to happen, how would the schools be secured? How could you enact oversight over such places if the Taliban where still a major terrorist threat and who have a history of burning down schools and education facilities those 246 soldiers who are posted for one year protect?
That’s if the Pashtuns voted unanimously in one bloc, ignoring the fact that their are two opposing camps of Pashtuns, Pro Karzai and Pro Taliban. And there has been free elections in Afghanistans, in fact, the most free they’ve ever had in their history, irrespective of the recent corruption allegations, because you’re ignoring the one in 2005, which was audited by the UN and was free and majorly fair.
Which again, doesn’t equate with them wanting the Taliban back. The Taliban have a very low support base, even amongst Pashtuns.
I don’t hear any military commanders declaring that the military option is the only solution. No one’s denying the Talibs a part in the Afghan future, but you seem to be under the impression the Taliban wants to talk, they don’t, and will opt for a course of action in which the North Vietnamese did, which is basically be as intransigent as possible and you’ll eventually get everything you want, as the other side is more concerned about withdrawal, than the actual result on the ground.
No ethnic group in Afghanistan are all going to vote the same way. Tha Taliban, however you want to slice it, would win the biggest share of the vote of the biggest ethnic group. And you’re just clutching at straws with these arguments. Yes, the 2005 vote was fair but that’s because the incumbent had a lot of popularity. When he lost his popularity he fixed the election. It’s pointless fighting and dying for democracy if it leasts one electoral cycle. the vote. Yes, the Taliban wouldn’t be too popular with the Afghan people but they’re more popular than the government, as our own generals admit. And like this guy admits :
“To be honest, the people prefer the Taliban,” said Mr. Khan, the tribal elder. “These arbeki [Karzai govt.] men are cruel, violent, taking everything by force from the shopkeepers. They are walking in the bazaar with their rifles, extorting the drivers and traders.”
and see how popular Karzai is
“Is the president a Pashtun?” said Sarwar, a former commander who like many Afghans uses only one name. “Before he came to power no one had done such cruel things to us. Since he came, he has been killing Pashtuns from Helmand to here.”
Endgame in Afghanistan: ‘It’s taken a year to move 20km’
As the war in Afghanistan enters its final chapter, Sean Smith's brutal, uncompromising film from the Helmand frontline shows the horrific chaos of a stalemate that is taking its toll in blood. **Warning: contains distressing scenes and strong language**
We can’t win militarily and the people we’re fighting and dying for are no better than the Taliban. What’s the point?
The Afghan people are told America is at war against Muslims. We attacked Iraq, and Afghanistan. We interfered in Iran installing an oil friendly Shah who robbed and oppressed the people. Why would they want us to win? We have a track record and it is ugly. The Afghai people have no good options.
The Bush’s axis of evil speech is well known too. We screwed it all up.
That sentiment – that Afghans want us out – doesn’t seem to be supported by opinion polls conducted there. 68% of Afghans support US troops being in their country. Less than a quarter want a rapid withdrawal. Only 6% want to see the Taliban return to power.
Cite. What evidence do you have that your opinions are shared by Afghans?
If the Afghans love us so much, then why are there violent demontrations aginst the US/Nato occupation?
Ten years is ENOUGH-if the Afghan people cannot get their act together now, then they never will.
‘Ten years is ENOUGH, they’ve had no semblence of rule of law, no government or anyone to really help them achieve this in the last 20 YEARS, and now we’ve done it for a measly ten years, them stupid brown people will never get their bloody act together’
That’s the gist of what I think you’re implying.
Hence why I support the Afghan mission, and I am at a loss to understand how us withdrawing combat troops immediately means the cessation of all means of support to the Afghan Government.
So if you don’t mind me, I’ll support those imperalist facist undertakers in their effort to defeat those religious deluded fanatical terrorists.
