I don’t really see that being a good strategy, waste of resources. How would you set the chambers up? You’d need a permanent or semi-permanent presence in the country, which goes against the thrust of my proposals.
Excellent suggestions for fighting terrorism. Lets fund, arm and provide training for any warlord prepared to temporarily align, or at least pretend to align, to our political wishes. This strategy couldn’t possibly go wrong again, surely?
And yes punitive, isolated attacks on [del]whichever unfortunate wedding party[/del] Al-Qaeda operatives are a completely sensible means to secure ourselves from terrorism, and probably won’t create that many more people with a visceral hatred of the west.
Oh, I didn’t expect them to say “Sorry, you’re on your own”, but I expected their involvement to be maybe an SAS company, a Medical Corps, some Engineers, and some Aircraft. Not active combat troops.
The UK has suffered nearly 200 casualties in Afghanistan so far. (We have about 8,300 troops there.)
We’ve been there for 8 years and spent billions of pounds.
In March this year, the outgoing commander of US forces in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, told the BBC that “we are not winning” in the struggle against the resurgent Taliban.
Surprisingly neither of these two chaps suggested your methods. 
(But what do they know?)
In October 2008, the then commander of British forces in Helmand, Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, went further: “We’re not going to win this war.”
I quote from today’s Guardian (which has been running a series on Afghanistan):
‘The provinces of Khost, Paktia and Paktika in SE Afghanistan are dominated by one name: Jaluddin Haqqani. A famous commander, tribal chief and cleric, Haqqani came to prominence during the war against the Soviets. In more than 20 years of fighting, he built an extensive network of influence that covered eastern Afghanistan and the tribal area of Waziristan in Pakistan, and reached as far as the Gulf states…’
‘The reporter interviewed Mawlawi Jalali, a Taliban commander:
“We are Muslims. The foreign troops are non-Muslims. God told us to fight the occupation.”’
As for the heroin trade:
‘Russian gangsters who smuggle drugs into Britain are buying cheap heroin from Afghanistan and paying for it with guns. Smugglers told The Independent how Russian arms dealers meet Taliban drug lords at a bazaar near the old Afghan-Soviet border, deep in Tajikistan’s desert. The bazaar exists solely to trade Afghan drugs for Russian guns – and sometimes a bit of sex on the side.
The drugs are destined for Britain’s streets. The guns go straight to the Taliban front line. The weapons on sale include machine guns, sniper rifles and anti-aircraft weapons like the ones used in the attempt to assassinate the Afghan President Hamid Karzai.’
Perhaps you could give your sources for your ‘well-preparedness’ in this discussion. :rolleyes:
…which is a* fuck load* less odious …
You have to remember how evil the Taliban was (and is).
They once had complete control of the entire fucking country, remember?
And no, we’re not going to “win”, you never actually “win” against a guerrilla force. After a while they either die down or get stronger.
That’s because you aren’t willing to do what it takes to win. That Taliban were able to control Afghanistan and Saddam was able to control Iraq. It isn’t hard. You have the equipment, the troops, everything you need other than the will.
My step-son is going to Afghanistan in the fall. For what? Nothing is being accomplished other than our people getting killed. So, I’ve told him that if it appears in any way hostile, fire many bullets at it until it stops twitching. I don’t care if it is man, woman, child, or other. There is no reason for him to die to give freedom to others who don’t want it, or are in no position to take advantage of it. At this point my opinion is that no western foot should have touched the soil in Afghanistan. Fly in at 50,000 feet and keep dropping bombs until one of two things happen: 1. No one left, 2. They hand over all Al-Queda operatives including Osama himself and promise not to do such stupid things again, penalty for failing to comply being option 1. Yeah, I’m pissed about it.:mad: I can’t imagine what my wife will go through if he gets killed over there.
Realistically, any sort of military operation like this should have a very clear development plan for after the initial conquest. There is no way that a backwards country like Afghanistan can be changed overnight. This should have been a long term operation of 20+ years. You need that time to stabilize the country, build up the infrastructure, and educate the next generation of people in secular western ideas and culture. Only then can the people be trusted enough to manage things for themselves. Democracy just didn’t happen in the West in a period of a few years, why do people think it can happen in countries without a history building towards it? The occupation of Japan didn’t end for 7 years after the fighting was officially declared over and they were at least marginally civilized. The fighting hasn’t stopped in Afghanistan yet!
Current evidence would suggest it is.
Yes, better yet maybe we could just nuke them! Why, if we killed all the Afghan civilians we wouldn’t have the bothersome task of working out who’s with us or against us! Also we wouldn’t have to deal with the distraught relatives and bloody globs of human flesh, belonging to the innocent bystander, who’s body has been ripped to pieces on the advice you’ve offered your step-son. Hmm, perhaps if we could somehow just manage to kill a sufficient number of people who don’t like us being there, then surely we could all sleep soundly, safe in the knowledge that the world is now a better place.
Don’t be stupid. The way it is currently being done is wrong and not working. It isn’t hard if you do it the right way.
If it is a choice between him or them, I’ll choose him, thank you very much. I don’t care how many enemy body parts he has to wade through to come home. I should be more clear, I’ve told him that and he confirmed that his commanders have essentially told him the same thing regarding the rules of engagement. If you are in doubt as to your safety, you have permission to fire. I’m of the opinion that you continue to fire to remove all doubt as to your safety.
Well I apologise for the collective stupidity regarding its difficulty I seem to share with those currently operating there, and pretty much any military force, bar perhaps Alexander the Great, that has attempted to ‘conquer’ the country in the last couple of millennia. If I was going to lob accusations of being stoopid around, I might wish to consider ideas held on carpet bombing a country as an appropriate means to ensure peace and stability, and the likelihood of parachuting in ‘secular western ideas and culture’, by these, or frankly any other means.
Well now you couch it in terms of shooting at an ‘enemy’; previously you suggested any unfortunate and misplaced man, woman or child should be dealt with with a good ol’ case of lead poisoning, yeehaw. Regardless, I’m sure this sort of heroism is really the answer that Afghans and the west both could benefit a lot by.
Honestly though, I believe if the military could operate such as the Waffen SS or the Russian forces did in WW 2 (with todays firepower) the area could be secured. There is no doubt that the forces have sufficient firepower- it is what is allowed to be done that is the problem in “winning” the war.
What heroism? I want him to come home from some place he shouldn’t be sent to in the first place. He is allowed to shoot anyone who looks like they may threaten his or other’s safety, enemy or not.
I think you may have the wrong end of the stick. The reason western forces are in Afghanistan is not because of some moral regard for the population - western politicians don’t give a fuck about Afghan women or anything else to do with how the country is governed because there are no votes in it.
They don’t even care about the Taliban
What they do care about is the Taliban giving refuge to you-know-who.
In other words the moral basis of western involvment in Afghanistan is as profound as the Taliban’s: Self-interest.
OK, well to make it clear for you, the suggestion that it was heroic to shoot up every Afghan on site whether ‘enemy or not’, was in point of fact a little bit sarcastic on my part. I also don’t really think it’ll benefit a lot of Afghans or the west for that matter.
I would have thought that conscientious objection, would be a somewhat less objectionable suggestion if you don’t want your step-son involved.
Why yes, if we sent tens of millions of men to their deaths, in line with the Waffen SS or the Russian forces during WWII, I’m sure Afghanistan would be a breeze. I wouldn’t bet on it as a long term solution to eradicate terrorism, or that it would explode the Islamist’s perspective that the west are morally bankrupt hypocrites, capable of pure evil.
That’s funny, I seem to remember the Taliban offering to play ball with the USA in that respect (cite). I don’t think we’ve quite grasped this self-interest thing, or that our actions now will be used as the moral justification for terrorist acts in what remains of this century.
I am not arguing from an idealogical point of view- purely military. However, I didn’t read in your original post that you wanted a long term solution to terrorism.
That’s not really playing ball. That’s the Taliban saying, “If you stop bombing and if you provide us with sufficient proof of bin Laden’s guilt, we’ll consider turning him over to some other state if we can be sure he’ll never be turned over by them to the US.”
I happen to know that Hamid Karzai’s brother owns and operates three Afghan restaurants in Baltimore, Maryland. See here. I know someone who tried but failed to interview him early in the Afghan conflict. About five years ago, I think. Maybe some of the DC/Baltimore-area dopers could stop by and discuss it with him.
EDIT: Well, three restaurants anyway. I don’t know if all three serve Afghan food.
It was an offer to “negotiate” - commonly called ‘buying time’, made weeks after 9/11, before current policy was formed, when the Taliban were still ruling Afghanistan.
Sure, everyone has the high moral ground, and everyone has God on their side.
And all the while the *realpolitik *marches to a different beat.
The original point of the OP was that our ongoing military action in Afghanistan was for the purposes of supporting a venal, and almost equally morally heinous government, as that which preceded it; not the logistical complications of the war or its potential capacity in reducing terrorism. It has strayed into a somewhat broader scope amongst my responses though.
Whether an agreed settlement could have been worked out, we’ll never be able to discuss beyond the realm of the hypothetical. It was apparently disregarded as an option. Maybe a ground invasion was necessary for realpolitik. Regardless, in the subsequent war, the net hasn’t exactly tightened around Osama Bin Laden, destroyed Al-Qaeda’s diffuse terrorist networks, shot and bombed our way out of future danger, or magiced a secular, liberal democracy out of the desert. So why are we fighting? Damage mitigation presumably, due to the damage we’ve now done.
Why? I’m the one who doesn’t want him going to Afghanistan. He wants to go. I don’t want him to go because it is useless and won’t accomplish much other than getting people killed for no reason. If he was going over there and it would make a difference I’d support the effort.