US condemned for Afghan ‘abuses’
What does the SDMB think. Do you feel that the war was handled correctly? Could the US forces have acted better? I feel I must accent that this is about the Afghanistan war (“War on Terror”), not the Iraqi war (Gulf War II) so try to keep this in mind (no unfair mixing ex. “Bush lied”).
An action as horrific and successful as 9/11 was always going to be met with some kind of US military action. The real tragedy was that the US had the sympathy and admiration of the entire world, and could have secured cooperation with most of the Arab world, but threw it all away in a global, ongoing tantrum.
It would easily have been forgiven for removing the Taliban and imposing a representative government, even if it trod on a few diplomatic toes. What it did was stomp around the room in hobnailed boots.
Too easily, it cast itself as the bad guy, denying its prisoners the provisions they had traditionally held and ignoring (or at least stretching, IMO past breaking point, the interpretation of) its own regulations (PDF).
If the USA acts vigorously in Afghanistan, we are oppressors.
If the USA does not act vigorously in Afghanistan, then we are permitting chaos.
Damned if you do and damned if you don’t? Then do what you want and be damn the world.
How about something in between those two?
Besides, how do you define “acting” vigorously"?, like in the acts descrived on the OP?
That´s a bit more than just “vigor”, IMO.
How about Option 3 - acting vigorously within the scope and spirit of the very values one claims to uphold so as to maintain the moral high-ground and the support and sympathy of the population?
I don’t particularly believe anything HRW says.
Would that you never find yourself, in a situation requiring their attention, hoping that others find them credible.
Yep. What he said.
Before this gets into an anti-war circle jerk and cry session, is there any independant proof that backs up HRW’s assertions? Any independant cites about US troops firing indiscriminently at friendly villages just for the hell of it, killing innocent civilians as a matter of course, etc?
The problem with all these “The US is evil” threads is that, after a while people tend to start tuning them out…and after HRW has screeched for the thousandth time how evil the US is, how its actions are beyond the law, etc, they too tend to get tuned out. And thats a shame, because its always possible the US HAS done some violation, has stretched its authority, etc. But after crying that the sky is falling for the thousandth time, only the true believers in America’s evil are going to rally round. So…does the OP or anyone else have any independant verification of these events? The devil is in the details of what actually happened (firing on ‘innocent villages’ or killing ‘innocent’ civilians out of hand, etc), and I’m not a true believer willing to that HRW’s account of the stories at face value…not anymore.
-XT
Their report is extensively documented, citing other news agencies as sources and in many cases merely following up official complaints made by alleged victims in order to ascertain their veracity.
If this is all bunkum, they have laid a hugely elaborate paper trail.
Not every act of the Americans in Afghanistan is commendable, but at least we kicked the Taliban out of Kabul. I’m frankly tired of the way they were always referred to as “religious extremists”, because in America, religion is never regarded as wholly bad. This tended to cloud the fact that the Taliban are a gang of fascists that should be thought of in the same light as Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot. Theirs was not just a different culture that we should respect, but thuggery that should have been stopped long before we stepped in.
I find it extrememly disheartening that Afghanistan was turned into one big prison camp, under the Taliban, and there was really hardly any meaningful reaction from the world at large until 9/11/01.
…but I do second AH3’s comment above. We did misspend the international goodwill we enjoyed at the time.