Conditions improving in Kandahar

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap



As for your last statements: Do you have any proof that becuase they are good in Kandahar they are good everywhere? That conclusion is just as ilogical. But again, since Afghanistan is NOT a highly urban place, that the cities do fine is no proof. Kabul was mostly untouched through 8 years of intense warfare in the country. That was becuase what central rule there was could keep the cities and keep them safe. But having a safe Kabul, Kahndahar, Herat and so forth didn;t mean the country was a paradise and the Soviets were doing just peachy keen backn in 1987. Do YOU have any citations to show why this would be different today?

Im quite sure things are NOT good everywhere. When did I say that they were?

While Kabul may have been untouched during the Soviet occupation, it was nearly destroyed during the civil war that followed the Soviet occupation, and which led to the rise of the Taliban. That is what we were told to fear when we sided with the northern alliance - let them into Kabul and theyll rip the place apart, like they did in the early '90's. And then the taliban will come back.

Instead all the major cities are quiet. The rural areas in the north, center, and west IE all the non-Pashtun parts of the country - seem to be fairly quiet. OTOH the rural areas in the south and east - IE the Pashtun lands along the Pakistani border are a mess. How is this different from the Soviet situation? 1.The rural areas were a mess all over the country then 2. They had 100,000 troops in the country and still had a mess - we have less than 10,000. 3. Their mess was worse - the road in south now are unsafe for NGO's ( a problem, to be sure) under the Soviets the roads were unsafe for Soviet military convoys.

[lord of the mark]

BTW, i did see something about how well things are going in Bamiyan province (home to the fiercely anti-Taliban Hazaras) Id love to be able to give you a full province by province report, but Im limited by what i see in the press.

[lord of the mark]

More on the BBC

From the Guardian, via instapundit"

"
David Kelly told a Sunday Times journalist that Andrew Gilligan's report on the Today programme was "bull****" and said he had been "put through the wringer" by the Ministry of Defence over the affair. . . .

Rufford told the inquiry it was not unusual for him to visit Dr Kelly at his home, but admitted part of his reason for visiting the government scientist on that day had been to ask him about the row between the government and the BBC over the September dossier on Iraq's weapons.

He said that in their conversation Dr Kelly described the dossier as "factual and credible"."

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap


As far back as Stuy I also learned that without intepretation, fatcs are just words on a page. If I givce you the height of Everest, without any more, that tells you very little, and nothing useful. I also learned that sources matter. If I quote "facts" from a neo-nazi tract, they aren't authoritative or trustworthy, given the FACT that they very weel could misnterpret info they got elsewhere and run with it.

Re:interpretation. Yes of course. Thats why i posted the facts here, so we could discuss their interpretation.

Re: Facts - there were 3 facts mention. Weekly standard quoting the BBC world service, Weekly standard mentioning the use of scare quotes, and Hitchens reporting on the pronunciation.. Which of those facts do you think were incorrect? The scare quote ISTR seeing myself. The quotes from the broadcasts? Those would be a matter of public record, i can hardly see the Standard or Hitchens lying about them.

BTW, while Hitchens was a strong supporter of intervention in Iraq, he is a leftist who is generally anti-Bush, and opposed to US support of Israel. His column was published in Slate,a moderately liberal magazine whose chief editor strongly opposed intervention in Iraq.

Weekly Standard is of course a strongly Neo-con opinion magazine. the author of the article was Josh Chafetz, publisher of Oxblog, a blog on international affairs that includes both Republicans and Democrats and that has been critical of admin policy on many issues. Its about the most intelligent blog I've seen - well worth reading given the issues youre interested in, GePap.

[HershOstropoler]

Originally posted by lord of the mark

If they gave the same detail to positive things, or the negative things they mentioned were really as bad as they spun it.

Yes, that's what makes good media. Let's look forward to the headlines:

"93.6 % of Americans employed - jubilate!"

"230 million Americans have electricity during regional blackout - praise the leader!"

"Area man stayed home, not murdered in gang war"

"The good news communiqué: Bush did not choke on a pretzel today"

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Instead all the major cities are quiet. The rural areas in the north, center, and west IE all the non-Pashtun parts of the country - seem to be fairly quiet. OTOH the rural areas in the south and east - IE the Pashtun lands along the Pakistani border are a mess. How is this different from the Soviet situation? 1.The rural areas were a mess all over the country then 2. They had 100,000 troops in the country and still had a mess - we have less than 10,000. 3. Their mess was worse - the road in south now are unsafe for NGO's ( a problem, to be sure) under the Soviets the roads were unsafe for Soviet military convoys.

Yeah, but the Soviets were not fighting in a country utterly devastated after 20 ood years of war (they were doing plenty of that at the time) and were dealing in a proxy war. I don;t see anyone giving the Taliban bilions of dollard of brand new shinny weapons. Plus the Soviets were trying to exert central government control everywhere. The US sin;t trying to exert central gov. control anywhere: we are there only to get Al Qaeda. HOw much of those quiet villages are under Karzai's control? How mnat are under the control of local warlords? Things were quiet in the vast majority of the country in 2000 too, when the Taliban had full control, no?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by HershOstropoler


Yes, that's what makes good media. Let's look forward to the headlines:

"93.6 % of Americans employed - jubilate!"

"230 million Americans have electricity during regional blackout - praise the leader!"

"Area man stayed home, not murdered in gang war"

"The good news communiqué: Bush did not choke on a pretzel today"

So youre saying that good news in Afghanistan is as routine as the above - geez, youre a lot more optimistic than I am.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap


Yeah, but the Soviets were not fighting in a country utterly devastated after 20 ood years of war (they were doing plenty of that at the time) and were dealing in a proxy war. I don;t see anyone giving the Taliban bilions of dollard of brand new shinny weapons. Plus the Soviets were trying to exert central government control everywhere. The US sin;t trying to exert central gov. control anywhere: we are there only to get Al Qaeda. HOw much of those quiet villages are under Karzai's control? How mnat are under the control of local warlords? Things were quiet in the vast majority of the country in 2000 too, when the Taliban had full control, no?

well thanks for giving the reasons why the US intervention was likely to be more successful than the Soviets - thats precisely what I was saying before we went in, and in the early weeks when some were calling it a quagmire.

Villages under Karzai's control? Very few, as the provinces under Karzai's control are mainly in the Pashtun south and east, while the quiet villages are largely in the warlord controlled west and north, where central control is only slowly being increased. Why does that matter? Villages being out of control is a major problem if its due to the Taliban - the issue of Karzai vs the warlords is an important one, but not a crisis.

Quiet under the Taliban - well yeah (outside of the northeast) but Karzai isnt using the Taliban tactics, thank God.

[GePap]

The warlord issue may not be a crisis now: it looms over the future if the idea is to turn Afghanistan into a democracy that is stable long-term.

[HershOstropoler]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


So youre saying that good news in Afghanistan is as routine as the above - geez, youre a lot more optimistic than I am.

That's an odd interpretation, but not surprising.

But yes, there's a lot of good news, like much of the country being relatively quiet. But it is not the job of the media to report that. There are more than enough problems there that are more important. Or do you seriosly want a "much of afghanistan relatively quiet" headline every day?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by HershOstropoler


That's an odd interpretation, but not surprising.

But yes, there's a lot of good news, like much of the country being relatively quiet. But it is not the job of the media to report that. There are more than enough problems there that are more important. Or do you seriosly want a "much of afghanistan relatively quiet" headline every day?

No but id like to know specifics about the afghan economy, infrastructure reconstruction, education, and the gradual political extension of Karzais power over the warlords. To its credit the BBC reports some of that (like the article I linked to) but its hard to find all of that without checking some fairly obscure weblogs, UD Dod sites, afghan sites, etc. Whereas something negative gets reported, even when obscure - and some such stories get repeated over and over again.

Does not mean the BBC isnt a very useful source. What it means is that when they report something positive, I tend to find it very credible. Which was all i said in the beginning. Somebody thought I was wrong it that - that the BBC wasnt necessarily trustworthy on this, as its a pro-US source. I remain quite unconvinced of that.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap
The warlord issue may not be a crisis now: it looms over the future if the idea is to turn Afghanistan into a democracy that is stable long-term.

The idea is to keep the Taliban from returning to power (for our won security) and to make the lives of the afghan people significantly better off than they were before we went in both to advance the above goal, to show the muslim world this isnt a war against Islam, and (IMO) out of obligation to the Afghan people from their role in the end of the cold war.

Turn it into a stable democracy? This is a country with one of the lowest literacy rates in the world, one of the lowest per capital GDP's in the world, and hardly any natural resources. And its land locked. Their prospects for stable democracy anytime soon are pretty low (much lower than in Iraq, by the way)

[HershOstropoler]

Originally posted by lord of the mark

No but id like to know specifics about the afghan economy, infrastructure reconstruction, education, and the gradual political extension of Karzais power over the warlords.

The standard news is that it is all going extremely slowly, and Karsai hasn't much authority outside of Kabul. Do you think that's incorrect?

"Somebody thought I was wrong it that - that the BBC wasnt necessarily trustworthy on this, as its a pro-US source. I remain quite unconvinced of that."

All a matter of perspective. I could say the BBC is pro-war as it does not refer to Bush and Blair as war criminals all the time.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by HershOstropoler


The standard news is that it is all going extremely slowly, and Karsai hasn't much authority outside of Kabul. Do you think that's incorrect?

"Somebody thought I was wrong it that - that the BBC wasnt necessarily trustworthy on this, as its a pro-US source. I remain quite unconvinced of that."

All a matter of perspective. I could say the BBC is pro-war as it does not refer to Bush and Blair as war criminals all the time.

I see.


Is it correct. Close but not 100%. In fact just about all the governors in the eastern provinces are Karzai appointees who he effectively controls. He has just appointed a new governor in Kandahar, establishing control there and removing a major warlord. He also has control over Bamiyan province in the central mountains.

Warlords continue to rule in the northeast (Atta Muhammed) north (Dostum) and west (ismail Khan)

But that does NOT mean karzai has NO authority in those places - the situation is much like late feudal europe, where the central govt has SOME control over fiefdoms, and is constantly pressing to expand control.
For example in recent months Karzai has wrested control over customs revenues from the warlord. He has also instituted a policy of limiting any individual to one post - Khan, as governor of Herat, has had to give up his post as western military commander.

[HershOstropoler]

"He has just appointed a new governor in Kandahar, establishing control there and removing a major warlord."

And we have to wait what happens next. So far similar attempts didn't work too well.

"But that does NOT mean karzai has NO authority in those places - the situation is much like late feudal europe, where the central govt has SOME control over fiefdoms"

Iow, he "hasn't much authority" there.

"Khan, as governor of Herat, has had to give up his post as western military commander."

Which was also very recently, IIRC.