more turmoil in Afghanistan

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
From the Globe and Mail:

"But Mr. Khan has refused to hand over $250-million (U.S.) a year in customs money from this boom to the central government -- money that has cemented his rule and benefited the city. While most of Kabul retains signs of the destructive civil war of the 1990s, Herat's paved streets are lined with soaring pines, and early-morning joggers do laps around the track at a new stadium."

As I said, Kazai has little control outside of Kabul.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Goodwins law is overrated. Sometimes Hitler comparisons have an element of truth.

There are very good reasons why Godwin's Law came into existence.

Too many people didn't (still don't) argue properly, instead they just throw this "Nazi" "Hitler" stuff around the very first chance they got.

Furthermore, discussions can stand on themselves without any references to either Nazis or Hitler (or Commies or Stalin, for that matter).

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
2 has clearly been debunked because the people in charge were the ones doing all of the crimes.

Crimes are actions that break the law. I cannot see where your assertion is coming from.

[The Mad Monk]

http://www.wordreference.com/english/definition.asp?en=spoof

It wasn't a misquote, it was a spoof.

[LiberalAtheist]

Internationalism on parade

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


Cites? Links? Evidence?

Which of course your position has mountains of......in the form of pieces written of single incidents, which may or may not be representative, which may or may not be taken out of context.


Incidents of things like murders, attacks, and "turmoil" ,something absent from Afghanistan before the occupation right? Couldn't be post hoc, could it?


I will agree that Afghanistan will face some serious hurdles and that the Bush administration should do more to aid them, (instead of giving tax breaks to the wealthiest americans) but it is simply not proven that the US invasion and occupation has done more harm then good.


Quite the contrary, at least now the country has a chance to do better, or at least more of a chance then it used to.

Likewise certain facts should be kept in mind:

How did the Taliban treat Afghanistan?s population?


Terribly. While the country remained among the world?s poorest, the Taliban dictatorship imposed a fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic law and carried out executions and other medieval punishments in public. Women?s groups protested Taliban abuses, noting that the Taliban?s big 1998 military push was accompanied by widespread reports of rape and looting, that women were routinely abused and beaten by Taliban enforcers of ?modesty,? and that girls? education beyond primary school was stopped.

Did the Taliban truly represent the people of Afghanistan?
Not really. Early on, many Afghans welcomed the Taliban after the corrupt Soviet puppets who ran Afghanistan in the 1980s and the anarchy that followed their demise. Pashtuns, members of Afghanistan?s largest ethnic group, also welcomed the Taliban, whose ranks were largely Pashtun. But over time, many Afghans soured on the Taliban because of their radical view of Islam, their clashes with neighboring countries, their inability to provide prosperity, and their disregard for human rights. Without polling, there?s no way to quantify how much support the Taliban had. But when the Taliban were kicked out of Afghanistan?s cities in November 2001, the victorious Northern Alliance troops were greeted with cheers.

http://cfrterrorism.org/afghanistan/taliban2.html

How severe are the human needs in Afghanistan?
Extremely severe. Afghanistan is among the poorest countries on earth. It has an estimated annual per capita income of $250, and one in four Afghan children die before reaching the age of five. The country has one doctor for every 50,000 people, and less than a quarter of the population has access to clean drinking water. Afghanistan?s social systems and physical infrastructure, which were never that advanced, have been devastated by more than two decades of constant conflict. Moreover, a severe drought that began in 1999 has halved the country?s food production, caused widespread loss of livestock, and cut access to drinking water. Experts say the Taliban?s misrule compounded the problems.

(italics added)

http://www.cfrterrorism.org/policy/refugees.html

Did the U.S. bombing make things worse?
A little. By some human rights groups? estimates, the civilian death toll from the U.S. bombing campaign stands at around 4,000, in comparison to the 2 million or so Afghans killed in fighting since 1979. (In one particularly harrowing incident, a U.S. AC-130 aircraft?whose crew thought they were under fire?accidentally attacked civilian villagers near Kandahar in July 2002, killing about 40 and triggering a rare rebuke from Afghan President Hamid Karzai.)

The 200,000 Afghans who fled the country during the fall of 2001 came on top of the approximately 4 million refugees already abroad. Human Rights Watch says the U.S. air campaign may have added several thousand unexploded bombs to those already littering the Afghan countryside, but they landed in a country strewn with an estimated 10 million land mines laid over the previous 23 years, which make Afghanistan the most heavily mined country in the world. And unlike past conflicts, such as the 1979-89 Soviet invasion and the subsequent civil war, experts say the recent U.S.-led war may be the catalyst to finally addressing the country?s problems.

In any event, the US is not even in charge of the show anyways, the UN is in charge of peacekeeping in Afghanistan, so there is enough blame to go around.

Will the peacekeeping force be deployed beyond Kabul?
For now, no. Afghanistan?s interim government asked the United Nations to provide tens of thousands of additional peacekeeping troops to curb local lawlessness and prevent violence by rival warlords in areas beyond the capital. A small force in Kabul, Afghan officials warn, cannot hope to maintain national order during the estimated two years it could take to form a new Afghan army. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf supported this expansion of the peacekeeping mission, but neither the United States nor any of the countries supplying peacekeeping troops were willing to dispatch peacekeepers to the rest of Afghanistan, U.N. officials say.

http://cfrterrorism.org/afghanistan/peacekeeping2.html

IMO, I think all involved in Afghanistan should be helping more, and the US isn't helping enough. However there is no clear indication yet that the invasion has made things any worse in this region that has suffered turmoil for decades, if anything things may finally improve via international aid.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by GePap
So will you please ignore Fez? threads are much better of that way.

Yea, I'm in full agreement.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by GePap

Hitler had more than one side. After all, he was a vegeterian and a non-smoker..can I compare vegeterians and non-smokers to Hitler?

Do you want a serious answer?

Ok, give them the same amount of power and see how they handle it.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


As I said, Kazai has little control outside of Kabul.

he has little control in Herat, to be sure.

My point was that the notion that every part of afghanistan where karzai lacks control is ipso facto anarchy, is false.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


There are very good reasons why Godwin's Law came into existence.

Too many people didn't (still don't) argue properly, instead they just throw this "Nazi" "Hitler" stuff around the very first chance they got.

Furthermore, discussions can stand on themselves without any references to either Nazis or Hitler (or Commies or Stalin, for that matter).

Its natural to mention hitler when discussing Totalitarian regimes, or genocide, or particularly when discussing totalitarian regimes that commit genocide. Invokation of GL in these cases is often used to prevent serious discussion, rather than to protect it.

Note I did not say GL shouldnt exist, merely that its overrated.

[Ted Striker]

I don't have the exact article, but the disarmament of those 100,000 militiamen is going down this year. They are going to be integrated into the Afghan Army. Troop strength of the Afghan Army is expected to be at around 70,000 by the end of the year.

The US commander in charge of the operation says that recruiting is picking up exponentially.

The US just committed this week an additional 1 BILLION dollars to back the Afghan Army.

Mark my words.

Afghanistan WILL succeed.

And it will succeed DAMN WELL.