Leaving Afghanistan

[C0ckney]

if you've nothing to say, why say anything at all.

[Al B. Sure!]

My thoughts exactly.

So what gives with all this peace is impossible in Afghanistan talk?

[C0ckney]

please reread the thread al. it will help you make less stupid posts like the one above.

[Ben Kenobi]

Canadian RESERVISTS are also doing tour after tour. I suspect our PM wants our troups ready to invade somewhere else - he is a neo-con & a hawk.

Uh, the war was started by Jean Chretien, neo-con warmonger. But then you *knew* this.

[C0ckney]

i would like to ask those who support NATOs involvement in afghanistan two questions.

1) what do you think that NATO has achieved so far?
2) what you think NATO's continued presence there will achieve?

[MrFun]

But now do the same list for England from 1066 on...

Where did I claim that United States is the only country with such a history of warfare?

[Pax]

Notice how in the presidents speech he mentioned Pearl Harbor.
The achievements and failures of NATO are long (10 years long)
I'm not happy that we have been in Afghanistan so long. I just think that with the right leaders/management solutions, determination we can bring about a successful result. I believe this.

[Ben Kenobi]

i would like to ask those who support NATOs involvement in afghanistan two questions.

1) what do you think that NATO has achieved so far?
2) what you think NATO's continued presence there will achieve?

What has it achieved? Substantial improvements in civil society and security in the region. The folks in Afghanistan are much better off without the Mujiheedin. Roads, bridges, infrastructure, etc.

What do I believe their continued presence will achieve? Esablishment of a responsible elected government capable of defending themselves.

From where I sit, you've already busted the place up, you stay to fix it until the job is done. You don't half ass the job and leave. The job is finished when the afghan military and police can control the region.

[C0ckney]

What has it achieved? Substantial improvements in civil society and security in the region. The folks in Afghanistan are much better off without the Mujiheedin. Roads, bridges, infrastructure, etc.

the improvements in infrastructure have been slight and have cost a fortune. the whole enterprise has been marred by corruption, incompetence and poor delivery, while doing little improve the lives of ordinary afghans.

where is the improvement in the security situation. more civilians are dying every year since 2006.



the 'taliban' (by which i mean anti-NATO/anti-government forces) are becoming more powerful, violence has spread to areas which a few years ago were peaceful. this year things have become even worse, civilian casualties last month were the highest on record.

KABUL, Afghanistan — May was the deadliest month for Afghan civilians since the United Nations started tracking deaths in 2007, according to a report released Saturday. The carnage continued, with bombs killing 21 people nationwide – including a family on a religious pilgrimage and a child lured by a suicide attacker pushing an ice cream cart.

it would appear that NATO forces are making the situation worse, not better.

What do I believe their continued presence will achieve? Esablishment of a responsible elected government capable of defending themselves.

and who will that be, kharzi the corrupt election fixer and his cronies? a great advert for democracy there! the afghan government are worthless, their writ barely runs beyond kabul and they would collapse in a matter of days if it wasn't for the vast amount of foreign support. the afghan army is another enormously expensive joke, how long does it take to train an army, especially when your resources are so vast?! we've been there for 10 years and the afghan forces are still incapable of fighting as an effective force.

to add to this miserable catelog of failures the political situation is currently hopeless and talks with the taliban, the only way that something might be salvaged from this whole sorry mess, only started very recently and are hardly progressing at all.

we have utterly failed, and worse than that the price of our failure is being paid every day by the afghan people in blood. it's time to leave.

[MOBIUS]

Yeah, it's not like this was ancient history.

Mobius, I seriously can't figure out if you're just trolling, or if you really believe your own bull**** on Libya

-Arrian

No, you're all right and I hold my hands up and admit that I was wrong in this case.

I think, IIRC (probably not!), that what I was getting at was that I was the first to say that partition wasn't necessarily a bad thing and that the fighting would grind to a halt between Brega and Ajdabiya, as it has. My reasoning is that the borders of post-colonial countries such as Libya are artificial constructs, hence why neither side is able to effectively advance beyond its areas of support. So perhaps we should be looking at dismantling these vestiges of colonial rule and moving toward a situation where all these different and disparate groups that have been arbitrarily lumped together are given the opportunity of self rule.

This is what I was driving at when I engaged foot into mouth, which I'm not denying that I did.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Wow. A poly first.

I am, for lack of a better word, impressed.

[Dinner]

Yeah those Afghans are savages who are incapable of having peace!

History would seem to support that position given they only time they aren't fighting each other is when they get together to fight some foreigner. That's been the status quo since ancient Persian times and certainly the norm over the last 500 years. How long does war and chronic instability have to exist before we admit the savages are unable to have peace on their own? Chronic tribal warfare is as a part of Afghan (especially Pashtun) culture as breathing.

[Al B. Sure!]

History would seem to support that position given they only time they aren't fighting each other is when they get together to fight some foreigner. That's been the status quo since ancient Persian times and certainly the norm over the last 500 years. How long does war and chronic instability have to exist before we admit the savages are unable to have peace on their own? Chronic tribal warfare is as a part of Afghan (especially Pashtun) culture as breathing.

I wonder how Germans, English, and French stack up to the Afghans in a comparison of historical violence

[Dinner]

They had functioning central governments which effectively controlled all of their home territory so they'd compare very favorably. There is a reason they become some of the most powerful countries in the world and centralization of government power was one of them.

[Al B. Sure!]

They had functioning central governments which effectively controlled all of their home territory so they'd compare very favorably. There is a reason they become some of the most powerful countries in the world and centralization of government power was one of them.

Germany was not 'centralized' until the late 19th century. And you'd think you'd know what feudalism was and how the process of centralization took centuries and was nothing inherent to the cultures of the French and English; the decline of feudalism was the result of economic circumstance.