Can the Soldiers come home soon plz kthnx

Originally Posted by Bigjawa

It's a bit like when the Brits were sent here in 1969 to protect the Catholics from the nasty Unionists, it all went pear shaped in a very big way, you simply can not beat an "army" who aren't really an army, all the people who died here, WTF was it all for? Half the really bad people are living very comfortable lives and are walking about in suits with bodyguards whilst the normal folk really aren't any better off.

There's no difference between a soldier shot in Helmand, and one blown up in South Armagh, there was no real "war" to be fought in either case, you can bet your life they know who's in charge in both cases and if they wanted to, they could have removed them entirely, but like a Hydra, chop one head off, another will take it's place. It's an unwinnable situation.

Yes and no. In NI you had two communities pretty much implacably ranged against each other. In those circumstances there certainly would have been no point, as you say, cutting off one head only to see another grow in its place. And the communities would close around the paramilitaries as well. Better to know who was who and use a network of contacts to thwart attacks while in the background a proces of diplomacy brought the sides to the table. And it worked. Not 100% admittedly but one helluva lot better than it used to be.

Afghanistan is different because you are trying not to let the extremists get their claws into the ordinary people. People who would rather be off herding their goats not worrying about stepping on a landmine or having their homes raided looking for weapons or having a Paveway drop in on their son's wedding. When the Taliban first came to power they were welcomed as bringing a measure of stability and purity, a change from the old corrupt Soviet puppet government and the warlords. They weren't widely loved but they came to be feared. That's what we risk happening again if we abandon the country, it will lapse back into a medieval theocracy where the Islamist extremists will once again find friends in the government and establish their madrassas and training camps unhindered. What then? Invade the country all over again?

Might it be a better idea to marginalise the extremists, deprive them of the hearts and minds of the people so they, not us, become the outsiders. You can take out a few loony beardies a lot easier than taking out a whole population or world religion. Afghanistan will be the tipping point, where we either win or lose the battle of philosphies.

Originally Posted by Tomcat

Having proved that a military solution won't work there is no better option. Unless as you say we pull out. But that's not a solution either as the Taliban would be straight back in to power trumpeting they had beaten us, welcoming al Qaeda back in and dishing out justice Najibullah style to anyone who had worked with us.

Back to square one and the sacrifice of many brave people in vain. How is that a good solution?

Its a good solution because we will no longer lose our people over there

The pullout and the retribution following it is going to happen so it may as well be asap , we owe afghanistan NOTHING .....

Originally Posted by Tomcat

Having proved that a military solution won't work there is no better option. Unless as you say we pull out. But that's not a solution either as the Taliban would be straight back in to power trumpeting they had beaten us, welcoming al Qaeda back in and dishing out justice Najibullah style to anyone who had worked with us.

Back to square one and the sacrifice of many brave people in vain. How is that a good solution?

We are going to pull out and when we do the Taliban will be straight back in again. And yes, it will be back to square one.

Originally Posted by Tomcat

Yes and no. In NI you had two communities pretty much implacably ranged against each other. In those circumstances there certainly would have been no point, as you say, cutting off one head only to see another grow in its place. And the communities would close around the paramilitaries as well. Better to know who was who and use a network of contacts to thwart attacks while in the background a proces of diplomacy brought the sides to the table. And it worked. Not 100% admittedly but one helluva lot better than it used to be.

Afghanistan is different because you are trying not to let the extremists get their claws into the ordinary people. People who would rather be off herding their goats not worrying about stepping on a landmine or having their homes raided looking for weapons or having a Paveway drop in on their son's wedding. When the Taliban first came to power they were welcomed as bringing a measure of stability and purity, a change from the old corrupt Soviet puppet government and the warlords. They weren't widely loved but they came to be feared. That's what we risk happening again if we abandon the country, it will lapse back into a medieval theocracy where the Islamist extremists will once again find friends in the government and establish their madrassas and training camps unhindered. What then? Invade the country all over again?

Might it be a better idea to marginalise the extremists, deprive them of the hearts and minds of the people so they, not us, become the outsiders. You can take out a few loony beardies a lot easier than taking out a whole population or world religion. Afghanistan will be the tipping point, where we either win or lose the battle of philosphies.

At the beginning the Army was to stop the communities fighting, but as the years went on, it turned into seperate conflicts, it was mostly the Republican splinter groups, the INLA and IPLO who went after the Loyalists, the IRA was mostly concerned with fighting the "Crown Forces", the Loyalists, despite their so called Loyalism, actually didn't have much love for the Brits as they were more concerned about banging random Taigs and the Army got in the way.

The thing is, it got to a stage where the government had a total climb down and agreed the GFA and let all the scumbags out of jail whichh was probably the worst thing they could have done. In any case we now have an increasing population who refer to themselves as "Irish", it's very nearly parity which could start it up all over again once the majority want a united Ireland.

Originally Posted by Alex Dangerfield

These deaths are regrettable? No they are a fucking atrocity. In what way has invading Afghanistan made "us" safer? Training camps move anti American sentiment is galvanized and people die. Ironically these training camps are the legacy of Western involvement with the Taliban.

I think it's criminally simplistic to invade a country based on the suspicion that some Saudi hi jackers, backed by a (then) Sudan based global terror network may have received some training in said country. This achieves nothing, the only reward for those myopic enough is a misplaced sense of Ill informed erroneous justic.. "they did that so we did this .. So there" shame people have to die but we can't do nothing, someone's gotta pay.

Really?

One of the more cool-headed analyses that I read likened Al Qaeda and their fellow travellers to Caribbean pirates. Which is why the answer was similar - carry out a war of attrition on enemy combatants and deny them a secure home base.

But the costs in men and materiel back in the 18th century were huge, and the commitment of military forces was immense. So it was then, so it is now. And it took many years to erode the problem down to acceptable levels. So it will now. But the common objective is to ensure safe passage, these days by plane or tube train rather than by sailing vessel.

Viewed from that perspective, the military presence in Afghanistan looks much more logical, and much more successful in meeting its objectives.

Originally Posted by Tomcat

People who would rather be off herding their goats not worrying about stepping on a landmine or having their homes raided looking for weapons or having a Paveway drop in on their son's wedding.

The great majority of people in NI just wanted to get on with their lives, some just didn't want to treated as second class citizens and others saw an opportunity to indulge their baser instincts but the great majority just wanted much the same as the average Afghan, or Syrian or Croat.

Originally Posted by Bigjawa

In any case we now have an increasing population who refer to themselves as "Irish", it's very nearly parity which could start it up all over again once the majority want a united Ireland.

It may well be nearing parity on a religious head count but you know as well as I do BJ that just because someone is a Catholic doesn't necessarily mean they want a united Ireland. Parity may be good for the province because I'm sure you know as well as I do that knowing the school someone went to may still be a bar to getting on in life. When religious bigotry is not used as a reason for discrimination it might just be a fairer place. Of course it may go the other way but I personally doubt it. As I said above, people really just want to get on with their lives.


Just as a matter of interest and to get back on topic, how many Al Qaeda attacks have there been on the USA or UK in the last 6 or 7 years?

It's the same as any one of you IT geeks going to uni etc to learn how to program ad infinitum. Then one day someone gives you a job to write it for real. He died doing a job he'd trained for. Something no doubt he'd be wondering what it would be like, and looking forward to it and fearing it at the same time. Only he got unlucky or whatever and paid for it with his life, not lost hours, pounds or kudos.

The rest of this intellectual posturing is just fucking bullshit.

Afghanistan, and probably Iraq to a lesser degree, are 20+ year deals, maybe more, quite possibly 30-50. This point was obvious to anyone who had read any history beyond WW2, and even then there were plenty of clues. The politicians signally failed to grasp this fact, and apparently the senior military figures either had forgotten, or didn't bother to pass that piece of information on. Maybe they did but were ignored because it didn't fit the message, I don't know. Hearts and minds takes a long time, a lot more than a couple of election cycles thats for damn sure.

All the bull shit '' hearts and mind '' is just clouding the issue and trying to get the general halfwits (sorry public) to buy into a war that was lost the day it began. It's a mystery that however financially crippled a country is, it can always seem to find the cash to kill people from other lands and wage wars that cost billions and kill thousands. Get the soldiers back now, the ones that have died have died in vain and any further lose of life is a total crime.

Originally Posted by the phantom pieman

The struggle in Afghanistan is un-winnable ....

I think that somewhat depends on the definition of "win". It's not conventional warfare vs a conventional enemy. I'd suggest bringing the country to the point where the majority of the populace can self-determine their future is a win. If they then chose to allow the Taliban to undo all that work and fall back into being an extreme islamic dictatorship then there you go.

What I think people tend to forget is that the breed of Islam that we are talking about here isn't reactionary. They are not angry at the US/UK for things like this so much as they simply do not think we should be existing.

It has been for centuries - it place has had political instability for centuries.

And that makes it fine for people to do what they will within those borders? I have no doubt that Pakistan is a similar intractable problem but it's not like even the USA has unlimited power and reach. Pakistan is a shaky ally at best, usually not the brightest ideas to strike a match near such a nuclear powered tinderbox in the region.

If the Afghanis want , or don't want to be ruled by the Taliban, then let them sort that out. It is their struggle. Being there adds to the extremists cause ...

That is generally the idea. It's not like they could vote them out is it? Or take up arms against them?

If there's one thing that I find folly, is to reduce what is an exceptionally complicated situation and intelligence picture into simple phrases. "It's for the oil" and all that balls.

Originally Posted by irie

But the Christian Templars aka. Blair and Bush had their own agenda which they somehow thought would insulate them from the lessons of history.

The lessons of history are not to be adhered to blindly but taken into account when making decisions.

Originally Posted by the phantom pieman

Don't be patronising...

I still find it amazing that the CIA doesn't have a better fix on the real enemy, they seem to be able to pick up autistic Brits easily enough. So are they not meant to inflitrate these orgs and get intell, or was Bin Laden much cleverer than that?

If you don't want people to be patronising, then perhaps it's best that you don't use such ridiculously patronising examples. Unless you genuinely don't understand the differences in locating the leader of a multinational terrorism cell in an area the size of Europe and using the NSA or whoever to intercept a hacking attack and trace it back to it's origin.

I am not naive enough to suggest that it was all altruistic and the west was completely without ulterior motive, but nor am I cynical to suggest that the US just stamped it's feet, cried a bit and then went to town on the nearest muslim country.

Originally Posted by irie

We are going to pull out and when we do the Taliban will be straight back in again. And yes, it will be back to square one.

That, unfortunately, is probably true. It is this problem that is trying to be addressed by creating a proper police force and military, but I simply don't think they're ever going to work properly. The only way it would work, and even then it's unlikely to be a lasting thing, is if you actually ran the country from behind the scenes for a couple of generations until you're actively getting through youngsters that have not had their experiences clouded by past involvement with the taliban etc. Once you have that, you have a chance. Of course, if you have people teaching those youngsters that Islam is top and westerners are evil then it's not going to work.

That's exactly the point. They completely failed to take account of those lessons secure in their belief*in*the righteousness of their cause.

Originally Posted by NyseriA

The lessons of history are not to be adhered to blindly but taken into account when making decisions.

Originally Posted by NyseriA

If you don't want people to be patronising, then perhaps it's best that you don't use such ridiculously patronising examples. Unless you genuinely don't understand the differences in locating the leader of a multinational terrorism cell in an area the size of Europe and using the NSA or whoever to intercept a hacking attack and trace it back to it's origin.

I am not naive enough to suggest that it was all altruistic and the west was completely without ulterior motive, but nor am I cynical to suggest that the US just stamped it's feet, cried a bit and then went to town on the nearest muslim country.

Obviously, I understand the difference. My point was about "focus" and taking the piss, just ever so slightly. America's paranoia has made everyone seem like an enemy to them, when they are not. The CIA / Homeland security is well staffed and has a lot of political clout. I still find it difficult to beleive they didn't have a good handle in where Bin Laden was ... and beig that it was probably a volitile peace of Pakistan, on and off for years after 9/11 that gave "issues"

Afghanistan is about the the size of 1 and a bit Frances, Afghanistan and Pakistan are about the size of France and Germany, with Belgium thrown in for good measure - so far from being the size of Europe. Maybe bad geography explains the issues the secruity services had.

So you are not convinced it was just a knee jerk reaction - please explain the real motive, because , as you pointed out, the CIA could not have known where Bin Laden was. And why have the Wahbi Sect in Saudi got away scott free, when they are most of the issue?

Originally Posted by NyseriA

Of course, if you have people teaching those youngsters that Islam is top and westerners are evil then it's not going to work.

I think the American and British action cemented that. If you like, we have proved the Taliban and there hate of infidels correct ... if the French invaded Yorkshire, on the pretext that it was a cultural and culinary desert, what would be the local's response?
If Afghanistan is going to be ruled by the Taliban, so be it. Ultimately, it is their problem. If the people don't like it, sooner or later a regieme will change. Unfortunately the corrupt clusterfuck of a government they have now only strengthens the Talibans position.
I don't much like the governments of Zimbabwe, DRC, China, Burma, Syria, Belarus or Iran - but do we have a "right" to go an sort them out?
What is the difference between Libya and Syria ? It may be "simplistic" according to you but "oil" does seem to be a factor


If they concentrate on fighting a civil war in Pakistan and Afghanistan, then maybe, the West will be safer ...