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Post by BadCompany on Jul 12, 2007 13:22:17 GMT -5
That’s not quite true. The Taliban never fully controlled Afghanistan, as the Northern Alliance held, and continued to hold about 10% of the country right up until the invasion. So the country was always at war. And I think you are exaggerating the extent of the current conflict. While there are no doubt incidents throughout the country, the vast majority of the fighting is occuring in the southeast portion of the country (Canada’s patrol zone), along the border with Pakistan and the Taliban’s traditional homeland. Did you check the date of that article? March, 2002. Less than 6 months after the invasion started. Less than 3 months after Sharbat’s province fell. Over five and a half years ago. Oh, and she’s a Pashtun. And comparing the Taliban to the Soviet rule, not the current one. And I think you have a sanitized view of who the Taliban were and are. Aside from believing that over 50% of the population are inferior, shameful and stupid, who should be covered up and prevented from doing anything other than sitting in their houses, the Taliban were executers, torturers and jailers far beyond anything Saddam Hussein was ever capable of. Saddam was no angel, but come on. He was nothing compared to the Taliban. Saddam’s main goal was survival, and he murdered those who threatened that. The Taliban, like the Nazis, were just as inclined to murder you for who you were, than anything else. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban
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Post by duster on Jul 12, 2007 14:46:53 GMT -5
Oh come on. The Taliban were a repressive regime but at least the country wasn't a war zone (to the same degree). Lots of Afghani's have expressed that sentiment, and whether they are "correct" is in some sense immaterial - they felt safer under the Taliban than they do now. Adding to BC's comments. I would beg to differ. Unless you were Pashtun, you certainly didn't feel safe. They could arbitrarily arrest and/or even execute you on the spot or after a very brief trial if you deviated from their interpretation of Sharia law. Even if you were Pashtun, you had to be careful. I followed one of the ads at the top of this page and ended up at How They Found National Geographic's "Afghan Girl", which happens to have a relevant quote: A member of the Pashtun ethnic group in Afghanistan, Sharbat said she fared relatively well under Taliban rule, which, she feels, provided a measure of stability after the chaos and terror of the Soviet war. As a Pashtun, she was also protected under tribal law and I'm guessing practically all Taliban are Pashtun. If she had come from Mazar-i-Sharif, for example, things might have been different. She has a husband and most likely relatives allowing her to move more or less freely. Many Afghan women became widows or lost all their male relatives during the course of 30 years of war. They had to stay home and starve to death since they were not allowed to work or even go outside to buy food unaccompanied by a husband or male relative. Violation of these rules meant execution or imprisonment. A matter of perspective. It seems like you have a very exaggerated view of the gains made since the invasion. As for the Hitler comparison, I'm no expert on the Taliban, but I think you'd fare better comparing Saddam to Hitler. The Taliban and Afghanistan are so different from the Nazis and Germany that the comparison doesn't make much sense to me. But it does compare in many ways. Like Nazi Germany, the Taliban implemented an extreme ideology. Hussein's Baathist party didn't. The Taliban forced young men to attend their own madrassas for indoctrination and wear the traditional white or black turban that symbolized their movement, much like the Hitler Youth. Women were forbidden to work, even if you were educated, as was the case in Nazi ideology. The policy of arbitrary arrest and execution outside the rule of law was part of the every day except in Afghanistan the Gestapo travelled in pickup trucks, spoke Pashto, and carried AK-47s. There was a forced imposition at a grass roots level of a radical social philosophy that included xenophobia and intolerance. Add to that a belief that "non-believers" are inferior in some way. These policies were implemented to such a degree that even the Iranians thought the Taliban were taking things too far. |
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Post by franko on Jul 13, 2007 9:47:33 GMT -5
Pick up this week's issue of MacLean's magazine, or wait until Monday and read it on-line. An interesting read: Afghanistan: Reason for Hope. |
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Post by MC Habber on Jul 14, 2007 22:12:14 GMT -5
I think my post may have been misinterpreted. I was only responding to the hyperbole of the article that Dis posted, about the "gratitude of the Afghan people." Pashtuns make up more than 40% of Afghans, don't they? I still think there are a lot of Afghan people who are not grateful.
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Post by BadCompany on Aug 12, 2007 19:55:13 GMT -5
How a ‘Good War’ in Afghanistan Went Bad [/size] A year after the Taliban fell to an American-led coalition, a group of NATO ambassadors landed in Kabul, Afghanistan, to survey what appeared to be a triumph — a fresh start for a country ripped apart by years of war with the Soviets and brutal repression by religious extremists.
With a senior American diplomat, R. Nicholas Burns, leading the way, they thundered around the country in Black Hawk helicopters, with little fear for their safety. They strolled quiet streets in Kandahar and sipped tea with tribal leaders. At a briefing from the United States Central Command, they were told that the Taliban were now a “spent force.”
“Some of us were saying, ‘Not so fast,’ ” Mr. Burns, now the under secretary of state for political affairs, recalled. “A number of us assumed that the Taliban was too enmeshed in Afghan society to just disappear as a political and military force.”
But that skepticism never took hold in Washington. Assessments by the Central Intelligence Agency circulating at the same time reported that the Taliban were so decimated they no longer posed a threat, according to two senior intelligence officials who reviewed the reports. The American sense of victory was so robust that the top C.I.A. specialists and elite Special Forces units who had helped liberate Afghanistan were packing their guns and preparing for the next war, in Iraq.
Those sweeping miscalculations were part of a pattern of assessments and decisions that helped send what many in the American military call “the good war” off course. Long, but interesting
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Post by Disgruntled70sHab on Aug 12, 2007 21:17:13 GMT -5
Had to reroute this to my work account where I can re-read this over lunch tomorrow, BC. Have to go over it again to absorb the info.
Wish I could write like this sometimes.
Cheers.
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Post by Doc Holliday on Aug 13, 2007 9:05:14 GMT -5
Wow newsflash! NATO Bureaucrat applauds the work of NATO. This article typically hides the extent of the problem. No doubt life is better in the area of Kabul and that skews all statistics, but elsewhere in the country the challenges are mounting. As for myself, I am disgusted how the issue of the Afghanistan mission is inevitably dumbed down to simply supporting the troops. So, what is the mission? To bring democracy to a country that has never known democracy? Pakistan with a standing army of 600,000 can't even control its own borders and its own tribal areas that border afghanistan. To defeat the Taliban? I am most assuredly happy that the Taliban gov't fell, but why haven't they been defeated after a war of 5 years? I know the Afghan gov't is hopelessly corrupt and incompetent but why are they unable to fight for themselves? Is there even a timetable to the Afghan military to take up the slack? How long should we stay? 5 years? 30 years? Is this going to turn into another tragic farce like Cyprus? So many questions that we shouldn't ask because we have to blindly support the troops. This is so right on and perfectly summarize what I've been thinking all along. The debate isn't at all about supporting the troop. Everyone admires those soldiers who risk their lives, this is not the point at all. They could be doing their work in dozens of country in needs... Why so massively stay in this one? Invasion has been done, government has been overthrown, the Invaders have left and let the country in shambles to move on to their next chosen target. We don't have the ressources to try and clean the US mess. Canada is just going to send troops and suffer casualties until we eventually pull out and let these countrymen figure things out. Will another regime of terror take on? Will an even worst dictatorship take control? Who knows? We look at this with our Canadian's values and way of life and think we fight the good fight but in reality we don't have a clue what these people want and what they'll revert to once we leave. I fully support the army and the job they do but that doesn't mean I think we have to stay in Aghanistan. There is a huge difference between the 2 and I find it unfortunate that those in favor of keeping our troops there are trying to portait those who aren't in favor as anti-patriotic, anti-army people. |
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Post by Disgruntled70sHab on Aug 13, 2007 10:48:32 GMT -5
Wow newsflash! NATO Bureaucrat applauds the work of NATO. This article typically hides the extent of the problem. No doubt life is better in the area of Kabul and that skews all statistics, but elsewhere in the country the challenges are mounting. As for myself, I am disgusted how the issue of the Afghanistan mission is inevitably dumbed down to simply supporting the troops. So, what is the mission? To bring democracy to a country that has never known democracy? Pakistan with a standing army of 600,000 can't even control its own borders and its own tribal areas that border afghanistan. To defeat the Taliban? I am most assuredly happy that the Taliban gov't fell, but why haven't they been defeated after a war of 5 years? I know the Afghan gov't is hopelessly corrupt and incompetent but why are they unable to fight for themselves? Is there even a timetable to the Afghan military to take up the slack? How long should we stay? 5 years? 30 years? Is this going to turn into another tragic farce like Cyprus? So many questions that we shouldn't ask because we have to blindly support the troops. This is so right on and perfectly summarize what I've been thinking all along. The debate isn't at all about supporting the troop. Everyone admires those soldiers who risk their lives, this is not the point at all. They could be doing their work in dozens of country in needs... Why so massively stay in this one? Invasion has been done, government has been overthrown, the Invaders have left and let the country in shambles to move on to their next chosen target. We don't have the ressources to try and clean the US mess. Canada is just going to send troops and suffer casualties until we eventually pull out and let these countrymen figure things out. Will another regime of terror take on? Will an even worst dictatorship take control? Who knows? We look at this with our Canadian's values and way of life and think we fight the good fight but in reality we don't have a clue what these people want and what they'll revert to once we leave. I fully support the army and the job they do but that doesn't mean I think we have to stay in Aghanistan. There is a huge difference between the 2 and I find it unfortunate that those in favor of keeping our troops there are trying to portait those who aren't in favor as anti-patriotic, anti-army people. I think more and more people are questioning our role here, Doc. A lot of people have the same feelings you do. I believe the attack on 9/11 was as much about our Western beliefs and values as it was about anything else, and we couldn't sit idly by. I also believe that there are those who would use the "America is everywhere" trump card in order to promote their own agendas, which only serve their own interests in the end. With me, I don't think this was solely an American mess per se. I know the initial rotations into the Afghan theatre had the right focus; take out those who either want to destroy our way of life and to remove those who harbour them as well. In that context it became our fight as well. Recently, 5 Brigade went over and they're based out of BFC Valcartier. One of the soldiers over there now is the son (Jim) of a soldier my dad served with in Germany. Some years later, Jim and I served overseas togther as well. I get emails regularly and forward them onto my dad as I get them. Recently the mission has focused more on training the Afghan troops to take over when we're gone. The last article I read said there were five battalions of Afghans trained to this point. That's certainly not enough but it's getting there. One of the soldiers providing that training was a former student of mine, Cpl Matthew McCulley. Matthew was killed on May 25th, 2007 and I made the trip to CFB Trenton to see him in. Yet, it was only weeks before on April 11th, that the son of a guy I served with in the Middle East, Tpr Patrick Pentland, was killed. I went to Trenton to see him home as well. So you see, the conflict continues to have a personal interest for me. I have a lifelong friend in Afghanistan now and I really don't want to be making any more trips to CFB Trenton. We can support our troops to the hilt and rightly so. But, the initial focus of the mission has changed. We've gone from rolling into Afghanistan with "I love NY" scribed on our LAV III's, to hearing Bush say he doesn't think about Bin Laden any more. And as far as he's concerned, Bin Laden's support network has been shattered. Well, the support network is still there and so is Bin Laden. However, if Bush doesn't care about Bin Laden any longer then why should the rest of NATO? After all, this guy, and his support network, were the major reasons we deployed troops into Afghanistan in the first place. As I was saying, 5 Brigade is over there now. Their mission will be more on continuation of training troops and less on offensive combat operations. And I'm hoping they can get it done by our pull out date. If they do, it will become an Afghan problem and not ours. Cheers. |
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Post by Cranky on Aug 13, 2007 18:04:19 GMT -5
I have always understood the mission was to help the Afgan people rebuild their country and their lives. It does not matter what Bush thinks of Bin Laden, it matters how we help the Afgan people.
In our society, we measure time in commercial breaks on tv, the Taliban measures time in generations. If we cut and run from Afghanistan and Iraq, then we might as well go full tilt with Fortress America. The West will have proven what every madras has always taught, that is, the evil West will run away if you send some of their man back in body bags and wait long enough.
What else do they need to embolden them even more?
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Post by Cranky on Aug 13, 2007 18:21:57 GMT -5
Why so massively stay in this one? Because in this one, it breeds people who have no qualms of bringing death and destruction to your house. Pakistan is a bullet away from complete chaos. Not any simple chaos, but chaos with nuclear weapons as the prize. Iran is hell bent on creating nuclear weapons. Needless to say, now it's an issue of WHEN Iran gets nuclear weapons, the entire region has guaranteed us that they will too. Oil is the blood of every single economy in the world. Islam has taken a particularly bad bend by far too many followers and is used to justify practically anything. Let's cut through "our fellow man" rhetoric and get brutally blunt and honest. African tribes killing each other does not mean as much as people who are hell bent and have the means to disrupt or destroy my way of life....or extinguishing my life. I have seen the enemy.......and he is not carrying a machete. |
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Post by Disgruntled70sHab on Aug 13, 2007 19:25:35 GMT -5
I have always understood the mission was to help the Afgan people rebuild their country and their lives. It does not matter what Bush thinks of Bin Laden, it matters how we help the Afgan people. I have to disagree here, HA. The original mission was to remove the Taliban and locate and make Bin Laden pay for what he engineered WRT 9/11. At least those were the objectives when I was still in uniform. Rebuilding Afghanistan was a given from the get-go that included installing a "democratically elected government." Well, this is easier said than done when you think of the centuries of autocratic rule Afghanistan has been under. And as far as elections went, a few buddies who were over there told me that the newly elected president was known as "the mayor of Kabul" in the outlaying regions. I believe in defending our way of life and I hope there are others who share that. I know you do. Canada has proven it can do this without a shadow of a doubt and it's because of troops that our voices can no longer be ignored on the international scene. We have two posters here on HabsRus that have been in the Afghan theatre. The rebuilding program is well under way and it seems to be a success. However, I feel that the USA, or Bush specifically, really doesn't consider Afghanistan all that important any longer. I think they've been feeling this way for quite some time. There main focus has been and continues to be Iraq. IMHO, Bush has lost touch with both conflicts. I'd like to see the Canadian forces fulfill their mandate and then head home. The Taliban can claim they put the run to us all they want, but in another way they'll only try goading us into staying longer. And it's not the average Afghan we should be worried about. It's the ones pulling the strings for their own agendas. The ones in charge will be the winners, not the average Afghan. Something like Bush when you think about it. Only Bush is losing everywhere. Overall I think the 9/11 motive for being there has been clouded over by other objectives now. There might be a jingoism surrounding our troops. But so long as they are there I'll wave the colours for them regardless what their mission is. Yet, having said that, that mission has changed over the years and if Uncle Sam isn't taking it all that seriously then I say it's time we reevaluate our position as well. I'm not saying the American troops aren't contributing; far from it. They provide a lot of combat and combat service support to our missions. However, their government has lost its focus. Cheers. |
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