h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Affganastan like Iraq both have suffered from their instigations as wars with no i idea whatsoever as to what the aims an objectives were... I guess no one has yet bothered with either to make anything like sensible objectives and aims, in which case I can't see any good coming out of occupying both countrys and shooting the people who live there whilst htey shoot back.
The idea of those who broke it having to fix it does give a rather spondipherous mental immage of Bush and Blair with a spanner and screwdriver... failing awfully as before...

"Up to 2,000 extra British troops are likely to be sent to Afghanistan next year, the BBC has learned.

Ministers are considering sending reinforcements to Afghanistan to meet an expected request from Barack Obama, when he becomes US president next year."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7728478.stm

Ah.

Why?
If we can't as a society, race, world, learn from our mistakes it really is all an utter waste of time. I do hope they all enjoy dieing.

on the subject of negotiations:

'The Taliban will never enter into peace negotiations with any Afghan or Western authorities while foreign forces still remain in Afghanistan, and will continue to fight for the country's "freedom," a spokesman told CBC's As It Happens on Thursday.

Speaking on the telephone through an interpreter to host Carol Off from an undisclosed location in Afghanistan, Taliban spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmadi said peace talks would mean "we are playing with the future of the nation and it will be not good for the nation."

"We will never talk to anyone. We are not ready for peace talks," said Ahmadi.'

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/11/13/taliban-spokesman.html

Please don't let such trivial things get in the way of the Western political un-objectives and face-keeping. So long as we pretend they'res a point in it all we can send troups there to die for no gain or reason.

we were taught this lesson about Afghanistan in 1842

Russia were taught this lesson in 1989

why have we not learned from the mistakes of history

those that do not learn from the mistakes of history are destined to repeat them

<>

Vizzini
the princes bride

i keep hearing on the news that it is expected that Burak Obama will ask for the uk to send more troops in the new year anyway. It looks unlikely that there is any fast way to solve the problems in Afghanistan (or the rest of the middle east) and i personally think we should try to do all we can to help them rebuild their country etc.

mini

they don't want to rebuild their country until they have wiped out each other from different tribes for "what their grandfather did to our grandfathers uncles wifes brother"

and then when there is only one tribe left in Afghanistan can we help them to rebuild

unless another feud brakes out of course

BB : Post 17

"I think a much better phrase to go around parroting is "Lions led by donkeys""

Better maybe, but not true. Knowing as many squaddies as I do, it's more like "Donkeys, led by really stupid Donkeys"

2legs : Post 21

"Affganastan like Iraq both have suffered from their instigations as wars with no i idea whatsoever as to what the aims an objectives were..."

The aims in Afghanistan were (1) Capture Osama bin Laden and (2) Remove the Taliban, 'cos they weren't going to hand him over to the Americans, so they could kill him.

Both have patently failed to date.

The aims in Iraq are a lot more complex than the usual list of tripe most people will trot out... Oil, Revenge, finish daddy's war, WMD etc, etc, etc.

S'funny, I thought the aims in Afghanistan were to remove the Taliban from power, set up a democracy and capture/kill OBL. The Taliban were certainly removed from power, a democratic system was set up but they failed to get OBL. Two out of three ain't bad.

The war was won inside a few months. NATO failed to keep the peace.

True, in a sense. The Taliban were 'removed from power', but they still control a big ol' chuck of the countryside, despite the military presence. Effectively, they are the most likely to gain power if the west try to enforce democracy of the country.

Like it or not democracy isn't always the answer to 'What type of Government shall we have?' The Afghans have had their own way of Governing for a very long time. Trying to replace that with something as alien as western democracy in one fell swoop will fail.

The only thing you ever learn from history is that no-one ever learns from history .

The US has succeeded in putting dictatorships in place, why not democracies too?

thing is, I can't help feeling that the idea of the war being won in Afghanistan (and the peace being lost) is a case of optimistic thinking (or spin ). The Taliban were not defeated, they are still active and an effective fighting force. Therefore we ain;t won.
Perhaps the battle for the afghan government has been won, so far.

I did think maybe it was a case of applying the win/lose criteria for older warfare to modern enccounters. But that isn't true either. Go back in history, you have the 100yrs War, the War of the Roses etc. All these wars lasted for a long time but with individual wins for either side during them. And in each case the leader of the enemy was removed (heck, most of the ruling french class was removed at one point in the 100yrs war) but then things change, different people come into power, they get removed and so on.

I don;t think we can claim an end to a war simply because one of the early battles went in our favour. it ain;t over till either the Taliban is rendered ineffective (either through military actions by the foreign forces or by getting the country stable enough to look after its own problems).

during the cold war there was a war going on in Afghanistan

we financed one side and the USSR financed the other, then the USSR were invited into the country by the govt. and we upped our financing of the rebels

now there is no USSR any more why don't we pull out let the fighting come to a head then pick a side and pour money into them till they win?

isn't it better that Afghans die for Afghan freedom rather than westerners die and keep fueling the radicalization of the population

problem there though is our actions have created an armed and experienced guerilla force from the Taliban and a non militarised population that depends on foreign forces to defend it. Pull out now and the Taliban would storm back in and exact some pretty nasty reprissals.

we could always just provide air cover and tactical strikes against the taliban and let the other warlords jockey for control

Not exactly playing to our strengths though is it? These air strikes and so forth seem to be the thing that most often goes wrong and is helping the Taliban recruitment (I could be wrong in this, I have not been on thr ground over there so have to rely on gleaning information from multiple news sources).

Again, I'd say it is up to the Afghan people.

Subject: Should the UK pull out of Afghanistan?
Posted 2 Weeks Ago by fluffylump
This is a reply to this Posting.
Post: 20


"Should the UK pull out of Afghanistan?"

Yes.




I've changed my mind.

No.

Not to do the right thing, forget that, but because the economy is in the toilet, and we need some way to reduce population, hell let's have a proper war, it's been 60 years since the last good bash.

Hell, lets solve the pension crisis at the same time by throwing a war for the over 50's.