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

I say yes. Every other day we here about the deaths, and there are numerous young men getting the most appalling injuries.

The Taliban have mostly moved across the border into the mountains in Pakistan.

Oh right Cameron wants the troops home by 2015. Why not now? What on earth are all the deaths and hideous injuries for in the meantime?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/politics/10420911.stm

I said they shouldn't be there before they were sent. I said the outcome would be as one can only expect when there is no clearly thought out or decliared objective, that of total failure. Each day they fail a bit more to achieve whatever it is that no one ever really decided was to be achieved. So yes, fly them all back in time for Monday, their being there does nothing except provide target practise for the whatever they're deciding to call whatever they've decided the terrorists or opposition is called this month.

Yes, I get more and more angry about it all the time. Cameron says they will stay there for 5 more years. For what? What will it achieve? I think it's as insane as the canon fodder strategy of WW1 when young men gave their lives and limbs for why?

What are they doing there? (practically speaking rather than politically speaking).

What impact will a sudden withdrawal have on the locals? (and by locals I mean the people living there, not just the resistance or terrorists).

I agree they should never have been sent there in the first place, and probably shouldn't be there now, but given they have been there for so long I think there is an obligation to the place. Not sure the extent of that obligation.

>>I said the outcome would be as one can only expect when there is no clearly thought out or decliared objective, that of total failure.


There were clear objectives. That was one a number of things that differentiated the Afghan war from the Gulf War 2: Rise of the Neo-Cons.

Kill or capture Bin Laden.
Close al-Qaeda Training Camps.
Remove the government that was complicit with/harbouring those responsible for launching an attack on a member of NATO.
Establish a stable democracy between Iran and Pakistan.


Goals with which there could have been some success...

Were it not for mishandling of reconstruction and strategic incompetence -- of two deluded faith-heads (Blair and Bush) and Bush's Neo-Con puppet masters -- in the opening up of a new front in "The War On Terror" in Iraq.

That was the crime of invading Iraq, not that was illegal -- so was the way we stopped another genocide in the Balkans -- it was that it was betrayal of our troops and those wanting a more progressive future for Afghanistan.


Afghanistan was always going to be costly and long-term commitment, that the number of British troops killed there is rising is not an argument for dropping everything and "leaving now".
That there is no-longer anything to be accomplished by staying there is, and that argument has already been heard and understood by Obama and Cameron who are both openly talking leaving sooner rather than later...

If we were on course to achieve the goals set at the outset we'd be looking at another twenty years of significant presence there. Instead the winding down is set to begin.

I can't help but feeling like it's yet another example of the West (or whoever) messing up and then abandoning the people who have been most affected. What's likely to happen in Afghanistan when the US and UK etc leave?

> What's likely to happen in Afghanistan when the US and UK etc leave?<

The status quo will return, ie the one that was there when we arrived. It would happen if we left now. It will happen when we leave in 2015. But for some reason we need to see 5 more years of our soldiers dying and having their limbs blown off, ie naive young men signing up for the army, that politicians like to make use of. Of course with the big recession, and higher unemployment on the way, more will be tempted, and Cameron has recently been making lots of noises about why we must put soldiers more at the centre of our national life.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/10359155.stm

I'm in full and total agreement that we respect our armed forces; enough to want them home *now*, rather than making hideous sacrifices for nothing, as far as I can see.

if we pulled out now we would have a month of parades and then there would be another round of service redundancies announced,

a 5 year planned reduction and withdrawl is sound,

5 years is 25% of a soldiers career, there are medals to be won and ranks to gained in a conflict

with a 5 year plan recruiting can be scaled down so when the troops do come home there will be no need to turf out hundreds onto 'the scrapheap'

we can also put preasure on the afgan govt. to take up the responsability of its own security, as it is they are quite happy to let us die for them

public opinion would help sway the peace if ite their own boys that are dying for the peace(thats probably wrong as they wil be cheering about deaths in anothers tribe)

we should never have been there in the first place

we should have finished in afganistan before starting on iraq

we should never have but afganistan on the back boiler

we could have done soo much more for the afgan people and we could have blown a hole in the drugs trade

Nuke it from orbit.

Oh I don't think we need to go that far. Dave has organised 'Armed Forces Day' today..and in that article,


'..Mr Cameron also called for "an explosion of red, white and blue" to mark Saturday's events.

The explosion of red and white blue should do it.

They should have pulled out when Hamid Karzai won the last election which was 'supposedly' mired with fraud.

Let 'em sort it out themselves and increase our security at home.

>>
> What's likely to happen in Afghanistan when the US and UK etc leave?<

The status quo will return, ie the one that was there when we arrived.
<<

I know you really want to stop more UK soldiers from being killed over there, but you make it sound as if the withdrawal will have no effect on the people in Afghanistan. I can't see how you can invade a country for years and then leave and think it will go back to what it was before

I don't understand your point kea. It's an intensly macho tribal society, run by thugs, warlords and bandits. The West is supporting the corrupt puppet Karzai. The Taliban move freely back and fro across the border with Pakistan. I doubt if we stayed there for a 100 years I doubt a unified 'Afghanistan' would emerge.

It's like continually pouring water into a bucket with a hole in it.

<>

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

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Anglo-Afghan_War

Yes, Taff.

Up the Khyber

Effers a few weeks back you were berating people for not getting more vocal about what was going on in Malawi: Afghanistan under the Taliban makes Malawi look like a Sunday picnic in the park.

My belief is that we stirred up that hornets nest and we should stay there until the war, which is worth winning, is won and I don't care if it takes another 10 or even 20 years. Afghanistan is a long way from any other democracy (Pakistan emphatically does not count as a democracy) and it will take a long time to get anything done there.

Taff's points about structural issues within the Army itself were good and fascinating to learn.

what hornets' nest did we stir up? I thought the story went that Al Quaeda were using the Taliban's power in Afghan to operate training camps?

And yes we aren't doing anything about totally disgusting stuff going on in places like Malawi, Zimbabwe and Saudi to name a few of many many places in the world because its not in our economic interest. The *only* reason we are in the hell hole that is Afghan is purely for economic reasons, connected with US interests. And the west will only finally leave and all the young men stop dying and having their arms and legs blown off when the economics of it add up.

>I don't care if it takes another 10 or even 20 years<

I do...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/uk/2009/casualties/default.stm

I look at this page every day. Oh right I need to update my tag again to 308.

>>what hornets' nest did we stir up? I thought the story went that Al Quaeda were using the Taliban's power in Afghan to operate training camps?<<

Yes, and we went in and ousted them from power, putting Afghanistan in a state of civil war yet again. I'm not saying this was a bad thing to do, in fact I'm delighted the Taliban are gone, but it's only half the job. We've given the Afghans walls but no roof and without said roof the walls will crumble and we'll have to go back in again.

>>And yes we aren't doing anything about totally disgusting stuff going on in places like Malawi, Zimbabwe and Saudi to name a few of many many places in the world because its not in our economic interest.<<

If it was just about resources we'd have invaded Saudi and Zimbabwe long ago. And the war in Afghanistan is hardly profitable: although the US DoD was talking about hundreds of billions of dollars worth of minerals etc available (which the Economist pointed out was a sign of desperation), unlike Iraq, there isn't the infrastructure for extraction.

>in fact I'm delighted the Taliban are gone,<

oh yeah across the border into Pakistan.

It's a disgusting joke. And every day young Brits who sign up for the army as youngsters..well yes we could say its their choice. But christ when I was 18 I might have done the same with no *real* understanding of what I was letting myself in for in terms of politicians' decisions to put me into such situations. IMO it stinks. And Dave can make his 'Armed Forces Day' with Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall doing their thing..and talk about an explosion of red, white and blue...but the *hard hard reality* is that young men are losing limbs and dying..and at the moment, *every* day.

IMO the troops should be home here and defending the UK.

I don't give a toss about what happens in Afghanistan. And if they cause stuff like terrorism here..we sort it out here with those doing it.

>>oh yeah across the border into Pakistan<<

Which, as I'm sure you'll agree, is rather a different thing from being the de facto government of Afghanistan.

>>And Dave can make his 'Armed Forces Day<<

Gordon Brown set up Armed Forces Day...

>>IMO the troops should be home here and defending the UK.<<

Defending us against whom? It's not like we've got enemies lining up to attack us (plus, even if we did, it'd be the Navy and RAF doing the bulk of the defending and they're both relatively uninvolved in Afghanistan).

As Taff pointed out, if they were withdrawn straight away they'd be mustered out pretty quickly. They wouldn't be defending anything.

>>I don't give a toss about what happens in Afghanistan.<<

So repression of women, gays, religious minorities and different tribes is fine in Afghanistan but not Malawi? Why is that?