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

The sad fact is that you can spend billions on all the nuclear powered aircraft carriers, all the Tomahawk Cruise missiles and all the radar invisible aircraft you like but you will never defeat one lone guerilla fighter in a car with a boot full of propane cylinders pulling up to a school bus, smiling at the driver and pulling the pin.........

Using current methods and thinking, NATO, the US and any other country involved will never win the war on "Terrorism"

It requires a whole new level of thinking, talking and reality.

Until this truth is dealt with, many more troops will return home a shadow of their former selves.

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Using current methods and thinking, NATO, the US and any other country involved will never win the war on "Terrorism"

It requires a whole new level of thinking, talking and reality.>>

since the peace broke out in NI we have a lot of unemployed terrorists

lets fight fire with fire

i could just see a fleet of black taxis in Kabul and all most of the drivers with Belfast accents

Yeah half of them sponsored by Noraid

Right, let's put the other side of the story then.

Why are we in Afghanistan? Ultimately it's because the Soviets left it as a 13th Century shithole, racked in civil wars which ended up with the most evil and brutal grouping taking control - the Taleban. It got that way because the Soviets had no intention of setting up a functioning democracy, they just wanted a vassal state as a stepping stone towards linking up with the Gulf.

We're not there because of a pipeline (far cheaper ways of securing that - besides which, the deal had been done). We're there because we don't want to be and we stay because we don't want to go back.

We want to leave the country as a functioning democracy which abides by the rule of law and recognises fundamental human rights. To do that it firstly has to have an elected government. We've done that. Secondly that government has to have authority and a means of upholding laws which means a functioning judiciary and police force. We're working on that. Police forces from all over the world have been helping to train the Afghan police. One setback there is the Taleban target police recruits for murder which brings us to the third thing Afghanistan needs - an army.

Building an army can't be done overnight. In Afghanistan the West is effectively creating a new "tribe", loyal to the government and thus *all* the people, not just a subset. It takes time to create a tradition and a history - two things which we know help to bind an army together. In that time there will be traitors and people who cannot forget their old tribal loyalties. This is to be expected. From the start, those doing the training have known this will be a twenty year mission, to get to the point where new recruits are joining something that has been around all their lives and is at least as familiar as the other tribes.

While this training is going on, the Taleban keep nipping away so we need Western armies to prevent them destroying the infant state. The important thing is to keep them out of the more urban areas, such as they are in Afghanistan. Dalrymple talked about huge swathes of red Taleban-controlled areas. Big deal. What he didn't say is that those huge areas are pretty much empty - just rocks and a few goats with the occasional village that barely knows what century it is.

If we walk away too early, we run the risk of repeating what America did in Vietnam where they created the figleaf of the ARVN - a poorly trained and limited militia who were slaughtered shortly after America pulled out.

Whatever the reasons, we are in Afghanistan. If we leave before it can support itself as a functioning democracy, we sentence thousands, tens of thousands to repression, mutilation and death at the hands of the Taleban.

I like how many times you use the word 'we' in that post, swl.

I'd have a bit more time for your posts if you'd care to comment about the disingenuosness of our politicians about the full honest facts of why our soldiers are there, and how long they might be expected to stay.

I made an ealier point about the MOD not letting journalists have access to the *full facts* about the kind of price paid by soldiers, ie the point I made in post 48 concerning Selly Oak.

You suddenly seem curiously quiet on the subject of politicians being less than honest about the whole truth of things. But you were beating that drum ceaselesly when Labour was in power.

It's incredibly easy to abstract reality into 'we'. Except it isn't us or we. British people need to know the full honest truth from politicians about the price expected to be paid by the public servants who take these risks on our behalf and how much sense it really makes for them to continue to have to take these risks. As Zagrebo pointed out there are all sorts of agendas going on in the media, but you'd expect our elected representatives to cut through all that stuff when they speak in parliament, yes? Or are they just being less than honest with us like the last lot?

It really was a lovely little scene with Cameron and Obama at the G20, sharing a beer together, joking and laughing, saying the special relationship is still, 'oh so special'..and how much they agree with each other about Afghanistan.

If you don't have time for my posts, don't read them Effers. I suspect you just don't have time for the bits you don't agree with though.

Show me any government that parades the dead and maimed? We are at war. There are enough sympathisers in Britain swapping internet footage of dead Western soldiers without handing them more material. In a war you don't tell the enemy how well they're doing (unless you're the BBC of course). The time to count the cost is when it's over.

I never called for Labour to parade the dead and injured. I did call for them to support the troops with appropriate resources. But in a contest between spending x million on a velodrome so Britain could maintain it's status as being the best at riding a bike and a few less dead soldiers, guess which got the money?

>>I'd have a bit more time for your posts if you'd care to comment about the disingenuosness of our politicians about the full honest facts of why our soldiers are there, and how long they might be expected to stay.<<

It's pretty simple why we're there: the Americans were attacked and invoked Article 5 of the NATO Charter, which stated that an attack on one NATO member was an attack on all. Iirc, this invocation was seconded by the Canadians.

I didn't think there was any ambiguity or subterfuge over this.

Indeed HI - http://www.nato.int/docu/review/2006/issue2/english/art2.html

>It's pretty simple why we're there< HI

Hmmm.

Simple eh? And swl agrees.

So why are the Canadian pulling out?

>>Hmmm.

Simple eh? And swl agrees.<<

Did you check out swl's link? It has the account of someone *who was in the room* when the decision was made.

And think about it, how often do me and swl agree? It's not a regular event.

As for why the Canadians are pulling out, it's their call. I don't agree with it, but it's their prerogative. As has been noted, the Canadians, alongside the Americans, British, Dutch and Polish, have been doing the bulk of the hard fighting. I consider it more fair to ask NATO members with the relatively easier tasks in the north to lend more support than to harangue Canada for withdrawing after 11 years.

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I agree.

Hippy.

HI why aren't you engaging with a lot of complex arguments that have been well thought out about the complexities of things, such as from zagrebo and anhaga and a bit myself, earlier in the thread.

If you and swl just want to reduce it all down to *simples* go for it. I'm not interested.

I'll engage with those here though who want to refer back to *earlier points* to contextualise debate.

And for christs sakes stop saying *we* you two. It's soldiers/human beings, public servants representing us. I know swl was in the RN and I don't know what action he saw, but I wouldn't be presumptious enough to say 'we' when he was risking his life for his country.

I'd like to comment on this 'we':


'we' is NATO, not any individual country. Many members of NATO have contributed and sacrificed greatly in Afghanistan; other members less so. As I said before, when one military unit goes home, it is replaced by another military unit. If one country has contributed and sacrificed greatly for ten years, there is no dishonour in rotating all of its troops home and replacing them with fresh units from other NATO members. Perhaps the Turks could send 6000 troops into Kandahar to replace the Canadians . . . Oh, wait . . . the Turks are busy fighting the Kurds in northern Iraq.

Concerning why the Canadians are pulling out and the invocation of article 5:


'When the Council reassembled, it did so with De Vidts' reassuring memorandum in front of them. In effect, he concluded that it was up to each Ally to judge for itself what action needed to be taken, although such action should be appropriate to the scale of the attack, the means of each country and the steps necessary to restore peace and security'

from swl's link


Much as I said earlier, each ally can judge for itself what action need be taken in a manner appropriate to the means of each country.

And, of course, it strikes me that NATO countries have had peace and security at home as far as the Taliban and al Qaeda are concerned for a number of years now. In that sense, the job of restoring peace and security at home has been achieved (largely through police action rather than military action, BTW)

I'd be interested in Anhaga's views on this piece - http://www.guernicamag.com/blog/1696/jasmin_ramsey_canadian_academi/

Is this just reactionary lefties or indicative of a more widespread Canadian mindset?

>>HI why aren't you engaging with a lot of complex arguments that have been well thought out about the complexities of things, such as from zagrebo and anhaga and a bit myself, earlier in the thread.<<

Here we go again

I did contribute earlier, but when Zagreb shows up I'm usually surplus to requirements: he normally enunciates my position far more eloquently than I can.

As I have said before (and doubtless will have to again), I contribute when I feel I've got something useful to say. You talked about how the war got started, I had that information and I posted with it.

>>And for christs sakes stop saying *we* you two. It's soldiers/human beings, public servants representing us. I know swl was in the RN and I don't know what action he saw, but I wouldn't be presumptious enough to say 'we' when he was risking his life for his country.<<

I didn't realise you were an England footballer or coach Effers. I'm pretty sure you've been referring to the exploits of the English national team with "we" and "us" and according to your logic, one should only do that when one is a member of that group.

As it happens, I've had 5 or 6 friends out in Afghanistan in the past few years, including someone I loved pretty deeply at one point. None are their now and all came back without major injury, but they lost friends and colleagues. I doubt they would have any issues with me using 'we' or 'us'.

For myself, I'm happier going off their opinion than yours Effers. No offense intended, but they've been in the battlefield whereas the closest you've come is media reports, so theirs is the opinion that carries most weight.

Ignore my posts or don't, but do not try to dictate how I engage with the debate.

anhaga, one of the other issues (and specifically why you'd prefer the Canadians to the Turks) is that the Canadian Armed Forces are extremely well-regarded, especially when it comes to peacekeeping - they're one of the top 5 contributors to UN peacekeeping missions - and you're never going to get a like-for-like replacement.

>we' is NATO, not any individual country.< anhaga

Yes I can relate to that context of using *we* - but do all NATO countries have equal power in the organisation, in proportion to their population size?

I mean when the IRA were murdering civilians in British cities, and the US were allowing collections to be made to fund the IRA. Of course that stopped after 9/11... Was that the act of a NATO partner? And if not why didn't the UK government just say stop this cr@p, as we are NATO partners. Or maybe they did and the US just laughed. Seems a bit double standards to me.

I agree with what Zagrebo posted earlier in connection with a European force. I doubt I'll live to see it, but it will come eventually I think.

>I didn't realise you were an England footballer or coach Effers. I'm pretty sure you've been referring to the exploits of the English national team with "we" and "us" and according to your logic, one should only do that when one is a member of that group.
<

As ever you take the simplistic understanding. I have no problem with people using the term 'we' with regard to a national sports team. It's a slightly humerous and silly thing, like all sport.

Repeatedly using the term 'we' with reference to a group of people who are dying, losing limbs, being blinded, horribly burned, in the kind of glib way one might in a conversation like this is an utterly different context. But you carry on saying 'we' in that context HI. I think what anhaga says make sense; I feel far more comfortable with that, as it includes *all* NATO countries, including those whose peoples are much less militaristic in outlook, and not to go to war just because of a terrorism act. We really should have gone properly to war with the IRA.

But yeah here we go again.