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

Now's the time WWII should be being brought up!

The Taliban were/are every bit as bad as the Nazis and the present lot isn't much better. If they had the industrial capabilities of Germany then Afghanistan would be a major threat to the world. But they don't. So they're not. All they are is a threat to the freedom and well-being of the people of their country and should probably be treated with the same united action of the world community that is taken against all the other actors who fail in their 'Responsibility to Protect'.



http://www.iciss.ca/report-en.asp

and

http://www.responsibilitytoprotect.org/

Quite. But the Taleban are active in Pakistan and it's not beyond the realms that we could wind up with a nuclear-armed Taleban.

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they hid behind the constitution and all the freedoms????

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hear! hear!

And I'm sure the Quran would tell them how to operate the things.

Of course, religious fundamentalists having control of nuclear weapons is a legitimate concern for the international community.


But then, we've managed to survive a number of U.S. Presidents with that power.


I just posted this elsewhere and I thought it was relevant enough to repost here. It's a further attempt to make a point I've been flogging most thoroughly:


Three of the four battalions of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry are based here in Edmonton. These three battalions constitute yet another 'we' -- soldiers with whom I share a city. The fourth battalion of the PPCLI is based in Shilo, Manitoba. A number of other regiments from various parts of the country have served in Afghanistan.

When one of the Edmonton battalions comes home from Afghanistan and is replaced, for example, by the Van Doos from Valcartier, Quebec, it would be absurd for me to suggest that the PPCLI or Edmonton or Canada or NATO had 'shown weakened resolve' or 'abandoned the mission'. Similarly, if the last rotation of the PPCLI or the Van Doos or any other Canadian regiment comes home and is replaced by an American or British or Polish or Turkish or Greek or whatever battalion, it would be absurd to suggest that NATO or Canada (or Edmonton) had lost resolve or run away.

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when the IRA declared they were at war with the british govt. we should have accepted that and recognised the IRA as a legitimate fighting force and agreed to abide by the geneva convention,

then when we capture one of them, we say, oh you are not wearing a recognised uniform???? you must be a spy??? and acording to the geneva convention, you are not a prisoner of war and are not protected under the law, we will interogate you and detain you legally without charge for an unlimited period, and at some time in the future youi could be taken out and executed, all legal under the geneva convention.

the fighting and the policing gets easier when you force the terrorists to wear uniforms

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I'm surprised at that from you anhaga - patronising and treating the Taleban with contempt. It's very easy to hold a gun to the head of the guy who *does* know how to operate them.


And you're missing the point when you try to say the Canadians will be replaced by another NATO country. They won't. The shortfall will be made up by the US, again. Repeated requests to other NATO partners have fallen on deaf ears; indeed this is IIRC one of the reasons the Canadians have pulled out - they got fed up of other countries not stepping up to the plate. What we're seeing is countries doing the bare minimum or pulling out.

When this is over, I expect to see serious questions asked about NATO.

<< I expect to see serious questions asked about NATO. >>

yes like!!

how many other unessesary wars will the U.S. drag us into??

and

why is american live firing so wild yet american friendly fire so accurate???

Taff - how do you declare war on your own citizens? Whose ambassador do you summon and then expel? Would you call in airstrikes on the Falls Rd? Has that helped the IDF?

The correct approach is to treat them for what they are/were - criminals. Psycopathic thugs who dressed up their murderous activities in an imagined cause.

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so why are the armed forces in afganistan and not the FBI and Interpol????

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the sinn fein MPs who refused the oath would be a good start

You're conflating two different issues Taff. Republican terrorism in NI and regime change in Afghanistan.

In NI the British Army was fighting Brits in Britain.

In Afghanistan we are supporting a sovereign government against Afghan, Pakistani, Saudi, Algerian etc etc etc insurgents.

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no we overthrew the govt. and installed the american version of democracy on a dirt poor country, whos history is one of constant conflict and civil war!!!!

the russians didn't invade they were invited in (by the legitimate govt. in kabul and about a 10 mile radius around the city)and tried to take advantage.

now we have put in a corupt puppet who governs about the same amount of the country.....kabul and a 10 mile radius

if a soverign govt. was so important, why not put the king back on the throne as a symbolic head of state and have a prime minister running the show??

concerning the silliness of declaring war on the IRA . . .

no more silly than declaring war on terrorism.


concerning treating the Taliban with contempt . . .


That is exactly how they should be treated. If the U.S. had treated the Mujaheddin with the contempt they deserved, perhaps the Soviets would have taken care of this problem thirty years ago. (yes, my hindsight is 20/20, but U.S. foresight was worse than blind when they gave Stingers to Muslim fundamentalist warriors.)


concerning questioning NATO . . .


it's long overdue. One of our three major parties in Parliament has been calling for Canada to pull out of NATO for decades.

>>now we have put in a corupt puppet who governs about the same amount of the country.....kabul and a 10 mile radius<<

I know you've written that with tongue firmly in cheek, but the NATO writ does extend far further than the Soviet one ever did: the northern and western areas are more or less peaceful. In areas that used to be controlled by the Northern Alliance, NATO and even Karzai's government, are considered far superior to the Taliban.

A good example of this is that the NATO allies don't have to fight through the Salang Pass, whereas the Soviets always did.

so many opertunities lost!!!

we could have started buying up the opium crop at a premium price for processing into morphine, cripple the drugs trade and make the farmers reliant on the coalition, then a few years down the line offer a premium price for other cash crops like tomatoes for example, make growing food crops more atractive than opium poppies....??

The war on drugs should be fought at home, not in a foriegn land.
Say for example Brazil banned shoot em up video games. Would you think it reasonable that they bomb a factory in say Surrey to stop them being made ? Troops deployed in foriegn lands fighting drugs could be used to police our own borders. They would soon stop growing it if we stopped buying it. A lot of the terrorists we are fighting are more interested in drugs and money than any kind of ideology. Just my take on it .

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its all supply and demand the more we disrupt the supply the more inventive the traffickers become

we could reduce demand....death sentances for any drug crime....no demand

or we disrupt the supply at the source, give the grower an economic incentive not to grow poppy

somehow seems relevant: http://www.boingboing.net/2010/06/30/tom-the-dancing-bug-9.html

The first 20 minutes of the Newsnight episode that SWL mentioned earlier is relevant to this discussion:
http://beta.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00sz155/Newsnight_29_06_2010/

Available in the UK 'til the end of Tuesday's coming episode.