[ShepherdsDog]

during the soviet occupation women enjoyed more freedom too....the irony

[BRAH]

FUCK THE TALIBAN!

[Jabberwalker]

Thanos Thanos:

The sheer power of post-9/11 rage, of which I admit to being guilty of myself for too long a time after the attack on the WTC, shut off the critical thinking abilities of too many. If those as brutal as the Soviets were, who did things in Afghanistan to quell the populace that rivalled what the Third Reich did on the Eastern Front, couldn't hold onto that fucking place then no one can. Rabid primitive scum that they apparently are, tribal Muslims deserve some kind of credit when they hunker down to defend their turf. They have an immunity to the nonsense of "shock & awe" that's beyond belief and a mental staying power so strong it's like their minds are composed of 99% Viagra.

I heard an interview, right at that time of, Susan Sondheim who worried that the horror of 9/11 would make America stupid. Of course, she had to come to Canada to say those things as no one in the U.S. would let her voice that opinion in any media. She wasn't being unpatriotic. She was trying to warn...

So much for the First Amendment.

[Count_Lothian]

BRAH BRAH:

FUCK THE TALIBAN!

I had a guy, in front of his children a few years back in Toronto.

Explain to me that the Taliban are the good guys!!!

He was dead serious and for a millisecond he made sense to me.

[Jabberwalker]

Count_Lothian Count_Lothian:

BRAH BRAH:

FUCK THE TALIBAN!

I had a guy, in front of his children a few years back in Toronto.

Explain to me that the Taliban are the good guys!!!

He was dead serious and for a millisecond he made sense to me.

They are foreign invaders as well ... from Pakistan. The Pashtu part of Afghanistan is just the corner adjacent the Khyber pass area and the Taliban have only slightly more legitimate business being there than ISAF.

[Xort]

The idea that the Taliban won anything must be based off the liberal school of everyone is a winner for participating.

Fact is that Taliban are no longer the government, no longer control the nation, no longer offer a training ground for terrorists.

The current government has a trained security force that can make a reasonable effort at upholding the rule of law and the will of the government and people.

By what standard of victory do people use to claim that the action in Afghanistan was anything but a successful mission for ISAF?

[RUEZ]

andyt andyt:

They'll be coming out of their caves soon enough when all of ISAF leaves and the Afghan govt collapses. Just a waste of lives and money to try nation building in Astan. We should have left as soon as Bush decided OBL was no longer as important as playing silly buggers in Iraq. I guess if someone fought over there they want to believe it was worth it, but time will most likely tell it wasn't.

Ya, fuck those woman and children. They don't need schooling or rights.

[Thanos]

Whether the gains made are sustainable will always be a subject of debate. Corruption on the level of what Karzai's up to at any given time can be as fatal to any Afghan progress as a final Taliban military victory would be.

[andyt]

RUEZ RUEZ:

andyt andyt:

They'll be coming out of their caves soon enough when all of ISAF leaves and the Afghan govt collapses. Just a waste of lives and money to try nation building in Astan. We should have left as soon as Bush decided OBL was no longer as important as playing silly buggers in Iraq. I guess if someone fought over there they want to believe it was worth it, but time will most likely tell it wasn't.

Ya, fuck those woman and children. They don't need schooling or rights.

Idiot, see below.

[andyt]

Thanos Thanos:

Whether the gains made are sustainable will always be a subject of debate. Corruption on the level of what Karzai's up to at any given time can be as fatal to any Afghan progress as a final Taliban military victory would be.

It won't always be subject to debate. As you point out, there's really no win here either way. Karzai and or the warlords aren't much better than the Taliban.

Afghan troops are already defecting to the Taliban. That will only accelerate the less ISAF forces there are in country to protect them. My guess is it won't be long before the whole thing collapses, but who knows, maybe it will drag on for years with the "govt" controlling Kabul and a few areas. Isn't that how it went under the Soviets as well? I just don't see a good outcome in even the medium term.

[RUEZ]

andyt andyt:

RUEZ RUEZ:

andyt andyt:

They'll be coming out of their caves soon enough when all of ISAF leaves and the Afghan govt collapses. Just a waste of lives and money to try nation building in Astan. We should have left as soon as Bush decided OBL was no longer as important as playing silly buggers in Iraq. I guess if someone fought over there they want to believe it was worth it, but time will most likely tell it wasn't.

Ya, fuck those woman and children. They don't need schooling or rights.

Idiot, see below.

[sandorski]

In retrospect, it may have been better to just had entered Afghanistan, destroy Al Queda, then leave. That may not have worked, but that's another issue.

OTOH, even if the Taliban retakes control, perhaps the taste of a more Western society will eventually bear fruit and the common person will rise up against the traditional ways. Maybe. A Democracy can only exist if the common person wants it to, so far I'm not sure that is the case in Afghanistan.

[Count_Lothian]

The moment we went there and were told to leave the opium alone we lost.

when Karzai was in a one to one with Mansbridge and Mansbridge asked about the opium Karzai said we had to wait ten years.

At that time his brother was the second largest opium dealer in the world.

Harperism has the nerve to not allow clean shoot up galleries .

the fuck serves an opium lord and then fucks over the people in canada who use it.

[andyt]

sandorski sandorski:

In retrospect, it may have been better to just had entered Afghanistan, destroy Al Queda, then leave. That may not have worked, but that's another issue.

OTOH, even if the Taliban retakes control, perhaps the taste of a more Western society will eventually bear fruit and the common person will rise up against the traditional ways. Maybe. A Democracy can only exist if the common person wants it to, so far I'm not sure that is the case in Afghanistan.

It worked fine, in destroying AQ in Astan - did that no problem in no time. The Taliban are not Al Qaeda. If the US hadn't contracted out looking for OBL to Astanis who just took money from both sides, had focused their efforts on that, they could have had him too. I always figured they didn't want to find him because they wanted a boogyman to have around. Should have taken out AQ and left.

[Jabberwalker]

sandorski sandorski:

In retrospect, it may have been better to just had entered Afghanistan, destroy Al Queda, then leave. That may not have worked, but that's another issue.

OTOH, even if the Taliban retakes control, perhaps the taste of a more Western society will eventually bear fruit and the common person will rise up against the traditional ways. Maybe. A Democracy can only exist if the common person wants it to, so far I'm not sure that is the case in Afghanistan.

Al Qaeda was protected, sheltered and abetted by Pakistan, right over the border. Where was Bin Laden sheltered for all of those years?

That is where the real enemy lies.