[Scape]

herbie herbie:

The Taliban were routed in a few months, it's up to the people of Afghanistan to secure their own state now.

How and with what? They haven't even got a standing army let alone an effective police force.

herbie herbie:

Seven years in, and we have only lukewarm commitment from our NATO allies. That's no ringing endorsement for what we're doing.

That has more to do with the reputation of the current US administration and its total disdain for diplomacy, not about the validity of the current mission. This disharmony has also had the effect of allowing the Taliban to survive and learn from us to become stronger much like a virus that was subject to partial treatment of anti-biotics. The ones that survive are now that much harder to deal with.

herbie herbie:

We're stuck in a war of containment, a la Korea-VietNam. There's no way of pulling off the total elimination of the Taliban, not without widening the scope of the war. Regrouping in Pakistan, arms from Iran and it would be total madness to attack either of them, same as it would have been madness to listen to McArthur and nuke China.

To say we are stuck is to assume that this would not have become an issue that would not have emerged elsewhere. The fact is the root cause will compel us if not here then somewhere and we will be reacting from a position of weakness. It is inevitable that there will be strife with the chasm between the super rich and the desperately poor so wide and that staggering numbers are so poor and such a tiny number are so stupendously rich. To ignore this and walk away is tantamount to saying let them eat cake. Revolutions have been started for less and the last person that said that ended up headless, something of a hallmark of these people.

[herbie]

$1:

To say we are stuck is to assume that this would not have become an issue that would not have emerged elsewhere. The fact is the root cause will compel us if not here then somewhere and we will be reacting from a position of weakness. It is inevitable that there will be strife with the chasm between the super rich and the desperately poor so wide and that staggering numbers are so poor and such a tiny number are so stupendously rich. To ignore this and walk away is tantamount to saying let them eat cake. Revolutions have been started for less and the last person that said that ended up headless, something of a hallmark of these people.

And to imply we have an obligation or a right to change this by use of military force in someone else's country is an extension of "the white man's burden".
They had their 'revolution', Canada & the USA just overturned it.

[DerbyX]

$1:

Thanos wrote:
Something that's being forgotten is that the Taliban and their Al-Qaeda sidekicks were, for the most part, not even native Afghans. At no stage can it be taken seriously that the whack-jobs in the Taliban represent either a legitimate government alternative or a reasonable cultural option on which an entire society should be governed.

Although Thanos wrote it Scape thumbed it up which just compounded the error. The taliban were indeed native afghans. Where do you think they came from? In addition they most certainly were the govt at the time and were everybit as legit as those we helped oust the previous govt and they were certainly no less legit the a newly minted US having just kicked out the British.

Its a horrible act of hypocracy that we cobbled togeather a NATO invasion force then somehow complain that the country we invaded is getting help from their allies. The fact is that Afghanistan shares familiar links tho russian muslims, the now well known regions of Pakistan, Iran and other neighbouring countries just as well do ours.

Just because we don't like them doesn't make them any less legit.

Scape Scape:

The issue of religious intent is a red herring. Both are fighting the same war on different fronts and it is class warfare we are talking about on a global scale. We're rich and they are poor.

Thats something I would expect to hear sitting in a cafe reading the daily worker not in a debate justifying an invasion.

The war was about getting OBL. Had they served him up or had the US found out where he was and called in an airstrike and gotten him then we wouldn't be there. We certainly didn't care in the least even though we knew long ago what conditions they were living under.

If you truly believe that bringing them wealth is our goal then I submit to you that this is the worst way possible. Not only will we never achieve it because we cannot achieve peace and security but we are simply setting the conditions that any wealth going into the region is exploited by an even worse breed of corrupt individuals. My way of offering the taliban all sorts of economic and infrastructure aid as a means to help the people is clearly the way to go. Oh sure we may have had to put up with their posturing and stroke their ego and we would have had difficulties introducing progressive ideas but if bringing them wealth is the goal then clearly that was the way to go.

As it is your belief that we are bringing them wealth in no way shape or form justifies invasion. Are you actually saying that its our responsibility to simply decide people are poor and therefore need intervention through force of arms to rectify it. We tried that in Somalia and look how that turned out.

While I agree with your hypothesis that the division of wealth is a primary cause of much of the strife I also believe that Afghanistan is much more about resisting modern ideas and religious ideology in conflict as well as believing that your strategy of achieving a fairer distribution of wealth would only make things worse and get alot of people killed.

Scape Scape:

How do you negotiate at gunpoint? What's that saying only a fool brings a knife to a gunfight? You want to walk in with what, good intentions? You need to understand the fundamentals of momentum. There will come a time where we can do that but now is not that time. Do you seriously believe if we pull up stakes like the US did in Saigon that there won't be serious repercussions? Remember the boat people and the Cambodian killing fields? That's going to be trivial compared to when we spawn an Iranian Theocratic superstate with nuclear weapons that spreads from the Golan Heights to the Great Wall of China and controls the world oil supply.

Yet you expect everybody else to do just that. You expect the people who object to our presence there to submit to our force and negotiate under our terms at gun point. You also think I am suggesting that we simply invite ourselves into the country and force aid upon them. Nobody gave any aid to Aghanistan post USSR. Nobody even tried to help except for a handful of bleeding heart Liberals risking life and limb to show us what was happening there. We had many chances and blew them all and now we think we can make it right through military force and yet everyday we see that its not working. Its costing us billions (or trillions if you count Iraq) with almost none of that actually going to making life better, its costing countless lives and its actually straining the bonds of NATO as some countries are insulting the other countries they feel aren't pulling their weight. Its causing divisions within countries as well like it is here. People like me who won't complain about the military getting large increases in funding won't continue to suppor tthat position if all the money is getting used to support actions I don't agree with.

You are straying a bit off topic with Iran but Iran is almost entirely the fault of the US. Iran may have always had nuclear ambitions but they really kicked them into high gear when the US started invading its neighbours and threatening them. Iran has every right to have nukes just as we did and the US does. If the US wants them not to have them then the US should give Iran concessions to achieve this. Trying to negotiate with Iran at gunpoint as you put it makes us seem like hypocrites.

BTW, yes the US leaving will have reprecusions just as there were when they invaded. Of course those reprecussions will be people being given the freedom to choose outweigh other factors.

Pol Pot?

Thats a whole new can o worms.

They left Vietnam and even though the violence didn't end immediately (why would it) look at them now. 30+ years on their own and they are signing trade treaties with the US. The Vietnamese made their country what they want of it.

Scape Scape:

If the Afganins determined that was their best option then yes.

We aren't going to allow that and we aren't aloowing them to choose until we are sure they will see things are way. Think the Afghan people are choosing an oil pipeline that will see 99% of those profits going to whatever company the US installs "to help build it for the good of the people"?

$1:

Karzi would beg to differ. Are you saying that if the Taliban were to cease hostilities they would not be offered terms?

The taliban also negotiated. They said straight up they would not negotiate at gun point and that real talks can't begin as long as foreign troops were in the country.

I don't blame them. We would do exactly the same thing.

$1:

The royal we I assume your using here as I most certainly do not. This will take generations.

The we refers to anybody who expected a completely stable and just Afghan govt to have grown out of the decades of war that we helped bring to them.

If you think it will take generations then you should have opposed the invasion at all costs as we should have given the taliban generations to develop a much better govt.