Why did the US have support (from Europeans) in Afghanistan & not in Somalia? Al Qaeda or Taliban, same difference.

Why did the US have support (from Europeans) in Afghanistan & not in Somalia? Al Qaeda or Taliban, same difference.
they provide the same function.
amerikka needs a bogey man to sell it to the sheep like kiwi/kinggeorge/atitagain and even you.

first it was the red terror, now it's the green menace.

same difference.

Because what the taliban did to Afghanistan was tragic even to most muslims, in Somalia the islamic courts had at least retored order. They were never given a chance to show whether they would Talibanize Somalia or not.

Edit: to answer your question NO the US should not do it alone, in fact they shouldn't do it at all.

Because what the taliban did to Afghanistan was tragic even to most muslims
but they were fine when ronnie needed them to kick ruskie ass out of afghan.

Why did the US have support (from Europeans) in Afghanistan & not in Somalia? Al Qaeda or Taliban, same difference.

I think it's not so much the theatre of operations as Bush himself. Specifically, the Neo-Con doctrine, and his distain for the UN.

Al Qaeda really is a bunch of nasty guys and they really should be wiped out by anyone who can do it.

The problem is that that's not us. We made very poor progress against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and what little progress we made against them measured up very small on the world scale.

Al Qaeda and the Taliban now have incredible power and support outside of Kabul. Something like 85% of the world's heroin comes from Afghanistan. Because our idiotic governments have decided to make a popular commodity illegal, all of that stuff is on the black market where it is not taxed or regulated. The profits from the business are all going into the pockets of organizations who have the sworn goal of destroying the USA. It's something like a twenty billion dollar industry and most of that money goes toward financing Islamic terrorism, thanks to the War on Drugs.

America has not accomplished anything in Afghanistan. There is no reason for us to go into Somalia, as tempting as it is. We can't possibly do any better over there. We're not good at guerrilla warfare. The U.S. Marines can't defeat religious fanatics who are eager to die for their cause and take hundreds of their own civilians with them because they believe that dying is a good thing to do.

Patton said that the way to win a war is to get the other poor dumb bastard to die for his country. That doesn't work if he actually wants to die, and he's fighting for a Stone Age fairy tale rather than a country.

Not to mention, the one-sixth of the world's population who are Muslims are getting a little concerned after seeing Christian America kicking so much Muslim butt. It wouldn't take much more of this for them to decide that we're re-launching the Crusades after a long hiatus. I will emigrate when that happens, if I can find a place that won't be in anyone's line of fire. I refuse to get involved in a battle between two factions of Abrahamism, the scourge of humanity.

but they were fine when ronnie needed them to kick ruskie ass out of afghan.

The taliban did not exist at that time

but they were fine when ronnie needed them to kick ruskie ass out of afghan.
even saddie was fine, when ronnie sent donald rummie to baghdad to kiss saddie's arab dictator ass.
the US under that cocksucker ronnie ploughed billions into saddie's army, and supported him in a bloody war with iran that lasted 8 years, inwhich iraqis and iranians suffered horribly, whilst ronnie sat on his ass in the whitehouse.

and the same saddie became "a tyranical dictator" years later, when amerikka no longer needed him.

and you rednecks wonder why the world hates amerikka.

The taliban did not exist at that time
lol man wtf are you on about? taliban/mujahidin all the same. what you think the tal were beamed down to afghan from outer space?

get real.

the US needs to label everything and everyone to sell the shit to the great unwashed like you sitting 1000s of miles away from what's really happening.

you need labels to clearly define your enemy, to appease your conscience.

call what you want, but they are afghanis, living on afghani soil, fighting for their country.

lol only amerikka can start a war in another country and demonise the indiginous people of that country.

The taliban did not exist at that timeThe Taliban are the result of the US backed Afghan mujahadeen who we armed and trained to oust the anti Islamic Soviets. Now we are fighting them too. Remember, at that time communism was the big scary boogeyman we were all supposed to be terrified of. Now we're supposed to be terrified of the Islamic militants we supported and nourished.

The Taliban were one of many little dip-shit militias that happened to get lucky and safely escorted a convoy of petroleum trucks. That made them pets of the Americans. Other little dip-shit militias assimilated with them and became one big dip-shit militia. With our support they took control of the country.

The reason they got our support was that the Russians were doing the same thing with other little dip-shit militias and managed to get their group assimilated into one big dip-shit militia that later became know as the Northern Alliance.

Our Taliban beat their Northern Alliance, so that counted as a major victory in the Cold War. That's how the Cold War was fought. We won Afghanistan. You remember the big tailgate party after that victory, right? It was on the front page of the Sports Section: Taliban whups Northern Alliance 70-15 in triple overtime.

Then when the Soviet Union imploded we decided we didn't like the Taliban any more because they don't believe in democracy and the Bill of Rights--although that didn't bother us before. So we took over what was left of the Northern Alliance and got them to "overthrow" the Taliban. To "overthrow" in this case means only to kick them out of Kabul and let them have control over the rural provinces where all the opium is grown. The Taliban is now for all practical purposes like the Mafia--except that the Mafia never used their money to fund anti-American terrorism.

Does anybody still wonder why so many people in the Third World hate us?

lol man wtf are you on about? taliban/mujahidin all the same. what you think the tal were beamed down to afghan from outer space?

get real.

the US needs to label everything and everyone to sell the shit to the great unwashed like you sitting 1000s of miles away from what's really happening.


So taliban/mujahidin all the same? In that case I am extremely impressed as they put on quite the theatrical display of fighting and killing eachother.

you need labels to clearly define your enemy, to appease your conscience.
:rolleyes: Oh please spare me the bullshit I do not have any enemies here in my northern fastness.

call what you want, but they are afghanis, living on afghani soil, fighting for their country.

And I said they weren't where?

lol only amerikka can start a war in another country and demonise the indiginous people of that country.

Am I America(by which I am assuming you mean the US)suddenly? are you saying that no-one outside of the US used the terms mujahids or talibs?

Seriously now it's time for you to get real. My former roomate went to Afghanistan in 94 and worked there until 2000 for the UN. He started in Kabul repatriating refugees but by 98 had been (along with all the other foriegn NGOs activities) forced out by the Taliban. In the end he was working out of Mazar i Sharif, stronghold of the Northern alliance I'll be sure and tell him he just imagined it all.:rolleyes: Another friend of his who is now my work colleage spent 3 days in a Taliban jail in Kabul for being found walking home from the UN compound drunk. So please spare me your self righteous bullshit and the assumption that somehow you know what the fuck you are talking about and I don't.

Edit: Removed unneeded language.

Its common knowledge that the Taliban is a splinter group of the Mujahideen:

The best-known mujahideen were the various loosely-aligned Afghan opposition groups that fought against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan during the 1980s and then fought against each other in the subsequent Afghan Civil War.

The mujahideen were significantly financed, armed, and trained by the United States (during the Carter and Reagan administrations), Saudi Arabia, the People's Republic of China, several European countries, Iran, and Pakistan (during the Zia-ul-Haq military regime). The Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was the interagent used in the majority of these activities to disguise the sources of support for the resistance.

Ronald Reagan praised them as freedom fighters, and the 1988 Rambo III portrayed them as heroic.

Following the Soviet retreat, many of the larger mujahideen groups began to fight each other. After several years of this fighting, a village mullah organized religious students into an armed movement, with the backing of Pakistan, who was being funded by the United States, which found the existing government to be too Russian-influenced, even following the collapse of the Soviet Union. This movement became known as the Taliban, meaning "students", and referring to the Saudi-backed religious schools known for producing extremism. With each success the Taliban had, their popularity and numbers grew.

By 2001, the Taliban, with backing from the Pakistani ISI, had defeated most of the militias and controlled most of Afghanistan. The remaining militias were in the north-east of the country. The opposition allied themselves together and became known as the National Islamic United Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan — the United Front, or Northern Alliance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mujahideen

Thanks Sam I should have just posted that rather than letting myself get irritated.

Call what you want, but they are Afghanis, living on Afghani soil, fighting for their country.Afghanis? The concept of Afghanistan as a nation is as fictitious as the concept of Iraq as a nation. More so actually, since the various tribes in Afghanistan don't even all speak the same language as most of the people in Iraq do. I doubt that anyone in Afghanistan thinks of himself as an "Afghani" except for some of the really cosmopolitan city folk in Kabul. The Middle East is still a Stone Age region where everybody thinks of himself as a member of his tribe first and a member of his religion second.

Afghanistan was drawn on a map by some British bureaucrats who thought a country would look nice right about there. Then they decreed that all the people who were caught inside it would henceforth be countrymen and love each other.

That worked really well throughout Africa and it's working really well throughout the Middle East.

The Brits' crowning achievement was to draw another bunch of lines on a map with crayons and call it "Israel." All the Europeans wanted to do something nice for the Jews after all those centuries of antisemitism--except let them come back to their own homes in Europe.

This sort of world policing should be the job of the United Nations. Personally I'm all for the ousting of evil dictators/warlords - but the job of doing so should not be the duty of a single country. The UN needs to grow a pair.

The UN is hijacked by oil tyrants.

This sort of world policing should be the job of the United Nations.

The League of Nations, the precursor to the UN, approved the layout of Israel and upheld it a few years later, I believe in a confrontation with Yasar Arafat. The UN also recognizes Israel as a sovereign nation.

The UN needs to grow a pair.

I assume that you mean "a pair of balls"? If so, I heartily agree. But I'm afraid that it's going to be a damned cold day in hell before that happens.

And just remember, there were about a gazillion UN resolutions against Sadman Hussie and they never did one fuckin' thing when he thumbed his nose at the UN.

Baron Max

The UN is hijacked by oil tyrants.

No, it's worse than that. The UN is held hostage by the wine purveyors and the chefs serving fine cusine for member dining pleasures!

Baron Max

Afghanis? The concept of Afghanistan as a nation is as fictitious as the concept of Iraq as a nation. More so actually, since the various tribes in Afghanistan don't even all speak the same language as most of the people in Iraq do. I doubt that anyone in Afghanistan thinks of himself as an "Afghani" except for some of the really cosmopolitan city folk in Kabul. The Middle East is still a Stone Age region where everybody thinks of himself as a member of his tribe first and a member of his religion second.

Afghanistan was drawn on a map by some British bureaucrats who thought a country would look nice right about there. Then they decreed that all the people who were caught inside it would henceforth be countrymen and love each other.

That worked really well throughout Africa and it's working really well throughout the Middle East.

The Brits' crowning achievement was to draw another bunch of lines on a map with crayons and call it "Israel." All the Europeans wanted to do something nice for the Jews after all those centuries of antisemitism--except let them come back to their own homes in Europe.

Not entirely true, I'm afraid. My grandmother was a Pathan, (which is what those of the Pashtuns call themselves) and they do have a sense of ethnic identity tied to the land. Most of them speak Pushtu which is a language they have in common there among the whole of the NWFP and east and south Afghanistan. There is warring between tribes and in fact they are a closed group culturally who have inter-tribal loyalties that are stronger than national oones. They also do not recognise international borders but move freely between them, one reason why Pakistan finds it hard to convince them not to support the various offshoots of the mujahideen. Its also the reason why no foreign power has ever been successful in getting the better of them.

Pashtuns have survived a turbulent history over several millennia, during which they have rarely been united. Their modern past began with the rise of the Durrani Empire in 1747. Pashtun martial prowess has been renowned since Alexander the Great ran up against them in the 3rd century BC.[15] The Pashtuns were one of the few groups that managed to impede British imperialism during the 19th century. Pashtuns played a pivotal role in the Soviet war in Afghanistan (1979–89), as many joined the ranks of the Mujahideen. The Pashtuns gained notoriety with the rise and fall of the Taliban, since they were the main ethnic contingent in the movement. Modern Pashtuns have been prominent in the rebuilding of Afghanistan and are an important community in Pakistan, where they are the second-largest ethnic group.

Not entirely true, I'm afraid. My grandmother was a Pathan, (which is what those of the Pashtuns call themselves) and they do have a sense of ethnic identity tied to the land. Most of them speak Pushtu which is a language they have in common there among the whole of the NWFP and east and south Afghanistan. There is warring between tribes and in fact they are a closed group culturally who have inter-tribal loyalties that are stronger than national oones. They also do not recognise international borders but move freely between them, ...

Sounds very like something I read just yesterday about various regions in India. Facinating information, actually ...an ethnic tie to the land, yet no solid sense of unity with the nation in which they find themselves due to a few black lines on a map.

Baron Max

SamCDKey:

You forgot Alexander the Great.

He crushed the Pathans and they still think of him as a heroic figure, last I checked.

Doesn't Islam even recognize Alexander the Great as a worshipper of God and a sort of semi-prophet?

Sounds very like something I read just yesterday about various regions in India. Facinating information, actually ...an ethnic tie to the land, yet no solid sense of unity with the nation in which they find themselves due to a few black lines on a map.

Baron Max

Not entirely correct. They still vote.

SamCDKey:

You forgot Alexander the Great.

He crushed the Pathans and they still think of him as a heroic figure, last I checked.

First time I heard about Alexander crushing them. Couldn't find any confirmation online. Any links?

They are an interesting people.

They are the Pashtuns, and they have lived on their lands without interruption or major migration for about 20,000 years. They know their neighborhood very well, and their men have been armed to the teeth since the first bow was strung. Their ancient code involves a commitment to hospitality, revenge and the honor of the tribe. They are invariably described as your "best friend or worst enemy." The Pashtuns' sense of territoriality bears some resemblance to the Nipmuck tribe of Massachusetts; when outsiders venture into the middle of their lands on fishing expeditions or to exert authority, very bad things happen.

In the 4th century B.C., Alexander the Great fell afoul of Pashtun tribesmen in today's Malakand Agency, where he took an arrow in the leg and almost lost his life. Two millennia later the founder of the Mogul empire, Babur, described the tribesmen of the area now known as Waziristan as unmanageable; his main complaint seemed to center on his inability to get them to pay their taxes by handing over their sheep, let alone stop to attacking his armies. A couple of hundred years later, in the middle of the 19th century, the British experienced disaster after disaster as they tried to bring the same Pashtun tribes to heel, particularly in the agencies of North and South Waziristan. In 1893, after half a century of jockeying for position with Imperial Russia in the "Great Game," the British administrator of the northwest of Queen Victoria's Indian Empire, Sir Mortimer Durand, demarcated the border between India--now Pakistan--and Afghanistan. The Durand line, as it is still known to foreigners--the Pashtuns call it "zero line" and completely ignore it--separated the tribes on both sides of the line into 26 agencies, each with its own laws and tribal councils. It was this area that became the buffer between the British and Russian Empires, an agreed-upon "middle of the lake." The tribes were then left mostly to themselves for about 80 years.

Until the Russians and Americans came along and put them in the middle of their cold war. And we all know the difficulties that NATO has been having with them.

http://www.counterpunch.org/bearden03312004.html


Doesn't Islam even recognize Alexander the Great as a worshipper of God and a sort of semi-prophet?


The theory of Alexander being Dh'ul Qurnain goes back to Ibn Hisham. Why he annotated that Dh'ul Qurnain is Alexander is a mystery. There is no clear indication of his status as a prophet in the Quran either (Dh'ul Qurnain that is).

Alexander was such a romantic figure in his times that even his own exploits have been embellished and co-opted to an extent that they are indistinguishable from history.

Back to the Pashtun's - there was even for some time a widely held theory of their descent from the lost tribes of Israel. Not sure of the current status though.

Some Pashtun-Israelite links at Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_Pashtun_descent_from_Israelites)

they provide the same function.
amerikka .What is the point of spelling it like this?

With another k, "amerikkka" is a cheap smear associating the entire nation with the Ku Klux Klan (http://www.k-k-k.com/).