Afghanistan - What is the objective?

Discussion in 'World Events' started by StrawDog, Mar 11, 2009.

  1. StrawDog disseminated primatemaia Valued Senior Member

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    You are going to have to substantiate that statement.

    Right. So for one man, many Afghanis HAD to die?

    Of course it could have been handled differently.
     
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  3. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    I don't have to, Strawdog, you know it's true, you just won't admit it. And that's part of the reason that you're trying to defend all those Muslim attacks against Afghani Muslims as "resistance" to the "occupation" ...just can't justify the vicious bombings of innocent civilians.

    If a suspected murderer is in your home, and the police come to arrest him, you'd rather let your family die than to give up that suspected murderer?

    Well, that's what the Afghanis did ...they not only refused to give up bin Laden, but they chose to help protect him. Thus, in doing so, they became criminals themselves.

    And now, of course, many of those same Afghanis are blowing up and killing more innocent Afghanis in the name of "resistance". If the Afghanis would simply hand over bin Laden and some of his higher associates, all this would end immediately.

    But they don't or won't, will they? Nope, the Afghanis prefer to fight and die to protect that one suspected murderer bin Laden. So be it.

    Baron Max
     
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  5. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    A UN report issued last month indicates that militants were responsible for around 55% of the civilian deaths in Afghanistan in 2008 (mostly in suicide and roadside bombings), while coalition forces were responsible for around 39% (airstrikes being the largest culprit):

    http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/02/17/afghanistan.civilian.casualties/

    Which is about what you'd expect. If the recently-announced changes in coalition policy turn out to be effective, expect to see the lion's share of civilian casualties caused by the militants over the next year.
     
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  7. StrawDog disseminated primatemaia Valued Senior Member

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    That tallies with what I have dug up. It is utterly regrettable.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

    Perhaps the best course of action now would be to engage in dialogue with the Taliban et al. And find a way out of this mess and loss of life. Including US troops.
     
  8. StrawDog disseminated primatemaia Valued Senior Member

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    I concede Baron, that at this point in time, I do not have enough information to convincingly refute your POV pertaining to the present violence in Afghanistan. However, what saddens me is the blanket anti Muslim rhetoric that is engendered via this unfortunate situation, and partial blame STILL falls squarely ate the the feet of US foreign policy.
     
  9. DiamondHearts Registered Senior Member

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    According to the CIA website, there is no allegation that Usama was behind these attacks. Furthermore, both the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan demanded concrete evidence to indict this individual, the answer was basically: "You are either with us or against us". The American ambassador to Pakistan stated in a phone conversion to Musharraf, which he has written in his book, "You will either support our war, or we will bomb Pakistan back to the Stone Age." Pakistan's leadership, thus, was bullied into providing support for the invasion of their cousins in Afghanistan under military threats by the US.

    The government of Afghanistan, further, offered to try this individual in the Afghani courts, with American agents as prosecutors. The Americans stated that they "did not believe in the justice of the Afghani courts." After deliberations about this, the Afghani government offered to try this person in a court in Pakistan presided over by UN officials, but with the condition that all evidence pertaining to the defendant be revealed to the International community and this court case be televised throughout the world. The American answer was simply "we cannot reveal the information because it endangers American national security."

    So what did the Americans do? They launched unannounced strikes into Afghani villages killing scores of civilians, before the negotiations were even settled. This naturally hardened the people of Afghanistan, whose government declared that they view this attack as a threat to their sovereignty and a formal declaration of war. Thus began the war against Afghanistan, in which thousands of civilians were murdered, and thousands of Pakhtoon villages were wiped out by US supported Northern Alliance thugs. Millions of Afghanis have relapsed into poverty, forcing them to flee their homelands into Pakistan. Naturally when these Afghani civilians entered Pakistan and began to relate to the Pakistani people the injustices they endured due to the invasion and ethnic cleansing of their people, Pakistanis naturally protested the invasion and genocide of their relatives in Afghanistan. Thus this set the stage for pressure from the Pakistani government, which eventually removed Musharraf. Yet due to the constant drone missile attacks launched against civilians in both Afghanistan and now Pakistan, the populations of these two countries are being further pushed into direct opposition to US designs in the region.
     
  10. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    And here I thought the CIA was a secret intelligence organization, not in the business of publicizing its findings or positions. But apparently one only has to visit their website to recieve exhaustive information about US intelligence. If only I'd known this sooner...
     
  11. CheskiChips Banned Banned

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    Let's just build motion sensing gun devices all the way around Afghanistan. If anyone tries to leave they get killed, if anyone goes in...they can't leave.
     
  12. DiamondHearts Registered Senior Member

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    Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

    As such you can email the CIA for further proof or call them, either way I doubt they will provide you with any information other than their statement: believe us, he did it.

    I actually made a larger post concerning this topic, I didn't want to again make this same post, so I made this point only in passing.

    The severe lack of coherence to the official story of the bombings forces logical and reasonable people to conclude that it is all a farce. The government has covered up the evidence, to the appropriation of video recordings of the plane before it entered NYC to the complete failure of US air logistics to pick up a airliner off-course for several hours. If you know anything about American defense capabilities and air logistics, then you know in several minutes, two F-16s should have been sent to force this aircraft to land. It is completely ridiculous what they are forcing the public to swallow.
     
  13. countezero Registered Senior Member

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    5,590
    No, he couldn't. See the US v. Milligan. The Supreme Court also said American citizens cannot be tried as enemy combatants unless, through treason, they "join" another state (see the famous Kawakita v. US) and overtly betray the US by helping that state (this is why John Walker Lindh couldn't be tried for treason).

    Seditious Conspiracy is the charge that applies to Americans when they commit domestic acts of terror. 18 USC 2384, which spells this out, was designed to combat urban terrorism during Civil War. Basically, you have to have two or more people who conspire to overthrow or put down US govt. by force. Can’t be people conspiring overseas, can’t be guy acting alone. Also, motive must be to overthrow govt. Non-Americans cannot be tried under this section, hence the reason Hicks was not.

    And it doesn't matter. As I mentioned, the US was on a clock. It couldn't negotiate and debate, because every second the trail to al Qaeda was getting colder and they were melting into the mountains. We had to act. What's more, there is no reason to suspect they would have negotiated. At least, not in good faith. Plus, getting bin Laden from Taliban does not solve what you do about the Taliban. They were a disruptive regional force that had to be addressed by the world at some point.

    Yes, the mantra of civilian casualties -- under which nothing would ever get done if that were the sole concern. The rest of your position is odd for two reasons, though.

    The first is that I find it interesting that you think toppling the Taliban is "disproportionate," given the size of 9/11. The Taliban allowed their state to be the staging ground for an event that caused the deaths of more than 3,000 Americans, wrecked the worldwide financial markets and forced an entire country to change its way of life, but you think we should have let that go? That we should have let them stay in power and pay no price for their poor decisions?

    Secondly, comparing our response to 9/11 to the Israeli response to rockets from Gaza is silly hyperbole and it's beneath you. The two scenarios are not even close to being in the same league -- and you know it.

    Additionally, I would like to point out that this lingo of "proportionality" is rhetoric from the defeated -- that is, the Islamists and terrorists -- that you have bought into. They know they can't win a fair fight, so they whine about wanting their opponents to act "proportionally," which is code for weakly and with one hand behind the back. Nobody, especially not nation states, is interested in proportional conflicts, because a conflict conducted such a way would never end: It would be tit-for-tat, ad in finitum. The entire purpose is to overwhelm you opponent with superior force. That is, TO WIN. You do this by putting him down on the canvas, and in doing so, you deter others (see Libya and Pakistan's change of heart).

    The Afghan operation is more than justifiable. Iraq is where smart people can disagree, but Afghanistan? It's open and shut to me, and the evidence says so and the people say so (the Afghans).

    Because it's international relations, not some philosophy class where you are looking for some universal maxim to apply across the board. Nuance and exceptions are the order of the day. American policy has always been a mixture of realism, idealism and what some -- not me -- call imperialism. This is the way great powers act. To do otherwise is naive and foolish.

    I honestly don't know enough to comment on that situation.

    I think the data I showed doesn't point to that conclusion.
     
  14. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    You have no clue what the people of Afghanistan say.

    http://www.rawa.org/tours/obama_rawa.htm
     
  15. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    :shrug: Then you are categorically wrong. If US arms comprise only a small fraction of those being sold to that nation, then their complicity is accordingly reduced.
     
  16. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Again, irrelevant:

    http://www.newamerica.net/publications/policy/u_s_weapons_war_2008_0
     
  17. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Does it have a legal definition, other than W&Co's assertions?
    Soldiers do not have to be "uniformed" to fall under Geneva protections.

    They need only be part of an organized military force under accountable command, and bear arms openly. They do not have to be in uniform.
    No extradition request was ever filed by the US, or anyone else, for OBL. The US invaded Afghanistan within a month of 9/11, without attempting actual diplomacy.

    OBL had enemies within the Taliban, and even without formal extradition request the Taliban had offered to turn him over to various third parties including Saudi Arabia. These offers were refused, by the US and by Saudi Arabia.
    Saudi Arabia recognized it. And where is AQ supposed to be "slipping away" to - this serious army with huge stockpiles of weapons ? What weaponry is significant, that they would be stockpiling in a couple of months under US satellite and air surveillance?
    Making and insisting on assertions without caring about their truth is the definition of bullshit. on bullshit
    Speaking of bullshit. OBL isn't even Pashtun.
    The idea that 9/11wrecked the worldwide financial markets and forced an entire country to change its way of life is goofy on stilts. And you have never produced the slightest evidence that anyone in the Taliban had any idea that things like 9/11 were being planned at all, let alone in Afghanistan. Florida was as much a "staging ground" as Afghanistan.
    Best to identify one's enemy clearly, in advance of setting out to overwhelm them in the far corners of the world and in several countries belonging to other people.

    If Afghanistan had been treated as Libya and Pakistan have been, we wouldn't be talking about our eighth year of war.

    To act as the US has acted recently is hardly competence and wisdom.

    If the interests of the US, as a country and people, are the context. If some other powers' interests were more important, then re-evaluation would be in order.
     
  18. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    And, unfortunately, neither does anyone else in the world!! The Afghans live in the 17th century and can't even be contacted without going around the country in the middle of a war and asking them all individually.

    You don't know either, SAM, so why are you implying that you do? ..because of what some biased website says? Or by what some "poll" says ..where they asked ten Afghans and claimed it was "all" Afghans?

    Baron Max
     
  19. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    So if someone gives or sells you a weapon, that means that you have to use it to kill people??????

    And worse, does it mean that you should kill YOUR OWN people????

    Baron Max
     
  20. vhawk Registered Member

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    fair point
     
  21. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    So if extremists in the US were supplied with $2 billion of Kalashnikovs, there would be no increase in violence?

    If 100,000 militants were brought from 40 countries and armed and funded with millions of dollars through 25 years of war it would have no effect?

    If troops were bombing your families, breaking down doors, shooting civilians and slicing necks, Americans would not go on a rampage?

    Bullshit. One million people died in the civil war.

    And if you really believe that, try destabilising your society and see if you reach for your gun.
     
  22. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    So basically, the Taliban refused to extradite a known criminal, likely (but not proven) responsible for one of the worst terrorist attacks upon our country. The put up deliberate roadblocks to harbor him because he is their ally. So we freed the Afghanis from the Taliban, who attained power by military coup, and who are still responsible for an estimated 80% of civilian deaths. It was right to arm the mujihadeen against the Russians. There was arguably some blowback in the form of the Taliban, but it's right to fight them too. They do no good for Afghanistan, they don't want improvement, they want oppressive sharia law (which is incidental to our reasons for displacing them).
     
  23. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    Nope, not much ....and damned sure not the violence that goes on in Muslim countries of the world, that's for damned sure. We still live in a nation ruled by the rule of law, SAM, people just don't go into shooting others much here in the 21st century USA.

    Guns don't kill people, SAM, people kill people .....with rocks, clubs, knives, bricks, chunks of concrete,...... You're trying to show that all people of the world are just like the Muslims of the world. But even a cursory examination of the news would prove otherwise to even the most unbiased individual. How can you not see that?

    If they were seeking Osama bin Laden, and I had him in my house, I'd hand him over in a the blink of an eye. And yet, the Afghans are willing to fight the most powerful nation on Earth to help bin Laden. Now, SAM, does that make any fuckin' sense to you?

    And they all wore uniforms and fought like men against each other like normal armies fight.

    I think our nation, economy, is already destabilized, don't you think? But how many of us are out killing and blowing up our fellow citizens?

    Nope, sorry, SAM, but it's the Muslim way to attack and kill ....that's not the way of civilized nations of the west.

    Baron Max
     

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