^ One of my favorite images. Peep how son is trying to figure out how the Lawes RPG works. “What is this button?” Ka-BOOM!
Would someone care to give BARACK OBAAMA a history lesson on western intervention in Afghanistan?
The Russians couldn’t tame the Afghani in the 1880’s and neither could the British 150 years before them.
You can’t win in that bitch.
Go the fuck home.
That is the strategy we need to adopt. The opium suppliers are stronger than they ever were. Was the initial design of the G DUBBZ administration to increase opium production? That has been the only negligible effect of the war in Afghanistan.
From the early reports I think the president is replacing the commanding general with an idiot savant philospher. The quote went something like this, “He really does understand that you’re not going to win the war by killing all the enemy.”
WTF?!? How else do you win a war?
I still don’t understand what we are getting at in Afghanistan anyhoo? I thought we wanted OSAMA BIN LADEN? How did that mission morph into war with the entire country? Especially since no one has ever beaten these dudes on their home court, which is a cave.
Please explain?
I figured we were still helping out the Northern Alliance or whatever they want to be called in kicking Taliban out and regaining control of the country, the question still remains, what does this leave America/Britain/Canada with if we “win”….
Rambo III was historically accurate rigt? “I would be proud to be part of your jihad!”
the thing is, the pashtun, who are the dominant people of afghanistan are pretty much the gulliest people on earth
they cannot be beaten. they don’t give a shit about america or anyone else. they just fight and kill whoever steps on their turf, and when theres nobody else they fight eachother
seriously, look at their wikipedia page
there will never be peace or democracy in afghanistan
also, we gain nothing from this war, and we could never win it anyway
why are we there?
it must be some sort of distration from something even bigger…
This reminded me of a story that’s very much like “300”. The battle of Saragarhi. 21 soldiers vs a few thousand afghani pathan tribesmen.
http://www.britishempire.co.uk/forces/armycampaigns/indiancampaigns/samana.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Saragarhi
D –
Since the Afghani are so hardbody, doesn’t the “philosopher” have the right idea? Since we are stuck in a war, shouldn’t we redefine what the war is about?
P-City,
Do you believe we are stuck in this war? I don’t see how or why. Why is the Afghan land so important? Other than their cash crop I can’t understand the strategic purpose of controlling the land. But that is also why I am just a poor dude typing shit on a keyboard.
If the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan aren’t the implications similar to Vietnam? We’ve already killed hell’a Afghans and lost too many American lives to boot. Word to Pat Tillman.
LOL @ “what this button do?”
The word after 9/11 was that Afghanistan was valuable because petro multinationals needed to drop pipelines through it to carry oil between the Caspian Sea and Asia. Even with the move to renewable energies.. that’s still at play: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/335023/the_afghan_pipeline_you_don_t_know_about
I’m not disagreeing, I’m just saying.
My question is how is bin Laden still alive? I have an aunt who doesn’t live in a cave and is on dialysis and if she doesn’t get her treatment on time, she’s in bad shape.
Further to my throwaway comment earlier….
The problem in Afghanistan is the Taliban. About half the people of Afghanistan are Pashtun, which is just a name for a collection of politically disparate tribes, im sure the majority of the Taliban are Pashtun but that is not to say the two are linked, its akin to saying all nazis were German, therefore the problem is the Germans.
Though there are already gas pipelines in Afganistan im pretty much with Chief Racka.
If we look at the conflict in relation to the Powell doctrine it is possible to see the relationship between Al-Qaeda and the Taliban as sufficient security threat to enter conflict, initially just the removal of Al Qaeda from the country would seem sufficient, however it seems the the “clear attainable objective” has slowly become the replacement of the Taliban government with one that is pro western. This would have obvious financial rewards. In the same way the Britain only intervened in Afghanistan when its empirical India was threatened (by Russia) the recently forged ties with Pakistan would be severely threatened by further Taliban control.
I think it all comes down to: You cant trade with the bad guys, first, because they dont like you, and second because it makes you look bad too. The bad guys are sitting on a shit load of natural resources though so you better replace them with good guys to do your trading with, its cool, the rest of the world will think you are just kicking the shit out of the bad guys cos thats what they deserve. Oh…dont underestimate them though, they got a good thing going with opium and they arnt about to give that up…you’ll have to send more men than you thought.
Timmo “You cant trade with the bad guys..”
1 thing about China, they don’t give a fock about “bad guys”, they fock with everybody “bad” or non-bad: Sudan, Ecuador, Africa, Pakistan, etc.
Shyt they’re funding the US Fed Deficit by buying T-Bills.
Afghanistan & now Pakistan is a closter-fock.
Thing is, even if “Af-Pak” is the correct course of action, the US can’t afford it.
Any big occupation/war should be run thru some type of alliance, NATO, UN, etc.
The US defense budget > the rest of the world! The next biggest country is China, US pwns China like 5:1
The US defense budget is unsustainable. If Obama wants wants to go for “real change” as opposed to limited quasi-change, he could scale back the US defense budget, & end the Drug War.
China didnt harbour/train terrorist bombers. Ok, you cant trade with bad guys when they are being very obviously bad guys.