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samy
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samy
4,871 posts
Nomad

http://kuvaton.com/kuvei/kabul_1970_then_now_2010.jpg

And I'm no longer a supporter of the war in any way.

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samy
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samy
4,871 posts
Nomad

I don't need a link to explain why there are mountains in one and not in the other. You can clearly see that. Besides, the perspective is the same if you look at the ledge compared to the background.


Whatever it doesn't matter the point is the various wars in the middle east have hurt those living there more than it has helped.

If we don't learn the lessons of history we are doomed to repeat them.


Ha; remember that this is mostly an American site and we don't tend to listen to that...
goumas13
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goumas13
4,752 posts
Grand Duke

The best tactic to defeat the Taliban is empowering the people. The majority of the person who are recruited by the Taliban are uneducated, this makes them very susceptible to their ideology.

Education is a shield against fanaticism.

Drace
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Drace
3,880 posts
Nomad

The best tactic to defeat the Taliban is empowering the people. The majority of the person who are recruited by the Taliban are uneducated, this makes them very susceptible to their ideology.

Education is a shield against fanaticism.


People are attracted to the resistance movement because of the further and on going US involvement in the region which the Afghan and Iraqi people do not.

Past US involvement has been brutul in the Middle East. Aiding Israel, bombing Lebanon, the first gulf war, overthrowing Iranian democracy and replacing it with a dictator, aiding Saddam Hussein and the Iraq-Iran war...etc
FireflyIV
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FireflyIV
3,224 posts
Nomad

People are attracted to the resistance movement because of the further and on going US involvement in the region which the Afghan and Iraqi people do not.


Although a valid point well made, I don't think the average Afghan goatherder is aware of the intricacies of US foregin policy in the 20th century.

Most of the Afghans and Pakistanis I've spoken to on the subject say it all boils down to dissullusionment with democracy and hopelessley corrupt officials, with Islamic extremists offering them the hope of a better future. That seems much more plausible to me than your suggestion. Bear in mind how poor most of Afghanistan is. Most couldn't place the US on a map, let alone be aware of their involvement in the Middle East in the past 60 years.
EnterOrion
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EnterOrion
4,220 posts
Nomad

Yet if enough people were well educated the numbers of the Taliban would fall as well as their power. Also; I believe you're over exaggerating the hold the Taliban have on the area as well as the reason that they are angry, which is inevitably the US.


Education will never reach the areas the Taliban has control over. They blow up schools, especially ones where girls are allowed to go. They murder students and teachers, as well as their families. People are terrified to go to school.

It's not the US they're mad at, it's what we stand for. The US is just a country, and if we were like them they wouldn't care. We are an unrepentant society, and we do not obey Islamic religious law. Most Muslims don't care, that's us, and they are them. But people like the Taliban are extremists, and if you're not with them, you're against them. There is no middle ground in their eyes.

That's also why they support terrorist operations all throughout the western world, not just America.

War is war but, unfortunatly, the purpose of our involvement in this war is grey at best and personally I believe it boils down to our oil addiction. The country needs to settle its own problems or else it will never be stable.


Afghanistan is not a major oil economy. They have oil, buy everywhere that once had forests does. Iraq, that's probably one of the motives. That, along with suspected nukes and identified chemical weapons, was why we invaded.

We are in Afghanistan to annihilate the Taliban, for they are shielding terrorist organizations and propagating human rights abuses left and right. If it wasn't us, somebody would have invaded them. China, Russia, or some European powers. It may not have been so publicized, they might have just led a secret war. Internal descent and spec ops.

Samy, why are there mountains in the background in the second picture but not the first?


Quality of image. You can clearly see the only background is borderline white. That was taken in the mid to late '70s, even the '60s. There's also a good chance that was leveled in the Soviet invasion, an attack during their civil war in the '90s, or a terrorist attack.

The image on the right is very recent, probably 2005 or onward.

Name one counter insurgency operation which has ever succeeded by ''exterminated to the very last''. The Taleban are Afghans. The solution is to get them on side, not kill them. That's how and why Iraq succeeded. That's how and why the Troubles in Northern Ireland came to an end. If we don't learn the lessons of history we are doomed to repeat them.


Good luck with that. Much like gang warfare in inner cities, people who are under their control aren't going to work with us, you, or any other country in there, for fear on death.

We need to ramp up drone attack and cave destruction efforts. Like with bombs, not clear out strikes. I'm fairly confident in Patraeus to do this. McChrystal wasn't doing enough in terms of clearing them out, just maintaining certain areas don't rise up. We need to go in like we did back in '01. That worked extremely well.

It'll work, with combination of the two. We need to exterminate them so that the people in these areas won't be afraid to kill us. They have been proven to work with us once they weren't under threat and massacre.
Drace
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Drace
3,880 posts
Nomad

Although a valid point well made, I don't think the average Afghan goatherder is aware of the intricacies of US foregin policy in the 20th century.


They have lived through and experienced US foreign intervention themselves. How can the people of Iran not be aware of US involvement which directly affected them and their families just 20 years ago in the 1st Gulf war?

Also, Osama Bin Laden himself has cited past US brutality as justification for his acts. A large part of the whole extremist is geared toward the "Death to America" for this reason.

There is also quite a bit of data on public opinion and polls done in Afghanistan and Iraq. Its not so friendly to US intervention. I'll have to find the links to that later though.
Drace
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Drace
3,880 posts
Nomad

How can the people of Iran not be aware of US involvement which directly affected them and their families just 20 years ago in the 1st Gulf war?


Sorry. Iraq*

Though Em sure Iranians are aware of US involvement with Saddam in the Iraq-Iran war as well.

Also Iraq wasn't so bad off before the First Gulf war btw. And Afghanistan was progressing in the 70s with the DPRA. To say that all the people of the country were and are just simple uneducated farmers is quite off.

Although the current situation in Afghanistan shows about a 55% unemployment rate =/
tomertheking
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tomertheking
1,751 posts
Jester

If the US sends money for education into afganistan, the terrorists will either blow up the place which got the money for accepting aid from america or takes the money for themselves so they can make weapons.

314d1
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314d1
3,817 posts
Nomad

Quality of image. You can clearly see the only background is borderline white. That was taken in the mid to late '70s, even the '60s. There's also a good chance that was leveled in the Soviet invasion, an attack during their civil war in the '90s, or a terrorist attack.


The quality of the picture may answer, but THEY GAINED MOUNTAINS! It would be hard to gain mountains in an attack, unless its a new strategy I have not heard of.
EnterOrion
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EnterOrion
4,220 posts
Nomad

Also Iraq wasn't so bad off before the First Gulf war btw. And Afghanistan was progressing in the 70s with the DPRA. To say that all the people of the country were and are just simple uneducated farmers is quite off.


. . . And then the Soviets invaded. Then we, the Americans, helped them fight off the Soviets. We gave them Stingers so that the Soviets choppers wouldn't chop up the Afghans.

And then, after the invasion, you were left with an ungodly amount of battle hardened freedom fighters. This is where it gets ugly.

Unfortunately for America, we couldn't help rebuild. Why? Because this would flaunt to the Soviets that we had been screwing in their affairs and were going to show them what they did was wrong. This might produce some pretty chaotic events, like them shooting at us with nukes for totally leading to the deaths of tens of thousands of excellent helicopter pilots, and tens of billions in damages.

So we couldn't, and because they were all lazy at the top, wouldn't, help rebuild and re set up the government. What does this leave us with? Power vacuum, with warlords controlling a destroying what they will. All through in through, this lasts about 10 years, with the Taliban proving victorious and everyone else holed up in some mountains to the north.

Then they blow up the leader of the guys in the north, and then 9/11 happens, and they get tracked to harboring Al-Quaeida.

And now we're here.

Afghanistan has been in total disarray for 30 years, so saying they were getting somewhere in the '70s is retarded because that has nothing to do with today.
Drace
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Drace
3,880 posts
Nomad

. . . And then the Soviets invaded. Then we, the Americans, helped them fight off the Soviets. We gave them Stingers so that the Soviets choppers wouldn't chop up the Afghans.


The Soviets invaded as a response to the extremist mujahideen attack against the DPRA, which was US financed and trained.

The United States supported these "freedom fighters" who were nothing more than the earlier forms of the Taliban and Al Queda and other fundamentalist groups.

The US couldn't help rebuild? As if it wanted to? When has the US every spent a large parts of its GPD in rebuilding? If you could just recall the US military intervention in Iraq just a few years later and the huge destruction it brought along with a million innocent dead...

So I don't at all understand your argument. You proposed a hypothesis of why the US didn't help with no clear arguments or evidence.

The United States aided these groups when it was in its self interest. When the Soviet Union existed and was a threat to US hegemony.
Did the US help the mujahideen because it cared about freedom, democracy, and all that bullshit? No. It aided them because of its self interest.

Afghanistan has been in total disarray for 30 years, so saying they were getting somewhere in the '70s is retarded because that has nothing to do with today.


The fact that the US helped overthrow a progressive government in its past history is irrelevant to its current ambitions today?
FireflyIV
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FireflyIV
3,224 posts
Nomad

Good luck with that. Much like gang warfare in inner cities, people who are under their control aren't going to work with us, you, or any other country in there, for fear on death.


Seeing as that's exactly what happened in both Northern Ireland and Iraq, I beg to differ. The problem right now is logistics and a lack of resources. The money allocated to training incorruptable Iraqi policemen and militia totalled close to $1 trillion. The money spent on that in Afghanistan isn't even a tenth of that figure.

We need to ramp up drone attack and cave destruction efforts. Like with bombs, not clear out strikes. I'm fairly confident in Patraeus to do this.


Why are you confident Petraeus will take this approach? He argued against these kinds of tactics for the duration of the Iraqi campiagn. In addition, you place far too much faith in drones, and the intelligence the US has. If we knew which caves to hit, they would have been hit by now. Even if we knew which caves to hit, with the relatively small amount of drones on the frontlines, it would take years to clear these caves out.

McChrystal wasn't doing enough in terms of clearing them out, just maintaining certain areas don't rise up.


And thereby working with the local populace. The only proper way to win a counter insurgency operation. And people aren't desperate to rise up. Most want the Taleban gone, and would gladly help if they felt the ISAF presence would become permanent. That's what we have to convince them of, and tap into that sentiment.

We need to go in like we did back in '01. That worked extremely well.


In 2001 they weren't hiding in caves, but were engaging us in open pitched battles, which superior NATO assets inevtiably won. Since 2006 the Taleban have radically changed their tactics to guerilla warfare, relying on IEDs. Bombing helped us oust them as a state power, but it won't win a counter insurgency. Just look at how much blood and treasure was wasted when the US tried that approach in Vietnam.
FireflyIV
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FireflyIV
3,224 posts
Nomad

They have lived through and experienced US foreign intervention themselves. How can the people of Iran not be aware of US involvement which directly affected them and their families just 20 years ago in the 1st Gulf war?


Most Afghans want the Taleban ousted, but resent the presence of foreign powers. In terms of the lesser of two evils, that's ISAF. Also, I'm talking about Iranians, but Afghans, the majority of whom don't have any access to televisions, radios or reading material. They don't oppose the US due to their history of intervention. They are simply too euneducated.

Also, Osama Bin Laden himself has cited past US brutality as justification for his acts. A large part of the whole extremist is geared toward the "Death to America" for this reason.


Osama Bin Laden was born into an extremely wealthy Saudi family, and thus had access to the education which helped him form these views, your average Afghan could never hope to attain.

To say that all the people of the country were and are just simple uneducated farmers is quite off.

The Afghans have suffered war since the brutal Soviet invasion of 1979. The majority of their critical infrastructure was destroyed in this period, and of course, neither the Taleban or the Mujahideen fully repaired it. As such 40% of Afghans live below the poverty line, and 2 thirds of the population live off less than $2 per day. Most of the schools in the country were destroyed during the Soviet war, and were not rebuilt. Currently there are only 26 schools in the country. That does not make for an educated populace.
EnterOrion
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EnterOrion
4,220 posts
Nomad

Why are you confident Petraeus will take this approach? He argued against these kinds of tactics for the duration of the Iraqi campiagn. In addition, you place far too much faith in drones, and the intelligence the US has. If we knew which caves to hit, they would have been hit by now. Even if we knew which caves to hit, with the relatively small amount of drones on the frontlines, it would take years to clear these caves out.


Because, he's a good general. If he doesn't do it, fine. My opinion would still remain that it's the best course of action.

Drones are cheaper than planes, that's why I mentioned it. Any plane can drop a 2,000 pound JDAM on a cave.

We know many of the caves we need to hit, just haven't had the time to clear them out. Why? Too much passivity, not enough action. We're doing fine keeping the areas we have clear of heavy insurgency, but aren't doing enough in the areas they are currently.

And thereby working with the local populace. The only proper way to win a counter insurgency operation. And people aren't desperate to rise up. Most want the Taleban gone, and would gladly help if they felt the ISAF presence would become permanent. That's what we have to convince them of, and tap into that sentiment.


But not doing enough in places where the Taliban still has it's reign of terror in place. I wouldn't be at all surprised if these were the areas against America's invasion. A result of our inaction is the fact that some areas are receiving the blunt end of the Taliban's pissed off stick, while we do nothing.

In 2001 they weren't hiding in caves, but were engaging us in open pitched battles, which superior NATO assets inevtiably won. Since 2006 the Taleban have radically changed their tactics to guerilla warfare, relying on IEDs. Bombing helped us oust them as a state power, but it won't win a counter insurgency. Just look at how much blood and treasure was wasted when the US tried that approach in Vietnam.


They were in caves. Quite a lot of caves in fact. The caves they were in, went bye bye. They weren't quite the open pitched battles you see them as. Open pitched guerrilla battles maybe. They were using similar tactics they had always used, and I.E.D.s were in use. They had just gotten out of fighting the Northern Alliance, who were using similar tactics. Only difference was that the NA didn't have enough resources to fight them off. The Taliban are losing to our pointy stick, and they know it. They're using similar tactics, not a complete about face. Only now it's reversed with less snipers and more bombs. Still the same, however, different proportion.

The fact that the US helped overthrow a progressive government in its past history is irrelevant to its current ambitions today?


Today's ambitions are to do with the Taliban, NOT a progressive government. The Taliban is a direct result of us being lazy and incapable.

No. It aided them because of its self interest.


I know that. They wouldn't, and couldn't, help them. Americans as a whole would've, and so would the main politicians involved. But the government had other things to do.
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