Forget the Iraqi Election. Remember Afghanistan?

[Drunken Master]

With all the hubbub about the improbable Iraqi election in January, nobody seems to be talking about the equally improbable election on October 9th in Afghanistan:

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/C020C1F5-93C9-4301-B852-C5187C0F201D.htm

My particularly favourite tidbit of information here is that there are not enough monitors for the election. Maybe they could arrange an exchange - Afghans will go to monitor the polls in Florida, Americans in Afghanistan...

So much for fostering democracy in the Middle East. What are Iraqis supposed to think?

And please, no "Oh, it's Aljazeera, they're Arab and they hate America, so this must all be bullshit." At least Aljazeera seems to remember (unlike the American media) that Afghanistan still exists.

 

[Ranger68]

Yeah, what a waste of time ousting the Taliban was!

 

[sweet guy]

There's a saying the Great Powers can "rent" Afghanistan, but you can't "own" Afghanistan.

Things have been that way for hundreds, if not thousands of years. If history is any indication, the Americans under the GOP single handedly created an Islamic "Frankenstein" and even though the Gipper has been RIP, he's sole responsible for "giving in" the Islamists and failed to see the Islamists pose mortal and imminent threats than the communists.

Most communists could be "turn-coats" when their ideologies proved not applicable to achieve "utopia" but there's should be no illusion to think the religious fundamentalists, especially the Islamists would be "reasonable" to hear "another opinion other than their twisted, disturbing, narrow, perverted intepretation of the Koran", if you can say in PC terms.

Let's keep the fingers crossed and hope this powder keg call Afghanistan does "back to its own self" again.

 

[Ranger68]

I think the notion of *destroying Al Qaeda's primary base of support* was probably about the only intelligent thing Bush has done recently. The Afghanistan incursion makes lots of sense.
The Iraqi incursion makes lots less sense.

 

[sweet guy]

I think the notion of *destroying Al Qaeda's primary base of support* was probably about the only intelligent thing Bush has done recently. The Afghanistan incursion makes lots of sense.
The Iraqi incursion makes lots less sense.

Iraqi incursion is nothing more than,

a) To settle personal score by killing the SOBs named Uday and Qusay and put the King of the SOB aka Saddam Hussein on trial for on the record brutual dictatorship and off the record dare to try to assessinate the Sr. back in 93.

b) To premept any attempt by any powers such as China and Russia to control the "commanding heights"-the only relatively "untapped" black gold.

Like it or not for the Liberals in the states, unless the Americans stop wasting energies on SUV (guess many Americans men are suffering SDS and use SUV to compensate their "inadequacies" whatever that is ) and what not, otherwise the American administration, Democrats or GOP will see controlling Iraq as vital to maintain their status as the only superpower before China is strong enough to "alter" the rules of the games 20 to 30 years down the road.

The only problem for the Democrats to disagree will be the GOP goes it alone, with support mainly from the English-Speaking countries. Things would be much better when Dubya and neo-cons lowered their egos and used the oil fields in Iraq as incentives to ask the French and the Russians to "share" the spoils of wars.

 

[assoholic]

..we didnt get rid of the Taliban, we just took control over them.


Taliban joining Afghan army

London, January 17
Thousands of former Taliban soldiers are being recruited into a new Afghan army, where they are being armed with Russian AK 47 rifles and dressed in uniforms provided by the USA.

Some soldiers in Mullah Muhammad Omar’s former stronghold estimate that as many as 6,000 Taliban will soon be a part of the Kandahar’s new army, a report said today. The troops are controlled by the city’s two most powerful warlords, Khan Muhammad and Mullah Naqibullah, and there is no attempt to hide the fact that a large number of them are Taliban.

Already more than 1,200 Taliban soldiers who remained in Kandahar after an amnesty was granted have been inducted into the 7,000-strong force in the city

 

[thighspy]

Herta Barley in the Hills?????

He,who owns,or controls the production of Opium ,,owns Afghanistan,always has, always will.Barley is a poor substitute for the very profitable "Poppy",Stop using this shit,and you have a Winner.

Life is too short to hurry.

 

[Ranger68]

The point was to destroy the ruling party - the Taliban - which was providing Al Qaeda with massive logistical support, not to kill every member of the Taliban.
This, the US accomplished.

 

[Bud Plug]

Aljazeera is actually a pretty good source of information, simply because they do report on things that the US administration does not want Americans to know/remember.

While Aljazeera will publish information that the Western media do not (largely because there is insufficient interest in the west) it also supports and publishes (or fails to publish challenges to) such destructive rubbish as:

1. Legitimizing suicide bombers.
2. Denial of links between terrorism and Arab extremist groups.
3. Propogation of obvious lies in statements from Arab political leaders (case in point, no challenge to all the lies told by the Iraqi Information Minister about the military defence of Iraq).
4. Suggestions that the west wish to colonize or occupy Afghanistan or Iraq on an indefinite basis.
5. Israel should not exist.

On balance, I think it does more harm than good.

 

[Drunken Master]

Ranger - that the US removed the Taliban, and that the Taliban consisted of a bunch of religious zelot jerks who deserved removal, is not really the issue. As in the case of Iraq, removing Sadaam/the Taliban is certainly a good thing, but the far more important question concerns what will replace them. Huge tracts of Afghanistan have been left in control of warlords who have no interest in democracy or human rights.

Bud - Aljazeera certainly has its faults. Isn't it funny how we can't find a media outlet anywhere that seems to give a damn about telling the truth consistently?

 

[assoholic]

..you are incorrect, the first stated aim was to Capture Osana Bin Laden. Then it was changed to getting rid of the Taliban style of Government. To bring a more " Liberal Democracy" to Afghanistan. In fact in negotiations for the " New Afghanistan" now for the Constitution. It will be a very Islamic State indeed. So what have we accomplished ?, we merely changed the leaders. If this is worth the price of your son thats your judegement, but I doubt few Americans would agree. Of course our leaders really dont think we understand what is going on through all the smoke screens.

 

[Bud Plug]

In your eyes, it does more harm than good. But:

3) No different than the lies of the western political leaders. From George Bush to Dalton McGuinty, the media is just as uncritical.

4) The west DOES want to colonize, but only until the oil runs out. Why on earth would you think otherwise?

3) I agree that western leaders also lie, but western media do criticize them for it. Ontario media blasted McGuinty for his flip-flops. Bush has been sharply criticized for misrepresenting the grounds for invading Iraq. There is no comparable criticism of Arab leadership in Aljazeera. In fact the only criticism seems to be of Arab leaders who are not anti-west enough!

4) The only example around the world of long term occupation by the U.S. is its single military base in Cuba. There is no evidence that the U.S. wants to permanently occupy Iraq or any other country. The U.S. has not taken advantage of its current occupation of Iraq to drive down oil prices to its advantage. Oil will run out, and alternative fuels will be developed. The U.S. will be out of Iraq long before then. There is no long term interest in Iraq. The U.S., like France and every other economic power in the world, wants to have advantageous economic relations with Iraq. If you don't like that, you'll have to change the whole world, not just the U.S.

 

[Ranger68]

Ranger - that the US removed the Taliban, and that the Taliban consisted of a bunch of religious zelot jerks who deserved removal, is not really the issue. As in the case of Iraq, removing Sadaam/the Taliban is certainly a good thing, but the far more important question concerns what will replace them. Huge tracts of Afghanistan have been left in control of warlords who have no interest in democracy or human rights.

Sure it's the issue. Al Qaeda's main bases of training were all in Afghanistan, funded by the Taliban.
The US had every right, and waited far too long, to take them out.

 

[Pallydin]

Sure it's the issue. Al Qaeda's main bases of training were all in Afghanistan, funded by the Taliban.
The US had every right, and waited far too long, to take them out.

You *do* realize that Amnesty Int'l cites that human rights abuses have actually gotten worse under the control of some warlords than it ever was under the Taliban, right? The only exception is that the USA is now bankrolling these abuses directly through aid to these same warlords instead of merely letting them happen as was the case in the past.

So where is your American sense of morality and justice now? Oh right, the US now owns the Afghan government there so who cares about the people and their human rights.

PAL

 

[assoholic]

.."all but declared war". aw c'mon do you really believe that Afghanistan had all but declared war on the US, please. Just because they are Religious fanatics does not mean they are idiotic enough to attack the US.

 

[assoholic]

..so you believe that Afghanistan, one of the poorest countries on the face of the Earth was a danger to the US. I disagree, Bin Laden did not run the Afghanistan Govt.

 

[assoholic]

..my point is the Govt of Afghanistan at no point threatened the US, Bin Laden did.

 

[strange1]

..my point is the Govt of Afghanistan at no point threatened the US, Bin Laden did.

From my understanding (which might be flawed), Afganistan has for many hundred of years has been based on a tribal culture, meaning that even though the taliban was the declared government, there were many dissident groups that had a significant power base in their regins (remember the "northern alliance"?) The taliban was merely the tribal/religous group that had enough power to declare themselves in control (after the unifying effects of fighting the soviet invasion). It is probable that without the invasion by the US coalition, the warlords would gone to war on their own in 5 or 10 years, either forming some sort of coalition government or a state of civil war.

The tribalist culture allowed space for OBL to opperate and his presence was useful to the Taliban.

The current elections are just emphasizing the tribal differences, allowing the warlords from all sides to make themselves rich selling heroin and looking for the best way to expand their power. I can not forsee any situation where afganistan can opperate as a nation.

 

[assoholic]

..Afghanistan is totally Tribal, with the Pashtuns being the largest, in fact the Pashtuns I believe are the largest Tribe in the world. Totalling in both Pakistan and AFghanistan some 27 million people !.
Trying to portray this country as a threat to the United States is hilarious. Last the Taliban was largely a creation of the Pakistani Intelligence agency ISI. Which is how they over ran most of Afghanistan so fast.

http://www.sabawoon.com/afghanpedia/People.Pashtun.shtm

 

[assoholic]

[ Mullah Omar, most likely knew 9/11 was going to occur - he was given the opportunity to turn over OBL and refused, not the action of someone who disapproved of a non-citizens action.

The first part is your conjecture I have never heard or read that before. Second , they did not just ask for Osama Bin Laden, they were told to hand over any one who helped or supplied Al Quieda, an imposible task, therfore in realty there was no way the Afghanistan Govt could have stopped the invasion.