Western involvement in Afghanistan

I think guy has gone for a well needed nap.

 

Today actually, and I find it ridiculous Iraqis vote in much higher numbers despite threat of death to most western nations do. Iraqis have earned their freedom. Afghanis too.

I still want to know though what exactly withdrawing from Afghanistan will do to benefit the Afghani people. No one has really come up with an answer to that.

What I've got so far is Americans are imperialistic and the west as a whole doesn't care about the Afghan people, we're just there for oil/insert any idea here. So the best thing to do for the Afghani people is for NATO to stop being assholes and leave already so.............a civil war can erupt where most likepy hundreds of thousands of Afghanis die?

 

I think their politics are far more simple than ours...so there is less apathy.
Jobs.
Security.
Transparency.
Plus, they can see that their vote means something.

Well, the Taleban et al, will not be able to say this:
Americans are imperialistic.
There just here for oil.

So, atleast the excuses for violence would be less.

 

Hm, sounds a lot like the last election here.

Eh they don't need a reason. Afghanistan is just like Somalia, the taliban are just a buzz word, there's numerous groups fighting for power. Someone should go ask the taliban why if they're in theory fighting against the Americans why are most of their attacks terror attacks on Afghani civilians.

 

True.

You are right, ofcourse.
But a lot (lets call them the insurgency) do call for our troops out.
So, our troops are out, what else do they have to say then?
They perhaps wouldn't kill their own people for *collaborating*.
They would have to make it an internal issue.
So, perhaps the true motivations will be seen.
Power.

They're more than a "buzzword", to be fair.
But, yes, there are more groups than the Taleban.
Most do still have one thing in common.
Guess what that is?

I'd love to ask them, myself.
But I fear they have the same short circuit in logic that guy has:
They don't think anything but what they want to think...
...and go endlessly around in their own little paradigm.

 

I said -

To clarify

I was calling for action against Saddam back in the 1980’s when he was being supported by the US (among other western powers) in the Iran-Iraq war (which he started).

That was when he was at his most bloodthirsty and repressive, that was when he was for example gassing Kurds and it was also the time when he was getting his hand shaken by Donald Rumsfeld.

The thing is if the world had moved against Saddam when he came to power in 1979 with the kind of measures imposed on him after Kuwait then there would probably have been no Iran-Iraq war or Kuwaiti invasion. Instead he got support which kept him in power.

Saddam was always a monster he didn’t suddenly become one when he invaded Kuwait.

Anyway Saddam could have been toppled at the time of the First Gulf War if the US had supported the southern and northern uprisings. Instead they let Saddam re-impose his bloody rule in the south, and only stepped in at the last moment in the north with a no fly zone (which led to the setting up of an autonomous Kurdish regional government). Later a no fly zone was imposed in the south but by then the rebellion had been crushed.

By 2003 Saddam’s power was a shadow of its former self, there were no fly zones one from the 36 parallel northward and one from the 33 parallel southwards.

And his power could have been weakened more by the imposing of more refined sanctions and aiding those opposing his rule.

In my view the worst possible option was invasion and the imposing of foreign rule.

It was a similar story with Afghanistan, misguided involvements or neglect and lost opportunities.

 

The question is why Iraq?

The supposed reason for action in the Middle East was 9/11

So why Iraq – it had nothing to do with 9/11 - in fact al-queada hated Saddam.

And Saddam was penned in by fly zones and sanctions and was being less brutal than at other times in his life.

And many independent experts didn’t think he had WMD’s (and they were right) or the capacity to make them.

So why Iraq?

Well there had been one think tank lobbying very hard for just such action – the neo-conservative Project for a New American Century (you could call it a fixation with them).

And as I’ve pointed out a lot of influential people who had associations with PNAC were in the Bush Admin.

Coincidence?

Maybe but I don’t believe so.

*

Basically they had to do something about Afghanistan but they always intended to do Iraq.

That’s why Afghanistan didn’t get the attention it deserved, it was an inconvenient war, one that was not wanted or intended, unlike Iraq which was wanted and was intended.

So Afghanistan wasn’t staved of resources because of Iraq, Iraq was always going to get the resources and Afghanistan wasn’t. Maybe if things had gone the way the neo-con’s believed (quick war in Iraq imposing of pro-US government and withdrawal into US bases) they would then have properly resourced Afghanistan (however they may have been more interested in Iran by then). Anyway things didn’t go that way so that never happen, and the damage was done.

 

Why not Iraq? If we were lying so much how did every single intelligence agency in the world not have contradictory evidence at the time or they're really all just a lap dog to the US. Even France wasn't against the intelligence, they're only argument was negotiations should keep taking place. It's funny how quickly we forget history. Do we remember after 1991 when we did find proof Saddam was trying to make nuclear weapons(not using gas diffusion or gas centifuges to extract the U-235, using calutrons to extract it, literally WW2 level technology). Or when one of the top Iraqi scientists on the project defected in 1994/95 and came with not only this fun story on how Saddam was once again starting up his nuclear bomb project, but what shocked people the most, a very detailed schematic for an implosion bomb.(Nuclear implosion weapons take a much larger advance in technology to make then the gun design). Or around this same time when Saddam told the UN inspectors to kindly go fuck themselves, and Clinton bombed the shit out of Baghdad. Saddam said we could just trust him on the issue of not making any more weapons.

So maybe, just maybe, there actually was grave concern Iraq was getting close to making a bomb, and for its past actions against both its own people and other countries Iraq was the only country possibly trying to make a bomb or any WMD that there would be enough international agreement on to actually attack.

Or, oil.

 

yes odon

because i am human, humans tend to sleep

you are on the other hand seem to be something other, along with your other friends that plague this site like a cancer.

you seem to be part lobby group and part promoter for genocide, it would seem that you never sleep.

good luck with promoting your war on humanity

 

Wait we declared a war on humanity?

 

Ok, I'm all for peace and all but it's not in our nature as humans. We have not evolved to that point yet. Until we can then there will be war and invasions and assholes like Sadam and Hitler that will kill thousands of people for the only reason that they don't like them. I tell you that the United States, being the big guy on the block is expected to be the police of the whole world. Not everyone may like this but when people say something should be done about this and that then they should not whine when something is done.

I am not saying that we should be there but we are there so we can't just wash our hands of it and walk away. We were there for a reason. Cause and effect. If we as American's took the attitude that every other conuntry wanted us to take then we would not be involved then everyone would hate us for not being involved. We are damed if we do and damned if we don't.

 

when saddam was at his worst , he was at his most useful, he was waging a war on iran. various lobby groups were vary happy for islamic states to be locked in never ending wars.

margaret thatcher and her friends were still supplying saddam when he was quite happily killing as many people as he could.

something must have changed with the relationship with saddam and i'm not talking about the gassing of the kurds (the kurds have always been an expendable in the eyes of the allies - britain used to bomb them from the air when they controlled iraq). for one reason or the other he probably started asking for more money for his oil or not buying weapons from the right country

the invasion of iraq part deux by the "allies" in 1991 was brought on because saddam was annoyed that kuwait was deliberately stepping up production (and driving the price of oil down). being the dictator he was he decided to invade kuwait but he did ask the americans first who told him in no uncertain terms that they had "no opinion" on the matter (the americans were telling the kuwaitis to step up production).

saddam worked for the political lobby groups of the west until he was no longer useful to them. i say lobby groups because the american people vote in lobby groups not individuals to represent them. once the lobby group is in there is nothing the public can do until the next election and nothing to stop the wars they have started.

 

Yes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Spectacular political revelation, what else is next. Doesn't change the fact Iraqis just voted in large numbers despite being threatened with death. They seem to be enjoying their new found rights.

 

congratulations

just keep saying something

 

you're losing it madcap

i've posted something and its taken you more than a few minutes to reply

 

I ain't replying to something that asinine. I said my response, the 1980's has no relevance to the current Iraqi/Afghani situation except as historical events that lead to shape what the present currently is. You and balbus both seem not to understand this.

 

hang on

i can post this smiley face too

this makes me seem less fanatical

 

Balbus, thanks for the additional thoughts.
It still feels a tad vague, though.
When you want a long indeph post you never get it...

It was sarcasm, guy.

As in, you were talking crazy and a nap would do you good.

You give me too much credit, guy.
I'm not bothering to convince you otherwise, because like I have said many times, you don't really want to get to know who I am...even with the many offers I have given you. It's amusing that you think I'm part of some lobby group....and not just some normal dude posting for way too long on the interweb. I probably should not say I only post here when I'm at work should I... I do sleep, btw...just not while I'm at work.

Whatever. *yawn*.

 

This is an interesting story, but not for the reasons you think it is.

This story was manufactured by the left to blame the US for Iraq invading Kuwait. Even Saddam's government have said that the story was ridiculous and of course they knew they had no permission to invade.

So the interesting this is how the left is determined to fabricate excuses for mass murderers, and keep spreading the lie long after it has been exposed.

 

Another interesting example of the left whitewashing history.

Where did Saddam get his weapons? About 1% from the US. The vast majority from the USSR and China. How do you summarise Iraq getting $40 billion dollars in weapons from socialist countries? Well if you are a socialist, you say "he was being supported by the US (and other western powers)". But you might ask, how were the socialist countries western powers? Well they aren't. But the point is the 99% is of no historical interest whatsoever, the point is the US supplied 1% and therefore we can summarise that historical period by saying that the US supported Iraq.

Similarly, Iraq borrowed nearly $30 billion from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to finance its war. You might think this is of historical significant but you'd be wrong - its not even worth mentioning. However the fact that Donald Rumsfeld shook hands with Saddam is of extreme historical imporance and is far more worthy of mention.

However, while the handshake was important, what was said at the meeting is of no historical importance.

These sorts of facts obscure the message, which is that everything was America's fault and virtually nothing that anybody else did had anything to do with anything.