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Afghanistan - what were we fighting for again?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
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And this is why supporting an uprising is one thing, but trying to impose change on a country is another thing altogether.
Today's lesson: the war in Afghanistan was, and is a complete waste of time. Tomorrow, I shall reveal my exclusive findings of what bears like to get up to in the woods.
Who's doing the voting though? Not the general population.
Karzai's laws are designed to appease the religious elders of the Shias. The laws only apply to that tribe. Nobody's voted on it, other than the people who stand to gain from having a religious state.
You can't impose democracy in a country, but that doesn't mean that collaborating with the scum who were there before is acceptable.
:yes:
This is a version of the Sharia that will apply only to those people (Shia) who make up around a quarter of the population.
It's a bit of a perfect storm; as I understand it Afghan culture, like that seen in the rural areas and particularly mountainous regions of Pakistan, places heavy emphasis on tribal loyalties and therefore on the structures of tribal power that exist.
It's no surprise therefore, that these cultural features shape the way Islam and sharia law are interpreted and enforced.
The country has a perfect storm of historical features for extremism, and repressive social and political structures:
*Ravaged by war and ridden with warlords.
*The biggest heroin production sites in the world by an absolutely scary margin.
*Embedded in a history of tribalism that stretches back millennia; but one which meant that over the course of the twentieth century, democratic reforms within the country were repeatedly rebuffed by powerful tribal leaders, and especially by the rural population.
*A repeated flashpoint in a history of inter-imperial and geopolitical events, most recent of which led, by direct consequence of US foreign policy, to the creation and establishment of one of the most repressive military-religious regimes in recorded history.
*Generations of young men whose whole lives, society and culture has been endless war.
I just don't see a way out of this - I don't know what more can be done that isn't being done already. There's so many fronts to fight, so many complex battles and issues to be dealt with - and meanwhile the coffins keep coming
There is a way out of it. It's the same way the U.S. got out of Vietnam: try to make the situation as stable as possible given the circumstances, declare victory, then leave and hope the government holds together long enough to keep us from looking quite as bad.
this is horrible.
and it just makes me wish even more that my dad doesn't agree to go to afghanistan.
Do they fuck, all they teach in RE is about the holy trinity and other bollocks like that.
No amount of military force will produce the desired result. In order to successfully stabilize Afghanistan we would have to occupy and control the entire country, stabilize the boarder between Afghanistan and Pakistan (which would require the cooperation of the Pakistan military and they are too busy worrying about India), build up the Afghanistan military enough that they could subdue any future attempts at bringing down the government, and somehow invest the people with a sense of national identity.
We have the support of the majority of the population. If we didn't a lot more of our troops would be dying in the urban areas, and not just in the open countryside/villages in the south.
That support can turn on a dime, and for reasons outside British control. But they are doing better than the Soviets did, for one key Sociological reason - religion.
The elephant in the room here is also that the Taliban were no where near the force that they became, nor were the network of madrassas on in Warzistan and on the border present, before the Americans started interfering.
Many of the programmes bought in by the PDPA when it overthrew Zahir Shah's regime in 1978 were extremely progressive - banning of bride price & forced marriage, a major literacy drive, abolition of all farmer debts and interest on loans to peasants, & a massive drive to empower women. The PDPA were not a Soviet communist party by the way, they were socialists - the difference being that they sought development help from both East and West.
In relevance to WhoWhere's point - there was fierce resistance from Tribal leaders and religious figures to enforced secularization - they failed to understand the fundamental way in which Islam structured many lives. However, the actual reforms themselves, rather than the overarching ideologies, were generally popular (which isn't surprising to be honest; free education, debt cancellation etc.).
Problem is that this was a socialist state developing, and the American's weren't going to tolerate that.
Carter and Reagan continually sought to arm whatever religious fanatics they could find as part of the wider destabilisation policy, supposedly to promote 'freedom' - in which one of the most sickening twists of fate in modern history ended up with Reagan dedicating the launch of the Columbia shuttle to the Taliban - who apparently exemplified 'man's highest aspirations for freedom'.
The Soviet Invasion was deliberately provoked by the Americans - not a conspiracy theory but the words of Carter's advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski. Current US Secretary of Defence, Robert Gates, also corroborates this, pointing out that support for Afghan insurgents was being supplied prior to the Soviet invasion
The Soviet and Marxist ideologues failed because they did not recognise the centrality of religious and tribal tradition to Afghan culture, and did not tailor the reforms in a pragmatic fashion - resulting in many conflicts in 25 out of the 28 areas of Afghanistan. Tribal leaders and Mullahs were put to death in the tens of thousands by the regime.
Time will tell if the British and Americans will have any further luck - I have no doubt that the understanding of Afghan culture & sociology is probably much more sophisticated than the Soviets was, but it may just be that with the best will in the world, the USA has dug an historical hole that we just can't climb out of this time.