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afghanistan?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
why are british troops there ...what do we hope to achive and why?
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Frankly I don't know, maybe they have something plan we are not aware about, most likely to be it...
And of course the Poodle is only to happy to oblige.
we have only conquered the capital city.
your right ...no one has ever conquered afghanistan.
the situation for women is far worse now in some areas than before we invaded the place.
i keep hearing that we are helping to erradicate the opium crop ...laughable.
under the taliban opium was almost non existent ...to the point where heroin was going back up in price.
now we are there ...the biggest opium crop in history.
to me it seems a complete waste of time and money and lives.
we will leave and ...what happens then?
Exactly. :yes:
http://www.nato.int/issues/afghanistan/040628-factsheet.htm
I haven't got the latest figures, but given that it includes participating countries include places such as Germany and the Netherlands who were fundamenetally against Iraq it does suggest that its not Blair arselicking.
There's a threat to the West, whether you like it or not, from Muslim fundamentalism and if we're going to fight it I'd rather we fought it on foreign shores than wait until it comes to the streets of London, Bristol or Glasgow.
and ...i would have thought we were more of a threat to them than they to us ...looking at the facts like.
My copncern is that UK troops are being over used while the French can sit on their arses while the British are helping yet again. Everyone must take their share.
Should we send troops to Chechnya too? And if not, why?
the british army should not be deployed there no... we have enough troops out. As for other nations, then yes,
how long will it take to do the job ...a hundred years?
afghanistan has always been a criminal and lawless place ...always.
everyone who has ever set themselves up in kabul as ruler ...is eventualy taken out ...the same would happen to the taliban.
it is a huge country with near eighty different languages spoken.
very diverse peoples.
if our aim was to take out the taliban ...looks like we did exactly the opposite!
come on luke ...tell me the reason we are there is to set up a democracy ...come on tell me that and mean it.
Because if you say its arselicking how do you explain places like Germany who didn't go into Iraq and indeed were extremely critical.
It used to be a safe haven for Al-Q - not anymore. That's disrupted Al-Qs ability to wage war.
And to be honest us been more threatening to Islamic fundamentalists than the other way round is the way I like it. I'd rather we kept kicking them, than allow them to get up and kick us.
it has always been a lawless place.
people often remark on pakistan not doing much about policing its borders with afghanistan but the simple truth is ...it isn't possible and never has been ...never will be.
not just the terrain ...more the fact that 90% of afghanistan has never had law and order and the border has never been governed by anyone on either side of it. hundreds of thousands of people have always been outside any government decision making.
trying to put some kind of democratic government in iraq is difficult enough but at least they have a something to build on.
in afghanistan there isn't even the basic structures of power to build on.
you cannot build a new society at gunpoint scratched from the dirt.
has it never crossed your mind that if we stop kicking these people ...stop treating them like junkyard dogs ...they might not have reason to hate us.
but ...after hundreds of years of abuse from us ....you think we should carry on kicking them?
That would be the Government of the United Kingdom and Great Britain governed by Parliament.
Or if you prefer International Law,
deployed under the Authority of the UN.
http://www.nato.int/issues/afghanistan/evolution.htm
PS the UK isn't in charge*. ISAF has been commanded by NATO only since 2003 and is actually a major step forward in peacekeeping operations, being based around a permanent military organisation rather than the hodge-podge it is on many UN missions.
The reason the British are in one of the most dangerous provinces is simply the old adage you send you're A-team to deal with the problems and leave your B&C teams in safer areas to look good on camera for the folks back home.
*Actually currently it is commanded by a Brit - but that's because the post is on a rotating basis. he is appointed by NATO rather than the British armed forces
To be honest I've never had much sympathy for the argument that some people (normally foreign and a different skin colour) aren't ready for democracy or human rights and should be left to sweat under the power of reactionary bigots.
as for the foriegn skin colour not being ready for democracy ...not something i said.
if they wanted it they would build it ...you realy cannot go around destroying cultures with bombs to impose your own ...thats what terrorists do.
look at the history of the place ...
if you realy believe we are going to do some good out there in the long run ...how long will we have to be fighting and killing and dieying ...a hundred years ...two hundred years?
there is nothing ...nothing at all to build a legal political judicial system on.
it is very different from iraq.
I have no idea tbh.
there is nothing to gain ...nothing to win ...no way of winning.
we could stay there for two hundred years and still we'd fail.
fail at what?
i don't know that either!
to make any kind of change would take a million men living there an awful long time.
so ...if we pull out today or in twenty years ...we will have achieved nothing.