To answer last first, I did give benefit of the doubt but it doesn’t change the feelings the words inspire when the context of those words are unclear…it’s why I bothered to bring it up.

My assumption was you were role playing (as I said) but the the character of nato criminal wasn’t consistent throughout your post…I often use this device, but it’s one that doesn’t do well in writing if things are too casual and without reference to who’s talking when(we can’t hear your voice change).
First last, you don’t owe me an apology.

Cheers Mate

What’s the ugliest part of your (Taliban) body?
Some say your nose,
some say your toes,
but I think it’s your mind..

I’m trying to see what you said as perhaps role-playing an ignorant racist…but am having trouble. Please justify your comment “another good news is, nobody rapes afghan women; they r so damn ugly and wear so much clothes, it’s just not worth it”. The thought of looking down at women from any race or culture as “ugly” inspires anger in me without the reference to raping them and I also find the women of Afghanistan to be beautiful.

Invading, yes; occupying, no. My point is that Afghanistan has never mounted any organised resistance to invasion. Anyone with an army can go anywhere in Afghanistan without serious opposition. Sure, a few Afghans here and there might put up a fight, but they don’t help each other enough to offer any organised defence. More often, one or more Afghan factions join in with the invaders. Their record of this is hardly inspiring.

Basically, as others have pointed out, Afghanistan is a bunch of armed groups managing their own areas in a territory that only exists because nobody else wants it. If Afghanistan was worth the effort to keep, it would have long-since been part of Iran, Pakistan, or one of the other ’stans. It only takes a low-level counter-insurgency to make any successful invader decide that staying isn’t worth the effort, because there’s nothing there to justify it.

> And could you clarify, “Past invaders have given up simply because the ground is so devoid of any value that they left before the job was finished.”
> By ground do you mean the people or capital or what?

Yes to all three, but basically it comes down to the land. It just can’t support enough prosperous people and there are no resources to make it valuable in its own right. Even if the farmers grow something, it’s too hard to transport out and make a profit (opium being the exception, because it’s illegal) I doubt any central authority, at any point in history, has managed to collect enough taxes from Afghans to pay for the cost of collecting. Yes, these days, there is some limited value in pipeline routes, and there may be some gas reserves. It also provides a useful strategic air-base for invading, or at least intimidating, Iran. But, really, once the Iranian issue is dealt with, one way or another, who’s going to care about Afghanistan? A few NGOs maybe. Everyone will leave, except for the requisite US strategic airbases, and the insurgents can declare victory – even though they will never overthrow the puppet government.

I’m just sick of the “Afghanistan has never been defeated…” line. It has, every time. The Mujahideen as warriors that defeated the mighty Soviets is just Cold War propaganda. The didn’t successfully defend, repulse, or stop any invasion. They rolled over with most of them joining the invaders. The Soviets left for the same reason the British and everyone else left. There was no point in staying. Once the Canadian military has milked Afghanistan for all the benefits it can get (Combat hardened soldiers, new tanks, new air transports, new helicopters, new drones, new recruits eager for combat, new …), we’ll leave too.

A little word about Europe. What was found in the Paris shop was some explosives but no detonator. Hardly a professional job! I would link it to some small scale and very inept acts of sabotage committed recently against the French railway system which were traced to unemployed youths. Linking it to Afghanistan was probably just to get attention.

I agree that Oskar Lafontaine’s party will do very well in the German elections but let’s keep it in proportion! 10% of the vote will be a huge victory for them. 15% will be a miracle. They could easily end up holding the middle ground, which, I would guess is what they want. Also, no European leader now favours the various American wars. Those who let themselves be bamboozled into joining them are desperately trying to find a face-saving excuse to get out without having to admit publicly that they committed an enormous blunder by defying their own public opinion and going in in the first place. They want Obama to end both wars ASAP and have no desire to burn their fingers further by getting involved in any “surge” in Afghanistan. Essentially, the EU is doing what it is supposed to do and giving Europe the “clout” to defend its own interests.

As such it cannot be “toppled” and in fact the only vague central government is the one the US/NATO put in place. That role is not of any importance to the feifdoms that exist on their own terms.

It is a place on the map with a certain culture and language woven into the fabric, but it is not organized in such a way that it can be subdued.

Afghanistan does have a link to natural gas and oil – Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline. USA didn’t invade for nothing. Iraq, least we forget, has one of the greatest reserves of oil in the world. Much of that due to the fact that it has been at war (Iran and then US invasion and embargo) for 15 years. This has meant a dramatic reduction in oil export which has kept the oil in the ground longer – by now it would have reach peak (or close to).

Wars of indigenous attrition are rarely won (if ever). I can think of one example – Europeans and indigenous natives. What happened was a genocide of massive proportion. The term genocide has its origin as a means to eradicate or exterminate, with intent, an identified group.

There seem to be various reasons why men join the Taliban. However, given their track record and my dislike of religion, I tend to think the world would be better without them and their kind.

The US needs to stay out of Afghanistan.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0602/S00132.htm

Anyone that has ever tried to invade Afghanistan has succeeded. Afghans are so ready to stab each other in the back that a troupe of Boy Scouts armed with slingshots could march in and take down whatever stood for Afghan government. No, the problem is not invading, it is governing the mess afterwards. I don’t suspect anyone has ever successfully governed Afghanistan, not the Taliban, not anyone.

Past invaders have given up simply because the ground is so devoid of any value that they left before the job was finished. We will too, for the same reason. No matter though, the original purpose of the invasion has long-since been achieved. There is no way Afghanistan will ever again be host to open training camps. There is no way any government will ever last that is not at least covertly backed by US power. We don’t need troops on the ground for this, just lots and lots of smart bombs. The only path to Afghanistan independence is through a peaceful democracy (that can be bought like the rest of us). Failing that, they will never again be independent, never.

As for the Taliban… (changing topics) they are not a cohesive group that can be pinned with a single label, good or bad. Some of them, though, think it is right and proper to douse acid on girls walking to school, simple because they are going to school. If you are going to espouse the virtues of the Taliban movement, you should at least take the effort to identify which Taliban you are talking about. Obviously, they are not all great.

But, we need to keep in mind that Iraq was not a decision that George W. Bush made. The exact location was determined by actions taken over a decade earlier.

I see no mystery in concluding that we already know the US “intent”. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the “balance” of power and the need for enemies which is the perpetual state of Imperial Empires like the US required an assessment of the “value” of the Middle East. No one denies the Middle East as a strategic “national” interest to the US empire. Jeopardizing (even the perception) will not be tolerated by the US.

Al Qaeda are simply the latest pretext for a “war on terror” which is not a real enemy or real war. It is merely a pretext for continued dominance vis a vis Russia/China in a battle that has been waging for decades. Anyone who has studied the cold war period will tell you that behind that were energy “wars” throughout. Before that, starting with the consolidation by Rockefeller and Standard Oil, and the subsequent break up, the world became one big petro grab. The plutocracy has its center right there. Miss it and you’ve missed the whole storyline.

The plutocracy is based in the interest of corporations which are an outgrowth of the UK empire and transplanted to the US as a means of empire expansionist mandates. On occasion there is a backlash and some corporations are broken up as one grows to monopolistic proportions. But overall, these entities are legally established and run to privatize as much of the world and its resources as possible. The economic system behind it is insatiable. Along with the mass media (now owned by private corporations) they are a mighty power fully infiltrated in the body politic.

They are separate from AIPAC which is a pathological outgrowth of a pathological transplant in the Middle East. Conflating the plutocracy with Israel/Zionist/AIPAC is missing, imo, the issues that have been controlling affairs.

a better assumption wld be, is that world plutos (and not just amer’s) invaded the two lands merely to establish perm military bases in each land.

to do that, all they have to do now or later is to shop for and buy puppet govt’s of folks which inhabit the two lands.

and go on onto other ’stans?

but what r the facts? what r US plans? well, we can only guess. but in decades to come, the knowledge ab US intent may become public. thnx

This is the standard US propaganda. The rape and violence against women began with the US invasion. Girls were going to school before the US invaded. Now they can’t. Women, while subject to restrictions which Westerners dislike, were safe from rape and murder. While I’m no fan of the Taleban, it’s clear the people of Afghanistan preferred them to the warlord/mujahedeen chaos that preceded them and the NATO chaos that followed them.

Reminder here to the generals and their warlord political masters about the last man standing when the British tried this stupidity in the 19th century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game (British-Russian Rivalry – Dr William Brydon 1842)

Troops out now. When will we ever learn?