Comments on: Afghan Pitfalls

By: mary

mary — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 14:12:26 +0000

We (the West and the Russians before us) have NOT learnt any lessons from our previous experiences in Afghanistan.

Dr William Brydon was the last man standing in 1842 in the First Afghan War as Professor Alam says.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Anglo-Afghan_War

Afghanistan is just a graveyard for the invaders and the wars cause death and misery for the people. Nobody actually wins.

For instance the casualties and losses in the First Afghan War were
7,000+ Afghan army killed & wounded
5,062 British army killed
Afghan civilians = Unknown
British civilians = 12,000 killed

This war was followed by the Second and the Third and goodness knows what the totals are of the dead and injured since then.

TROOPS OUT NOW.

PS I have left other comments on Obama on Nicole Colson’s article on this site. War on Terror 2.0

By: Warwickshire

Warwickshire — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 11:41:13 +0000

Please get it right Mr Alam the British withdrew from Afghanistan in (1880) SIX MONTHS after capturing and relieving the garrison at Kandahar where the very next day they attacked and defeated the Army of Ayub Khan . Lord Roberts and his men then marched to Malwand where they buried the dead of a previous battle. I don’t call that discreate in the manner that you suggest. The whole point of the exercise was to dissuade Russia into seeking a path into India.

By: bozh

bozh — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 00:21:58 +0000

it does seem that US had since 1800 gone on missions possibles; i.e., missions achievables and missions achieved.
missions in afgh’n and iraq are missions impossibles only if we take stated goals as true.

but if we assume the goals were to destabilize the two evil empires (realatively easy to do) and set up puppet gov’ts in both empires, then even these missions are accomplished.

yes kilings, or rather, child-, woman-, and manhunt, goes on since US needs to get rid of old bombs and missiles anyway; so, why not use them against alien terrestrials; having tainted skin helps also.
it’s also good for economy and a moral booster for a psychotic empire. thnx

By: AaronG

AaronG — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 22:33:07 +0000

The article talks about “winning” and “losing” wars like the old days when armies faced each other in the field. Make no mistake about it, America is “winning” this war, like the one in Iraq. It is not a quagmire. The US’s “interests” have always been imperialism, control of oil/oil pipelines, military bases, economic boom for arms dealers and disaster capitalists etc and maybe more that I am not qualified to enumerate. If you measure the invasion against these parameters, the exercise has been a success.

If you measure the invasion against the official reasons like overthrowing the Taliban, capturing some phantom terrorists and/or bringing Blairite freedom to the world blah blah blah then, yes, the exercise has been a failure.

It’s all in the perspective……………..

By: JosephConrad

JosephConrad — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 05:04:05 +0000

America’s WEALTHY OLD WHITEBOY 1%-ERS, their GOP ‘Slaves’ & the COMPLICIT Democraps have tried to STEAL – THRU GENOCIDE & SURROGATE WARFARE – the OIL & GAS of more than 100 nations around the World since 1960. In the process, the U.S. has killed over 550,000 citizens of Central American nations; over 200,000 in South America; more than 4.6 MILLION in DR of Congo and the rest of Central Africa; and over 2.5 MILLION MUSLIMS.

America will not STOP MURDERING MILLIONS of the World’s citizens until it can no longer FIELD AN ARMY or its citizens WAKE UP.

By: kalidas

kalidas — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 01:57:04 +0000

It’s the poppies, stupid.

“Turning first to drug control, I had expected to concentrate my remarks on the implications of the Taliban’s ban on opium poppy cultivation in areas under their control… We now have the results of our annual ground survey of poppy cultivation in Afghanistan. This year’s production [2001] is around 185 tons. This is down from the 3300 tons last year [2000], a decrease of over 94 per cent. Compared to the record harvest of 4700 tons two years ago, the decrease is well over 97 per cent.

Any decrease in illicit cultivation is welcomed, especially in cases like this when no displacement, locally or in other countries, took place to weaken the achievement” (Remarks on behalf of UNODC Executive Director at the UN General Assembly, Oct 2001,

By: bozh

bozh — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:33:52 +0000

can we exclude the notion in our evaluation of the nato/US invasion of afgh’n and US invasion of iraq that US wanted to democratise Iraq and afgh’n? or any muslim or fascist land?

moreover, may we exclude the notion that US went into afgh’n to hunt terrorists? in view that there may have been in ’01 a few dozens of them there and all or most of them being arabs?

we can definitely exclude the idea that US war planners sent boys to afgh’n and iraq to teach sunnis, kurds, and shias of iq to get along and to win their hearts and minds.

similarly, nato did not invade afgh’n because it wanted to make pashtuns love uzbeks and tajiks and vice versa.
war planners must have known that christian occupiers wld be resented by all muslims of afgh’n.

so why is nato in afgfh’n and US in iraq? establishment of some bases in each by now completely dysfunctional lands!? and rendering both empires ungovernable and anarchic.

so, it seems that US will remain for decades + in both evil empires. thnx