Reply to: Afghanistan

[AtW]

Did Russia Achieve its aims - No
Has US/UK achieved it aims - No
Is Afghanistan a stable properperous country - No
Is Bin Laden still at large - Yes
Is the Taleban still active - Yes
Have there been any major infranstructure improvements - No
Has the herion trade been adversely affected - No

You may have trouble trying to define success using that

I define success in Afganistan as:

1) removal of government intent on making international jihad via preparation of terrorists from all over the world in their training camps - this is done.
2) stopping trade in heroin - this is not achieved (situation is worse than before), but even if it is achieved then heroin will be made elsewhere or people will use more coke or whatever, the solution here is legalisation of drugs, not trying to fight it in afganistan - so really this should not be a goal at all

As I said USA left Afganistan too early to finisht he job with Taleban and Bin Laden - then they (and UK) got bogged down in Iraq and only now withdrawals of troops from there are happening - these should have been sent to Afganistan.

[Diver]

True, but it happaned only because of a major screwup by USA (Bush/Rumsfeld/etc) which pulled out way too fast from Afganistan.

But in honest I think now it is not as easy for people from the west to get trained there - before the west was basically ignoring the fact of its citizens being trained in those camps, at least now there is some watching going on.

Bumsrush

[sunnysan]

Success

It depends on how you define success.

Did Russia Achieve its aims - No
Has US/UK achieved it aims - No
Is Afghanistan a stable properperous country - No
Is Bin Laden still at large - Yes
Is the Taleban still active - Yes
Have there been any major infranstructure improvements - No
Has the herion trade been adversely affected - No

You may have trouble trying to define success using that

[AtW]

All the training camps are now in the tribal areas of Pakistan...

True, but it happaned only because of a major screwup by USA (Bush/Rumsfeld/etc) which pulled out way too fast from Afganistan.

But in honest I think now it is not as easy for people from the west to get trained there - before the west was basically ignoring the fact of its citizens being trained in those camps, at least now there is some watching going on.

[Cooperinliverp00l]

i to loved the seried by Ross Kemp but think it was heavily censored by the producers and military. A lot of the scenes looked really exciting like an advert for the Army and only wish they showed the helmet cams of more soldiers.

I think our boys and girls are doing a great job out there considering the conditions and equipement they have to work with. Do agree that we should start to pull out. But if we pull out where will our troops go ??? not N.Ireland so will there be job cuts ?? maybe that is why they are still over there

R.I.P those who have not made it back

[Diver]

All the training camps are now in the tribal areas of Pakistan...

Can't nuke them coz they've got nukes of their own.

Life is so unfair.

Yeh! coz if we nuke them, they will nuke India

[AtW]

No one has ever succeeded in Afghanistan...

It depends on how you define success.

I say if Bin Laden and his boys can't have training camps there or anywhere else then it is success already - also success would be to stop flow of heroin from there, but to win this one you really need to legalise drugs in the West.

[Moscow Mule]

The only solution is to nuke the tuliphole to glass and be done with it.

Preferably from orbit.

[AtW]

However I cannot see the West ever really controlling Afghanistan as I dont believe that the political will exists, nor that the West has the stomach or indeed the resources to do it.

Ok, lets see here: USA has got around 15k troops there and UK maybe 5k, these 2 countries provide the bulk of the real action force.

Now USA has got something like 150k troops in Iraq - that's enough force to deal with Taleban, but to do so they need to be pulled out of Iraq (and never get there in the first place), if these troops were left in Afganistan from 2001 until Bin Laden is caught live or dead, including top taleban then current problems would not have happened - it was a crazy strategic mistake to pull out from Afganistan so quickly - repeated on a bigger scale in Iraq.

You talking about USSR there but you don't really know what you talking about - you need to compare current West losses there with what USSR lost, only using official USSR counts (which are reduced) it turns out USSR was losing 10 times more men.

Maybe the solution in Afganistan should be having countless drones that would blow up anything in exclusion zones - anything along border with Pakistan.

[sunnysan]

Afghan problem

I think the reasons on the surface are NATO obligations but I do agree that it seems that nobody is actually quite sure why they are fighting and what the bigger picture is.

Having control of Afghanistan would obviously be of huge strategic importance to the US/UK bloc considering its location.

However I cannot see the West ever really controlling Afghanistan as I dont believe that the political will exists, nor that the West has the stomach or indeed the resources to do it.

The way I see it, you have normal rational professional soldiers fighting , georgraphically entrenched, war hardened religious fundementalists who will die for their cause. You cannot reason or negotiate with people who think like this. They only know war, that is all they have done most of their lives

When Russia invaded Afghanistan, it had loads of troops, conscription etc and the advantage of nearly being a neighbour. Even they could not do it so I dont really think that the West can

[M_B]

From that link:

"There is also a question mark over stability in Afghanistan, but interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai said peace was prevailing all over the country. "

So that's Ok then.

Yes indeed. Just aswell we went in to provide the stability.

[sasguru]

Correct. Fortunately it now means that this project can go ahead aswell. Bonus.

From that link:

"There is also a question mark over stability in Afghanistan, but interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai said peace was prevailing all over the country. "

So that's Ok then.

[M_B]

NATO (and thus Britain) had to go to Afganistan because of obligations to USA as a member of NATO that was agreed to have been under attack (9/11).

Afganistan's government had a choice - hand over Bin Laden or accept that he was acting on their behalf. They chosen the latter, not suprisingly given connection between Bin Laden and Taleban, so they had to face the consequences of their decision.

The problem of Afganistan is that the job was not actually done - Bin Laden was not caught and generally for a few years attention moved to Iraq, so Taleban was able to regroup.

Correct. Fortunately it now means that this project can go ahead aswell. Bonus.

[AtW]

It certainly had absolutely nothing to do with having a convenient excuse to provide security for a proposed oil pipeline across the country at all.

NATO (and thus Britain) had to go to Afganistan because of obligations to USA as a member of NATO that was agreed to have been under attack (9/11).

Afganistan's government had a choice - hand over Bin Laden or accept that he was acting on their behalf. They chosen the latter, not suprisingly given connection between Bin Laden and Taleban, so they had to face the consequences of their decision.

The problem of Afganistan is that the job was not actually done - Bin Laden was not caught and generally for a few years attention moved to Iraq, so Taleban was able to regroup.

[M_B]

We went there because the nasty Taliban were subjecting the people of Afghanistan to their form of goverment, a bit like Zimbabwe only without the oi.. terrorists. Also that nice man Mr Bin Laden was using it as his base, a bit like he's using Pakistan now, but we like Pakistan and they have nuclear weapons to do the job themselves. It certainly had absolutely nothing to do with having a convenient excuse to provide security for a proposed oil pipeline across the country at all.