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The UK is finally out of Afghanistan...

Chatative

Chatative

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It seems the UK has now pulled out the last remaining troops from Afghanistan....

Last British troops leave Helmand

My personal opinion is that it took too long for that to happen. I'm all for the Army & it's roll abroad but I think our role in Afghanistan went for longer than it should have. Surely it's had a huge impact on how we approach future conflicts, with boots on the ground being much less likely than it ever was due to this & Iraq. Will be hard for the government to justify & would likely just be like committing political suicide.

Here are a few of the polls from that news article.





 
Thirteen years? Beggars belief, doesn't it?

I'm not surprised at the figures in the polls. I still wonder exactly how the UK was convinced to enter a war for which there was a diplomatic solution easily available.

Did a great job of eradicating the Taliban too, eh? :\
 
I wonder how much harm this excercise has done our "cause", the war on terror... I wonder how much harm it's done Afghanistan. I'm very proud of our troops for the shit they've gone through out there, but I find it something of a hollow victory if we've gained one using technology such as laser guided bombs against a relatively lightly armed insurgency.

Of course, we won the war in Iraq in five or ten minutes, & looka the fucking mess that country is in. We had to get out of both these arenas, they had & have become far too complicated, thanks to the short-sighted nature of the Wests "reconstruction" plans.

I wish the best for Afghanistan & her people now that we've pulled out. But I fear the worst.
 
Afghanistan was a great, peaceful place before the Western forces of America and England came in and messed it all up.

It's great that the west is withdrawing it's troops there and keeping American military bases in Italy and Germany still, those countries are much more dangerous than Afghanistan to Western interests surely (eyes roll)
 
We bombed the Taliban out of power (which was a good thing-ish) but then got distracted, fucked Iraq up, allowed the Taliban huge opportunity to regroup & voila, two fuck ups in one.

Saddam & The Taliban sucked & I'm delighted to see at least one of 'em consigned to history.

I guess these wars have drawn Jihadis to battle on their own fronts, in the Middle East & Afghanistan, & if that has drawn them away from attacking the West, fine. But has it?
 
Did 'we' really bomb the Taliban out of power at all?

Remember 2001, when a guy called Ahmad Rateb Popal, who was the Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan, gave a press conference?

Not only did 'we' install his cousin as Afghanistan's first 'elected' premier, but 'we' also handed him with a very lucrative contract for (get this) protecting US supply convoys! That's just one example of the shadiness surrounding the whole affair. There are thousands more.

I'm no Taliban apologist, but the only problem 'the West' had with their government (human rights issues aside, but if we're talking human rights let's talk Saudi) was that they were harbouring Bin Laden and / or senior Al Qaeda figures. All of whom were in Pakistan by this time anyway, but they're our allies, aren't they?

There were several opportunities for a diplomatic solution, one of which was scuppered by the Taliban, but it was Bush who definitively stated 'no negotiations', before commencing the assault.

That's why the Taliban have grown in strength - the people of Afghanistan aren't stupid. They know they were pawns in a sick, sick game, and they won't forget it.
 
Ssshh.. we're not allowed to mention Saudi.. They're welcome to do what they see fit, y'know, wouldnt want human rights to get in the way of business now would we...?

As you said Sam, its fuckin shady the whole middle eastern affair..!

Nothing has being achieved, nothing worthwhile or anything with longevity...

The waste of human life and money is sickening :!

Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it.

Noam Chomsky
 
Sorry, what I meant to say was our illustrious allies, the Saudis, torch-bearers for freedom, democracy, peace and stability in the middle east. :D

Great quote, btw.
 
Thats what i thought you meant ;)

I pulled that quote out in a smoking shelter somewhere i was working whilst these idiotic patriots were getting all excited reading the Sun about " dem izlamicks, bomb dem all, drop a nuke on dem, all da fuckin same ".... i just got a bemused look and silence =D
 
ScotchMist said:
Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it.

Noam Chomsky
Click to expand...

Sure, that'd reduce the numbers of jihadists significantly but there would still be enough left who wanted to do harm to the west, who would now have a lot less distractions / interruptions in formulating their attacks.

Apparently they have to kill 4,000,000 westerners before things are 'even'. I'm sure there will still be hardliners left who agree with that sentiment despite Bin Laden being dead.

Great, but flawed quote. :D
 
ScotchMist said:
Ssshh.. we're not allowed to mention Saudi.. They're welcome to do what they see fit, y'know, wouldnt want human rights to get in the way of business now would we...?
Click to expand...

Stop looking at Saudi from the Eurocentric perspective you simply don't understand their culture. They are good people, followers of the religon of peace innit
 
Chatative said:
Sure, that'd reduce the numbers of jihadists significantly but there would still be enough left who wanted to do harm to the west, who would now have a lot less distractions / interruptions in formulating their attacks.

Apparently they have to kill 4,000,000 westerners before things are 'even'. I'm sure there will still be hardliners left who agree with that sentiment despite Bin Laden being dead.

Great, but flawed quote. :D
Click to expand...
I dont think its flawed at all.. Perpetual violence is not the answer, you could March round the middle east fighting/killing/bombing until the cows come home, there will always be people who want to harm the west.

You cant kill an idea. You can add fuel and fire to the idea though, usually by pissing people off when a drone kills innocents..

I haven't the answers, however i know that whats going on now isnt it...
 
LosBlancos said:
Stop looking at Saudi from the Eurocentric perspective you simply don't understand their culture. They are good people, followers of the religon of peace innit
Click to expand...
Ive spent quite a lot of time in the middle east actually, so im quite accustomed to their culture.

I don't believe i accused any individual Saudis of being bad did people did i:?
 
^Under the soviet aligned government of afghanistan there was equal rights for women, public education and welfare and a growing civic infrastructure. The mujahedin funded by saudi arabia and the US started fighting this BEFORE the soviet 'invasion'. Our side (us, our ISI and saudi) are the ones that turned afghanistan's course backwards again (as in iraq) for obvious geopolitical/imperialist reasons that had nothing to do with the stated aims of supporting 'freedom fighters' or keeping us safe from terrorists (ie saudis who lived in germany).

Is there any difference between the footsoldier in the british army believing the lies of their govenrment via their chain of command, blowing up afghans with weapons that outrange their enemies, with massive air support advantage (and occasionally getting hurt in the process), and the taleban footsolider, believing their own superiors lies, defending their country from invasion with the tools that are available (like IEDs or suicide vests). If the afghan's tactics seem less honourable, that's just circumstance (the british happily supported the exact same tactics in france ww2) - are we to distinguish terror from 'proper' war by the cost of the weapons? (that is how it's done in the media). To me the rag tag taleban footsoldiers could be thought to be much braver on a personal level (though i don't class that sort of macho bravery as a positive thing). But not to forget that the taleban aren't totally ragtag - they get support from our allies (eg pakistan/ISI), so there's some sort of double game going on.

As far as i'm concerned, i feel very uncomfortable with any celebration/sympathy with soldiers which doesn't give equal billing to dead footsoldiers on all sides - anything else is the thin end of a dodgy dehumanising wedge which ends up with eg 1 white death being equal to 100 arab deaths in how we care/report them.


@LosBlancos: As far as Saudi Arabia being good religious people - the house of saud (not the people) cynically adopted wahabiism as a tool of control. I don't personally consider beheading people weekly and the occaisonal crucifiction for witchcraft are actions of followers of peace (not to mention helping america use jihadi groups for it's destabilisation and proxy war activities). This is speaking as someone who has a lot of respect for islam. But maybe your post was ironic...
 
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Yeah, War is a racket. That's the Smedley Butler who was asked by wall street bankers to be the head of a coup army to take over US govenrment from FDR in the 30s to set up a fascist hitler style government (who many of the same bankers supported fincancially). Smedley blew the whistle on it and FDR let the plotters off if they'd stop trying to scupper his New Deal stuff. It's amazing how few people know how close america came to overt fascism (called the banker's plot?) (and then there's the wilson plots and the thacther 'coup'...).

War's exactly the same now as in Smedley's day - who can deny the pipeline/energy resources component of iraq and afghanistan (and any 'wars' you could mention in the last century). Many people seem to have developed the idea that we left imperialism behind in the 19th century, but it's the only game in town really and afghanistan and ME still occupy the same strategic points on the board (with the same age old endgame of doing russia, then china (the 'pivot to asia' and 'full spectrum dominance'))
 
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Add to that the 'elite' motivation for having wars even if there's no resource advantage (though i'm struggling to think of an example of such a war) - recycling tax money into elite hands via military spending (the good old MIC); the general boon to capital as in the shock doctrine ('well someone has to rebuild that infrastructure we just destroyed'); and of course the icing on the cake, the ramping up of fear enabling the sort of domestic legislation that the people at the top always wanted to have (and they often just happen to have written it ready just in case (as in the patriot act)).

I'm sure there's indivdual soldiers who are nice chaps (i know a few older ex-soldiers) and believe what they're doing in the terms that it's described; but i can't separate them from the equivalent brainwashed taleban or nazi really (individual actions aside - NOTE: i'm only comparing ignorant footsoldiers here, not regimes) - i hope i'd try and give equal compassion considering the beliefs they have, each of which i disagree with. Although it has to be said that there are plenty of soldiers on any side who are pretty unpleasant violent thugs, and the training seeks to bring that out to a degree; but this is dwarfed by the knowing 'evil' decisions made in cold blood in wood panelled rooms by the people at the top of the chains of command on any side (whether in war or just 'business').
 
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I give Afghanistan about a year until it's in the same state as Iraq, the Afghan National Army will probably retreat at the first Taliban advances, leaving their expensive kit behind, half of the recruits are secretely Taliban supporters anyway.

The governent in Kabul barely controls the capital, Helmand and other regions will fall to the Taliban as soon as the last Western boots are out of the country. So many lives, wasted for nothing.

In one year time Western politicians will be talking about intensifying drone attacks to try and prevent Kabul from falling and there will be talks of boots on the ground.

You can read interviews with military analysts, Afghanistan should be used as a case study on how not to plan a military campaign.

I have a friend who served there with ISAF, himself he didn't know what the hell they were supposed to do, whether it was nation building, counter terrorism or simply protecting Western oil pipelines. He did have good things to say about those poppy fields though, the farmers were more than happy to share their crop with soldiers. Especially those from my country, I think I remember reading on national media that the Italian command was paying the Taliban not to shoot at our troops as the politicians couldn't afford our lads to come back in body bags.

All I know is since we had a presence there, Afghan hash is cheaper than weed and opium has become widely available, it used to be the rarest thing with acid, now everybody has it, most folks who sell mdma and speed also sell opium, of two types, wet paste and rock hard dried stuff.

The paste is sublime. 0.4 of a gram under the tongue. An hour later you feel better than anything in the world.
 
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