http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwvzDIr8zzE

8/23/2010 9:48:11 PM

Whatever your thoughts on our foreign policy, I don't see how you could possibly desire anything for the Taliban other than for them to drown in boiling diarrhea. Fuck them.


I will say that I don't view them as significant, or at least not worth the effort, from an American interest perspective, IF they would agree to strictly refuse assistance or refuge/tolerance for terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda who do have an international agenda.

That doesn't mean that the Taliban aren't shitheads, though. They are arguably the most extreme Muslims on Earth. I would contend that even the Saudi Wahabis are not as barbaric and extreme. The way they aim to treat their fellow Afghans is enough to draw my hatred for them. That said, the only real American interest in the country that's worth the effort, in my opinion, is to ensure that it's no longer and will not again become a haven for groups such as Al Qaeda.

Combating Al Qaeda will likely be a game of whack-a-mole across the Middle East/Central Asia/Horn of Africa/maybe even a little in Southeast Asia...but none of these places should require massive invasions or occupations, as far as I know.

[Edited on August 23, 2010 at 11:15 PM. Reason : ]

8/23/2010 10:55:16 PM

As mentioned in the video, the journalist was kidnapped and held for a small ransom, a few thousand dollars. Word quickly spread and passing Al-Qaeda sought to locate and buy this hostage. Rather than turn him over to them and certain death, the Taliban released him.

I found it interesting to watch him interact with his daughter that he would later deny many of what we would call basic rights to. Or perhaps the Taliban's extreme views would temper over time if they were not forced to fight for the survival of their religion. Either way, I'm pretty sure he would treat her better than we did...you know, killing her.

It's their country and their culture, for better or oppressed worse, to self-govern as they see fit. They have no interest in America other than expelling an invading force. Our corrupt puppet government will never adequately represent all tribes. We have no business there.

8/23/2010 11:09:23 PM

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"It's their country and their culture, for better or oppressed worse, to self-govern as they see fit."

Being taken over by a violent minority faction does not constitute self-government. If we leave, that's what will happen.

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"Our corrupt puppet government will never adequately represent all tribes."

At least we're trying. The Taliban idea of unifying the tribes was to shoot other tribes.

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"Or perhaps the Taliban's extreme views would temper over time if they were not forced to fight for the survival of their religion."

From the Soviets until 2001 they didn't have to fight for the survival of anything and I didn't see much temperance. And as to their current fight for survival, in the words of the Prophet, "Don't start no shit won't be no shit."

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"Either way, I'm pretty sure he would treat her better than we did...you know, killing her."

Times we kills its daughters: Accidentally when trying to shoot violent people who want to shoot us

Times the Taliban kills its daughters: When they go to school, when they run away from abusive husbands, when they don't conceal their entire bodies, when they attempt to participate in government, when they do anything other than stay at home like a slave.

My issue here isn't even that you're bashing on America, its foreign policy, or its military. It's that you seem to think they're all even worse than the Taliban.

8/24/2010 2:01:56 PM

^not that I agree with the op, but to be fair there are similiar injustices going on all over the world that our gov is much less (if at all) concerned about. Imo, the whole spreading 'democracy' thing is what it has always been...a talking point to help legitimize the real reason for a war/occupation.

8/24/2010 2:52:55 PM

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"but to be fair there are similiar injustices going on all over the world that our gov is much less (if at all) concerned about."

Believe me, I am sorry that we don't have the resources to go after all the bad guys in the world at the same time. As it is, we have to prioritize. Blowing up our shit gets you high priority.

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"Imo, the whole spreading 'democracy' thing is what it has always been...a talking point to help legitimize the real reason for a war/occupation."

Normally, I could accept the possibility. It doesn't fit with Afghanistan, though. The reason for the war is pretty clear: Holy fuckballs, the assholes who blew up our shit are just hanging out over there.

So then we go over, and we jack them up pretty good...now what? If we just leave it in utter chaos, the rest of the world calls us an asshole. If we set up an autocratic government and leave, the world calls us an asshole. The only way we get out of this not smelling like asshole is if we spread democracy there. I guess you could say that our "real reason" is satisfying global opinion but since the means to accomplish that is "spreading democracy" it's one and the same.

8/24/2010 5:15:17 PM

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"If we just leave it in utter chaos, the rest of the world calls us an asshole. If we set up an autocratic government and leave, the world calls us an asshole. The only way we get out of this not smelling like asshole is if we spread democracy there. "

The world already calls us an asshole, we can't change that by anything more than just not being an asshole anymore. I don't think the world would have thought us as much of an asshole if we would have only gone over there, instead we went to Iraq, which was completely irrelevant, a dick move.

8/24/2010 6:15:23 PM

To win you gotta quit.

8/24/2010 8:44:58 PM

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"From the Soviets until 2001 they didn't have to fight for the survival of anything and I didn't see much temperance. And as to their current fight for survival, in the words of the Prophet, "Don't start no shit won't be no shit.""

Even more than that, the Taliban didn't even exist until after the Soviets left. All the fighting they faced pre-2001 was from other Afghan factions, all Muslim (i.e., certainly not fighting for the survival of their religion)

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"Times we kills its daughters: Accidentally when trying to shoot violent people who want to shoot us"

...and generally also requires that the Taliban member in question choose to stand and have a firefight with his family in the house, rather than surrender.

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"Holy fuckballs, the assholes who blew up our shit are just hanging out over there."

To be totally correct, the Taliban didn't blow up our shit. They harbored those who did. That doesn't excuse them, and they're definitely shitheads...but they don't really share the same agenda as Al Qaeda, who is not really enjoying save haven to train and plot against us in Afghanistan any more.

8/24/2010 9:28:54 PM

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"and generally also requires that the Taliban member in question choose to stand and have a firefight with his family in the house, rather than surrender."

Granted they're not correct, but they're told that you're there to kill him and his family. Would you fight to protect your family or surrender?

[Edited on August 24, 2010 at 9:41 PM. Reason : ]

8/24/2010 9:40:34 PM

I don't know that I buy that. There have been a ton of them who've sent the women and children out first, then surrendered without any shots being fired.

8/24/2010 10:03:58 PM

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"but they're told that you're there to kill him and his family"

Right, told by the Taliban, who, as it happens, are infinitely more likely to kill their fellow Afghans.

8/24/2010 10:10:34 PM

I specifically said they were wrong, but I'd be willing to bet that's what they're told.

8/24/2010 10:18:59 PM

Very possible...I'm just saying that any of them who are halfway observant should know better.

8/24/2010 10:28:46 PM

I don't expect someone who lives most of his life alone in the mountains to know that much or even be able to think straight while his family is in danger. It's just not accurate to paint them all as monsters, although that's what we tend to do. War sucks.

8/24/2010 10:46:22 PM

they're not all monsters. neither are all of us.

they're warriors just like our guys. as a warrior, even if you hate them, you have to respect the fight in them.

it just sucks that civilians die - it sure did on 9/11.

i have to believe that the US does everything reasonably possible to avoid civilian casualties.

8/24/2010 11:37:23 PM

i respect the fight in them. i don't think they're monsters because they fight us. I think they're monsters because of all that they stand and fight for, and the way they treat their own.

i will concede that maybe a few at the lower levels do it to fight foreign occupation...and then there are the "$2/day Taliban", who don't really give a shit but will plant a bomb for a few bucks to put food on the table.

The Taliban, though, collectively, are monsters.

but I guess that's good for me, since it's my job to hunt them and facilitate their violent deaths at the hands of either the ground troops below me or the CAS aircraft beside me. It wouldn't be so satisfying if they were just government conscripts forced to fight over geopolitical objectives. It warms my heart to watch these motherfuckers die, though.

[Edited on August 24, 2010 at 11:46 PM. Reason : ]

[Edited on August 24, 2010 at 11:48 PM. Reason : seems they usually get captured, though]

8/24/2010 11:41:25 PM

agreed

8/24/2010 11:41:57 PM

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"The world already calls us an asshole"

It would have been even worse than it is, I think, if we'd gone in, fucked Afghanistan all to hell, and then left without any concern for what happened after. Even ignoring world opinion -- which I think would have been deplorable -- we have our own personal experience with what happens when you just leave Afghanistan to its own devices.

---

To theDuke866 --

Jesus, man, we don't disagree on any particular, I don't know why you're arguing with me.

I'm aware that the Taliban didn't come into power until a while after the Soviets left. My point was that there weren't non-Muslim forces in the country at that point.

I'm aware that the Taliban didn't blow us up. My exact words were, "the assholes who blew our shit up are just hanging out over there." Which is accurate. Al Qaeda was, at best, just hanging out, where in almost any other country on Earth the national government would have snatched them up and handed them over to protect the government's survival.

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"I'd be willing to bet that's what they're told."

Lamentable but immaterial. If everyone said, "Well, the Wehrmacht and SS only do what they do because of propaganda," we'd still be dealing with the goddamn nazis. The same could be said of a great many other governments, of course, including the glorious workers and peasants of the Soviet Union.

We don't always have the option of using propaganda or psy-ops to convince people to surrender. Shit happens. The enemy still has the option of at least trying to get their wife and children out of harm's way.

And also -- Oh, yeah, the Taliban is really concerned with the lives of their families, which is why they cut their noses and ears off, stone them to death, etc, etc, literally ad nauseum.

8/24/2010 11:50:47 PM

I'm not arguing; I'm clarifying/expanding upon/slightly correcting a couple of points that I think are important.

8/24/2010 11:54:34 PM

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"I think they're monsters because of all that they stand and fight for, and the way they treat their own."

Granted far worse things happen there, but americans kill americans too, hardly a reason to dehumanize them.

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"It would have been even worse than it is, I think, if we'd gone in, fucked Afghanistan all to hell, and then left without any concern for what happened after."

I doubt the world will give us points for effort, and the most likely scenario is that things will be fucked up no matter how long we stay there. The world doesn't like us because of Iraq, not Afghanistan.

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"Well, the Wehrmacht and SS only do what they do because of propaganda," we'd still be dealing with the goddamn nazis."

Milgram and Stanford are great examples that they were just doing what they were told.

8/24/2010 11:59:35 PM

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"I doubt the world will give us points for effort"

No, but they'd deduct many points if we just left without making a reasonable effort to put in a good government. Odds are you're right -- things won't work, and we'll get blamed for it. But I'd rather have a chance of setting up something good than saying "fuck it" and definitely taking all the hate.

If you think the rest of the world would be OK with us "hitting it and quitting it" so to speak, you've got no idea what you're talking about.

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"Milgram and Stanford are great examples that they were just doing what they were told."

For some -- hell, many or most -- that may be true. But again, we can't bring in psychologists and deprogrammers every time we find a Taliban member. I'm not thrilled with how things are but I can live with it. Some dude points a gun at me, I'm not going to try to dismantle all of his socio-political-economic reasons for doing so.

8/25/2010 12:05:57 AM

1. Afghanistan is now an ISAF fight, not simply OEF with a few allies contributing troops (though still obviously American dominated, there are shitloads of foreign troops here, and in some areas provinces, foreign troops do the lion's share)

2. My personal take is that it's worth attempting brokered, diplomatic, multi-party solution, including Taliban represention (though I don't know if the factions will ever go for that. it does seem more and more possible, though)...with the explicit statement that no matter who holds the power in Afghanistan, if they start harboring Al Qaeda and the like again, we will be back to batter them with the long dick of American military might, and we will be fucking pissed.

8/25/2010 12:12:14 AM

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"If you think the rest of the world would be OK with us "hitting it and quitting it" so to speak, you've got no idea what you're talking about."

We had support for Afghanistan, we didn't fuck it up until Iraq.

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"For some -- hell, many or most -- that may be true. But again, we can't bring in psychologists and deprogrammers every time we find a Taliban member. I'm not thrilled with how things are but I can live with it. Some dude points a gun at me, I'm not going to try to dismantle all of his socio-political-economic reasons for doing so."

It's kill or be killed, you just have to realize we're not always fighting the bad guys like we want to think.

8/25/2010 12:14:37 AM

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"We had support for Afghanistan, we didn't fuck it up until Iraq. "

True. We would've fucked it up just as easily if we'd advocating leaving the place in shambles, though. NATO doesn't roll like that.

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"you just have to realize we're not always fighting the bad guys like we want to think."

I am painfully aware. My original point was that we're at least trying to just fight the bad guys in a narrow sense: the ones with guns and/or the ones that support people who want to kill us. The Taliban -- and al Qaeda, and others -- have demonstrated that they're perfectly willing to kill whoever just for the sake of killing them or for some other perverse reason (drawing us into a fight to create recruits comes to mind, as does the reduction of morale, the generation of propaganda, etc.)

There are, as Duke said, people who just want to kick the occupiers out of their country. I can respect that, even if I think it's misguided. But there are others -- the people I actually want killed -- who desire a version of "justice" and "self-government" that involves the brutal suppression of large swaths of people.

8/25/2010 12:21:38 AM

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"The only way we get out of this not smelling like asshole is if we spread democracy there. I guess you could say that our "real reason" is satisfying global opinion but since the means to accomplish that is "spreading democracy" it's one and the same."

Our gov could care less if what we leave behind is democracy or not...Any regime that is not associate with the taliban or alqaeda will do just fine, just like when we helped put the taliban in power in the first place...in terms of their treatment of their citizens, they weren't much different when we were helping them, they just served our interests at the time so it was ignored.

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"Believe me, I am sorry that we don't have the resources to go after all the bad guys in the world at the same time. As it is, we have to prioritize. Blowing up our shit gets you high priority. "

which is my point exactly...relating this in any way to the US gov caring about the injustices done to the afghan people by the taliban is laughable...It just sounds good to the masses

8/25/2010 9:22:34 AM

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"like when we helped put the taliban in power in the first place"

People need to realize the distinction between the mujahideen of the 1980s and soviet occupation and the Taliban. They're not the same thing.

We did not help to put the Taliban in power. After the soviets withdrew and we abandoned the country, the various factions of the mujahideen that we supported began to battle one another for total control of the country. Warlords that we helped to empower as a proxy against the soviet engaged in a civil war. The Taliban rose as a political/ religious force in the mid 90s to counter the rampant warlordism in the country. Eventually with backing from various international supporters (Saudis/wahhabists/the ISI, etc), they took control of the country.

We didn't create or help the Taliban. Now, if you were to say we helped create the conditions that led to their emergence, well that's another story and I doubt anyone would argue to the contrary.

8/25/2010 9:44:44 AM

^correct...and hence back to my point. Once our major objective was complete (driving the soviets out). the US had little to no real interest in what type of gov took over.

the taliban just happened to be the mujahideen faction that bacame strong enough to seize power

8/25/2010 11:38:08 AM

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"Any regime that is not associate with the taliban or alqaeda will do just fine, just like when we helped put the taliban in power in the first place"

You just said something that jibes well with my best reason for confidently asserting that we do care what government we leave behind. We know from bitter experience what can happen if we don't.

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"they just served our interests at the time so it was ignored."

As I said, we had to prioritize. The Soviets were the biggest assholes on Earth, and it's not stupid to join up with a little asshole to beat up a bigger one.

8/25/2010 2:45:59 PM

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"People need to realize the distinction between the mujahideen of the 1980s and soviet occupation and the Taliban. They're not the same thing. We did not help to put the Taliban in power. After the soviets withdrew and we abandoned the country, the various factions of the mujahideen that we supported began to battle one another for total control of the country. Warlords that we helped to empower as a proxy against the soviet engaged in a civil war. The Taliban rose as a political/ religious force in the mid 90s to counter the rampant warlordism in the country. Eventually with backing from various international supporters (Saudis/wahhabists/the ISI, etc), they took control of the country. We didn't create or help the Taliban. Now, if you were to say we helped create the conditions that led to their emergence, well that's another story and I doubt anyone would argue to the contrary."

Exactly. In fact, we opposed the Taliban...just not very vigorously.

(with the caveat that by "helped create the conditions that led to their emergence", we didn't really do anything heinous. We helped them drive out the Soviets--who took an emerging society and brutally mauled it back to the stone age--and then we, in the relative peace and prosperity of the 1990s, withdrew to the homefront and didn't take very strong action to stop Pakistan from keeping Afghanistan under its self-serving thumb).

8/25/2010 3:28:51 PM

http://afghanistan.blogs.cnn.com/2010/11/19/official-transition-to-afghan-control-could-start-in-early-2011/?hpt=T2

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"Official: Transition to Afghan control could start in early 2011 The U.S. and NATO allies are looking to turn two or three Afghanistan provinces over to Afghan control by June of next year, with "several more" in the in the summer or fall, according to a senior NATO official. While the plan is still a rough estimate of transition, the picture of how Afghans will begin to take over security by as early as March 2011 in some areas is beginning to emerge as NATO leaders and Afghan President Hamid Karzai meet in Lisbon for meetings on the war."

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/11/18/biden.lkl/index.html

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"But that guidance and assistance -- including the military presence -- won't last forever, Biden said, given deadlines set to begin moving troops out next summer with eyes on a total withdrawal by 2014."

At least the end is starting to be in sight.

Looks like we're going to go out with a bang though:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/11/19/afghanistan.tanks/index.html

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"U.S. sending tanks to Afghanistan for the first time Washington (CNN) -- The United States is beefing up its firepower in Afghanistan by employing heavily armored tanks in Afghanistan for the first time in the nine-year war, a military spokesman said Friday ... He said Gen. David Petraeus, who took over as the top American commander in Afghanistan in June, has taken a much more aggressive fight against the insurgency. The deployment of the tanks dovetails with that approach."

11/19/2010 5:46:33 PM

Speaking of superpowers losing tank wars in afghanistan, this is a fantastic movie.



[Edited on November 19, 2010 at 7:04 PM. Reason : .]

11/19/2010 7:04:24 PM

The Taliban is not monolithic. It is composed of several layers: a hard-core group of former Taliban commanders (including Mullah Omar) who operate out of sanctuaries across the border in Pakistan and who maintain ties with Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency (though Islamabad vehemently denies this); bands linked to al-Qaeda whose ranks have recently swelled with Arab, Chechen and Uzbek fighters operating in the craggy, northeastern ranges of Afghanistan; and, a last group, probably the largest, made up of local tribesmen who have allied themselves loosely with the Taliban as a result of President Hamid Karzai's often corrupt provincial officials pitting one tribe against another. Mullah Salam, a tribal elder from Helmand province, scene of heavy fighting between Taliban and NATO forces, told TIME why he switched to the Taliban: "Karzai's people made promises to me, and I in turn made them to my tribe, but these were never honored." This last segment of the Taliban is also made up of those seeking justice against NATO forces, a roster likely to grow after coalition jets killed over 30 villagers in Kunduz who were filling up fuel from hijacked NATO tankers.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1923303,00.html#ixzz16SEcdpCU

11/26/2010 11:37:56 PM

A surprisingly astute post out of a recent flood of the normal drivel.

There are a number of different levels at play, though it bears mentioning that this is nothing new -- when many of us say "taliban" we are referring to real loyalists to Mullah Omar and associated allies with al Qaeda, not the poor schmucks who picked their side based on who had the most power or who offered the most reward or who bullied them into it. It's the same way that "nazi" doesn't really refer to the average wehrmacht draftee, "communist" doesn't refer to one of millions of Soviet conscripts or anti-nazi partisan that would have sided with anybody who wasn't on Hitler's side. So while you're correct in saying that the Taliban isn't monolithic, some people should understand that most of us aren't using the term "Taliban" with such a broad brush.

The problem for the US and NATO is that anybody we kill is going to swell the ranks of people seeking revenge. The 30 villagers stealing NATO fuel were bad guys. Maybe they weren't the worst guys, but they were still stealing our fuel. Moreover, even an active anti-NATO fighter who has done terrible things and who is subsequently killed by us will have family members and fellow clansmen who want revenge for it.

Karzai was a bad choice. Probably the higher-ups knew it then and put him in anyway because he seemed the most amenable to our immediate interests. This is the classic failure of American regime-change policy. "Well, the Shah is a shit-head, but he is 100% our shit-head so fuck it." We could have struck a middle ground, I think, and promoted someone who would argue with us about some meaningful things but who would actually take care of his own goddamn country.

We didn't, and I admit now I'm a bit flummoxed on how to fix the Karzai problem.

11/27/2010 12:37:50 AM