Reply With Quoteafter losing 2 diggers & a dog the other day I still think pull out & nuke the sand pit!!!!!!!!!!!!
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On Afghanistan
I can’t claim to be an expert, but having spent a few months in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the late 80s and knowing the history of the land which has been bloody to say the lest as well as being a cold war kicking ball. Even before the cold war Afghanistan was a political battle ground in the “great Game” between Russia and Britton and played a not so small role in the lead up to the Crimean war (charge of the light brigade).
English influence in this area has been one of bribes, drugs, slavery, and slaughter. And being painted by the same brush (English speakers) our Australian Boys are vied in the same light as the poms in the 1800s.
As a solution to the Afghanistan problem, I don’t know but what I do know is that it will take a few more than just a decade to unravel a 1200 year history ( since Afghanistan was a Buddhist nation) or even the 200 year English and Russian actions.
We make the mistake of assuming that we can apply our morals, economics and political systems on who ever we wish and that they will be welcomed. Unfortunately this is not the case. I would say that this sort of action plays more to our feel good worm fuzzy stuff and to the ballet box than it plays to the actual realities on the ground. The British empire is the shining example of this, the number of countries that were formed in the great Game and then forced to become democracies after WW2 ( the yanks have a lot to answer for there) and the number of these countries that are no longer democracies. In fact the world has lossed 30% of its democratic states since 1960s, worse about ½ of then have been destroyed by another democratic state. Iran and the USA is the most glaring example of that. So that ends our moral stance since we are English speakers our morals just do not exist in the eyes of many. This opens the way for the religious extremists.
Political stability, what is that? Well it is the will of the people or of a people who don’t hand out cash for a vote. Or are under threat of death if they even attempt to vote? And lastly compliancy over who is even elected because it’s not going to change any thing.
Compare that to Australia. Would any one on this forum blow up a police station or a post office solely because the person you voted for didn’t win? Is there anyone on this forum who would expect cash for voting a certain way or not to vote at all? Or expect a fat contract for there support, financial advantage for your family/ tribe? I think not. Then what would it take for a system that relied of these methods to change to what we have, we may think its wrong but they don’t to them its normal and how we do things here is strange and immoral.
I have been trying to think of a way to explain all this, the best analogy I can come up with is “underbelly”. With corrupt cops running the show the vast majority had a peaceful life as long as you didn’t get involved. Remove a system that works and you get a lot of problems, regardless of our morals over the original methods.
Back to the solution, a bunch of collation forces running around the country is not going to work. What is needed is for the Afghani people to stand up for them self’s as individuals and as a country. I doubt they will do this!
Master
after losing 2 diggers & a dog the other day I still think pull out & nuke the sand pit!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not so long ago we could watch the news in these trouble spots and tut tut and say isn't it horrible. We could even get worked up about the (seemingly) senseless loss of life and object over dinner and a glass of wine to sending our troops to "some distant war that has nothing to do with us". But we know better now, we know now that these wars won't stay safe locked up in our TV sets, they have come out and arrived in our offices where we work and on the trains we catch to go about our peaceful business. We know there is no such thing as a "distant" war and what we are doing in the middle east isn't about about fixing a problem and then getting out. There's no getting out, there's only running away and surrendering, or seeing it through. Militant Islamic fundamantalism cannot be allowed to exist.
My inexpert guess is that this war will go on for generations and if you want to live like the way we do then you're going to have get behind our troops, really get behind them. The profession of arms and the wearing of the uniform is about the most noble and decent thing someone can do for their family, mates and country. I hope people ignore any of the recruitment stuff that doesn't say you're in it to kill directly or indirectly.
We're not doing enough or pulling our weight in the Islam versus West trouble spots of the world.
Maybe the USA, USSR and the British Empire would feel better if we add Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great to the list of all conquering empires who could tame seemingly greater regions but fail against Afghanistan. Problem is to lose now...where does that leave us and to a greater extent the people of the whole region?
Master
Isn't Militant Islamic fundamantalism a direct result of Western (or foreign) policies imposing themselves on peoples who have differing values, beliefs and ways of life?
TopicToaster
I think that corruption is recognisable by all cultures and while some have to work within currupt systems I don't believe they like it anymore than we do. The difference is that if there is no rule of law then you have no recourse to address corruption or any other problem that we can take to the authorities.
RoverLord
Originally Posted by akula
I don't think that is strictly correct - it may have helped the spread of it, but even a cursory look at the first few hundred years of Islam suggests it is not a new phenomenon.
From my reading the present wave of Islamic fundamentalism originates with the Saudi Arabian Wahadi sect which was started as a reaction to Turkish occupation of the home of Islam, and only much later became directed against Western influences. And it is also worth noting that the direct casualties of fundamentalist Islamic attacks have always been fellow Muslims, often, but not always from different sects of Islam.
It is worth remembering that the reason that the Western action in Afghanistan is a direct result of the fact that the WTC attack was planned and directed from there and the then government of Afghanistan praised and supported this action and refused to hand over the perpetrators. The US, not entirely unreasonably, regarded this as the equivalent of a declaration of war.
This is perhaps irrelevant to the question as to whether the occupation of Afghanistan was a good idea - in my view all of history said it would be a disastrous idea! But modern politicians seem not to learn any history.
John
John
JDNSW
1986 110 County 3.9 diesel
1970 2a 109 2.25 petrol
Moderator
Sad, but true.
Master
MOre troops def, but for the OMLT. They need the training and good quality training. This would be the only way for a withdrawal.........
gecko
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AHHH spoken like a true westerner. we don’t like corruption because we live in a society where there is very little corruption, nor is it our first reaction to getting some thing done. to them corruption is not corruption its just the way things are nor can they understand how anything would get done if there wasn’t payments made. its just so illogical to them. in simple terms there are only two things they understand, force and gold. As a result there social family and political life’s revolve around getting the advantage over each other.
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