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Old 03-12-2012, 05:05 PM
 
3,335 posts, read 2,980,199 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BucsLose View Post
A bit different, dont you think. This man TARGETED knowingly innocent civilians. He wasnt trying to kill a bad guy and screwed up, he went after civilians specifically.
Did those "bad" guys get targeted because they did something?

What is the process of determining good from bad.

If some A hole bombed my family. I'd be a bad guy.

If some nation invaded my country, I'd be a bad guy.

So semantics. It still is death without jury.
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Old 03-12-2012, 05:10 PM
 
3,335 posts, read 2,980,199 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WestCobb View Post
I like that you used a modifier signifying degree to acknowledge the complexity of the issue. I agree that the latter is closer to the truth. We weren't invited guests, but the country that we invaded wasn't exactly a country that wasn't already being occupied. The Taliban was a foreign occupying force. Most Afghans viewed us as an unexpected -- but pretty welcome -- surprise. If we leave, and if the Taliban regain their control and prominence, the average Afghan is going to be more dissatisfied than he is now.
The Taliban are Afghani's, they formed out of the Mujahideen in the 70's , after they kicked the crap out of the Russians, and sent them packing.

If the other Afghans didn't like them, they should have taken care of them, themselves.

Unfortunately we funded, armed, and supported the Mujah's, so who created the Taliban?

Who taught and created Osama?

When will the American people wake up and realize, Freedom is the last reason War profiteers invade sovereign countries.
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Old 03-12-2012, 05:22 PM
 
12,997 posts, read 13,616,018 times
Reputation: 11187
Quote:
Originally Posted by modeerf View Post
The Taliban are Afghani's, they formed out of the Mujahideen in the 70's , after they kicked the crap out of the Russians, and sent them packing.

If the other Afghans didn't like them, they should have taken care of them, themselves.

Unfortunately we funded, armed, and supported the Mujah's, so who created the Taliban?

Who taught and created Osama?

When will the American people wake up and realize, Freedom is the last reason War profiteers invade sovereign countries.
Not really.. or more accurately, sort of. The Taliban were a very specialized subset of Pashtun who became beholden to fundamentalist Wahabbism, which is very Arab. The kind of religion that the Taliban practice is pretty foreign to most Afghans. Afghans practice their own blend of Islam, which is heavily influenced by suffism. They are very conservative and traditional, but they are not fundamentalist. It's true that Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban, and most of his innner circle were mujahideen -- which gave them a lot of street cred. However, they were converts to a foreign brand of religion. The Afghans begrudingly accepted them at first, but pretty quickly came to hate them.

Imagine it like this: what if America had a great Civil War. What if some fundamentalist Baptists who distinguished themselves in that war somehow managed to gain control over the entire country. Americans might accept them at first ... but their laws against dancing, thinking, wearing short sleeeves, etc. would get really, really old .. really, really, really quick. To make matters worse -- for the Afghan case, the "Baptist" ideology we're discussing here isn't even homegrown .. it's foreign. There were a number of Arabs (foreigners) who were coming to have undue influence over the Taliban. The average Afghan really resented Al Qaeda's presence in their country and control over their government.
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Old 03-12-2012, 05:24 PM
 
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Thank you for these comments. Back when the war began, every American left, right and center fell over themselves to proclaim how much they supported the troops -- regardless of how they felt about the war. Now that the war is almost over, we have troops who are in severe need of care. We'll see how many are willing to step up and put their money where their mouth was.

As an aside, I want to thank you, a retired member of the British armed forces. Great Britain is truly our greatest friend. We owe a great debt to you and your nation for standing with us (against world opinion somewhat) after 9/11. I'm sure the average Brit rolls their eyes when they think about Tony Blair's comments about the "special relationship" between our two nations -- but as someone who has served with British troops repeatedly, I feel it.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Slartibarfast View Post
My credentials to give some backing to what i'm about to say.

British Army, Infantry, 22 years.... Iraq Desert Shield, Iraq Desert Storm, Occupation of Iraq (2x Tours) Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan (3 x Tours). Now that's over 22 years but it's still a fair amount of time in places where naughty people want to hurt you.

I might well be biased but foot sloggers get the unpleasant end of the stick on too many occasions. There's fewer of us (at least in the British Army) so the rotation times are much quicker. In theory they're better trained for the job of occupying a given area and you can't sensibly patrol a village in a Tank or APC, you need people for that, 'Feet on the Ground'.

There are protocols in place to try and spot if a soldier is being 'affected' by what they see, hear and experience. Going from mind numbing boredom in camp to adrenaline pumped on patrol to abject terror when in contact and then back down again pulls the nerves in every direction. There is a debrief and a cooldown where your senior NCOs (I was one of them) and Officers watch and chat to you to see how your coping and if they spot anything untoward then they'll arrange for a chat with a professional. I only know this is how the British Army deal with it but i've worked with the US, French and Ukraine soldiers and they all had simillar systems from what i could tell.

Everybody is affected, it's how they deal with it and what help they get if they need it that makes the difference. I don't know the exact circumstances of this man but it appears that he was recieving some form of help which obviously wasn't enough. No idea how he became/stayed armed but we're well aware of how it turned out.

What he did was terrible, an act beyond what we hope a sane man would do and the affect on the relatives and family of the victims can not be imagined. Not only because of what happened but because of the way it happened and who did it.

I'm not going to debate on here when or not you should bring your troops home and the affect or non-affect that would have on the Afghans or if they should have ever been there at all. The fact is that they are and something that should have been prevented wasn't. By 2014 your going to be getting a lot of people who may or may not have mental health issues and what you really need to be thinking is how they can be helped. In the UK we're already seeing some of the affects on soldiers when they try and rejoin society with our defence cuts and our system took a long time to get into gear.

It was a terrible thing that happened but rather than get all political about it think about how you can help those that'll be coming home different to how they left.

Slartibarfast.

Last edited by WestCobb; 03-12-2012 at 05:39 PM..
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Old 03-12-2012, 06:11 PM
 
Location: World
4,204 posts, read 4,674,767 times
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File:Charlie Wilson with Afghan man.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

anyone remembers charlie wilson???? lot of pentagon guys were working with these taliban/mujahideen and arming/training them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by modeerf View Post
The Taliban are Afghani's, they formed out of the Mujahideen in the 70's , after they kicked the crap out of the Russians, and sent them packing.

If the other Afghans didn't like them, they should have taken care of them, themselves.

Unfortunately we funded, armed, and supported the Mujah's, so who created the Taliban?

Who taught and created Osama?

When will the American people wake up and realize, Freedom is the last reason War profiteers invade sovereign countries.
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Old 03-12-2012, 06:34 PM
 
2,076 posts, read 3,653,415 times
Reputation: 908
Quote:
Originally Posted by legalsea View Post
The Army should take that mass murdering soldier, strip him of his uniform, march him through that village, turn him over to the village elders, and never look back.
No, that's dishonorable. Never give the enemy one of your own. You deal with him your own way. My preference is to give him a trial and a hanging.

I'm against this war, and have been against it even when Bush waged it back in 2001 when many of you were cheering it on but NEVER give the enemy one of your own.
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Old 03-12-2012, 06:38 PM
 
2,076 posts, read 3,653,415 times
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The Taliban have very little to do with the mujahideen of the 80s, in fact they killed one of its most important leaders, Massoud. The Taliban formed out of displaced Pashtuns in Pakistan and then later spread like a virus from the instability of civil war and Pakistani help.
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Old 03-12-2012, 06:41 PM
 
2,076 posts, read 3,653,415 times
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The afghans are a very hospitable people and one thing that is forbidden is to kill your guest when he is in your village. Don't **** where you eat......

Most of the fighting happens just outside the villages when you're either entering or leaving.

I think this soldier exploited this surprise and lack of awareness of the people.
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Old 03-12-2012, 06:44 PM
 
4,042 posts, read 3,523,180 times
Reputation: 1968
Quote:
Originally Posted by chielgirl View Post
And we're in Afghanistan for what reason?

Good question! not only are a lot of us asking this but our troops mutter about it, and I know because I sometimes hear them. I'm on an army base at least once a week, in a Gun Club with some of them, etc.

Are we guarding poppy fields? Are we really still getting taliban, there?

BRING OUR TROOPS HOME....troops that barely get 12mos. home and even some of that time is spent away weeks, and even for some, a month at a time in field training.

Our soldiers, just in their twenties have been to war three times, easily. They, even the ones not in wheelchairs are being "medically retired" for multiple areas of their bodies being harmed. I'm very, very close to one of them going through the long procedure right now.

No wonder they have varying degrees of PTSD, and other emotional issues.

Here...a tad more about the soldier that did the shooting.

U.S. soldier in Afghan massacre had brain injury: official - Yahoo! News Canada (http://ca.news.yahoo.com/u-withholds-soldiers-name-afghan-shooting-172025297.html - broken link)


what I do know, in closing is why THE SOLDIERS are there......they love their country, were not drafted and are obeying orders...orders that many of us find highly questionable, concerning Afghanistan.
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Old 03-12-2012, 06:46 PM
 
12,997 posts, read 13,616,018 times
Reputation: 11187
Quote:
Originally Posted by PosterExtraordinaire View Post
The Taliban have very little to do with the mujahideen of the 80s, in fact they killed one of its most important leaders, Massoud. The Taliban formed out of displaced Pashtuns in Pakistan and then later spread like a virus from the instability of civil war and Pakistani help.
You live up to your name with this short but accurate post. Much of the Taliban came from the refugee Pakistani refugee camps (where they picked up Deobandi influences... similar to Wahhabism, but different) but you are a little wrong too. Mullah Omar and the Taliban inner circle were mujahideen. There were mujahideen from other factions too. Massoud was an important mujahideen from the Tajik faction of Afghanistan -- a sizable minority in Afghanistan, but one that is outnumbered by the majority Pashtun.
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