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You wrote a lot and I am not going to be able to reply to it all. A few points will have to suffice:
1. The opinion of one of your friend and some of her acquaintances is not a statistically representative sample. Of course, neither is other anecdotal evidence that is provided by the media, soldiers, NGO workers, and so on. In reality, we really don't know what percentage of the population likes the Taliban, what percentage of the population dislikes the Taliban but prefers it to the current state of near-anarchy, what percentage of the population absolutely hates the Taliban, etc. I would say that few truly like the Taliban; many many prefer stability that could be provided by the Taliban but in such situations their desire is for stability, not the Taliban itself. If that stability could be provided without resorting to the oppression wrought by the Taliban I am willing to bet (though admittedly cannot prove, thus this is conjecture) that they would take it.
2. The situation had by women before the rise of the Taliban is absolutely 100% irrelevant to this discussion; I have no desire to see the women returned to the situation they suffered either before the Taliban or during the Taliban. The Taliban is one of the most oppressive groups in the world when it comes to women's rights, period. I want to see a situation develop where women have freedom of movement, where women are afforded all the rights afforded to men, where women and men are treated equally as citizens. That will not ever come close to happening under that Taliban. That, in itself, is enough to justify our attempts to ensure that the Taliban does not regain control of Afghanistan now that we are already occupying the country. Add to this the many other human rights abuses that the Taliban regularly inflict upon populations under their control in the name of religious duty and stability and you have a situation in which their return to power would be a moral failure to the people of Afghanistan. This doesn't mean we should be trying to turn Afghanistan back to the situation it found itself in during the tribal warfare period prior to the rise of the Taliban, either. That too would be immoral.
Rather I believe, as I said previously, that we have a moral obligation to leave Afghanistan better than we found it.
I believe we need to try to stay until there is a stable government which does not regularly commit human rights abuses against its people, which protects the rights of women and treats them as co-equal citizens with men and which is capable of preserving a situation in which economic development is possible and actually occurs.
how can you not see that forcefully occupying a country is a human rights abuse to the CIVILIANS of that country? what gives you the moral high ground to make that call?
we need to take care of our own country and our own citizens, and let these people sort out their problems in their own countries. when people get disgusted with their leaders, they rise up and make their own changes.
just as we would not tolerate other countries forcefully coming into the united states to make our decisions for us, our military needs to just protect us. we will never be able to FORCE stability to a country. if we keep weakening our own country by sacrificing our best men and money, we will be in no position to protect ourselves down the road. the world will always have conflicts, but we don't need to be in the middle of all of them.
What im trying to say is Afghanistan is a really hard country for the foreign forces to succeed, for example Iraq, the Iraqis made the Americans job a lot easier because they were against Al-Qaeda. I know that Al-Qaeda and other insurgent groups were not weak but the U.S. overpowered them because of the Iraqis. If it wasn't for these Iraqi people, the U.S. would've struggled against these groups until today. Also the 90,000 sunni fighters who were against the U.S., they accepted the money they were offered by the U.S. to fight by their side and that is what helped the U.S. defeat Al-Qaeda.
In that case, how do you feel about the Taliban's close ties with al-Qeada and Osama Bin Laden? He did after all have Ahmad Shah Massoud assassinated, effectively eliminating the remaining resistance to the Taliban regime..
In that case, how do you feel about the Taliban's close ties with al-Qeada and Osama Bin Laden? He did after all have Ahmad Shah Massoud assassinated, effectively eliminating the remaining resistance to the Taliban regime..
Mullah Omar cut all of his ties with Al-Qaeda since 9/11, because Bin-Laden signed an agreement that he wouldn't harm any western country but he lied, he planned these attacks without the Taliban knowing about, thats why these attacks were planned in Europe and America because he would've got expelled from Afghanistan if Mullah Omar knew. Mullah Omar wanted to handover Bin-Laden even before 9/11 because he started to get suspicious and he felt that Bin-Laden was going to only bring misery but no one agreed to take Bin-Laden including the U.S.
Mullah Omar is against Al-Qaeda, he is not with Al-Qaeda, he just wants his country back, he dosen't want to harm the west, he just wants to live in peace like anyone else.
Al-Qaeda nowadays is all around the world, you cant really eliminate them because they dont really stay in 1 place like how they used to. They're spread all over Europe, U.S., middle east, Africa, etc. they have already been eliminated in Afghanistan.
The USSR was notorious for treating Afghans very poorly and they responded with intensified insurgency, hopefully the same will not continue to happen with us.
Not to mention the main mantra from the Soviets where anti religious. That wasn't going to go over well for them..
Mullah Omar cut all of his ties with Al-Qaeda since 9/11, because Bin-Laden signed an agreement that he wouldn't harm any western country but he lied, he planned these attacks without the Taliban knowing about, thats why these attacks were planned in Europe and America because he would've got expelled from Afghanistan if Mullah Omar knew. Mullah Omar wanted to handover Bin-Laden even before 9/11 because he started to get suspicious and he felt that Bin-Laden was going to only bring misery but no one agreed to take Bin-Laden including the U.S.
If that were the case, the Taliban would have handed over Bin Laden to the US immediately following 9/11. They did no such thing. What about al-Qaeda's other attacks backed by Bin Laden? The embassy bombings in Africa, the attempted assassination of Clinton in the Philippines, or the USS Cole in Yemen? Those all occurred before 9/11, with al-Qaeda claiming responsibility. The Taliban and al-Qaeda were on collaborative terms during the late 90s, with the Taliban only disowning them after 9/11 and the impending US invasion.
Even the US state department was on friendly terms with the Taliban, and representatives of the Taliban and al-Qaeda both attended conferences with members of the Enron and Unocal corporations here in the US until 1998.
Imagine raising a child to adulthood, only to have his/her brains blown out by a person who wouldn't ordinarily be doing such a thing ? blood and sand, or home and hearth ? Too many people have bought into the paranoia.
I think it really doen't matter what the left thinks now that Obama is beyond campigning and has responsibilty for the outcome.I personally would not have liked to make the decison but sitting on the sidelines critizing with no responsibilty is something he no long has the luxury of doing.The election spin is over.
I think it really doen't matter what the left thinks now that Obama is beyond campigning and has responsibilty for the outcome.I personally would not have liked to make the decison but sitting on the sidelines critizing with no responsibilty is something he no long has the luxury of doing.The election spin is over.
It's pretty clear that hussein obama made a firm decision to try and hide behind a Bush for everything he does or does not do. This is his war now and even if he holds dear the mantra of "take no persoanl responsibility", the people will no longer play his game. hussein obama is a one term president.
If that were the case, the Taliban would have handed over Bin Laden to the US immediately following 9/11. They did no such thing. What about al-Qaeda's other attacks backed by Bin Laden? The embassy bombings in Africa, the attempted assassination of Clinton in the Philippines, or the USS Cole in Yemen? Those all occurred before 9/11, with al-Qaeda claiming responsibility. The Taliban and al-Qaeda were on collaborative terms during the late 90s, with the Taliban only disowning them after 9/11 and the impending US invasion.
Even the US state department was on friendly terms with the Taliban, and representatives of the Taliban and al-Qaeda both attended conferences with members of the Enron and Unocal corporations here in the US until 1998.
The Taliban wanted to hand over Bin-laden since 1998-99 but the world ignored them, no one listened to them. After 9/11 Mullah Omar agreed to handover Bin-Laden to a third world country but the U.S. refused. Basically the U.S. wanted to invade Afghanistan from the beginning and the 9/11 attack made the U.S. have an excusable reason to invade Afghanistan.
Bin-Laden and AQ pretty much took advantage of their stay in Afghanistan by screwing up the Taliban and brininging misery to the Afghans.
What do I have to offer, nothing more than a suggestion to remove ourselves from both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Afghanistan had a chance back in 02,03,04 but by the beginning of 05, the face of the war there had changed. Many of the locals who once supported our removal of the Taliban began to see us as a cure worse than the disease. The Taliban began to become more well funded and supported from both the people in Afghanistan and from groups in the NW regions of Pakistan. The war is spreading, escalating and with our own military stating that there are at most 100 Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, futile.
I just hold nearly the same opinion as Andrew Bacevich on this subject.
I don't know what the real numbers are as far as support among locals in country and actual support for our endeavors here in the US, but I suspect that while people think we did or are doing the right thing, there is also war fatigue. Iraq on the other hand is a place where something must happen this year, otherwise I suspect Obama will find himself standing alone in the wilderness.
After the deaths of these CIA people, I'm not too awful sure what they're going to do now because they've pretty much vowed revenge. Could lead to escalation, which can't be good for either us or the afghans. Maybe they should consider a withdrawl of most troops, and just install advisors and more agents and do more hard intelligence, and then act on strong intelligence, instead of swatting flies?
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