Let's talk war!!

Byrnzie

soulsinging wrote:

war? what is it good for? absolutely nothing!

that's what.

Although in all fairness it's generated a few decent movies - and video games. :ugeek:

Commy

its an imperial war like any other. its not the US vs the taliban, its the US vs Afghanistan. the fighters are nationalists, mostly, simply labeled taliban or al-quaeda because those groups have been properly demonized. its ok to kill taliban fighters right? so they label them all taliban fighters, whatever theirmotives.


the US has no right to be in afghanistan.

like in september when two fuel tanker trucks were stopped by desperate afghani civilians. crowds of people had gathered to syphon fuel from the stopped trucks. instead of letting them, coalition forces dropped bombs on the scene....igniting the fuel and killing over 100 innocent people, many burned alive.


a just war. sure.

Cosmo

OffHeGoes29 wrote:

Say all you want, but you know we aren't leaving anytime soon.

...
You're former military, right? You know how it goes.
It is easier to go in and kick some ass.. but, it is extremely difficult to get out. When you occupy a country, it make it 100 times harder.
We have a command and control that we will not relinquish because there is no way in hell that we will place our troops under the command and control of Iraqi leadership. We supply all of the air support since we blew up all of their planes. We provide the inteligence, logistical support, communications, armored divisions, medevac and combat surgical hospitals. We can't withdraw our support troops and leave our combat troops without the support they need... and we can't withdraw our combat troops and leave their support personel unprotected. If we take a Phased approach, all they have to do is wait until we evacuate the majority of our forces and equipment... and hit the last guys to leave. What are we gonna do? Go back in? Like we did in Viet Nam?
The Iraqis have squat. Their security forces travel in the open beds of Toyota pickup trucks. When we leave, we're taking all of our hardware with us. That leaves Iraq open to hostile attacks. And with a growing Shi'ite population (from Iran)... it only makes sense that the Shi'ites of Iraq join forces with the Shi'ites of Iran to form a Shi'ite Bloc to protect themselves from the neighboring Sunni dominated Arab states. It makes sense to them because Iraq has the oil resources and Iran has the military forces already in place. They get money for oil to build their bloc. It makes sense... if you are a minority (Shi'ia) in a neighborhood dominated by Sunnis.
The Bush Administration created this scenario by not taking into consideration that anything other than their predicted outcome would come to pass. HAD the Iraqis greeted us as liberators... yeah, things would be different today and the exit would have been easy. But, they didn't greet us as liberators and saw us for what we actually were... occupiers.
You may think things have gotten better there, but there are still so many scenarios that are very real possibilities. Muqtada al Sadr is STILL out there and now has a seat in the Iraqi government. Al Sadr is of the same mindset of the Fundamentalist Islamic Revolution of Ayatollah Khomeini. An alliance with like minded fundamentalists in a Shi'ite bloc with oil revenues, a standing military and nuclear capabilities is his fucking wet dream.
So... yeah, you're right... we will probably stay there for a long time. Not because we want to, but because we HAVE to. And the whole time we are there, they will be sending our troops home in flag draped coffins two or three at a time. We will just be sitting on a simmering powder keg that will eventually blow up.
We have to decide what it is worth. All they have to do is wait us out.

catefrances

Byrnzie wrote:

soulsinging wrote:

war? what is it good for? absolutely nothing!

that's what.

Although in all fairness it's generated a few decent movies. :ugeek:

OH YEAH STARWARS!!!!!! :ugeek:

tybird

Occupation is a bitch....call it war all you want, but it's back to an occupation....although clusterfuck is also good name for it. No one has ever really been successful at maintaining an occupation for more than about a generation...without tossing in a thorough attempt at genocide (think Native Americans) or re-locating the previous population thousands of miles away (One of Stalin's favorite tricks). In the end, the Afghani peoples will get what they...it may take x number of their lives and y of the NATO forces...but it will happen....we should either help them get what they want...or find the best way out. Like Cosmo noted earlier, withdrawing from an occupation ain't easy...and can cost as many lives as the initial invasion.

OffHeGoes29

Cosmo wrote:

OffHeGoes29 wrote:

Say all you want, but you know we aren't leaving anytime soon.

...
You're former military, right? You know how it goes.
It is easier to go in and kick some ass.. but, it is extremely difficult to get out. When you occupy a country, it make it 100 times harder.
We have a command and control that we will not relinquish because there is no way in hell that we will place our troops under the command and control of Iraqi leadership. We supply all of the air support since we blew up all of their planes. We provide the inteligence, logistical support, communications, armored divisions, medevac and combat surgical hospitals. We can't withdraw our support troops and leave our combat troops without the support they need... and we can't withdraw our combat troops and leave their support personel unprotected. If we take a Phased approach, all they have to do is wait until we evacuate the majority of our forces and equipment... and hit the last guys to leave. What are we gonna do? Go back in? Like we did in Viet Nam?
The Iraqis have squat. Their security forces travel in the open beds of Toyota pickup trucks. When we leave, we're taking all of our hardware with us. That leaves Iraq open to hostile attacks. And with a growing Shi'ite population (from Iran)... it only makes sense that the Shi'ites of Iraq join forces with the Shi'ites of Iran to form a Shi'ite Bloc to protect themselves from the neighboring Sunni dominated Arab states. It makes sense to them because Iraq has the oil resources and Iran has the military forces already in place. They get money for oil to build their bloc. It makes sense... if you are a minority (Shi'ia) in a neighborhood dominated by Sunnis.
The Bush Administration created this scenario by not taking into consideration that anything other than their predicted outcome would come to pass. HAD the Iraqis greeted us as liberators... yeah, things would be different today and the exit would have been easy. But, they didn't greet us as liberators and saw us for what we actually were... occupiers.
You may think things have gotten better there, but there are still so many scenarios that are very real possibilities. Muqtada al Sadr is STILL out there and now has a seat in the Iraqi government. Al Sadr is of the same mindset of the Fundamentalist Islamic Revolution of Ayatollah Khomeini. An alliance with like minded fundamentalists in a Shi'ite bloc with oil revenues, a standing military and nuclear capabilities is his fucking wet dream.
So... yeah, you're right... we will probably stay there for a long time. Not because we want to, but because we HAVE to. And the whole time we are there, they will be sending our troops home in flag draped coffins two or three at a time. We will just be sitting on a simmering powder keg that will eventually blow up.
We have to decide what it is worth. All they have to do is wait us out.

Absolutly, but the only thing I don't see eye to eye with you is their future. It will be a long process, but I can't think of any post conflict thats was cut and dry and pulled out with out any problems. We've stayed in every country we "occupied" for some time after the fact, the only thing that will fix the situation is time and MONEY. I hate to say it, but its what brings stability in the long run.

There is a very big difference between us and prior empires that have control A-stan, we make the effort to work with the country and get it back on its feet and become independant. We lost Vietnam not on anything tactical, but the inability to work and support the South Vietnamese people and the lack of support at home.

Most of you wont believe this because all you read and see (and want to believe) is that its completely a hopeless situation, and there isn't any hope.

Its eight years later, I'm sure as hell tired of talking about it, thinking about it, and sending friends and family over there. I want a peaceful future, I want to for this to be over with yesterday, but I know that its in the world's best interest that we see this through. If not, it will be worse then what we have now, its not speculation. There is no way to go back in time now and change anything, we have a responsibility to see it through. If you think we fucked them over by occupying the region, we will really fuck them over twice by leaving now.

tybird

OffHeGoes29 wrote:

Absolutly, but the only thing I don't see eye to eye with you is their future. It will be a long process, but I can't think of any post conflict thats was cut and dry and pulled out with out any problems. We've stayed in every country we "occupied" for some time after the fact, the only thing that will fix the situation is time and MONEY. I hate to say it, but its what brings stability in the long run.

There is a very big difference between us and prior empires that have control A-stan, we make the effort to work with the country and get it back on its feet and become independant. We lost Vietnam not on anything tactical, but the inability to work and support the South Vietnamese people and the lack of support at home.

Most of you wont believe this because all you read and see (and want to believe) is that its completely a hopeless situation, and there isn't any hope.

Its eight years later, I'm sure as hell tired of talking about it, thinking about it, and sending friends and family over there. I want a peaceful future, I want to for this to be over with yesterday, but I know that its in the world's best interest that we see this through. If not, it will be worse then what we have now, its not speculation. There is no way to go back in time now and change anything, we have a responsibility to see it through. If you think we fucked them over by occupying the region, we will really fuck them over twice by leaving now.

Somehow we ran the post-war occupations of Japan and Germany without the continued bleeding that we see from Iraq and Afghanistan....it is the religious differences??? Is it our leadership or past lack thereof??? Are we attempting to use a 20th century model that no longer works? Or is it simply that Japan and Germany were/are actually modern Nation-States....something that Iraq and Afghanistan are not?

polaris_x

once people realize what war is these days - the sooner we can address it's fallout ...

it's sole purpose in afghanistan and iraq is to make people MONEY - that is all it's ever been about ... don't swallow the propaganda about freedom and democracy - the leaders of western nations do not care about those things as you can see in places like Myanmar and Sudan ... it's only ever about making sure people make a shit load of money at the expense of the defenceless and poor ... it's all about the billion dollar no bid contracts taxpayers fork out ...

Cosmo

OffHeGoes29 wrote:

Absolutly, but the only thing I don't see eye to eye with you is their future. It will be a long process, but I can't think of any post conflict thats was cut and dry and pulled out with out any problems. We've stayed in every country we "occupied" for some time after the fact, the only thing that will fix the situation is time and MONEY. I hate to say it, but its what brings stability in the long run.

There is a very big difference between us and prior empires that have control A-stan, we make the effort to work with the country and get it back on its feet and become independant. We lost Vietnam not on anything tactical, but the inability to work and support the South Vietnamese people and the lack of support at home.

Most of you wont believe this because all you read and see (and want to believe) is that its completely a hopeless situation, and there isn't any hope.

Its eight years later, I'm sure as hell tired of talking about it, thinking about it, and sending friends and family over there. I want a peaceful future, I want to for this to be over with yesterday, but I know that its in the world's best interest that we see this through. If not, it will be worse then what we have now, its not speculation. There is no way to go back in time now and change anything, we have a responsibility to see it through. If you think we fucked them over by occupying the region, we will really fuck them over twice by leaving now.

...
No matter how long we stay... even if we can change their government... change their leadership... we can never change their culture or religion. The same way an Islamic military force occupying the United States could never be able to change our culture or religion (i.e. Religious Freedom). There is a reason why it remains a capital offense in Afghanistan to convert out of Islam. Because that's what they want.
If we think democracy is the way... who do you thing they will vote for? If they hate us... as former President Bush stated... because of our way of life, wouldn't they vote for someone who is like minded? We see that when Democracy in Lebannon when they bring Hezbollah into their government... Hamas into Gaza. Give the people who hate Israel the power to elect someone... it is most likely that they will elect someone who hates Israel.
Our fundamrnetal mistake is the belief that if they were more like us... they would no longer hate us. We fail to even try to understand their point of view. We use historical events from our perspective and try to apply it to their lives. Historical events may remain the same, the viewpoint differs depending upon where you stand. Viet Nam, for example... their text books describe our involvement from a completely different perspective thna ours. To them, we came from across the seas with the intent on keeping them divided, when they wanted unification.
From an Afghani perspective... we are just another in a long procession of the world's superpower of the times that has come from the other side of the planet to try to conquer them. Changing that perspective may be possible, but it will take several generations to fulfill... maybe a couple of hundred years. Their history is that other cultures have come in to claim them and failed.
...
Back to Viet Nam... how is that place today? The violence they saw after we left was now within them, it was mopping up the chaos and mess we left behind in Laos and Cambodia. Their united Viet Nam forces straightened out Cambodia.
I'm not saying Viet Nam is the same as Afghanistan... there are completely different rules that apply because the people of Viet Nam and Afghanistan are completely different. The only similarity is our failure to recognize that their culture, religion, language and customs are completely different than our.

tybird

Cosmo wrote:

Their history is that other cultures have come in to claim them and failed.
The only similarity is our failure to recognize that their culture, religion, language and customs are completely different than our.

If a people do not want to change their culture.....no military campaign or any ad campaign will make they change. We should really be asking the question if the Afghani people really want to be part of the modern global system...or do they prefer living their lives the way that their people have lived for thousands of years?

soulsinging

tybird wrote:

Cosmo wrote:

Their history is that other cultures have come in to claim them and failed.
The only similarity is our failure to recognize that their culture, religion, language and customs are completely different than our.

If a people do not want to change their culture.....no military campaign or any ad campaign will make they change. We should really be asking the question if the Afghani people really want to be part of the modern global system...or do they prefer living their lives the way that their people have lived for thousands of years?

They don't have a choice. There is profit to be made, and if they won't join the global capitalist economy, we will make them. I know tradition and values and history are good and all, but nothing should ever get in the way of good business.

tybird

soulsinging wrote:

tybird wrote:

Cosmo wrote:

Their history is that other cultures have come in to claim them and failed.
The only similarity is our failure to recognize that their culture, religion, language and customs are completely different than our.

If a people do not want to change their culture.....no military campaign or any ad campaign will make they change. We should really be asking the question if the Afghani people really want to be part of the modern global system...or do they prefer living their lives the way that their people have lived for thousands of years?

They don't have a choice. There is profit to be made, and if they won't join the global capitalist economy, we will make them. I know tradition and values and history are good and all, but nothing should ever get in the way of good business.

Therein lies the problem, culture is not always equal to cash....but I suspect that you have figured that one out, eh.

Funny....you mentioned the capitalist system....if I remember correctly they weren't too interested in joining up with the worker's paradise system either.

soulsinging

tybird wrote:

soulsinging wrote:

They don't have a choice. There is profit to be made, and if they won't join the global capitalist economy, we will make them. I know tradition and values and history are good and all, but nothing should ever get in the way of good business.

Therein lies the problem, culture is not always equal to cash....but I suspect that you have figured that one out, eh.

Funny....you mentioned the capitalist system....if I remember correctly they weren't too interested in joining up with the worker's paradise system either.

Probably because they realize that in either one, you still have to go to a shitty job to work for peanuts

WE may know that culture is not equal to cash... but try telling that to the westerners that spent decades trying to destroy and exploit latin america and africa and asia in the name of progress.

tybird

soulsinging wrote:

Probably because they realize that in either one, you still have to go to a shitty job to work for peanuts

WE may know that culture is not equal to cash... but try telling that to the westerners that spent decades trying to destroy and exploit latin america and africa and asia in the name of progress.

Why work a shitty factory job for either the fat capitalist or party leader when you can achieve your dreams harvesting opium. :twisted:

Maybe we need to remove "Money talks, bullshit walks" from the language???

Cosmo

soulsinging wrote:

They don't have a choice. There is profit to be made, and if they won't join the global capitalist economy, we will make them. I know tradition and values and history are good and all, but nothing should ever get in the way of good business.

...
This is how and where we fail. We make the assumption that they want to participate in the current global economy. What do we really know what they really want?
For all we know, what they want is to carve out a peaceful life, tending herds of goats on the same land as their ancestors, 2000 years ago... living by the same religious constraints of 2000 years ago. unlike us, they may value their religious values greater than their want for consumerism.
As Tybird has stated, the change has to come from THEM... internally. Any external influence may be seen as the destruction of their culture.
...
I admit, i don't know all that much about the Afghani people and their mindset. I do not understand the effects of their culture and religion enough to make the assumption that their values are the same as ours. I can only hope that our former President Bush possesses a greater insight to what the Afghanis really want than I do. But, from what has come to pass... I am falling more and more towards the side that he doesn't. Our leaders are out of touch of OUR wants and needs... how do they know what the wants and needs of a people on the other side of the planet... living is a culture that may as well be from another planet?

tybird

Cosmo wrote:

I admit, i don't know all that much about the Afghani people and their mindset. I do not understand the effects of their culture and religion enough to make the assumption that their values are the same as ours.

From what history has shown, one of the values that culture shares with theirs is.....they don't like outsiders telling them what to do anymore than we do. :twisted:

OffHeGoes29

Cosmo wrote:

OffHeGoes29 wrote:

Absolutly, but the only thing I don't see eye to eye with you is their future. It will be a long process, but I can't think of any post conflict thats was cut and dry and pulled out with out any problems. We've stayed in every country we "occupied" for some time after the fact, the only thing that will fix the situation is time and MONEY. I hate to say it, but its what brings stability in the long run.

There is a very big difference between us and prior empires that have control A-stan, we make the effort to work with the country and get it back on its feet and become independant. We lost Vietnam not on anything tactical, but the inability to work and support the South Vietnamese people and the lack of support at home.

Most of you wont believe this because all you read and see (and want to believe) is that its completely a hopeless situation, and there isn't any hope.

Its eight years later, I'm sure as hell tired of talking about it, thinking about it, and sending friends and family over there. I want a peaceful future, I want to for this to be over with yesterday, but I know that its in the world's best interest that we see this through. If not, it will be worse then what we have now, its not speculation. There is no way to go back in time now and change anything, we have a responsibility to see it through. If you think we fucked them over by occupying the region, we will really fuck them over twice by leaving now.

...
No matter how long we stay... even if we can change their government... change their leadership... we can never change their culture or religion. The same way an Islamic military force occupying the United States could never be able to change our culture or religion (i.e. Religious Freedom). There is a reason why it remains a capital offense in Afghanistan to convert out of Islam. Because that's what they want.
If we think democracy is the way... who do you thing they will vote for? If they hate us... as former President Bush stated... because of our way of life, wouldn't they vote for someone who is like minded? We see that when Democracy in Lebannon when they bring Hezbollah into their government... Hamas into Gaza. Give the people who hate Israel the power to elect someone... it is most likely that they will elect someone who hates Israel.
Our fundamrnetal mistake is the belief that if they were more like us... they would no longer hate us. We fail to even try to understand their point of view. We use historical events from our perspective and try to apply it to their lives. Historical events may remain the same, the viewpoint differs depending upon where you stand. Viet Nam, for example... their text books describe our involvement from a completely different perspective thna ours. To them, we came from across the seas with the intent on keeping them divided, when they wanted unification.
From an Afghani perspective... we are just another in a long procession of the world's superpower of the times that has come from the other side of the planet to try to conquer them. Changing that perspective may be possible, but it will take several generations to fulfill... maybe a couple of hundred years. Their history is that other cultures have come in to claim them and failed.
...
Back to Viet Nam... how is that place today? The violence they saw after we left was now within them, it was mopping up the chaos and mess we left behind in Laos and Cambodia. Their united Viet Nam forces straightened out Cambodia.
I'm not saying Viet Nam is the same as Afghanistan... there are completely different rules that apply because the people of Viet Nam and Afghanistan are completely different. The only similarity is our failure to recognize that their culture, religion, language and customs are completely different than our.

I would hope that the people who are over there making a difference and our policy makers knows that we can't and shouldn't force the afghan people into become like the west. Their culture and religion should be respected. We aren't at war with the afghan people, we are fighting a small minority of radical people who want to control the region, and if left unchecked, poses a threat to the world.

Iraq is advanced compared to Afghanistan, and so it should be expected that it will take a long time to get them independent enough to govern themselves, something that is a new concept in a country that has been lawless for ever. I was reading an article today in the paper about how the biggest problem with security there is the corruption and desertion with in the Afghan army and police force. Most of their personnel don't get paid nearly enough, and in some cases, the taliban pays more. It took years after Germany was occupied for it to become relatively stable, die hard members of the Reich were still killing elected officials and soldiers for a couple years after the war, and that was an advance and developed nation. Afghanistan is on the other end of the spectrum in terms of development, I know its apples and oranges, but it took Germany a couple years to become stable, its going to take a lot more then that before Afghanistan to become self sustaining.

I don't think we are disagreeing on anything, the facts are there. However I just can't see how pulling out tomorrow will solve the issue. All it will do is send the people of Afghanistan back to a worse fate then what they already have. Untold amount of civilians have died since we occupied the country 8 years ago, how many do you think would die for supporting the west if we leave and the Taliban move in? South Vietnam saw a large untold amount of people who where killed, jailed, or tortured after we pulled out in the 70's. Wasn't there a large exodus of people from South Vietnam in the wake of us leaving? The Afghan people won't have that luxury to leave if we do.

The World and expecially the Afghan people don't have a choice here, seeing this through is our only reponsible option, the past is said and done.

Cosmo

tybird wrote:

Cosmo wrote:

I admit, i don't know all that much about the Afghani people and their mindset. I do not understand the effects of their culture and religion enough to make the assumption that their values are the same as ours.

From what history has shown, one of the values that culture shares with theirs is.....they don't like outsiders telling them what to do anymore than we do. :twisted:

...
The Golden Rule, right? Do unto others... and all that jazz.
I try to place myself in their shoes...
If... in a parallel Universe... a Muslim military power decided that The United States needed to be saved from our decadent lifestyle and culture... and become an Islamic Theocracy to save our souls. Invaded and occupied our country... not knowing our culture, language, customs and religion. Installed a Theocratic government of their design. I would be out there trying to eject them from my homeland. I'd be blowing up their convoys and sending their soldiers back home in coffins. I would also go after treasonous Americans who collaborated with these foriegners. And i would be willing to die for this. They would call me a 'Terrorist' because I wasn't donning a uniform... but, Americans would call me a 'Patriot'.
We should be the ones to decide whether or not to convert to Islam, not them.

OnTheEdge

Cosmo wrote:

tybird wrote:

Cosmo wrote:

I admit, i don't know all that much about the Afghani people and their mindset. I do not understand the effects of their culture and religion enough to make the assumption that their values are the same as ours.

From what history has shown, one of the values that culture shares with theirs is.....they don't like outsiders telling them what to do anymore than we do. :twisted:

...
The Golden Rule, right? Do unto others... and all that jazz.
I try to place myself in their shoes...
If... in a parallel Universe... a Muslim military power decided that The United States needed to be saved from our decadent lifestyle and culture... and become an Islamic Theocracy to save our souls. Invaded and occupied our country... not knowing our culture, language, customs and religion. Installed a Theocratic government of their design. I would be out there trying to eject them from my homeland. I'd be blowing up their convoys and sending their soldiers back home in coffins. I would also go after treasonous Americans who collaborated with these foriegners. And i would be willing to die for this. They would call me a 'Terrorist' because I wasn't donning a uniform... but, Americans would call me a 'Patriot'.
We should be the ones to decide whether or not to convert to Islam, not them.

I don't get this! If they came here and tried to change us? They did come here.....they flew a couple jumbo jets into our twin towers , remember? Killing 3,000 americans. Isn't THAT why we are THERE? I'm sorry Cosmo but you make it sound like we are there because we do not like there way of life. Are people forgetting that they attacked us?

OnTheEdge

And yes, if you flew a couple jets into THERE buildings and you were an american......I would call you a terrorists.