Major, you know where you can stick your "dismissal."

I have no problem sacrificing, paying, and supporting. Just tell me what I am doing it for. What is the mission? What IS THE MISSION? To turn a tribal, fundamentalist society into a modern functioning nation-state? It's taken decades to do that in Mississippi, and you think we can do it in Central Asia? Why should we spend the time, money, and lives? Why? You admit we can't do it unless the locals are supportive. Where is the evidence that they are?

It's typical liberal bullshit: throw enough money, "education", and good intentions at a problem, and you can fix anything. Bullshit. We are not going to change who the Afghan people are, especially not without them wanting to change. You know how we got the Japanese and the Germans to quit being militaristic bastards? We kicked the shit out of them. We gave them a reason to change: because otherwise they could be dead.

This thread really should be over by now, go read Friendly Sword's last post again if you think otherwise. Rinse and repeat until it sinks in.

The end of militaristic sensibilities and rebuilding of Germany was decidedly not the natural and inevitable result of kicking-shit-out-of-people. Jesus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan

Oh, we built them up again with the Marshall Plan, because they'd gotten the picture, and we A) are decent and B) needed them to deal with the Russians.

Are you suggesting that if we'd offered the Marshall Plan to Hitler before we bombed their cities and unleased the fury of the Red Army on them, that he and the Nazis would have become nice and friendly?

In response to dipplayer's argument a little while back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFnFr-DOPf8

This is someone who's arguing the 'fury of the Red Army' - i.e. the mass rape of millions of women and indiscriminate slaughter of innocent civilians - was a good thing. I'm pretty sure that's about as blatantly Dark Side as it gets.

No, I'm repeating my assertion that War is Hell. I don't approve of the "fury of the Red Army", though given what the Germans did, I understand it.

My point is that the "fury of the Red Army" was enough to beat the militarism out of the German people. That you don't change a hostile nation by throwing money and education at them.

Goldfinger, that's from the prequels. Automatically makes it irrelevant.

@dipplayer - women are, for the first time in decades, getting an education in Afghanistan. Women are now involved in their politics. Sports are being allowed again, and basic social gatherings. Look at the areas still controlled by the Taliban or Taliban sympathizers. There's that video of a woman being executed for I don't know what. And then a few days ago about thirty people were gunned down for having a party...just a frickin party.

The mission is to promote peace and stability and help the Afghan government get its feet and be able to take care of itself. We will not leave them like we left South Vietnam.

You do by understanding why they're hostile. Nazi Germany and Japan were both imperialist states with the explicit aim of expanding at the expense of the rest of the world. The citizens of Afghanistan that are hostile - and check the math above, it's NOT very many of them - are hostile because we've been shitting all over them for a decade and the Middle East in general for sixty-plus years. Continuing to shit on them will not make them stop being upset about us shitting on them.

What in the world is this comparison you're making between 1942 Germany and Afghanistan now?

Have you been paying attention? The Taliban were bombed to smithereens, much of the country (what was left of it) was damaged by the occupation... and oh yeah, it IS occupied!

Occupation is a sometimes necessary but never sufficient condition for transforming an enemy country into a friendly one. That is true both historically and currently.

Fine, the difference between us is the perception of the Afghans and how well they are going to build their country. I'm pessimistic.

To add on to what what FS was saying, look at Iraq. I doubt that a decade from now we will count Iraq as an ally.

That's the other reason I am pessimistic. The American people aren't going to play nation-builders for long. They are too worried about the home front, they don't see the benefit or want to bear the human cost, and they aren't going to want to pour money into it for decades.

The point is that Afghanistan is still winnable. The Afghan people hate the Taliban more than they hate us. If we convince the Afghan people that we will only stay as long as the Taliban is a threat, they will willingly fight alongside us.

I would argue that Vietnam was even more winnable. At least in Vietnam we could have invaded the North and ended the war if only we had the political support at home.

how do you think China would have responded to an American invasion of North Vietnam? Probably the same way they did when we invaded North Korea. The Soviet Union would probably have gotten involved too, with unimaginable consequences. The mistake in Vietnam was America getting too involved, not it getting not involved enough.


As for Afghanistan, we'll never make it into Utah. We should never have tried. The United States needs to get out almost entirely (maybe keep one or two bases in case we need to respond to a grave crisis in Pakistan) and bribe bribe bribe every tribe into peace. For a few billion dollars we can make the sons-of-bitches warlords into our sons-of-bitches warlords and keep the mess over there from affecting us here. No more Americans need to die in an attempt to drag these people from the thirteenth to the eighteenth century.

"how do you think China would have responded to an American invasion of North Vietnam?"

Probably not at all, since they were going through their cultural revolution and had enough shit to deal with at home.

"The Soviet Union would probably have gotten involved too, with unimaginable consequences."

Again, probably not at all since they were fighting a war with China at the time and would have to go through either China, India, or Japan to even come close to getting stuff into North Vietnam

goldfinger + 1

If only we had the political capital. Stupid hippies.

@ Invictus

"We should never have tried."

Are you saying that we should not have responded to 9/11?

lets please keep the focus of this debate on Afghanistan
the reason(s) we are fighting the Taliban is primarily for "our own benefit"
it's to do with our security
The Taliban are an extremist group who "sponsor" terrorist attacks in the "west"
and not just the "9/11" attack in New York -- they have ben linked to terrorist bombings
in Indonesia eg Bali and other attacks in Europe
so it's not just about security for the USA

An Australian SAS serviceman won the Victoria Cross in Afghanistan & I saw an interview he gave to Australian TV -- now he wasn't going to reveal any sensitive details etc -- so we have to take what he says "on trust" -- but he made it very clear that he firmly believes that, on the basis of the information to which he has had access, that it is absolutely neccesary to defeat the Taliban for reasons that relate directly to maintaining
security for the Australian people
put simply we do not want to experience terrorist bombings in Australia, sponsored by the Taliban.

So I take that message "on trust" -- this chap is "in the loop" -- he has access to information that is not available to us civilians.

As far as I am concerned, the Australian Military commitment to Afghanistan has my full "political" support & If I have to pay some extra taxes to help (in a very small way )
then I am quite prepared to pay the extra tax without whining and bitching

It would be a STUPID WASTE to give up now, having already "invested / spent"
millions of dollars, and more important than mere money, after men who believed in the "mission" have lost their lives -- given "their all" for this mission and our domestic security.

So I want, even demand that we continue the "mission" and WIN both the war against the Taliban, and "WIN the Peace" by helping the Afghani people create THEIR OWN functioning soveriegn state, not some "ideological mirror" of Wisconsin, Utah,
the USA, or the United Kingdom, or Australia, etc.

I am also not suggesting for a moment that we ignore domestic problems of our own whilst we fight the Taliban -- it's not an "either / or proposition "

@ Invictus -- I disagree with your propostion that we can somehow pull out of Afghanistan and "retain a few bases in case of some grave crisis in Pakistan" as that simply will not work, and the notion that for several billion dollars you can bribe the Warlords into being "obedient puppet Warlords" is srtictly a "pollyanna like" position to advocate -- that is a policy that would only entrench the violent and corrupt warlords and increase their domination of the majority of the Afghani people
plus the idea that we can somehow allow a "controlled mess" to continue in Afghanistan whilst you sit happily in "Fortress America" is a nonsense
9/11 should have shown you that such a policy will NOT WORK

it's also not just about your security (in the USA ) -- it's about GLOBAL security