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British deaths in Afghanistan

JHE said:
You are sickening.

If being in favour of Israel's right to exist makes me a Zionist, fine. If being in favour of Israel's right to exist gets me called a psycho, what the hell? You have already amply displayed your dishonesty.

I'm no fan of bloody Christianity or any other religion, as you would know if you had read my posts, but it is no good pretending that Christianity and Islam are equivalent. There is no Christian equivalent to bloody Sharia. There is no Christian equivalent of bloody Islamism.

The fact that you and other twits cannot bring yourselves to recognise bloody Islamism for the reactionary shit it is is, for me, an endless fucking amazement. I don't pretend to know how much of it in your case is due to your being a psycho anti-Zionist, but.... what the fuck?

Why do I fucking bother? You just a lying twat!
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Oh well, I can agree at least to some degree on the 'reactionary shit' thing and have reservations about anyone in the grip of religious delusions being near the levers of power, whether it's here, in Israel, Iran or Afghanistan.

I do apologise if I've misunderstood you, and perhaps I was being a little crude last night due to being rat-arsed and up for a fight, but you do seem to hate muslims to a degree that I find disturbing. Suggesting that you were therefore a 'psycho zionist' was probably a bit of a leap too far though. A bit like you suggesting that I must be some sort of pro-islamist for not hating muslims as much as you do. In any case, it was over the top and I apologise.
 
JHE said:
I'm no fan of bloody Christianity or any other religion, as you would know if you had read my posts, but it is no good pretending that Christianity and Islam are equivalent. There is no Christian equivalent to bloody Sharia. There is no Christian equivalent of bloody Islamism.

The fact that you and other twits cannot bring yourselves to recognise bloody Islamism for the reactionary shit it is is, for me, an endless fucking amazement. I don't pretend to know how much of it in your case is due to your being a psycho anti-Zionist, but.... what the fuck?
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i have no disagreement with calling 'islamism' ( assuming you mean fundie islam) deeply reactionary .. but to suggest Xtianity is different is false .. the crusades the conquistadors the inquisition stand out and while they are centuries ago they have not totally gone .. the Paisleys and various christians warlords, the generals in WW1 those who dropped nukes all had the christian lord on their side .. and do not underestimate the role of fundie xtians in US foreign policy particularly under Bush

the thing is you need to detatch the sayings from the purpose .. most apparrently relegious movements are just political using relegious ideology .. currently that is what is happenning in the middle east

i could just as easily have a xtian movement that calls for stoning adulterers, an eye for an eye, and justify it as a xtian .. but xtian politicians generally donlt have too .. as they have the biggest bombs
 
durruti02 said:
the thing is you need to detatch the sayings from the purpose .. most apparrently relegious movements are just political using relegious ideology .. currently that is what is happenning in the middle east
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This is very true and very important to remember. It is the same with the religious right in the US. The right uses religion to push its agenda – and quite consciously too. The extreme right in the US saw the success the left were having with Catholicism in Latin America, and decided that they needed to use that same power for their ends in the US.

I know less about the Middle East, but I'd be surprised if the process has been any different.
 
In the ME people still often mobilise around religion against the govt -and the govt often mobilises around religion agaisnt the people - but both sides know what it's really about. It's about power, resources, access and so on. Religion is just the common currency. Here the common currency is a form of politics called democracy. Exact same process.
 
Here's a critique of Britain's strategy by Rory Stewart, who ought to know what he's talking about. He doesn't just say that defeating the Taliban is impossible - he says it's not necessary for Britain, the US or even the Afghans.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n13/stew01_.html

Rory's biog is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rory_Stewart
Reply With Quote
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He has just been interviewed on BBC News Channel, his critique of the Afghan intervention is devastating, I don't think i have heard such an incisive and clear headed view before, he also works on the ground for a business charity and knows the people, he says many of the 'taliban' are just aggrieved local villagers.,

all those soldiers lives are they in vain? is this the 1890's 1980's all over again? can they retrieve the situation as they have to a point in Iraq.
 
I used to be all in favour of a long fight against the Taliban. I thought I knew something about it having been there and knocked around with a few NGO people. But Rory Stewart has changed my mind. What we're trying to do there is just ignorant, pigheaded and immoral.
 
JHE said:
There's a bit of a spate of them at the moment and I think the total so far (i.e., since late 2001) is somewhere around 170.

Assume, for the moment, that the deaths continue more or less at this depressing rate, as we are warned they will for the summer at least.

What effect will this have on public opinion?

What effect, if any, will it have on campaigns to get out of Afghanistan?

What effect, if any, will it have on the political establishment, govt and opposition, and their plans and policies?
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Here's your pm's response to your question.

In the letter, he said: "So our purpose is clear: to prevent terrorism coming to the streets of Britain.

"Our security depends on strengthening the Pakistan and Afghan governments to defeat both al-Qaeda and also the Pakistan and Afghan Taliban."

He added that if the Taliban were allowed to "overwhelm Pakistan's democracy", al-Qaeda would have "greater freedom from which to launch terrorist attacks across the world".

Mr Brown went on: "So this is a fight to clear terrorist networks from Afghanistan and Pakistan, to support the elected governments in both countries against the Taliban, to tackle the heroin trade which funds terrorism and the insurgency, and to build longer term stability."
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bbc


Strange thing. It would appear that the UK and Canada are there for different reasons. We are being told it's to help the people and you are being told it's for your own protection.

I like our reason better. I suppose that is why the media, etc are concentrating on that aspect.



Canada is removing our military presence in 2011. Holland is leaving as well. Any idea when the UK is planning on pulling out it's military?
 
No, we are being told both. But the "fight then over there so they don't come over here" thing has been revived recently, despite being really obvious bollocks. I can't see that as being a good propaganda move at all - if it was new perhaps, but it just isn't.
 
Congrats on your 30,500th post :cool:

FridgeMagnet said:
No, we are being told both. But the "fight then over there so they don't come over here" thing has been revived recently, despite being really obvious bollocks. I can't see that as being a good propaganda move at all - if it was new perhaps, but it just isn't.
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I know it would be a turn off for me!!!

The simplest way to respond to that would be, "Then let's get out of there so they will stop attacking us".

Equally as stupid, but.....
 
We proved we cant rebuild countries only break them .That should act as a detterant for anyone willingly hosting anti western terror camps .And if they exsist lots of new and intresting ways to deal with them.
Pull out its mostly western forces fighting foreign fighters a lot of the afgan locals have given it up as a bad idea.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
Cambodia is a more interesting example. The Vietnamese invaded because the Khmer Rouge had been crossing into Vietnam and killing Vietnamese people. Again, I'm afraid it wasn't out of solidarity with the Cambodian people, and when China took exception (China supported Pol Pot), the Vietnamese withdrew.
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The Vietnamese felt they needed assurances from their Russian Superpower allies, but which weren't backed up when it really mattered. When they invaded, they didn't withdraw for fear of the Chinese, but followed it through and stayed put for the best part of a decade. During the invasion, China taught her neighbor a lesson, by invading from the north to show the Soviet friendship treaty meant fuck all, and to draw some of the Vietnamese invasion force away to deal with them. The border clashes were a real problem. The Vietnam government perhaps wouldn’t have been too concerned about what Cambodians did to one another before it was decided to go ahead with military intervention, as long as it didn’t interfere with their own national sovereignty, including the massacring of villagers in the border areas which caused problems for reconstruction in the interior. As the crow flies from the Parrot's Beak, it isn't far from Ho Chi Minh city, and the KR were launching attacks from there. It also didn't help matters, with KR troops pounding the new economic zones with Chinese artillery; areas in the south which were to be part of efforts for socialist restructuring.
 
btw it is important to point out that the picture JC2 posted up, of an execution, was from RAWA, who are a revolutionary Afghan feminist group and who also work to end the Nato-led occuation, as they argue that the mujahideen warlords that currently run the country are just as bad as the Taliban.

The US "War on terrorism" removed the Taliban regime in October 2001, but it has not removed religious fundamentalism which is the main cause of all our miseries. In fact, by reinstalling the warlords in power in Afghanistan, the US administration is replacing one fundamentalist regime with another. The US government and Mr.Karzai mostly rely on Northern Alliance criminal leaders who are as brutal and misogynist as the Taliban.

RAWA believes that freedom and democracy can’t be donated; it is the duty of the people of a country to fight and achieve these values. Under the US-supported government, the sworn enemies of human rights, democracy and secularism have gripped their claws over our country and attempt to restore their religious fascism on our people.

Whenever fundamentalists exist as a military and political force in our injured land, the problem of Afghanistan will not be solved. Today RAWA's mission for women's rights is far from over and we have to work hard for establishment of an independent, free, democratic and secular Afghanistan. We need the solidarity and support of all people around the world.
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http://www.rawa.org/rawa.html
 
Politically speaking, there is no mileage in the Taliban any which way you slice it - not a single vote in it.

The issue is they have a history of entertaining ObL and his chums, that's the entire point.

What I don't quite understand is it would seem easier to find and track ObL and associates if they were in Afghanistan; the idea in 2002 of invading Afghanistan and ridding the country of the evil doers was reactionary, daft and totally imperial.
 
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