UK troops in Afghanistan fire 2m+ rounds in six months

[dylanredefined]

Your point isnt valid ISAF isnt there to conquer or destroy afganistian .

 

[Squatticus]

Your point isnt valid ISAF isnt there to conquer or destroy afganistian .

<Dies laughing>

Neither was the Soviet mission. If I remember correctly, they were there "to support the legitimate socialist government of Afghanistan".

 

[Squatticus]

According to the Soviet government, the 1979 invasion was justified by international law (Pravda, December 31, 1979; Gareev, 1996, p.40) and was "in complete accordance with... the 1978 Soviet-Afghan Treaty". (Izvestiya, January 1, 1980) The Soviet state had to honour its obligations "to provide armed support to the Afghan national army". (Lyahovsky & Zabrodin, p.47)

In 1988, Izvestiya quoted general Boris Gromov, the commander of Soviet troops in Afghanistan:

"We came to Afghanistan at the end of 1979 at the request of the lawful government [of Afghanistan] and in accordance with the agreement between our countries based on the... Charter of the United Nations." (Izvestiya, July 2, 1988)

Soviet journalists consistently supported these claims. Pravda and Izvestiya wrote in 1980 that Soviet forces were in Afghanistan "at the request of the [Afghan] government with the only goal to protect the friendly Afghan people” (Pravda, March 16, 1980) and “to help [this] neighbouring country... to repel external aggression". (Izvestiya, January 3, 1980)

Such views were frequently expressed by Soviet elites and mainstream journalists. The 1980 issue of International Annual: Politics and Economics, published by the Soviet Academy of Science, observed that the Afghan government “repeatedly asked the USSR" to provide "military aid". The "Soviet government granted the [Afghan] request, and the limited contingent of Soviet troops was sent into the country," Mezhdunarodnyi Ezhegodnik noted (1980, p.208). Such actions were entirely in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter and Article 4 of the [Soviet-Afghan] Treaty of December 5, 1978, Ezhegodnik added. (1981, p.224)

From an article on medialens, which I heartily recommend:

http://www.medialens.org/alerts/07/071120_invasion_a_comparison.php

 

[dylanredefined]

Pity its full of lies from the beginning .The mujahadeen were not backed by
the us until the soviets invaded .The whole point of the US backing them was to hurt the ussr.
The present campaign has simple no comparison to the soviets war.Which included use of chemical weapons and indiscriminate use of land mines .
They may have provided a sembelance of order in kabul but at the expense of the rest of the country .

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Although the USSR had been interfering in Afghan affairs long before the US, it is worth noting that contrary to the conventional wisdom, the United States appears to have begun operations in Afghanistan before the full-fledged Soviet invasion. Former National Security Adviser under the Carter Administration, Zbigniew Brzezenski, has admitted that an American operation to infiltrate Afghanistan was launched long before Russia sent in its troops on 27 December 1979. Agence France Press reported that: “Despite formal denials, the United States launched a covert
operation to bolster anti-Communist guerrillas in Afghanistan at least six months before the 1979 Soviet invasion of the country, according to a former top US official.”[2]

Brzezenski stated that “We actually did provide some support to the Mujahedeen before the invasion.”[3] “We did not push the Russians into invading, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.” He also bragged: “That secret operation was an excellent idea. The effect was to draw the Russians into the Afghan trap.”[4] In other words, the US appears to have been attempting to foster and manipulate unrest amongst various Afghan factions to destabilise the already unpopular Communist regime and bring the country under US sphere of influence. This included the recruitment of local leaders and warlords to form mercenary rebel groups, who would wage war against the Soviet-backed government, to institute a new regime under American control.

http://www.mediamonitors.net/mosaddeq2.html

Not that it's significant in this comparison anyway, just as a point.

 

[dylanredefined]

Ahh well I stand corrected.Any government backed by ussr was worth resisting .

 

[MikeMcc]

@ aldebaran: Mike's posts were on a technical question, not expressing support for either side.

@ Mike: where's the >7,000 figure from? I hadn't seen it, and what period does it cover?

I don't see that it's necessarily unsustainable, given the population base, if the population is behind those fighting the imperialists*. Consider what other nations have sustained in wars to which they heavily committed themselves (in other words, just cause this isn't on a WW1 scale for the Brits, it doesn't mean it's not for the Afghan/Pakistan pop - asymmetry being an apt word in this case.)

*That in itself is a big question, but given the number of civilian's killed by bombing (which must be well over 7,000, if we count the whole period since 2001), it wouldn't be surprinsing if the occupiers were absolutely hated. I also noted that the duties of the Int Corps woman who was recently bumped off included 'training local security forces in the search of women suspects', which suggests a broader based insurgency than the picture of a few beardy wierdys which is sometimes painted.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3735981.ece

That figure is just for the last couple of years.

 

[London_Calling]

The body count game is too reminiscent of Vietnam. Utter garbage for the gullible.

The unsubstantiated numbers grow proportional to the level of opposition to the deployment,

 

[Squatticus]

Pity its full of lies from the beginning

If this long article is 'full of lies', maybe you could point out one?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Don't you find that chilling? Each of them could kill a human being. Or other life.
Dead is dead. Gone. Done with. No return to life on this planet.

salaam.

Of course it's chilling, that's rather part of the point, though.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Indeed, the Afghans survived against the British last time and against the Russians, who is to suppose that they will not last this time against the USA and British (and others).

Although it has to be acknowledged that we at least have more strategy and tactically-minded command in Afghanistan now than we did under Elphinstone.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Pity its full of lies from the beginning .The mujahadeen were not backed by the us until the soviets invaded.

That's really only a part-truth (see Ahmed Rashid's "Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia" and "Taliban: Islam, Oil and the Great Game in Central Asia" or Robert Dreyfuss's "Devil's Game", for example, for well-sourced material on US funding in the region from 1949 onward). The US were putting money into training camps and materiel for Pashtun militants in the refugee camps in Pakistan from the early 1970s, funding weapons-purchases and propaganda.

The whole point of the US backing them was to hurt the ussr.

No, the point wasn't to "hurt the USSR" militarily, it was to de-stabilise Afghanistan enough that Islamic militancy or secular anti-Sovietism would bleed through from Afghanistan into the Soviet Central Asian republics.

 

[dylanredefined]

I think it was helping the afgans kill a shit load of russians so giving the Ussr
its own vietnam disaster. If it led to further up rising that would have been good as well .

 

[yield]

If it led to further up rising that would have been good as well .

What like September 11th? I'm not so sure.

 

[dylanredefined]

The body count game is too reminiscent of Vietnam. Utter garbage for the gullible.

The unsubstantiated numbers grow proportional to the level of opposition to the deployment,

The numbers can be substantiated .The whole point of the campaign isnt to get a body count .

 

[dylanredefined]

What like September 11th? I'm not so sure.

Uprising in Soviet republics .Remeber this started in the cold war "when the only good commie was a dead one"

 

[yield]

Uprising in Soviet republics .Remeber this started in the cold war "when the only good commie was a dead one"

This started before the Cold War. Remember the Great Game.

The same Saudi middlemen who were backing the mujahideen against the Soviets thought they could do the same against their former paymasters the USA.

It was never going to stay *neatly* in the Middle East.

 

[dylanredefined]

The great game was Russia and the British empire fighting over Afghanistan
and the surrounding areas for influence .
This was something new Various American interests seeing a way to hurt the USSR. Soon as Ussr left so did they. Unfortunatly others moved in with other motivations .

 

[Squatticus]

dylanredefined, if the article I linked to was 'full of lies', maybe you could point out one?

INVASION - A COMPARISON OF SOVIET AND WESTERN MEDIA PERFORMANCE

 

[ViolentPanda]

I think it was helping the afgans kill a shit load of russians so giving the Ussr
its own vietnam disaster. If it led to further up rising that would have been good as well .

You need to look at Afghanistan in the 70s in the context of US involvement in the region post-war, rather than seeing it as an opportunity to give the USSR a bloody nose.

 

[dylanredefined]

That maybe so ,but , as soon as the soviet invaded the whole point of Us
involvement was to Hurt the USSR .Which was why they were happy to abandon their allies when the war ended .

 

[dylanredefined]

dylanredefined, if the article I linked to was 'full of lies', maybe you could point out one?

INVASION - A COMPARISON OF SOVIET AND WESTERN MEDIA PERFORMANCE

I'd already pointed out I was wrong.

 

[fela fan]

Yep, it's nothing. Only the largest action by UK forces since WW2, which the UK is not winning, which has debatable merits, is costing the country very many £million each day, the lives of unknown numbers of people, is so badly reported and propagandised most people - including everyone in this thread - thinks is no big deal.

FFS get a clue - the scale of the use of munitions is exactly that.

Just about the first sane post thus far!

I was just wondering if it had been the other way round. That afghani forces had shot over two million bullets in britain while trying to rape the country of her natural resources.

I think this figure is staggering. Just as staggering is why they are even there in the first place, never mind why they're still there.

Would the money spent on this ridiculous mission be enough to provide something like free university education instead?

And if we're pumping millions of bullets into afghanistan, how many are we ripping into iraq?

And then, if this is our tally, what about the US' tally...??

 

[fela fan]

Afghanistan is a much cleaner reason than Iraq.

We are in Afghanistan because it gave succour to Al Queda which was behind the September 11th attacks in the USA which were taken as not just an attack on the USA but on the West and UK also.

The trouble is that we only win in Afghanistan if we establish the new democratic state which has the strength to withstand the remnants of the Taliban and Al Queda on it's own, and at the moment we are a long way from that goal.

Apparently Bush has asked the US military to deliver him Osama Bin Laden before he leaves office. It is interesting that after all this time the ringleaders of the Taliban (Mulla Omar) and Al Queda are still at large while in Iraq Saddam Hussein is already dead and buried.

Woa there. What is this succour you talk of? I thought it was saudi arabian citizens that made up most of the 911 attacks? So why did we go into afghanistan instead of saudi?

"the September 11th attacks in the USA which were taken as not just an attack on the USA but on the West and UK also."

Who are you talking for here with your passive construction? Just how could the attacks in new york be an attack on the UK? How did you arrive at this idea?

Who are the UK thinking it's up to them to go round establishing democracies? And why in afghanistan, why not in saudi, burma, cuba, china, zimbabwe, n korea etc etc. And how do you establish a democracy with weapons and killing?

And how do you think the UK can win? Just who in the UK can win? The taxpayers?

Sorry but your post is riddled with the effects of typical UK state propaganda.

 

[frogwoman]

Yep, it's nothing. Only the largest action by UK forces since WW2, which the UK is not winning, which has debatable merits, is costing the country very many £million each day, the lives of unknown numbers of people, is so badly reported and propagandised most people - including everyone in this thread - thinks is no big deal.

FFS get a clue - the scale of the use of munitions is exactly that.

WELL FUCKING SAID!

 

[fela fan]

While I would agree we aren't winning at the moment, we aren't losing either. Current estimates on Taliban losses are >7000, that's not a rate that they can continue with for long.

Who is 'we'?

How could the UK ever win? The british people, along with the afghani people, are the losers here. They lose their lives, british people lose their tax money.

We are trespassing, and britain is a country with thousands upon thousands of do not trespass signs in it. Hypocrisy though is one of the least crimes that can be leveled at the british state.

 

[fela fan]

But very few of them actually hit anyone, most are to keep the enemy pinned down so that they can't escape.

The 'enemy'? Escape? They're in their own country already, where do they want to escape to? The UK?

But some do hit people. And they die. For the single reason that foreign forces have invaded their land telling them they're going to deliver democracy. With bullets. Just like in iraq.

What a shambles. The propaganda runs deep, and down the ages too. Face it, the UK state mechanism is a killer. And the UK media are used to disseminate the required level of bullshit to create the lie.

 

[fela fan]

I always find it interesting to hear british people debating numbers and things over wars that their government are fighting.

I guess this is possible when there is no consciousness-raising in the media of what actually goes on as a result of our politicians' warmongering actions.

What happens of course is that people (in this situation, in afghanistan) just like those who are debating numbers and things on this thread find that they have just lost their two year who got ripped to shreds by shrapnel, and that they themselves are lucky to be alive, albeit with only one leg and one eye now.

And that many of their relatives are no longer alive. And that perhaps their wife or husband has now been shot dead.

And all because those bastard afghani soldiers came to mainland britain to give the british people a better and, freer, life...

 

[weltweit]

... And all because those bastard afghani soldiers came to mainland britain to give the british people a better and, freer, life...

But we and the Americans did not go to Afghanistan to give them a better life, we went there to get Osama Bin Laden and Mullar Omar who we held responsible for 9/11.

 

[spring-peeper]

But we and the Americans did not go to Afghanistan to give them a better life, we went there to get Osama Bin Laden and Mullar Omar who we held responsible for 9/11.

Fortunately, the other NATO countries did go there to help the people.