Islam4uk March Through Wootton Bassett

[La_Dolce_Vita]

Why should he be sent to Afghanistan? I don't understand the logic. Why dont you go back? Why don't we all go?

[Albert Tatlock]

Why is it annoying and why should he be sent to Afghanistan?

More to the point, why are you so annoying, and why shouldn't you be sent to Afghanistan?

[La_Dolce_Vita]

I don't know, why do you find me annoying. I don't know why I shouldn't go. They'd be plenty of gorgeous squaddies to check out.

[bluenose 52]

Speaking as a simple kind of guy and ex forces, I dont really do politics nor do I get into long winded debates about the wrongs of this world, all I want to say if anybody becomes a threat to the life I live and enjoy, thats to say the british way of life I would take up arms and defend this country and if means killing them well so be it, this is not a racist view, it is the view of a man who enjoys his way of life. The British way. Simple.

[jimbms]

I don't know, why do you find me annoying. I don't know why I shouldn't go. They'd be plenty of gorgeous squaddies to check out.

This brings a whole new outlook and meaning to the Queens regiment

[pongo]

Why should he be sent to Afghanistan? I don't understand the logic. Why dont you go back? Why don't we all go?

 

Because it cannot be won and does not even have any defined aims. More or less like all the previous wars in Afghanistan over the past couple of hundred year, most of which Britain has also been involved with either directly or indirectly. Sooner or later there will be a disorderly retreat. Again. Lives are being wasted.

 

For the same money and less loss of life you could probably buy peace in the region. IMO. Just buy the flipping opium and use it. Apparently there is a shortage of legally sourced opium which is needed for pharmaceutical use.

[P.K.]

Because it cannot be won and does not even have any defined aims.

Wrong on both counts - never mind.

 

Clue : all the previous conflicts were wars of occupation, this isn't...

[La_Dolce_Vita]

Speaking as a simple kind of guy and ex forces, I dont really do politics nor do I get into long winded debates about the wrongs of this world, all I want to say if anybody becomes a threat to the life I live and enjoy, thats to say the british way of life I would take up arms and defend this country and if means killing them well so be it, this is not a racist view, it is the view of a man who enjoys his way of life. The British way. Simple.

(I assume this isn't Afghanistan related) I don't know what you mean. What is the British way of life? I think it completely justified if you fight for your life and your freedom. But your way of life MIGHT be built upon things that lead others to attack, because it affects their way of life.

[Albert Tatlock]

Because it cannot be won and does not even have any defined aims.

Wrong on both counts - never mind.

 

Clue : all the previous conflicts were wars of occupation, this isn't...

Semantics. Occupation is how it's actually perceived by most Afghans - who have already undergone recent decades of occupation since the 1980s, let alone occupation going back into earlier last century.

 

This 'war' has already gone on for 10 years, Obama might have set a date for Nato withdrawal in 2011, but most senior generals say there will have to be a presence for at least another 5 years, some thinking even decades...and the 'best get out options' are on the assumption that the currently elected government - and form of government - will last, and of course that the very same local forces (the Afghan army/police) being created will hold together and won't don't turn on the corruptly elected and corrupt government that is in place there at the moment. Fact is, turning on the government is practically a pastime over there, and if I was Mr Ladbroke - I certainly wouldn't be offering any odds that it won't happen once Nato leaves.

 

Meanwhile of course, most of the 'senior' terrorist leaders have relocated: hiding in Pakistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia etc. etc. and stirring up trouble and recruiting from other places - including those living in the UK itself. Meanwhile, the perceived occupation acts as the biggest recruitment sergeant we could ever create, not just recruiting in Iraq/Iran/Afghanistan but all over the islamic world.

 

No way is this winnable. It might be containable to some extent, for the moment - but people are kidding themselves if they think they can fight history, and how most usually view the presence of other countries in their own country as occupation.

 

You are being spoon fed on propaganda and wishful thinking PK, and you are eating it up IMO. No one likes to lose, but that's the way this will go, against an often: invisible, portable, cross-border enemy whose only borders are defined by a religious book.

[Chinahand]

Semantics. Occupation is how it's actually perceived by most Afghans - who have already undergone recent decades of occupation since the 1980s, let alone occupation going back into earlier last century.

Is that true?

 

Link

 

Fifty-nine per cent think the government is making some or a lot of progress in providing a better life, 38% say little or no progress (no comparison). Forty-eight per cent think the government is doing a good or excellent job, down from 59% last year and 80% in 2005. Afghan President Hamid Karzai's equivalent figures are 52%, as against 63% last time and 83% in 2005.

 

Sixty-three per cent support the presence of US forces – down from 71% in 2007 and 78% in 2006. Support for other foreign forces, including Britain, stands at 59%, down from 67% last year and 78% in 2006. There's an increase in the number of people who think foreign forces should start pulling out straight away – 21%, up from 14% last year (when the question addressed only US forces).

 

Link 2

 

Sure you can say these surveys aren't worth anything - but some bloody brave researchers have headed out and found the 3000 odd people in these surveys and asked them their opinion - that's far more than most journalists do, and has some validity in trying to understand what Afghans think - and it isn't as negative as is being made out.

 

Is Afghanistan "winnable" - Iraq has started the process of reconciling itself to its new situation - the vast majority of people just want to get on with there lives and that old Northern Irish phrase "an acceptable level of violence" means the hot war has mutated into a long war where the ballot box slowly usurps the gun.

 

Afghanistan isn't there yet - but less than 1% of the population say they support the Taliban, 62% believe the country is moving in the right direction, and only 3% believe foreign forces are either the biggest or second biggest problem the country is facing.

 

Journalists go to trouble spots - 20 years ago surveying opinion on the Bogside would show overwhelming anger against the political situation in NI. Something akin to that is happening in the reporting of Afghanistan that Albert has picked up on - reality is far more complex 62% report a favourable view of the US.

[La_Dolce_Vita]

Winning for the US and UK governments is about setting up a compliant regime in the country - liberal democratic or not. The US believes that a more compliant regime would be served by preventing the Taliban government from returning to power and have therefore made efforts to establish a regime with some democratic elements (voting) involved which (apparently) prove the legitimacy of such a regime. I think it is very possible, and in fact very likely that the Taliban can be prevented from posing a threat to such a regime over time.

[pongo]

20 years ago surveying opinion on the Bogside would show overwhelming anger against the political situation in NI.

 

With respect and with hindsight the north of Ireland was very different. Whilst Irish Republicanism had its roots in an historical call for a 32 county united Ireland, the northern Provisional leadership comprised people who were drawn into a long war because of a failure of the democratic processes - after the civil rights marches, Free Derry etc. Civil rights, political and social equality, and end to the old gerrymandered system of government and sectarian policing were the issues. And those issues gave the Provisionals their popular mandate.

 

The problems in Ireland have begun to be been addressed by properly addressing issues around social and political equality and democracy. Most people in Ireland are now happy to let the border issue resolve itself over time via demographics and the democratic process. The few who are not now have no popular mandate since the underlying big issues have been addressed.

 

It is a good example of addressing a problem by looking at the underlying reasons.

 

ETA: the west has itself to blame for Afghanistan. It armed and trained the Mujahideens and fought alongside them covertly in the proxy war against the Soviets.

[bluenose 52]

Speaking as a simple kind of guy and ex forces, I dont really do politics nor do I get into long winded debates about the wrongs of this world, all I want to say if anybody becomes a threat to the life I live and enjoy, thats to say the british way of life I would take up arms and defend this country and if means killing them well so be it, this is not a racist view, it is the view of a man who enjoys his way of life. The British way. Simple.

(I assume this isn't Afghanistan related) I don't know what you mean. What is the British way of life? I think it completely justified if you fight for your life and your freedom. But your way of life MIGHT be built upon things that lead others to attack, because it affects their way of life.

What I mean is freedom of speech and my right to do what I want to do within the laws of this country and being that this country is Great Britain am I not right in thinking this is the British way ? and there is nothing I do in my life that would effect the people of another country and nor would I ever try to change the way other nations go about there way of life, as I say it's a simple rule leave me and my family alone and I will leave you alone.

[Chinahand]

@pongo - I'm not really saying anything about the causes or political settlement in NI. All I'm really pointing out is that Albert was making out that everything in Afghanistan is woe - the people hate the occupiers and will continue to fight them - that isn't a too unreasonable interpretation from the news coverage we are recieving - and the journalists are being accurate in reporting that this is what the people they are talking to are saying - BUT the journalists are biasing their reports due to only going to the most extreme places - hence my reference to the Bogside (in hindsight a bad example).

 

Most Afghans don't want the Taliban back, welcomes the foreign presence, and think their country is improving.

 

But journalists looking for a story and an explanation of the violence don't talk to "most afghans" - they talk to those who oppose peace, or those threatened by them. This is a real danger and links in slightly with what you've raised Pongo.

 

During the Bosnia Wars the "myth" that they'd fought and killed each other for millenia was taken seriously at the very top levels - this ignored the fact that the violence was taking place for very specific political reasons.

 

Journalists and policy makers only spoke to people who WANTED to continue this myth - as they wanted to carve out separate enclaves - and it helped perptuate the fighting. It was only by breaking that myth and through a threat of overwhelming force that a different politics was allowed to emerge.

 

The current myth is that the Afghans will ALWAYS oppose us - maybe true for a tiny subset of the population - but as long as they aren't supported they become irrelevent as has happenned in Bosnia and NI (current car bombs accepted).

[pongo]

there is nothing I do in my life that would effect the people of another country and nor would I ever try to change the way other nations go about there way of life, as I say it's a simple rule leave me and my family alone and I will leave you alone.

 

What happens in Britain - what British governments do on your behalf inevitably has a significant impact on what happens to other people in other parts of the world. And the policies of British govts since hundreds of years. If you believe in democratic politics then you can not divorce yourself from the implications and responsibilities of government policies. Which ever party is in power they are your govt. They are you. If something bad happens to someone else because of a British policy then you (we all - even on the IOM) share a degree of that responsibility.

 

I'm starting to sound like Tom Vague. No bad thing

 

ETA: read and understood China.