Mayor of Kandahar killed in suicide bombing

[Sheaf Saint]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-14304650

 

What with the recent assassination of Ahmad Wali Karzai as well, isn't it time that our leaders faced up to the inevitable in Afghanistan: That no matter how long our troops remain there, the local security forces will never have full control of the country.

 

Anybody with even the slightest knowledge of Afghanistan's history will surely be aware that there is just no way that a western-style democracy will ever work in a land that has for centuries been ruled by tribal warlords. The five main tribal groups will always be at each others' throats and no amount of engagement with the population by what they see as a foreign occupation will ever change that.

 

Whether we pull out by 2015, as has been mooted, or we pull out now, the net result will be the same and the country will just descend into chaos again as soon as the we depart. Therefore, surely it is completely senseless to continue to risk the lives of our armed forces on what is a hiding to nothing.

[Seaford Saint]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-14304650

 

What with the recent assassination of Ahmad Wali Karzai as well, isn't it time that our leaders faced up to the inevitable in Afghanistan: That no matter how long our troops remain there, the local security forces will never have full control of the country.

 

Anybody with even the slightest knowledge of Afghanistan's history will surely be aware that there is just no way that a western-style democracy will ever work in a land that has for centuries been ruled by tribal warlords. The five main tribal groups will always be at each others' throats and no amount of engagement with the population by what they see as a foreign occupation will ever change that.

 

Whether we pull out by 2015, as has been mooted, or we pull out now, the net result will be the same and the country will just descend into chaos again as soon as the we depart. Therefore, surely it is completely senseless to continue to risk the lives of our armed forces on what is a hiding to nothing.

 

No we are leaving, having conquored the country and sorted it all out.....NOT!!!

 

Come on Delldays what's your take on this?

 

My own view is simple, we have spent billions on a war that could have been better spent on us right here at home. I have mislaid an article that gave a so called account of how much Afghanistan cost the country....then there's the human cost too.

[Alanh]

Difficult to disagree. If you look at 'British' history you see tha\t we have gone through phases of feudalism, monarchy and now democracy (although the monarch is still in place) to get to where we are. Asking a country like Afghanistan to leap from the sort of violent feudalism that has been funded by the US and Russia in recent years to democracy in a short space of time is impossible to achieve unless the people want it to happen.

 

I think that it's a waste of our military resources being there and we would be better served investing in the integration of all sections of society here at home in order to minimise the marginalisation of specific groups that leads to militant tendencies.

[Thedelldays]

Our intentions for going in were absolutely correct. However, this war has developed into something else IMO

 

We have something like 9000 personnel there. But that is not 9000 front line troops. That includes clerks, chefs etc, so the fighting element is quite small. And that number is trying to police an area the size of england (or something daft like that)

 

We already can't cope as we had to hand over a section of our land to the yanks.

 

When you look at the Americans. They probably have more troops in afghan than we do in our complete armed forces.

 

Just seems stupid to carry on whilst stripping the armed forces bare.

 

The powers at be really REALLY have to match our military commitments with the size of our forces..!!!

[Jonnyboy]

What a waste of time, money and LIVES.

[Verbal]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-14304650

 

What with the recent assassination of Ahmad Wali Karzai as well, isn't it time that our leaders faced up to the inevitable in Afghanistan: That no matter how long our troops remain there, the local security forces will never have full control of the country.

 

Anybody with even the slightest knowledge of Afghanistan's history will surely be aware that there is just no way that a western-style democracy will ever work in a land that has for centuries been ruled by tribal warlords. The five main tribal groups will always be at each others' throats and no amount of engagement with the population by what they see as a foreign occupation will ever change that.

 

Whether we pull out by 2015, as has been mooted, or we pull out now, the net result will be the same and the country will just descend into chaos again as soon as the we depart. Therefore, surely it is completely senseless to continue to risk the lives of our armed forces on what is a hiding to nothing.

 

Some of it will descend into chaos and some of it won't. Kandahar has always been likely to fall into the latter.

 

The worst of it is that the West's justification for being there has never made any sense - or only did for a few short months. Blair/Brown/Cameron et al have always relied on public ignorance and apathy to get away with the false claim that the Taliban represent a threat to the West. They don't - they are a nationalist movement built on Pashtun tribal customs. Al Qaeda did constitute a threat while in Afghanistan but no longer do, and haven't since early 2002 - almost a decade ago.

[stu0x]

Some of it will descend into chaos and some of it won't. Kandahar has always been likely to fall into the latter.

 

The worst of it is that the West's justification for being there has never made any sense - or only did for a few short months. Blair/Brown/Cameron et al have always relied on public ignorance and apathy to get away with the false claim that the Taliban represent a threat to the West. They don't - they are a nationalist movement built on Pashtun tribal customs. Al Qaeda did constitute a threat while in Afghanistan but no longer do, and haven't since early 2002 - almost a decade ago.

The first part of this post is accurate.

 

I'm afraid that the second part is absolute nonsense. Are you actually naive enough to believe that the Taliban aren't training people who go on to commit terrorist acts against the UK? And what do you actually think would happen if the Taliban were allowed to establish control of Afghanistan again? AQ would be back within a matter of months.

[Verbal]

The first part of this post is accurate.

 

I'm afraid that the second part is absolute nonsense. Are you actually naive enough to believe that the Taliban aren't training people who go on to commit terrorist acts against the UK? And what do you actually think would happen if the Taliban were allowed to establish control of Afghanistan again? AQ would be back within a matter of months.

 

Actually, the first part of my post is inaccurate - I meant to say 'former'.

 

And no, they're really not training people to commit terrorist acts against the UK. It's not about naivete so much as experience of travelling in the region for the last quarter of a century. Part of that experience includes having someone who was working with me kidnapped by the Pakistani Taliban and held hostage for six months under conditions which aren't quite described with words like 'appalling' and 'inhuman' (my friend had the misfortune to be a Hindu).

 

I know who does the training, where the money comes from, etc - and it isn't the Afghan Taliban. If you can find one single piece of hard evidence that they are training 'martyrs' to attack the West in the West I'll happily agree I was wrong.

 

If the Taliban were to regain control of Afghanistan, it would be a tragedy...for the people of Afghanistan. But not because they would allow Al Qaeda back in. The strong likelihood is that they wouldn't for their own selfish but very good reasons - the same reasons that led them, too late, to try and get rid leading up to 2001.

 

South Asian politics are arcane at the best of times. It's always best to assume therefore that what might seem 'obvious' is least likely to be true.

Edited 27 July, 2011 by Verbal

[dune]

I'm firmly of the belief that Afghanistan cannot be civilised.

[View From The Top]

As soon as the US stopped the SBS and US Special Forces killing or capturing OBL in the Tora Bora it's been one cluster f**k after another and a total and utter waste of life and treasure.

 

As for Terry training folk for operations in the UK, umm, no. That's the preserve of The Arabs.

[Sheaf Saint]

The first part of this post is accurate.

 

I'm afraid that the second part is absolute nonsense. Are you actually naive enough to believe that the Taliban aren't training people who go on to commit terrorist acts against the UK? And what do you actually think would happen if the Taliban were allowed to establish control of Afghanistan again? AQ would be back within a matter of months.

 

So many things wrong with your assertions here I'm afraid stu0x. Firstly, as Verbal rightly points out, there is no evidence at all that the Afghan Taleban are engaged in training martyrs and suicide bombers to attack western countries. That is not, and never has been, their aim. All the Taleban ever wanted was to rule over a pure Islamic state where people would be forced under threat of execution to follow their fundamentalist ideology. The only connection they have to Al-Qaeda is that they (or rather, Mullah Omar personally) decided to grant asylum to AQ and Bin Laden when they were looking for a safe haven to hide from the Americans in the aftermath of 9/11. This decision was made because they share similar religious doctrine, but they did not share AQ's agenda of taking the holy war to the western world. It was a decision they very soon regretted when they realised that the Americans would attack anyway, and there were attempts to distance themselves from AQ during the build-up to the invasion.

 

Were the Taleban ever to regain full governmental control of the country, given the events of the last ten years, do you really think they would be so stupid as to invite Al-Qaeda back into the country? The Americans have used the decade-long conflict as an excuse to establish permanent military bases in surrounding countries such as Uzbekistan, and would not think twice about launching attacks if they thought for one moment that Al-Qaeda had resumed their training camps in Afghanistan.

 

There is an excellent book published around 2008, the title of which I must confess to paraphrasing in my original post, called Descent Into Chaos by Ahmed Rashid. It is a lengthy and slow-going book but worthwhile as it is very informative, not just about the recent political history of Afghanistan and Pakistan, but it also gives a fascinating insight into the tribal mindset of the various different peoples inhabiting the region.

[Saintandy666]

I think the one positive that has come out of the war in Afghanistan is that al-Qaeda's back has been broken. That was in our interests. Whether that could have been done more swiftly, efficiently, cheaper or in a different manner is for someone with more expertise to decide.

[Verbal]

I think the one positive that has come out of the war in Afghanistan is that al-Qaeda's back has been broken. That was in our interests. Whether that could have been done more swiftly, efficiently, cheaper or in a different manner is for someone with more expertise to decide.

 

It was done and dusted by March 2002.

[Verbal]

As soon as the US stopped the SBS and US Special Forces killing or capturing OBL in the Tora Bora it's been one cluster f**k after another and a total and utter waste of life and treasure.

 

As for Terry training folk for operations in the UK, umm, no. That's the preserve of The Arabs.

 

Succinctly put.

[Thedelldays]

The Taliban sent the yanks a coded warning about 9/11. As they knew the yanks would come in all guns blazing to root out al-qaeda

[stu0x]

So many things wrong with your assertions here I'm afraid stu0x. Firstly, as Verbal rightly points out, there is no evidence at all that the Afghan Taleban are engaged in training martyrs and suicide bombers to attack western countries.

You mean no evidence that you have seen.

[Jonnyboy]

You mean no evidence that you have seen.

 

Ive never seen or heard of an Afghan in the UK commiting a terrorist act. Certainly not before we invaded their country either.

[Verbal]

You mean no evidence that you have seen.

 

Okay stop teasing. You clearly have stone cold evidence that the Taliban have trained and are training kamikazis ready to drop on the West. Let's see it.

[Sheaf Saint]

You mean no evidence that you have seen.

 

True, and it would be quite arrogant of me to claim that none exists purely because I have never seen it. But I have made a point of reading as much as I can about the Afghan situation, as it is literally history in the making and it interests me greatly. So as neither I nor Verbal, whom I know from previous discussions has extensive first-hand experience of the region, are aware of any intelligence which indicates that the Afghan Taleban are training Jihadis for martyrdom in the west, I would be very interested to know what information you have which contradicts the general consensus, and I will happily be proved wrong.