Another 8 US soldiers killed in Afghanistan

[WildCat]

What is your point?

That CE doesn't know the Taliban didn't even exist in 1985 and that everyone wearing a turban looks the same to him/her.

 

[Childlike Empress]

Can you give any evidence that US support for the religious extremists came before the Soviet invasion?

Or that the Soviets were invited by the legitimate government of Afghanistan?

I've never heard either claim before. Thanks.

There are documents from the Soviet archives from 1979, published in 1995, where Taraki is begging Kosygin to send soldiers to help against the "subversive activities" of the US. Which he refuses to do. I can give you the source or even post the conversation, but it's in German. Maybe search for "Kosygin Taraki" to find it in English. And a good indication is that strategists like Brzezinski pride themselves in "trapping" the Soviets into an invasion. Wouldn't make sense if they hadn't prepared the trap, would it?

Sure. Because that's totally the intellectually honest thing to do: pretend that Reagan said the Taliban were freedom fighters, because it's useful.

Sure, because if Joey says it's wrongly attributed but there are sources for both versions, it's on me to do the legwork to find a definitive answer, right?

ETA: Anyway, what was the point to begin with? Suppose that Reagan really did say that the Taliban in the 1980s was the analog to the founding fathers of the United States. So what? How is that relevant?

I already told you the point. Musing about if Afghan women are better off today than they where in 2001 misses the beef.

 

[Joey McGee]

P.S.: I see that you aren't willing to provide evidence for your claim, so I will continue to use this quote as referring to the "Freedom fighters" if I see fit. And I see that you apparently aren't aware that this quote is as outrageous referring to the Contras as it is referring to the "freedom fighters".

Go ahead, make yourself look stupid and use an incorrect quote. I told you where you could find many serious books saying it was the Contras, put the quote in google book search and do it yourself. Look I found it in "Dictionary of Politics: Selected American and Foreign Political and Legal Terms""A Call to Conscience: The Anti/Contra War Campaign" and many other scholarly books in just a few seconds. I guess you have higher standards of evidence than that? Do you demand I give you a whole bunch of hyperlinks before you consider my claim backed up, is that your malfunction you're having?

This is a thread about Afghanistan, and thus the Taliban, what I think about the Contras really has nothing to do with it. The point is that your narrative about the Taliban and the US is stupid and wrong.

 

[Watanabe]

Not ideal? What a *********** joke

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

You're just making things up, you think that Afghanistan has these problems with the well-being of women because of the invasion? Here I see a sustained rise after the invasion for the human development index

And when you talk to people who actually know what they are talking about, you find out that women have political rights, serve in politics, have real jobs etc. Far less child marriage, suicide by immolation, death in childbirth, infant morality etc It's still horrible, but at least the aid organizations and education campaigns are working because the taliban are out of the way

http://www.trustineducation.org/why-afghanistan/life-as-an-afghan-woman/

You just don't have a clue what you are talking about.

Err..
In 2011 (that is, 10 years after the invasion), Afghanistan was the worst place on Earth to be for a woman and you see a "sustained rise after the invasion for the human development index" ??

 

[Childlike Empress]

That CE doesn't know the Taliban didn't even exist in 1985 and that everyone wearing a turban looks the same to him/her.

They are the same backwards people treating women like ****, regardless if they fight against the native "godless" government in the 70s, the "soviet invaders" in the 80s or the "us invaders" in the 00s. And instead of learning something from history, the US is doing the same in Syria today. Nice freedom that is. One must be a dupe to attribute it to incompetence, not strategy, actually.

 

[Watanabe]

The stupidity deepens! Reagan said that about the Nicaraguan contras... it's complete ********. Maybe keep that kind of crap on your facebook where it belongs? I don't get why a) people make that stuff up and b) people post it without fact-checking it, it's retarded.

You mean that the American founding fathers have done the following?

targeting health care clinics and health care workers for assassination[65]
kidnapping civilians[66]
torturing civilians[67]
executing civilians, including children, who were captured in combat[68]
raping women[65]
indiscriminately attacking civilians and civilian houses[66]
seizing civilian property[65]
burning civilian houses in captured towns.[65]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contras#Human_rights_violations

Wow..

 

[Watanabe]

I can't imagine what could go wrong giving a terrorist organization $6 trillion. I'm sure they'd use it to build liberal arts schools and hospitals and roads and bridges and such.

What about talking to them and offering them help?

 

[Childlike Empress]

Joey, look what I found:


He dedicated the frickin Columbia space shuttle to the founding fathers freedom fighters!

 

[angrysoba]

Can you give any evidence that US support for the religious extremists came before the Soviet invasion?

Or that the Soviets were invited by the legitimate government of Afghanistan?

I've never heard either claim before. Thanks.

Unfortunately, the US did indeed give money to religious extremists in Afghanistan.

As for whether the Afghan government was the legitimate government when it invited Soviet troops into its country to quell an Islamist insurgency is, presumably, a matter of opinion.

 

[WildCat]

What about talking to them and offering them help?

Help to do what? Oppressing women? Destroying non-Islamic artifacts? Teaching a new generation their dirt-ignorant religious ideology? Establishing a new Caliphate? Expanding fundy Islamist wars against democracy? Assassinating secular Pakistani politicians?

Just what do you think the Taliban's goals are?

 

[Travis]

Nope, but the US could have simply given Al Qaeda $6 trillion to play nice, and still come out ahead compared to what it cost to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And that $6 trillion is just the down payment. The true cost won't be knowable for years to come - and may never be fully accounted for. In 50 or 100 years time, when the great US empire has faded and the Middle East completes its fall into chaos, few will correctly pinpoint the decisions that precipitated those unintentional outcomes.

Of course the the correct decision would have been to track down, arrest, and prosecute the criminals responsible for 9/11. No unjustified wars ripping weak countries apart and leaving upwards of a million innocents dead. No sticking a knife into our own economy in the hope that cheap oil and propping up the military-industrial complex would make up for it. No creating a whole new generation of people who hate America!

Gee, I can't imagine what would go wrong with just handing over such money to an extremist organization with stated goals of religious global hegemony and the death of Americans everywhere.

Instead of foaming at the mouth you could provide a source for your claim. I found a "businessinsider" article linking to the description of a PBS documentary saying it referred to the Contras, but on the other hand serious articles saying it referred to the Afghan "freedom fighters". If you can provide evidence that it's wrongly attributed, I apologize, but it is on record that he said equally nice things about them as he did about the murderous Contra scum.

The point here being of course that you can't talk about the US-Afghanistan relationship and the Taliban pretending that history began on September 11, 2001.

No one thinks that relationship only began there. Everyone knows we supported the Mujahideen some of whom went on to become the Taliban.

Of course I don't see the relevance. Is the USA obligated to support such people for all time?

No, that's where we should have been instead of Iraq.

Iraq has nothing to do with this. That is an entirely different subject of discussion.

Err..
In 2011 (that is, 10 years after the invasion), Afghanistan was the worst place on Earth to be for a woman and you see a "sustained rise after the invasion for the human development index" ??

I don't see the relevance. Afghanistan has been a terrible place for women for some time. You should read some Amnesty International reports from the Taliban years. I did. I was doing research on them back in college before September 11th happened. To say I was horrified would be an understatement.

It is sad that things are still bad for women there. But at least there is some hope for reform these days. Women are speaking out and forming activist groups. Many still get attacked by remnants of the Taliban but at least the world is watching this all now and finally gives a damn.

What about talking to them and offering them help?

Who? Al Qaeda? The Taliban?

Either way you cut it both were monstrous organizations worthy only of complete destruction. When September 11th happened one of the few silver linings I saw in all the horror was that maybe this would get us involved in destroying the Taliban, something I had advocated for years.

 

[phiwum]

I already told you the point. Musing about if Afghan women are better off today than they where in 2001 misses the beef.

Misses what beef?

I thought this thread was about eight soldiers killed in Afghanistan. I still cannot figure out why you think decades ago (alleged) support for the Taliban is relevant here.

Maybe you should lay off the metaphors and explicitly say why you think this is relevant. 'Cause I'm still not getting it.

 

[phiwum]

Err..
In 2011 (that is, 10 years after the invasion), Afghanistan was the worst place on Earth to be for a woman and you see a "sustained rise after the invasion for the human development index" ??

How is that contradictory?

I haven't looked at his source, but there are many ways in which Afghanistan could be the worst place for women now, even after such a sustained rise.

First, it could be that they were previously the worst place for women, and still are, even after some improvements.

Second, it could be that several nations have had a rise, and some who had worse records than Afghanistan have come out better, even though Afghanistan has also improved.

Silly images of laughing dogs don't substitute for actual thought, you know.

 

[phiwum]

Unfortunately, the US did indeed give money to religious extremists in Afghanistan.

I had no doubt that we gave money to religious extremists, but I thought it came after the Soviet invasion, not before.

Thanks for the info.

 

[Joey McGee]

Err..
In 2011 (that is, 10 years after the invasion), Afghanistan was the worst place on Earth to be for a woman and you see a "sustained rise after the invasion for the human development index" ??

Yes I do, the chart clearly shows a marked improvement compared to the rest of the world, and asia, after the Taliban were removed and aid and education programs started.

http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/AFG.html

So they got rated worst, does that mean that life didn't get better for women after the invasion? No it doesn't, the fact remains that all of those improvements I mentioned actually happened. Such as death during childbirth going from 9% to 2%. You think you have an argument waving around some report from some agency saying they're the worst, you don't. The invasion didn't cause them to be rated the worst, although the war certainly does not help, it's not causing that. Pretty facile.

 

[Joey McGee]

You mean that the American founding fathers have done the following?

targeting health care clinics and health care workers for assassination[65]
kidnapping civilians[66]
torturing civilians[67]
executing civilians, including children, who were captured in combat[68]
raping women[65]
indiscriminately attacking civilians and civilian houses[66]
seizing civilian property[65]
burning civilian houses in captured towns.[65]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contras#Human_rights_violations

Wow..

This thread is about the war in Afghanistan.

 

[Joey McGee]

Joey, look what I found:


He dedicated the frickin Columbia space shuttle to the founding fathers freedom fighters!

Actually in that clip he dedicates it to the people of Afghanistan. You do realize that there are good people that live there that have always fought and hated the Taliban, right? You do realize that the Afghan National Army fought and died alongside coalition troops because they hate the Taliban more than anyone, right? You do realize that there really were a group of people that were being oppressed that just wanted to be free, right? No you just heard something that you think makes the Great Satan looks bad and you repeated it like your hilariously wrong and stupid picture you didn't take five seconds to realize was a hoax.

Lots of videos out there on how Reagan dedicates space shuttle to Osama bin Laden and the Taliban it's a crock of ****.

 

[Childlike Empress]

You do realize that there are good people that live there that have always fought and hated the Taliban, right?

Of course I do. Pay attention. For example the Taraki government conspired against by Carter (Taraki was murdered before Reagan came to office if i'm not mistaken). Back when the Taliban weren't called Taliban. Using the search term I suggested above leads to some interesting reading.

 

[Ziggurat]

Nope, but the US could have simply given Al Qaeda $6 trillion to play nice, and still come out ahead compared to what it cost to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Wait... what?

Are you actually under the impression that the US could have bought peace from Al Qaeda with cash? That's the stupidest idea I've heard since I read this. Are you honestly unaware of the problems that would cause?

Of course the the correct decision would have been to track down, arrest, and prosecute the criminals responsible for 9/11.

No, the correct decision would have been to get the Powerpuff Girls to intercept the planes before they hit the WTC. Or use precogs to catch the hijackers before they boarded the planes. Or use Dr. Who to go back in time and capture bin Laden as a child.

All of these alternatives were equally as feasible as your option.

No unjustified wars ripping weak countries apart and leaving upwards of a million innocents dead.

Afghanistan was in the process of ripping itself apart and leaving quite a few dead without us lifting a finger. It's strange that you only care once you think you can blame those deaths on us. Actually, I lie: it's not strange, it's sadly cliched.

No sticking a knife into our own economy in the hope that cheap oil and propping up the military-industrial complex would make up for it.

You think we invaded Afghanistan for cheap oil? That would be like invading Siberia for the pineapples.

 

[theprestige]

The article notes that this--8 soldiers dead--is the worst day this year for the coalition. The US military has worse days on training exercises. If only all US wars were so peaceful!