Afghanimatrix

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  • #39520
    SadGeezer
    Keymaster

    The Matrix is all around you, you can’t see it, but it exists, permeating everything, invisible, yet omnipresent.

    If you aren’t watching it, is it real? If you can’t see it, is it happening? If you don’t notice it, are you really losing?

    Lots of reporting on Afghanistan lately in the Canadian media.

    – Two Canadian soldiers recently killed, and three wounded, when a land mine blew up their jeep on a cleared safe road. The land mine was placed deliberately after the road had been swept.

    – Taliban/Insurgent forces blew up a fuel truck and killed ten Afghan guards who were delivering fuel to a United Nations base.

    – The Taliban is no operating convoys frequently through the country.

    – Rebels, probably the Taliban, are secure enough to launch rocket attacks against Kabul, the stronghold of the United Nations peacekeeping force and the seat of the Afghan government.

    – Kabul itself has also been under siege from a wave of violence attributed to the Taliban, criminals and warlords.

    – The Taliban and Al Quaeda are crossing freely back and forth from Aghanistan to Pakistan, and are confronting Pakistan armed forces.

    – Half of Afghanistan’s 32 provinces are no longer deemed safe to enter by aid agencies. The entire Southwest is now off limits. Several aid workers for organizations like the Red Cross have been executed. Mercy Corps has indefinitely suspended operations in Afghanistan. Attacks on aid workers have increased from one a month, to one every two days since September, 2002.

    – The heroin trade is now out of control, and is funding and subsidizing extremist warlords. Revenue from the poppy trade (1.2 billion) is now more than all international aid combined (500 million).

    – “You ask what we’re going to do (about the problems in Afghanistan)…. I really don’t know,” confessed Donald Rumsfield, idjit extraordinaire, recently. Great, America’s big war leader has essentially said he has no clue, he’s given up, its getting worse and he’s got no ideas. Perhaps we should have a write in contest, “How to save Afghanistan?” the winner could be king or something.

    Now, here’s the big question. Do you want to take the Blue Pill. Or do you want to take the Red Pill.

    I don’t normally put political posts on, and I’m not going to feed the habit. But anyone who thinks Afghanistan worked out is obviously a bit too into sci fi.

    #68711
    Fatguy
    Participant

    If you really want to know what is really going on in the Middle East; check out my website (the archives area) for some of the uncensored pictures from Iraq: Extreme Violence – You Have Been Warned!:

    http://www.fortressoffreedom.com

    Maurice

    #68721
    sgtdraino
    Participant
    ”Valdron” wrote:

    Perhaps we should have a write in contest, “How to save Afghanistan?”

    I like this idea. It seems like too often all I hear is poo-pooing, but no actual new ideas about what action to take.

    To anyone who is interested, consider this scenario:

    President Bush has just appointed you Secretary of Defense, replacing Rumsfeld. Your primary tasks are to come up with operational plans for dealing with Afghanistan and Iraq. The President will try whatever plans you put forth.

    What are your plans?

    No “time travel.” No, “well, we should never have done such-and-such in the first place.” You are replacing Rumsfeld, and must deal with the situations at hand.

    As of NOW, what are your new policies, as Secretary of Defense?

    This question is directed at no one in particular. I’m curious to hear as many different ideas as possible.

    #68735
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Thanks for the backhanded admission that Afghanistan has been totally bunged up.

    As for what I would do…

    Well, the first thing I would do is appoint Rumsfield as commander of an isolated frontier outpost, say in the southwest of Afghanistan.
    This is on the theory that the idiots who dug us into a hole should be made to do some shovelling.

    I figure there’s no downside. Rumsfeld has proved himself to be a failure at his current level, maybe he’ll prove competent at this lower post. And if he doesn’t… well then, its karma.

    As for other things, stop stabbing the United Nations in the back.

    Increase the level of aid so that people aren’t starving. Crush the worst of the warlords. Provide adequate security for aid workers. Settle in for a long haul, and pay attention to the place. Make a real investment in rehabilitating and rebuilding a country we helped to destroy.

    PS: We here in the international community have noticed that America has a problem. It’s ruining your friendships, wrecking your economy, and giving you an ugly black eye. It’s this tendency you’ve got to put your troops in someone elses country whenever you’re feeling antsy. In the last few decades, you’ve invaded or attacked some thirty countries, and frankly, its not helping you.
    We’re going to put you on to this support group we know about, they’re really nice countries, some of them are well known to you.
    They meet down in the basement of the UN on alternate thursdays. They’re called “Invaders Anonymous” we think you should show up and check it out. No pressure. We’re not saying anything, we just think it would be good for you to go and look around. Coffee and donuts are free. Remember, the first step to dealing with a problem is admitting that you’ve got a problem.

    #68740
    FX
    Participant

    valdron, you are a good man, like many of the sadgeezers, and i am really glad i finally got to meet you although we didn’t really get to speak much at dragoncon…can you hear a ‘but’ coming? ๐Ÿ˜‰ i am sure you do not intend this, but just for the sake of clarification, you seem to be saying that afghanistan was fine prior to the american invasion/interference/pick your phrase…i , however, seem to remember in the dim recesses of my memory receiving several emails from relief organizations and what not about the status of women in afghanistan under the taliban…before 9/11…women were being beaten in public for showing too much ankle and so forth…now, mind you, i would not go to war over this; my feeling is about abused women that sooner or later, the abuser (YOUR sons/husbands/brothers/fathers) were raised at least partially by women, and by god, if you didn’t raise them right, you at least should know they have to sleep eventually, so there is the opportunity to run away or beat them to death with a shovel …but, the fact remains that afghanistan under the taliban was no picnic, at least for women…and if you have no respect for your women, there may in fact be something fundamentally wrong with your society…just a teeny tiny niggling point that doesn’t have anything to do with the war, but that i wished to remind people of…

    fatguy; have looked at your pix a couple of times; there is no context and no real shockers in terms of combat…people get blown up, and if they aren’t cleaned up right away they draw flies and decay…you know this if you have looked at pix from viet nam, world war II and so on, which i am sure you have…we all know that the wtc smelled pretty damn bad after a few days of dead people buried in rubble; that’s why all those workers are wearing masks…i agree with you if you are trying to say that the war in iraq is a bad idea, but i do not agree if you are attempting to imply that the americans are somehow committing atrocities outside of normal welfare…and by the way, most of those minefields were planted by the iraqi’s, most of the random bombings of buses and what not are by fundamentalists, not the americans or the brits or any of the organized armies embroiled in this mess…and i agree with all of you, rumsfield is a schmuck, but i am very glad i don’t have to figure a way out of this whole mess right now…

    #68743
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Hi FX. Nice to hear from you, enjoyed meeting you at Dragoncon. Look forward to hanging out with you again sometime. As to your post… this is lengthy, but it might make my position clearer.

    The Taliban were awful, no question about it. They were shockingly ignorant, bug eating, illiterate, fanatical lunatics with unsavoury personal hygiene. During their time in control, they were recognized by only three countries in the world and managed to p*ss off two of them. They vandalized great works of historical art, they oppressed women, they massacred Iranian diplomats and were all round bad. Don’t anyone mistake me for one of their supporters, or for the other one. They’d just as soon shoot a guy like me as look at me.

    Some history is in order though, just to have an understanding of what goes on there.

    Okay, here it goes. Through the 50’s and 60’s, the middle
    east was balanced. Basically, the Persian Gulf was an American lake, the Shah of Iran was the big strongman, keeping the region tranquil and keeping the Russians out. Iran was the Central member of CENTO, a NATO style military alliance that included the United States, Pakistan and Turkey. Turkey of course was a member of NATO, while on the other side, Pakistan was a member of SEATO (South East Asian Treaty Organization), which also included the United States and a number of east asian countries.

    Basically, the US had the Soviet Union and China encircled in a ring of interlocking NATO type alliances that would check any expansion or aggression.

    Inside that circle was the USSR, China and their satellites, the Warsaw Pact, Mongolia, North Korea and a couple of borderline states, Afghanistan and Finland which were not exactly communist, but more or less in the Soviet orbit. They basically didn’t p*ss off the Russians, and they didn’t get invaded and a communist government installed. That said, Afghanistan, Finland and the others were acknowledged by the west to be part of the Russian sphere of influence. They had their part of the world, we had ours, and as long as no one messed around, things were fine.

    Well, apart from little things like the Vietnam War, the Korean War, little struggles in Angola, Ethiopia, Somalia, etc.

    Now, going into the 70’s, Afghanistan was just some middling little third world state, too poor and backwards to really be worth converting to communism, mildly progressive in some respects, but with most of the population living the way they had in the middle ages.

    The Russians supported the progressive elements, the ones who wanted civil rights for women, better education, schools, doctors, roads, all that kind of thing.

    Anyway, in the 70’s, something peculiar started happening through the muslim world. The traditional islamic institutions, the fundamentalists, started to gain strength, as they rebelled against corrupt western or communist influence.

    The moderate, middle of the road, government of Afghanistan found itself in trouble. A lot of trouble. As in, on the verge of collapse, as a result of Islamic fundamentalism.

    Well, that was just fine with the Americans, they didn’t really care.
    On the other hand, it wasn’t good at all for the Russians.

    You see, the USSR was composed of 15 republics, not just Russia. And a whole bunch of those Republics were moslem in central asia. Something like 25% of their total population was moslem. So a violent moslem fundamentalist movement spelled big trouble. They felt they had to nip this thing in the bud.

    So they invaded Afghanistan, occupied the country, and installed a new government.

    This p*ssed off the Americans, but hey, it was inside the Russian sphere of influence, so it wasn’t like they were going to start WWIII over it.

    Besides, around this time, the Americans were having their own problems: The Shah of Iran was in trouble!

    Muslim fundamentalists put a coalition together with other dissident groups, kicked the Shah of Iran out, and had a very anti-american revolution, including taking the American embassy hostage.

    Well now, suddenly things are getting ugly. The Americans hadn’t cared about Afghanistan, but losing Iran hurt big time. For one thing, it smashed completely the ring of alliances encircling the commies. For another, the US had always relied upon Iran particularly to keep things in line in the Gulf, and especially to keep the commies out. Suddenly, the whole Persian Gulf was in play, and Carter and Reagan were kept up at nights by the specter of Iran falling to the communists, the Russian navy in the Gulf and communists within a stones throw of the worlds richest oil field.
    Or of course, the other bad dream is a crazed, Islamic fundamentalist militant movement.

    Well, they’re not having that! Neither of them!

    So basically, in the Gulf, the United States looks around and promotes the next biggest kid in the class to be the hall monitor. Saddam Hussein becomes Ronald Reagan’s sweetheart, America’s policeman, and the first/last line of defence against communism and fundamentalism.

    Okay that stops the fundies. They get bogged down in the war with Iraq, they’re not going to be rolling on to Mecca. It takes care of the immediate problem.

    But the other problem, from the Americans point of view, is that while their Empire, their sphere of influence has shrunk with the loss of Iran, the Russians have grown by taking over Afghanistan.

    Worse, in Afghanistan, the Russians are perfectly positioned to go cruising down with a tank column into either or both Iran and Pakistan. Basically, its unacceptable that the Russians should be allowed to keep Afghanistan. If they do, then who knows, in a decade, they might rewrite that whole part of the globe.

    So the Americans get in bed with the Islamic fundamentalists.

    Now, this seems like a real bad idea. Especially seeing as how 9/11 turned out.

    But at the time, it made a lot of sense. You see, the Americans had no place else to turn in Afghanistan. The liberal elements, the educated, the middle class, the professional class, the progressives… the people who might normally have supported American ideals, were all in the Russians camp. The only people left with any juice were the fundies.

    So, partly as revenge for losing Iran, partly to stop further Soviet expansion, and partly cause they’d gotten their tails kicked in Vietnam and figured it was the Russians turn, the Americans through the CIA started supporting the Islamic fundamentalists, who became the Mujahedeen.

    This lead to an eleven year civil war in Afghanistan, which cost the Russians thousands of soldiers, billions of rubles, much of their international credibility and reputation, but did win them a terrifically huge heroin problem.

    During this time, the Americans pumped somewhere between 5 and 14 billion dollars into the Mujahedeen, gave them the best training money could buy, set up training camps in Pakistan, and ferried in Jihadi fighters from all over the muslim world.

    It was a hellishly nasty war. The Russians were not the nicest people in the world, and this war caught them in a bad mood. But the Mujahedeen, well those folk were just plain mean!

    One of the popular Mujahedeen tricks, for instance, was to abduct a Russian soldier, skin him alive, roll his body in salt while he screamed, and videotape the whole thing to sell to their friends.
    Like I said, just plain mean.

    This was a knock down drag out for both sides. The Russians saw themselves as fighting for civilization – Education, medicine, paved roads, central government, womens rights, electricity and indoor plumbing. And in fact, in Afghanistan, they stood for all those things. They saw the Mujahedeen as crazed maniacs, the forerunners of a potential wave of fundamentalist madmen who if they weren’t stopped here, might well be attacking Moscow’s suburbs in five years (remember, big muslim population in the USSR). So they were going to be mean, they were going to be dirty, they were going to use incredible amounts of firepower.

    They lost. After 11 years, they’d had enough. Gorbachev took power, he had this whole Glasnost, Perestroika, peace and love thing happening. He got out of Afghanistan, let the Warsaw Pact go, tried to reform the economy, and introduce democracy. Basically, they’d picked up their marbles and went home. The cold war was over… though it was a few years before the Americans noticed… they were having too much fun.

    Now, as far as Afghanistan was standing…. Well, Afghanistan was practically pounded to rubble. The Muhahedeen were in control now, but they were basically guerilla fighters, they were good at tearing things down. They weren’t good at infrastructure like roads, hospitals, waterways, pipelines, schools, businesses. To them, these things were basically targets. Worse, it was all sitting with the taint of the russians, and they were extremely medeival tribal type fundamentalists. They were basically out of the middle ages.

    The civil war went on for about three more years after the Russians went home. They’d left a guy named Najibulla in command. His country got whittled away from him by feudal warlords. Eventually, he wound up hiding in a red cross camp when they came and got him, and hung him from a lamppost with his severed genitals stuffed in his mouth. Maybe he deserved it, maybe he didn’t, but his opponents were definitely not nice people.

    Okay, there’s now a new anti-communist government in Afghanistan, everything is right with the world, and everyone lived happily ever after. Right?

    Wrong.

    The Russians were kind of in a snit over losing, and they had their own economic and political problems, so they weren’t interested in helping rebuild the place.

    The Americans had finally sussed out that the cold war was over. The Mujahedeen were expecting the Americans to help them put their country back together. But the United States forgot all about Afghanistan. True story.

    Now, here’s where the story gets ugly. Or uglier.

    Basically, if we’re keeping score, the country is demolished. It’s fallen into the power of the forces of medeival fundamentalism, and disorganized guerilla warlords, the economy is shot to hell, the infrastructure is shot to hell, the only thing plentiful in the whole country is guns and ammo and the new Afghan government is tasked with trying to salvage it all.

    They fail. And by this, I mean, they fail spectacularly. The Vice President and the Minister of Finance, for instance, have their own private armies and are making war on each other (which had to make cabinet meetings awkward).

    The central government basically disintegrates, and the civil war enters a brand new ugly phase, as dozens of feudal warlords fight each other, make alliances, double cross each other and massacre each others villages. Towns are wiped out, hundreds and thousands are executed at a stroke. The constant feuding pounds apart the little bits of country still holding together. Millions of people flee the country as refugees. Boys and girls are abducted for gang rapes, travellers are robbed and killed, men are stretched across the barrels of mortars and blown in half, other men are strapped to the treads of tanks for a cruise around the courtyards. Heroin becomes a huge cash crop, as what is left of the economy crashes. Various warlords establish their territory by stringing barriers across the road and shaking down whoever comes by, if they don’t just shoot them. On the road from Pakistan to Kabul, there are no less than fourteen barriers.

    At this point, after 20 solid years of continuous and extremely bloody and cruel civil war, the difference between Hell and Afghanistan is that Hell has better weather.

    This is where the Taliban comes in.

    The Taliban, believe it or not, were actually schoolboys. Most of them weren’t involved directly in fighting the Russians. Rather, they grew up in the gigantic refugee camps established in Pakistan by fleeing Afghans.

    Now, obviously, you’ve got these giant refugee camps. They need doctors, they need police, they need schools. These schools were supplied by Pakistan and funded by Saudi Arabia and other arab humanitarian organizations (no sarcasm here, the refugees were desperate and suffering and the well off arabs wanted to help).

    These schools, called Madrassas, became the focal point for young men. Staffed by or run by clerics and religious fundamentalists, they taught discipline and their own brand of fanaticism. It became the basis of a highly disciplined and organized movement.

    Mullah Omar, who became the leader of the Taliban, distinguished himself one day, when a local warlord kidnapped some village girls to gang rape. Omar gathered together some friends, and with nothing more than a few old rifles, assaulted the warlords compound, killed him and rescued the girls.

    Soon, Omar became the center of a movement. Inspired by Omar’s bravery, his piety, his moral code and his honour madrassas schoolboys flocked to join him. Soon, he and his group were a force to be reckoned with. Omar and his Taliban were actually popular heroes among many in Afghanistan. Partly it was that whole Robin Hood thing, he actually did try and look after people. Partly it was because the opposition was such a pack of uttter monsters.

    Their big break came when Pakistan hired them to guard a convoy/caravan to Kabul. The Taliban kicked ass all the way.
    They were united, they were dedicated, fanatical and resolute. The Warlords were squabbling, united, degenerate and untrustworthy. The Taliban were organized.

    The civil war entered a new phase, with the Taliban slowly, one after the other, picking them off, pushing the warlords back and out, or forcing them to convert to the Taliban standard. Finally, by about 1997 or 1998, the Taliban took Kabul and established a precarious hold over most of the country, bringing a measure of stability.

    Now this makes them sort of sound like good guys, doesn’t it?
    Trust me, they weren’t.

    What they were was a group that managed to organize itself and hold itself together out of religious fanaticsm. They were a fanatical messianic order, like the spanish inquisition, the crusaders, or the waves of muslim conquerers who’d brought Allah’s sword across africa.

    They were also dirt poor, ignorant and completely uneducated. They could field strip a rifle, and drive a pickup truck. But all they’d learned in their schools was the Koran, and not even much of that. They’d picked up an extremist, half baked, Wahabi version of fundamentalism. Hell, most of them probably couldn’t read. To count past ten they had to take off their boots, and to make it to 21 they had to drop their pants.

    They didn’t know economics, politics, monetary theory, finance, business administration, medicine, education or the dozens or hundreds of other skills necessary to run a state.

    What they had was blinding ignorance, absolute faith, and power. This is a bad combination, as the Americans are discovering under George W. Bush.

    Simply put, the Taliban had conquered much of the country, but were completely incapable of putting it back together. The most they could do was hold it and keep it secure, while other people did the putting together.

    To the extent that this was happening, it was through the UN and international aid agencies, who wound up providing most of what was left of basic social services. Of course, this freed the Taliban from that responsibility (Allah has provided these foolish infidels, to feed the hungry, heal the sick, and keep the whole thing from falling down. Praise Allah!) and I suppose, freed them from the urgent need to deal with realities for which they were unprepared and incompetent.

    Instead, the Taliban continued to disappear into their escalating religious mania. Afghanistan has always had a very repressive tribal attitude towards women, but there had been modern components. The Taliban had grown up in the severely warped environment of refugee camps, and their attitudes to women were both idealistic and profoundly unrealistic. Women were denied education, medical care, women alone were even prevented from getting food and forced to starve. But that wasn’t all… They decided that all men should wear beards, you could be shot for not having one. Pets were an abomination to Allah, as was kite flying, and music. Even drawings and art were offences.

    To enforce their ever growing ‘moral codes’ they created their own spanish inquisition, a barbaric clerical police who could arrest anyone, anytime, anywhere for any reason.

    The warlords were far from finished, of course. The civil war continued to rage. The refugee Madrassas of Pakistan released thousands of schoolboys to fight for the Taliban and save them from defeat.

    Meanwhile, a huge drought and famine hitting the country created millions more refugees and pushed the country further to the brink. The economy was still nonexistent, the middle class was hiding in refugee camps in Pakistan.

    Somewhere along the line, Osama Bin Laden comes along. Now, Osama was an engineer, and he was rich as hell. The Taliban were ignorant and broke. They needed help. In particular, they needed a devout guy they could trust who could actually get things done.

    Osama was a Yemeni, whose family made money in Saudi Arabia. The Bin Laden’s and the Bush’s, by the way, go way way back. Anyway, he’d trained as an engineer, got that Jihad bug, and went to Pakistan where the CIA trained him. Highly educated, accomplished and wealthy jihad boys were hard to come by, so he was one of the CIA favourites and fought in the war against the Russians.

    After the Russians went home, so did he. But then he got upset about that whole Gulf War thing. He was completely opposed to Iraq, and offered to organize a brigade of fanatics to help liberate Kuwait. The Saudi’s and others snubbed him by going with the Americans. That’s when he began to get anti-American. The Saudi’s asked him to leave. He went to Sudan.

    He also set up an organization called Al Quaeda (“the Base”) which was originally intended to be a charitable organization for the Afghan veterans (something like the Legion, or the DAR for instance). But because these vets all tended to be highly trained, fanatical and more than a little homicidally bloodthirsty, perhaps it inevitably became a fanatical terrorist organization.

    Anyway, Osama Bin finds things unpleasant in Sudan. So he goes back to Afghanistan, scene of many fond youthful memories, and where he’s got some credit as a war hero (according to some stories) fighting the good fight.

    There, he impresses the Taliban with his devotion to Allah, his international connections, his wealth and his skills. He becomes friends with Mullah Omar, and builds him a house.

    Okay, stop for a moment here. Remember what I said about being bug ignorant and incompetent to boot. These guys were all right fighting with automatic weapons, or discussing lunatic points of theology like what kind of shoes Muhammed liked…. but anything else and they were at sea. To actually build a house, have windows with glass, a door you could open and shut, a roof that didn’t leak and walls that didn’t fall over when you leaned against them…. that was damned near miraculous.

    Osama was promising roads, schools, hospitals. For a while, they were looking at him like he was the second coming, or maybe the first. He was the guy who was going to help them get this country on its feet. And he had thousands of fanatical fighters of his own, that would help them beat the evil warlords.

    As it turns out, Osama didn’t do much for them. No roads, no schools, no hospitals, not many houses. There are some indications he was cut off from the families money. International connections? Hell, if he was welcome anywhere else, he wouldn’t have been in Afghanistan.

    So anyway, Afghanistan under the Taliban continues to go to hell in a handbasket. The Warlords are still in the running, but they’re on the way out. They’ve got no clues, just stupid bloody fanaticism.

    They do manage to make the country, most of it, secure and peaceful, disarming the bandits, keeping it safe for the international aid agencies to work, and shutting down the heroin trade. But frankly, compared to the damage they’re doing, and compared to the horrific challenges they’re facing, its just spitting in the hurricane.

    Then 9/11 happens. Did they know in advance? No one really knows. But they’re Osama’s pals, and they decide to stick by him.

    The end result of that is that the Americans decide to pay attention to Afghanistan again.

    Now I remember looking up the statistics on Afghanistan when that war was starting up. As I recall, this was a country the size and population of Texas. They had less than 1000 miles of paved roads, a dozen paved airstrips, maybe two dozen more short unpaved ones, there were maybe 10,000 telephones in the entire country, one radio for every 250 people, average life expectancy was 40 years, literacy rate was 15%. There were five million refugees, an endless drought, and a country wrecked by 20 plus years of vicious civil. Basically, imagine the poorest, most destitute, most completely screwed over people on the face of the earth…. to an Afghan, those people you’ve imagined would be wealthy and well off.

    You know what kind of shape Afghanistan was in, when the Americans came? I’ll give you an example. Two days after the Americans started bombing, they had to stop. They’d run out of targets worth dropping bombs on. No joke, we were practically reduced to bombing goats! As one person said, all we were doing was stirring the rubble around.

    Now, rather than get one on one into the field with the Taliban, who were after all, dirty fighters and knew the territory, the United States basically passed out suitcases full of cash, truckloads of weapons and ammunition, and air support to the surviving warlords, who were calling themselves the Northern Alliance. You remember the warlords right? Genocidal, village slaughtering, child raping, sadistic, vengeful, treacherous…. the same people who had done so much to make the Taliban look like a good idea in the first place?

    I’m not being moral here. Just matter of fact. They were what they were. They were also what we needed, and they were what could do the job. Enemy of my enemy is my friend. Ends justify the means. In the real world, people get their hands dirty. That kind of thing.

    Between constant air assaults, total abandonment everywhere, and a new onslaught of the Northern Alliance warlords, the Taliban collapsed. A lot of the Taliban members simply switched sides to the latest winners. The rest of them, including Mullah Omar and Osama Bin Laden just slipped into the hills, where the Taliban became yet another guerilla army.

    The US tried to organize a unified government, with Hamid Karzai in charge. But there were problems. For one thing, a lot of promises had been made to the Warlords, so they got to go back to running their own parts of the country and fighting with each other. The US also limited the size of the United Nations peacekeeping force. As a result, the UN couldn’t provide security for much more than Kabul, the capital city. A lot of reconstruction was needed. But Afghanistan immediately fell off of the US foreign aid radar screens, to the point where Bush, in one recent budget didn’t include *any* money for them (an oversight rectified by congress).

    So now Afghanistan is back to the state of ongoing civil war and collapse it was in between 1993 and 1997, after the Russians had left and before the Taliban imposed their fanatical half baked order. The drought and famine is still on, the warlords are covertly fighting each other, the economy is dead, heroin production is back, banditry is big business, the Taliban are now just another band of homicidal lunatics at large making problems worse, the central government is a joke, refugees are on the move and the aid agencies who have arguably saved the population from complete disaster for the last fifteen years now find that they’re targets and they’re getting the hell out. Arguably, almost impossibly, things have gotten worse.

    The entire country is literally heartbeats away from nightmarish horrorshow territory of Tolkien proportions. It’s bad, it’s very bad, and it has every opportunity to become immeasurably worse.

    So, if you’re sitting there telling me that the Taliban were bad… Then sure, I agree. They were bad. They were very very bad.

    But let’s not sit there being proud of what we’ve accomplished. We have, very arguably, made things worse, and we may well have set the stage for a major disaster.

    #68744
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Not to worry, the White House is on top of things.

    Yesterday they put Condi Rice (you know, the one who can’t remember what was in the reports she hadn’t read) in charge of coordinating reconstruction in both Iraq and Afghanistan. She’s created four new committees including one on “the creation of clearer messages to the media”.

    Peace and prosperity can’t be far behind.

    elmey

    #68745
    sgtdraino
    Participant
    ”Valdron” wrote:

    Thanks for the backhanded admission that Afghanistan has been totally bunged up.

    Please don’t put words in my mouth. As I’ve said before, I don’t think I’m qualified to make that judgement. I don’t think you are either.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    Well, the first thing I would do is appoint Rumsfield as commander of an isolated frontier outpost, say in the southwest of Afghanistan.

    Rumsfeld isn’t in the military, so you wouldn’t be able to appoint or order him anywhere. After you replaced him as Secretary of Defense, he would simply be another civilian.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    As for other things, stop stabbing the United Nations in the back.

    Increase the level of aid so that people aren’t starving.

    I believe these areas of policy are generally outside the purview of the Department of Defense. This is State Department stuff.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    Crush the worst of the warlords. Provide adequate security for aid workers. Settle in for a long haul, and pay attention to the place.

    Those are nice generalities. Do you have specific plans on how to accomplish these?

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    Make a real investment in rehabilitating and rebuilding a country we helped to destroy.

    PS: We here in the international community have noticed that America has a problem.

    First you count yourself among those who destroyed Afghanistan, then you count yourself as a member of the “international community?”

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    It’s ruining your friendships, wrecking your economy, and giving you an ugly black eye. It’s this tendency you’ve got to put your troops in someone elses country whenever you’re feeling antsy.

    I’m not going to debate you again. That would be pointless. I did read your whole post on the history of the situation. I would agree that most of the events are probably fairly accurate, but I also think that a significant amount of your story consists of simple rumor and opinion. Particularly anything CIA-related. But all of your story is obviously colored by the way you view the world, which has been developed via your social interactions with those around you, as you’ve grown up. In short, it is a biased view of events.

    That’s not meant as an insult. I have biases. Everyone has biases. But people don’t always recognize their own biases. You presented your version of history as if it was absolute fact. As if you have full knowledge and grasp of the situation over there. It isn’t, and you don’t. I don’t either, but I do know enough to recognize that you are very smart… but not quite as smart as you seem to think you are.

    Once again, 99% of everything I hear from opponents of US policy is simple negativity. “Oh, that won’t work. Oh, you shouldn’t have done that.” It is easy to play devil’s advocate. It is harder to actually come up with alternative ideas, that go beyond feel-good generalities.

    And in no way do I march lock-step with US foreign policy, or domestic policy, for that matter. Mistakes have been made, are being made, and will be made in the future. But I am unconvinced of utter failure. And even if there ultimately is utter failure, that doesn’t mean action should never have been taken.

    Many battles are ultimately lost, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have been fought in the first place. The world is a complicated place, but “stability” is not always the answer. Not when stability includes torture and degradation. Sometimes change only comes about through great pain. Risks must be taken in order to succeed, and sometimes the worst happens.

    I personally believe that Muslim fundamentalist extremism threatens the whole world, and it is a threat that the world has not yet figured out how to deal with. You can’t negotiate with it, and it’s very hard to fight it conventionally. As the world figures out what procedure works, mistakes will inevitably be made. Plans will be tried, and many will fail. But try we must.

    The UN is an organization with a built-in tendency towards the status quo. Keeping things the way they are, good or bad. Stability is everything, and military operations have never been one of the UN’s strengths. The UN has been a very valuable organization in the past, but I believe it is becoming outdated. I don’t think it is equipped to cope with the realities of present day. Perhaps a new international organization should be put together, with a more pro-active mandate.

    Or perhaps not. ๐Ÿ™‚ Ultimately, I’m just another joe with an opinion.

    #68746
    Anonymous
    Guest

    It would be a good idea to assign Rumsfeld to an outpost.
    If not as military commander, which I can understand, then as
    some civilian administrator.

    As for your opinions, I’ve taken your measure.

    #68752
    Anonymous
    Guest

    There are some peculiar fragmentary reports coming out of Afghanistan the last couple of days.

    One is that Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been attacked by the warlords. Considering that he’s had several of his Ministers assassinated, I wouldn’t be buying life insurance for the guy.

    One of the most damning signs of Karzai’s weakness as the leader of his country was that he required American bodyguards to protect him. Initially, protection was provided by US Army soldiers. But that was sort of embarrassing, the optics were bad, so the job was handed over to one of those American Security corporations (mercenaries), and paid for by the U.S.

    What this new development might mean, I don’t know. Karzai is theoretically the head of the country, although his power doesn’t extend further than a few office buildings in Kabul. If one of the serious warlords is moving against him it might mean that there’s a new coalition forming to try to take over the country. On the other hand, it might also set the stage for confrontations with peacekeeping forces and problems on the international front.

    Watch this space.

    The other interesting thing is a recent spate of contradictory articles as to whether the United States/Afghanistan have freed a captured Taliban leader. Following initial reports that they had, the response became denial and refusal to discuss the matter.

    Why would they do this? It appears that the United States is trying to open negotiations with the Taliban, or at least, some elements within the Taliban. The guy in question, who may or may not be released, is believed to be a moderate (mind you, when it comes to bug eating, homicidal, fanatical, religious maniacs, that word takes on different meanings). If he was released, he may have been let out as a gesture or an attempt to establish a bridge for negotiating.

    The Taliban, or elements of them, may be willing to negotiate a bit these days. They’ve been taking a bit of a beating, and have admitted losing some of their senior leadership. On the other side of the coin, they’re still heavily in the game, so there may be a growing perception by the Americans that there is no peace without settling with the Taliban.

    Take all of this with a grain of salt, the information that’s coming out in the last couple of days is very dramatic, which suggests that things are happening. But its sketchy and contradictory, which suggests that whatever plays are being made are still in process.
    And keep in mind that these people double cross each other three times before lunch.

    #68761
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Civilian casualties in Afghanistan.

    http://www.cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths.htm

    The author wears his politics on his sleeve, and he lacks primary eyewitness experience, as is so often the case. But on the other hand, he does a relatively thorough job seeking out multiple sources, assessing the value and reliability of these sources, and justifying his conclusions.

    As to his moral outrage, I’m rather sanguine. It appears that American bombing has resulted in three thousand to four thousand civilian casualties to date.

    On the one hand – its war, get used to it, its not supposed to be pretty, people get hurt and killed, and civilians always die in great numbers in just about every war. Civilians die in great numbers, especially, in low intensity guerilla wars like this. It’s going to happen.

    On the other hand – we don’t have any comparable figures on ground war casualties, Taliban or Warlord killings and atrocities, fatalities and civilian casualty rates during the Russian/Afghan or the Afghan/Afghan phases of the war. It may well be that the Russians were racking up way higher body counts, or that the Afghans were and perhaps still are, killing lots more of each other. But that kind of thing, while it needs to be addressed, is outside the scope of this paper. Taking the paper in isolation may be a bit misleading, but faulting it for not doing comparisons with the Russians is like faulting a piano player for not including a tuba solo in his performance.

    Setting aside the moral dimensions of the issue – and there is a moral dimension. Every dead non-combatant is a moral issue. But setting that aside for a second, my concern is with respect to practical military issues. In one sense, I find the moral component of this paper to be unsophisticated. It’s basically ‘Oh my god, innocent people are dying, war is bad, we are bad for killing them!’ Which is fair, and I can respect that position. I just think things are more complicated.

    In war the only real test is success or failure. Do you win or do you lose?

    Arguably, what leads to victory can be considered good (in broad terms, there’s plenty of unacceptable immoral acts that might contribute to victory, but should not be pursued).

    On the other hand, no action which does not contribute to or lead to victory is justifiable. It certainly isn’t cost effective, its actually cost negative. The resources you waste going down blind alleys are not just wasted, but they’re actually stolen from efforts that might win victory…. too many blind alleys, and you’ve no longer got the juice to win the war. Lacking military justification, you are in real trouble when moral issues come calling – a lot of ‘War Crimes’ and ‘Geneva Convention’ theory deals with acts which may be immoral and *which have no sound military justification.* Executing prisoners, for instance.

    On this basis, I have to question whether bombing the living hell out of civilians in Afghanistan is doing the US any good. Is it contributing materially to winning the war. Or does it just give us thousands of dead civilians. The U.S. bombing the hell out of North Vietnam did not save them from being beaten like rented mules. The Russians bombing the hell out of Afghan civilians didn’t win them their war.

    Given the overall lack of progress I see when I look at Afghanistan, I am unable to really see or say that the civilian bombing, or the bombing period, has done much good. It may not be justifiable. It may not be moral.

    #68803
    mandara k
    Participant

    Okay, it’s time for me to put my 2 in; I’m sure I will either kill the thread or be attacked but hell….. why not. This is your friendly public anouncement.

    First: 2 quotes

    The first is by Marianne Pearl wife of Daniel Pearl; the reporter killed brutally by terrorists. This was made shortly after his death.
    “From this act of barbarism, terrorists expect all of us to bow our heads and retreat as victims forever threatened by their ruthlessness. What terrorists forget is that they may seize the life of an innocent man or the lives of many innocent people as they did on September 11, but they cannot claim the spirit or faith of individual human beings.”

    The 2nd is from Nelson Mandela . A friend of his relayed the story that Mandela welcomed his prison guard of many years into his immediate family and forgave him. When asked how he could do this, Mandela said”I’ve been in prison for 27 years. I don’t want to spend another moment there. ”

    Feelings of anger and sadness are natural after tragedies such as 9/11; or the brutal slaying or imprisonment of innocents but revenge and justice are not the same thing. Many times revenge masquerades as justice but it is not. An “eye for an eye” cannot work anymore not in an age of WMD; more will be lost than the eye. The Al=Qaeda believed they were right and justified in what they did; we believe we are right to retaliate.

    Hell, if we cannot be peaceful in our own lives how can we expect it at a larger level? How do you react when someone cuts you off in traffic or a salesperson is snippy to you. If we can’t be human to each other in the small scale it’s insanity to think it will happen globally.

    Let’s get back to basics…. and employ a new and exciting counter weapon……. HUMANISM!!!!

    Okay, let lose the dogs of war. ๐Ÿ˜ฏ ๐Ÿ˜ฅ

    #68807
    sgtdraino
    Participant

    How does humanism work against a person who believes that God commands that they kill you, and everyone else who shares your belief system? To them, you are the embodyment of evil no matter what you do… short of converting to their religion yourself.

    #68808
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Here are my quotes:

    “An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind” (Gandhi).

    “We desire that these proceedings be conducted in a civilised manner, but remind ourselves that humanity is not humanised without force. And even errant children must sometimes be brought to boot with a kick on the backside” (The President’s speech in “Fallout” ~ The Prisoner).

    sgtdraino wrote:

    How does humanism work against a person who believes that God commands that they kill you, and everyone else who shares your belief system? To them, you are the embodyment of evil no matter what you do… short of converting to their religion yourself.

    Wow, that’s a loaded question.

    First off, I think a better question is: How do you best alleviate the conditions that lead to terrorism? — think there needs to be a long-term strategy, and I do think humanism is key. Terrorism often breeds where people feel desperate and in areas of great poverty. If we were genuinely compassionate to these people generally (provide for their needs, but not force our will on them) they would be more likely to feel grateful to us. Religion has become an excuse, the problems run deeper than that. Just look at the history in the middle-east, do they have a reason to resent us? Have we honestly tried our very best to make conditions better for them?

    Do you think they only hate “us” because of our religion? Is religion the root of the problem? Has that fundamentalist fervour gained sympathy amonst those peoples because of a hatred of our general policy towards them? In other words, is religion really the excuse? Do they feel threatened? And do you believe the ends justify the means when it comes to your own country, but not to them? Just curious.

    So what is your solution to the problem of terrorism around the globe?

    I see so many double-standards; such hypocricy. Sad, very sad.
    Here’s another loosely related question: Why is it okay for the US to stockpile weapons of mass destruction, and not the other countries?

    #68810
    Flamegrape
    Participant

    My non-political 2 cents.

    My brother is over in Iraq right now. He works for a company that has a contract with the military to dispose of munitions. He said that at the current rate they are going (destroying some huge amount of bombs per day) it will take decades to destroy the vast quantities of old ammo, bombs, mines, etc. that Saddam accumulated over the years.

    He also said that the Iraqis are glad that Saddam is gone, but many of them would like to see the Americans leave as soon as possible. Some, obviously, more than others.

    Another quick note. We’ve been seeing in the news that soldiers and convoys have been amushed every other day or so. Just so people know, there are hundreds upon hundreds of convoys every single day.

    #68811
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Actually, Islam does not advocate the murder or death of nonbelievers. The Koran, I’m told, speaks extensively on the subject. But there are islamic fundamentalist lunatics.

    But on the other hand, America sports the Christian Reconstruction movement. Ever heard of them? They are the only significant religious movement or tradition in North America which openly advocates genocide for minority religions.

    http://www.religioustolerance.org/reconstr.htm

    http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v08n1/chrisre1.html

    Take the red pill, or take the blue pill.

    #68812
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Actually, Islam does not advocate the murder or death of nonbelievers. The Koran, I’m told, speaks extensively on the subject. But there are islamic fundamentalist lunatics.

    But on the other hand, America sports the Christian Reconstruction movement. Ever heard of them? They are the only significant religious movement or tradition in North America which openly advocates genocide for minority religions.

    http://www.religioustolerance.org/reconstr.htm

    http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v08n1/chrisre1.html

    Take the red pill, or take the blue pill.

    #68813
    sgtdraino
    Participant
    ”Valdron” wrote:

    Actually, Islam does not advocate the murder or death of nonbelievers. The Koran, I’m told, speaks extensively on the subject. But there are islamic fundamentalist lunatics.

    Obviously the Koran is not clear enough on the subject, otherwise there would be no bombed civilians. And what the Koran actually says is less important than what millions of terrorists actually believe. And what they believe, is that God commands them to kill anyone that does not share their faith. We are unlikely to change their minds anytime soon.

    For what it’s worth, based on what I’ve seen, the Koran does not advocate terrorism. Although, as with other religions, things are often open to much interpretation.

    ”Imam wrote:

    Since lawful warfare is essentially jihad and since its aim is that the religion is Godโ€™s entirely [2:189, 8:39] and Godโ€™s word is uppermost [9:40], therefore, according to all Muslims, those who stand in the way of this aim must be fought. As for those who cannot offer resistance or cannot fight, such as women, children, monks, old people, the blind, handicapped and their likes, they shall not be killed, unless they actually fight with words [e.g. by propaganda] and acts [e.g. by spying or otherwise assisting in the warfare]. Some [jurists] are of the opinion that all of them may be killed, on the mere ground that they are unbelievers, but they make an exception for women and children since the constitute property for Muslims. However, the first opinion is the correct one, because we may only fight those who fight us when we want to make Godโ€™s religious victorious.

    Thus, while Islam says you should only fight those who are fighting you, “fighting” can include propaganda, which can include basically anybody who openly expresses a religious belief contrary to Islam.

    Here’s some interesting links I ran across on the subject:

    http://www.interesting-information.com/islam/jihad.htm

    http://students.washington.edu/rameez/islam/articles/jihad2.htm

    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/978147/posts?page=4

    http://www.nzz.ch/english/background/2001/11/30_jihad.html

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    But on the other hand, America sports the Christian Reconstruction movement. Ever heard of them? They are the only significant religious movement or tradition in North America which openly advocates genocide for minority religions.

    America “sports” the Christian Reconstruction movement? Did you mean “supports?” If you did, I don’t buy it. First off, no, I haven’t ever heard of them, so I can’t believe they’re a significant force of any size. America as a whole certainly does NOT advocate genocide.

    If you did mean “sports,” (which I guess means some of its members are located in the US), what’s your point? Idiots can be found anywhere.

    I took a look at these links. They appear to be complete propaganda to me. I believe approximately 20% of what is espoused there.

    #68814
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Doing a little research I see. Very good. All too often, people have this attitude that one opinion is as good as another. Unfortunately, that’s not true. An opinion which is not backed by facts, is worthless. Any idiot can sit back and sneer.

    The fact that you’ve taken the trouble to go post some links, suggests that you may have done a little studying.

    On the other hand, it looks like you’re relying upon the Free Republic. I haven’t looked at the other links yet. But I am familiar with the Free Republic site. It’s the home of slack jawed, mouth breathing, incoherent lunatics who couldn’t put two thoughts together for fifty bucks. The opinions therein, consist of retards belching their half baked opinions back and forth at each other. If anything resembling an unpleasant fact wanders through the Free Republic site, it is immediately set upon and beaten to death. The denizens of the Free Republic site, in my view, are Nazi’s who need toilet training.

    Unfortunately, in this case, I’m going to consider the source. Hardly helps your case.

    I’ll take a look through your other links. If they don’t stand up, I’ll certainly let you know.

    As for the Christian Reconstructionists, I said America ‘sports’ as in ‘gives rise to’, it’s also a reference to ‘sport’ as in mutation.

    The Christian Reconstructionists are real, and far more influential than they have any right to be. They represent the furthest edge, but also the leading edge of a corrupt and violent American Fundamentalist Christian movement.

    While I can appreciate the notion that you might think you know everything, the fact that you aren’t aware of something doesn’t mean its not true or not important.

    Pretending they don’t exist does you not credit. The fact that you don’t like a fact does not make it go away.

    You might want to do a bit of reading on these people yourself. But don’t listen to their enemies. Listen to what they actually say. And listen carefully.

    Personally, I have had friends who were involved in fundamentalist christianity, and I’ve heard stuff that would curl your hair. There is no shortage of bizarre and dangerous stuff which seems to be accompanying the modern fundamentalist movement.

    – Attorney General Ashcroft, who has had himself annointed with oil upon taking public office and fears calico cats as satanic creatures. Silly, but disturbing in terms of the irrationality.

    – Stockwell Day, leader of the Canadian opposition, who believed as a fundamentalist, that humans co-existed with dinosaurs, but who was unable to tell which way the Niagara ran.

    – Then there’s Pat Robertson, a man who on national television, blamed Americans (gays and feminists) for 9/11. And who has lately called for the state department to be hit with a nuclear device. Frankly, if I said any American city or institution should be nuked, you would tear me a new one, and justly so. This lunatic said it on national television, to an audience of millions, including presumably mentally unstable and suggestible people. Anybody care to make excuses for him?

    – Then there’s the charming Reverend Fred Phelps. Anyone want to know who he is? He’s currently working on developing a monument to Matthew Shepard which will say “Matthew Shepard burns in hell.” Oh my.

    – How about those Fundamentalist lunatics who advocate the shooting of abortion Doctors? Who publish names and addresses and photographs. Who picket clinics and harass people attending. I’ve actually seen and met some of these people myself on visits to the United States. Are you going to pretend they don’t exist?

    – There’s the ‘Promise Keepers’ movement, which is in synch with the Christian Reconstruction movement. Wanna take a good hard look at those guys.

    – Remember Ruby Ridge? I bet you do. Now Randy Weaver, in addition to his lucrative trade selling illegal firearms, was also an extremist traditional Christian, a la the reconstructionists – Daddy is next to god, etc. etc.

    – I seem to remember, during the primaries, a controversy about a right wing, religious college that prohibited interracial dating as against the bible. Not lunatic enough for you?

    – Do you figure the John Birch society does not exist? Or that if they do exist, they’re fine upstanding Americans and not a passel of bitter extremist lunatics?

    – Tell you what. Since you’ve got the research bug, I’ll strike you a deal. I’ll go searching through your Islamic links. Why don’t you spend some time googling the Chalcedon Report, Chalcedon Foundation, R.J. Rushdoony, John Stoos, Gary DeMar, Gary North, Andrew Saldlin.

    – And a little tip off for the future here. If you consider a fact unpleasant, that doesn’t mean its propaganda. It just means its a fact that you don’t like, and it doesn’t care if you like it or not.

    #68815
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Hmmm. I noticed that SgtDraino referred to “millions” of muslim terrorists. Now, he’s pretty careful with his words. I’ll invite him to back that one up and invite him to identify a minimum of two million muslim terrorists. Don’t need their names. Just the basic numbers, how many thousands are in which countries, and what sorts of targets in those countries they’re hitting. He can take his time.

    All right, I took a look at one of Sgt. Draino’s links. Interesting Facts…

    http://www.interesting-information.com/islam/jihad.htm

    I’ve got no background on the source of this this link, the people who posted it, or what they were about. The link carries a picture of the WTC in flames, and a short discussion about Jihad. Thereafter the balance of the article seems to be a series of quotes from the Koran about the subject of war and armed conflict.

    A brief comment or two. First, I suspect the Bible, particularly the old testament might be at least as hair raising.

    Second, I notice the quotes were all out of context. That is, they represented occasional passages, skipping intermediate paragraphs or even whole passages. So I’m not sure that we can say that this accurately reflects the intent and meaning of those passages in the Koran, or in fact, whether it represents the overall intentions of and ultimate meaning in the Koran.

    Speaking of which, I had a friend who tried to read the Koran once. Basically, he was interested in comparing religions. He gave up after a couple of weeks. I asked him why, and he said it all seemed to be about how you should sell your camel, and who you should sell it to… essentially, the ethics of near desert mid-eastern societies.

    But even if we do accept that on the whole, they’re contextually valid, a lot of them don’t seem to be all that fire breathing. Let’s take this little quote:

    “2:190-193 Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for Allah loveth not transgressors. And slay them wherever ye catch them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out; for tumult or oppression are worse than slaughter; but fight them not at the Sacred Mosque, unless they (first) fight you there; but if they fight you, slay them. Such is the reward of those who suppress faith. But if they cease, Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful. And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah; but if they cease, let there be no hostility except to those who practice oppression.”

    Okay, now I don’t pretend to be an Islamic scholar, but here is how I read this passage….

    “Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, ”

    The opening line counsels not war, but self defense.

    “but do not transgress limits; for Allah loveth not
    transgressors.”

    Even though fighting in self defense and for the cause of Allah, there is such a thing as going to far (transgressing limits). Self defense and fighting for Allah does not sanction or condone immoral acts or atrocities (transgressions). No beheading babies in his name.

    “And slay them wherever ye catch them, ”

    Okay, pretty blunt. Kill them. But then, this is in context of self defense. They are fighting those who fight them.

    “and turn them out from where they have turned you out;”

    Again, the idea here seems to be balance. Where they have kicked you out… go and kick them out. Take back what they have taken from you. What is absent here, is a commandment to take what is someone elses.

    “for tumult or oppression are worse than slaughter;”

    A peculiar sentiment, all in all. Should we take this to mean it is better to kill than to oppress. Or is this a backhanded way of saying that ‘oppression’ and ‘tumult’ are themselves sins. In this case, Allah may be counselling a balance between taking back what is yours and which has been stolen from you… and stealing someone elses stuff. One is commanded, the other is castigated. Alternately, Allah may be saying that evil (tumult and oppression) is a worse thing than death, for the believer.

    “but fight them not at the Sacred Mosque, unless they (first)
    fight you there;”

    Again, a more specific commandment to self defense only.

    “but if they fight you, slay them.”

    Self defense extends to kicking ass.

    “Such is the reward of those who suppress faith.”

    Allah says: Nyah Nyah Nyah. That’ll teach em a lesson.

    “But if they cease, Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.”

    Allah says: Don’t kill people who aren’t trying to kill you.

    “And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression,”
    and there prevail justice and faith in Allah;”

    Essentially, battle evil in the form of ‘tumult and oppression’ on behalf of ‘justice and faith.’

    “but if they cease, let there be no hostility except to those who
    practice oppression. ”

    Again, if they aren’t fighting you, then don’t fight them, unless they practice oppression.

    Okay, now I’m not an expert on the Koran, but this passage doesn’t seem all that objectionable to me. Basically, it counsels self defense, but doesn’t provide unlimited license. You can kill a man who attacks you, but you can’t kill his helpless children. You can take back what he stole for you, but you can’t steal his property. If he isn’t fighting you, then don’t fight him. If he stops fighting you, then forgive him. Hell, that squares with modern ethics quite well.

    Many of the other passages quoted don’t seem extremely objectionable to me either. They’re frequently invocations to self defense, to faith, to piety. It’s hardly a religious blueprint for terrorists. Of course, some seem pretty bloodthirsty. Consider this passage:

    Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight), smite at their necks; at length, when ye have thoroughly subdued them, bind a bond firmly (on them): Thereafter (is the time for) either generosity or ransom: Until the war lays down its burdens. Thus (are ye commanded): But if it had been Allahโ€™s Will, He could certainly have exacted retribution from them (Himself); but (He lets you fight) in order to test you, some with others. But those who are slain in the way of Allah, โ€”He will never let their deeds be lost.

    Okay, that sounds pretty bad. But again, lets read it carefully, to see what Allah is really saying.

    “Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight),
    smite at their necks;

    Okay, on first reading, this looks like ‘if you see an infidel, kick his ass. But then, it looks like the bracketed (in fight) seems to mean, in war. So it seems to really be saying, when you go to war with infidels, hit em hard. It’s more rah rah than anything else.

    “at length, when ye have thoroughly subdued them, bind a
    bond firmly (on them): Thereafter (is the time for) either
    generosity or ransom: Until the war lays down its burdens.”

    Now this seems to be a commandment that if you have subdued an enemy, you keep him subdued (bound firmly). But you don’t kill him. No killing prisoners of war. You either show generosity (feeding him, protecting him, etc.) or you ransom him back for cash. This is very explicitly a proscription covering wartime.

    “Thus (are ye commanded): But if it had been Allahโ€™s Will,
    He could certainly have exacted retribution from them
    (Himself);”

    No taking it out on the infidels. If they deserved punishment (retribution), Allah will dish it out. It isn’t up to the holy warrior to inflict punishment. Especially do not punish POW’s.

    “but (He lets you fight) in order to test you, some with others.”

    You fight the infidels, not to slay them or have retribution, but to prove your own faith and virtue, your committment to goodness and justice.

    “But those who are slain in the way of Allah, โ€”He will never
    let their deeds be lost. ”

    Even if you die, your good deeds will not be forgotten by Allah.

    Okay, I thought it seemed bloodthirsty, but actually, I don’t think it is. So let’s look carefully at one more passage, that sounded especially bloodthirsty:

    9:5 But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war); but if they repent, and establish regular prayers and practice regular charity, then open the way for them: For Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.

    Again, lets look carefully.

    “But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay
    the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer
    them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war);”

    Now this is genuinely bloodthirsty. Once the time is up, go to war, it seems to be saying. It appears inconsistent with the other passages we’ve looked through. It might be possible to reconcile it with the other passages, which essentially say, when war is made upon you, fight like hell. On the other hand it might be a stand alone passage simply establishing the equivalent of ‘duck season’ on pagans. I suppose we might want to take a look at the preceding passages in this chapter, to see if it sheds any further light.

    “but if they repent, and establish regular prayers and practice
    regular charity, then open the way for them: For Allah is Oft-
    Forgiving, Most Merciful.”

    This seems to call for conversion of the enemy, not simply execution or death. The reference to regular prayers and regular charity, is probably a reference to Islamic prayers and charity… therefore, in repenting, they convert and follow Allah. I’m not sure what the reference to ‘open the way for them’ means.

    And one more bloodthirsty passage:

    9:29 Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Apostle, nor acknowledge the Religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.

    Again, this seems to call for war in a way inconsistent with the first two that I’ve quoted. On the other hand, it does not call for the slaughter of enemies, but only to fight them until they pay the jizya (tax on unbelievers) and don’t want to fight any more (feel themselves subdued.)

    Again, from the little we’ve looked at, either in here, or on the web site given, it hardly seems like an instruction manual for homicidal loonies.

    #68821
    sgtdraino
    Participant
    ”Valdron” wrote:

    Doing a little research I see. Very good. All too often, people have this attitude that one opinion is as good as another. Unfortunately, that’s not true. An opinion which is not backed by facts, is worthless. Any idiot can sit back and sneer.

    The fact that you’ve taken the trouble to go post some links, suggests that you may have done a little studying.

    I’m trying very hard not to read any condescension into the above paragraph. ๐Ÿ™‚

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    On the other hand, it looks like you’re relying upon the Free Republic. I haven’t looked at the other links yet. But I am familiar with the Free Republic site. It’s the home of slack jawed, mouth breathing, incoherent lunatics who couldn’t put two thoughts together for fifty bucks.

    That may have been one of the links. There was one that was clearly closer to propaganda than the other three. I kept it simply because it laid out a bunch of quotes from various Islamic fundamentalists. Slack jawed they may be, but a quote is a quote, assuming the quotes are accurate.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    Unfortunately, in this case, I’m going to consider the source. Hardly helps your case.

    Consider the quoted materials. And then look at the other links. The other three seemed to me to primarily show Islam in a good light.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    As for the Christian Reconstructionists, I said America ‘sports’ as in ‘gives rise to’, it’s also a reference to ‘sport’ as in mutation.

    Okay. I still don’t know what the point is, though. You can find idiots anywhere.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    The Christian Reconstructionists are real, and far more influential than they have any right to be. They represent the furthest edge, but also the leading edge of a corrupt and violent American Fundamentalist Christian movement.

    Yet I am fairly media savvy. If I haven’t heard of them, then I don’t think they’re having much of an impact on anything.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    While I can appreciate the notion that you might think you know everything,.

    Never said I did. In fact, I’ve repeatedly said I’m not qualified to make certain judgements. Obviously I don’t know everything.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    the fact that you aren’t aware of something doesn’t mean its not true or not important.

    Of course. But if these guys are a major threat, it’s news to me.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    Pretending they don’t exist does you not credit. The fact that you don’t like a fact does not make it go away.

    Didn’t say they don’t exist. Just said I never heard of them.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    You might want to do a bit of reading on these people yourself. But don’t listen to their enemies. Listen to what they actually say. And listen carefully.

    Didn’t say they weren’t evil lunatics. Just said I never heard of them, and doubt they have much influence.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    Personally, I have had friends who were involved in fundamentalist christianity, and I’ve heard stuff that would curl your hair.

    And yet when you think of civilians getting blown up or murdered, one generally does not think of fundamentalist Christians being responsible.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    - Attorney General Ashcroft, who has had himself annointed with oil upon taking public office and fears calico cats as satanic creatures. Silly, but disturbing in terms of the irrationality.

    Dunno about the oil thing. Maybe that’s something based on his religion or something? The cat thing sounds weird. What is your source for this “fact?”

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    - Stockwell Day, leader of the Canadian opposition, who believed as a fundamentalist, that humans co-existed with dinosaurs, but who was unable to tell which way the Niagara ran.

    Dunno him. But hey, you gotta remember, he IS Canadian. ๐Ÿ™‚

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    - Then there’s Pat Robertson, a man who on national television, blamed Americans (gays and feminists) for 9/11. And who has lately called for the state department to be hit with a nuclear device. Frankly, if I said any American city or institution should be nuked, you would tear me a new one, and justly so. This lunatic said it on national television, to an audience of millions, including presumably mentally unstable and suggestible people. Anybody care to make excuses for him?

    Nope. But again, what’s the point? On a case-by-case basis, you can come up with individual lunatics that are members of just about any group you feel like attacking.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    - How about those Fundamentalist lunatics who advocate the shooting of abortion Doctors? Who publish names and addresses and photographs. Who picket clinics and harass people attending. I’ve actually seen and met some of these people myself on visits to the United States. Are you going to pretend they don’t exist?

    Nope. Are you going to pretend they represent the mainstream?

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    - There’s the ‘Promise Keepers’ movement, which is in synch with the Christian Reconstruction movement. Wanna take a good hard look at those guys.

    I recently heard on the news that the Promise Keepers are likely disbanding, after they lost their founder.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    - Remember Ruby Ridge? I bet you do. Now Randy Weaver, in addition to his lucrative trade selling illegal firearms, was also an extremist traditional Christian, a la the reconstructionists – Daddy is next to god, etc. etc.

    See above. What’s your point?

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    - Tell you what. Since you’ve got the research bug, I’ll strike you a deal. I’ll go searching through your Islamic links. Why don’t you spend some time googling the Chalcedon Report, Chalcedon Foundation, R.J. Rushdoony, John Stoos, Gary DeMar, Gary North, Andrew Saldlin.

    Why?

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    - And a little tip off for the future here. If you consider a fact unpleasant, that doesn’t mean its propaganda. It just means its a fact that you don’t like, and it doesn’t care if you like it or not.

    Well, looked like propaganda to me! ๐Ÿ™‚

    Okay, I took another look at ’em. The first link, from religioustolerance.org, actually doesn’t seem that off the wall. Lots of sources cited, so I’m willing to buy that they are accurately representing something called “Christian Reconstructionism.” Still, I’m not sure what the point is. religioustolerance.org is quick to point out that if Christian Reconstructinists took control of the government, bad things would happen. Could be. If millions of gallons of chocolate pudding suddenly squirted out of the moon and covered Europe, that would also be a bad thing. I don’t picture either of those two things happening.

    On a side note, it has been my experience that the more generically cheesey and P.C. a group’s name is, the more their actual agenda is something completely B.S. “ReligousTolerance.org?” I’m not saying they’re necessarily a B.S. organization. But any organization with a name that says, “how can you possibly argue against a name like this!” automatically makes me suspicious.

    The second link, an article on publiceye.org, looks like total propaganda to me. A dude talks about Christian Reconstructionism, and then equates it to the entire “Christian Right,” whatever that is. With statements like:

    ”Frederick wrote:

    The significance of the Reconstructionist movement is not its numbers, but the power of its ideas and their surprisingly rapid acceptance.

    Translation: Reconstructionism has very small numbers, but it’s a fringe group, so let’s use it to attack Christians as a whole. If the ideas truly had “surprisingly rapid acceptance,” then the movement would indeed have significant numbers, would it not?

    ”Frederick wrote:

    arguably the driving ideology of the Christian Right in the 1990s.

    Translation: “Arguably” means this is not an agreed-upon fact. It is simply the opinion of some joe who wants to attack the “Christian Right.”

    ”Frederick wrote:

    Many on the Christian Right are unaware that they hold Reconstructionist ideas.

    Translation: Many Christians are Reconstructionist lunatics, they just don’t KNOW that they’re Reconstructionist lunatics. Huh?

    ”Frederick wrote:

    Part of the Reconstructionist world view is a revisionist view of history called “Christian history,” which holds that history is predestined from “creation” until the inevitable arrival of the Kingdom of God.

    This is not specific to Reconstructionism, or even Christianity. Many religions believe that God is all-powerful, and has a specific plan for the world. By labeling this a trait of Reconstructionists, the author seeks to marginalize anybody holding this belief.

    ”Frederick wrote:

    Most Reconstructionists, for example, argue that the United States is a “Christian Nation”

    The author is again taking a view commonly held by many, and attempting to associate it with a fringe group. Many people say that the US is a Christian nation simply because of statistics. Of the US population, the greatest percentage by far are Christian. It is also worth noting that the terrorists also view us as a Christian nation. I don’t think they’re Reconstructionists!

    ”Frederick wrote:

    North’s views are the exception on the Christian Right.

    I think the author meant to say that North’s views are the exception in terms of Reconstructionists.

    The rest of the article is probably a pretty accurate account of Christian Reconstructionism. Allow me to summarize it. Some fringe Christian guys came up with a funny way of looking at things. The end.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    Hmmm. I noticed that SgtDraino referred to “millions” of muslim terrorists. Now, he’s pretty careful with his words. I’ll invite him to back that one up and invite him to identify a minimum of two million muslim terrorists.

    That’s what we call a SWAG. Scientific Wild-Arsed Guess. ๐Ÿ™‚ I’m just guessing, I don’t really know. In my completely unscientific opinion, I’d be willing to bet that, in the entire world, there are a minimum of two million Muslims who are willing to engage in terrorist activities. Two million really ain’t all that many, if you ask me. There are a LOT of Muslims in the world. If only a small fraction of them are potential terrorists, it still wouldn’t be all that tough to hit the two million mark.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    All right, I took a look at one of Sgt. Draino’s links. Interesting Facts…

    http://www.interesting-information.com/islam/jihad.htm

    I’ve got no background on the source of this this link, the people who posted it, or what they were about. The link carries a picture of the WTC in flames, and a short discussion about Jihad.

    Wow. That picture doesn’t load on my computer. I had no idea what it was.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    Thereafter the balance of the article seems to be a series of quotes from the Koran about the subject of war and armed conflict.

    A brief comment or two. First, I suspect the Bible, particularly the old testament might be at least as hair raising.

    You seem to attack this article as if I intended it to support some overblown idea that the Koran supports terrorism. I actually thought this article was one that showed the Koran does NOT support such activity. I felt it showed Islam in a fairly reasonable light.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    Second, I notice the quotes were all out of context. That is, they represented occasional passages, skipping intermediate paragraphs or even whole passages. So I’m not sure that we can say that this accurately reflects the intent and meaning of those passages in the Koran, or in fact, whether it represents the overall intentions of and ultimate meaning in the Koran.

    But the overall meaning of the Koran, as analized by us, is irrelevant. The fact is, regardless of what the Koran “really means,” Islamic terrorists believe they are engaged in a holy war against us. They believe that God commands them to fight us to the death. To kill everyone who is not Islamic. And these are people who have studied the Koran. The Koran may not intend to support terrorism, and I believe it does not. But it is being used by terrorists to support their actions.

    You can sit good Muslims down, and I’m sure they could cite you chapter and verse why the Koran does not support terrorism. But I’m equally sure you could sit an Islamic terrorist leader down, and he could also cite you chapter and verse why the Koran DOES support his actions.

    Frankly, purely out of curiosity, I’d very much like to hear chapter and verse from terrorist leaders. I’d really like to know what makes them tick, what makes them think their actions are justified. And I’d REALLY like to hear the leaders of good Muslims around the world debate more aggressively the bunk espoused by terrorist leaders. I don’t think Islamic terrorism will ever be stopped, until Muslims themselves confront the problem in direct open debate. Not on CNN, but on Al Jazera, in Arabic. In my mind, I haven’t yet seen very much of this.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    But even if we do accept that on the whole, they’re contextually valid, a lot of them don’t seem to be all that fire breathing.

    Exactly. Didn’t say they were.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    Okay, now I don’t pretend to be an Islamic scholar, but here is how I read this passage….

    “Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, ”

    The opening line counsels not war, but self defense.

    Right. But apparently “those who fight you” is open to considerable interpretation. The actual reason I went looking for info on Jihad, was I wanted to get inside the terrorists’ heads. I wanted to see why they thought their religion justified terrorism. I really couldn’t find anything direct. The closest I came to an answer, was that quote I posted previously, from that Imam. He says that some Islamics view “spying” or the spreading of “propaganda” as forms of fighting, for which even women and children can justifiably be killed. That’s a pretty loose definition. “Spying” might include a Jewish woman on a street corner, who happens to look at you funny. Spreading propaganda might include a Jewish boy handing out a pamphlet advertising a meeting. Maybe that is how terrorists think.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    ”for tumult or oppression are worse than slaughter;”

    A peculiar sentiment, all in all. Should we take this to mean it is better to kill than to oppress. Or is this a backhanded way of saying that ‘oppression’ and ‘tumult’ are themselves sins.

    From what I’ve read so far, the concensus seems to be that, yes, Islam considers oppression to be a greater sin than slaughter, and it is better to kill your enemy than to “oppress” him.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    Quote:
    9:5 But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war); but if they repent, and establish regular prayers and practice regular charity, then open the way for them: For Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.

    Again, lets look carefully.

    “But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay
    the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer
    them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war);”

    Now this is genuinely bloodthirsty. Once the time is up, go to war, it seems to be saying. It appears inconsistent with the other passages we’ve looked through. It might be possible to reconcile it with the other passages, which essentially say, when war is made upon you, fight like hell. On the other hand it might be a stand alone passage simply establishing the equivalent of ‘duck season’ on pagans. I suppose we might want to take a look at the preceding passages in this chapter, to see if it sheds any further light.

    “but if they repent, and establish regular prayers and practice
    regular charity, then open the way for them: For Allah is Oft-
    Forgiving, Most Merciful.”

    This seems to call for conversion of the enemy, not simply execution or death. The reference to regular prayers and regular charity, is probably a reference to Islamic prayers and charity… therefore, in repenting, they convert and follow Allah. I’m not sure what the reference to ‘open the way for them’ means.

    Ah, somehow I actually missed that passage. That’s actually one I’ve heard talked about in general terms before. That is the passage that basically says, “convert to Islam, or be slain.” This is probably one of the passages on which Islamic terrorism is based.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    Again, from the little we’ve looked at, either in here, or on the web site given, it hardly seems like an instruction manual for homicidal loonies.

    Never said it was. But Islamic terrorists obviously seem to think it is.

    #68824
    Flamegrape
    Participant

    It looks like you have a good discussion going here. You guys are keeping it fairly civil. Good. However, I have a recommendation for both of you. Whenever someone responds to another’s post with specific responses to specific parts of the latter’s post, it can come across as a bit snippy or nit-picky. Brevity is golden.
    8)

    #68826
    sgtdraino
    Participant
    Flamegrape wrote:

    It looks like you have a good discussion going here. You guys are keeping it fairly civil. Good. However, I have a recommendation for both of you. Whenever someone responds to another’s post with specific responses to specific parts of the latter’s post, it can come across as a bit snippy or nit-picky. Brevity is golden.
    8)

    I do apologize for the length of some of these. Don’t intend to be snippy or nit-picky. I tend to post the same way I reply to emails. I always quote any part of an email that I address in my reply, and I always insert my reply immediately after the quoted subject being referred to. I do this simply to maintain the feel of a two-way conversation, and also so the receiver doesn’t have to constantly refer back to older emails to see what I’m talking about. In short, it is done for your convenience, and to minimize miscommunications and/or misunderstandings.

    You see, in this email, there is only one subject being addressed. Ergo I felt no need to split up your quoted material and reply to different sections individually.

    I probably developed this habit from providing rules support for a couple of now-defunct collectible card games. Players would email me with multiple questions and issues, I would break down the email and reply to each section individually, for clarity.

    #68831
    Anonymous
    Guest

    You’ll forgive me for being away a few days, I hope. I’ve been building a pantry for my wife, so obviously, lots of hammering, sawing, wiring, yadda yadda.

    Anyway, I feel no special need to go all nine yards. But just a few points in reply to SgtDraino.

    I’m not condescending. I’m vicious. Huge difference. I like liberals because they’r tolerant. But I’m not tolerant, I go for the throat.

    You consider yourself media savvy. But, on the other hand, you have no clue as to what’s going on in Afghanistan, apparently? My problem is that there’s been no shortage of coverage of Afghanistan.

    As to the Christian Reconstruction movement, it is a particularly American home grown movement. There is no corresponding faction in Europe for instance, or Latin America. Likely, Europe got all its bloodthirstiness out during the reformation.

    As for Fundamentalist Christians not blowing things up and killing people, I do believe that some advocate exactly that for abortion clinics. In fact, there may be evidence to show that fundamentalists have provided material aid and assistance to abortion terrorists. There’s a close relationship between extreme fundamentalism and extremist right wing viewpoints that would tend to argue overlaps. Even discounting McVeigh, for instance, I’d point out that there was an extremist Christian terrorist group who assassinated a radio jockey named Alan Berg in the 80’s, and who robbed banks and killed people. If you’d like I can go searching and get the skinny on this gang.

    And as far as Christian terrorism goes, all we have to do is look at Northern Ireland where it is Catholics against Protestants, or Bosnia and Kosovo where it was Christians laying the smackdown on Muslims.

    The point is that any religion or religious tradition can produce vile and unpleasant madmen dedicated to the slaughter of their neighbors. Islam, for what its worth isn’t necessarily the bible for terrorists.

    But it raises questions. Why is there terrorism now? Why wasn’t there terrorism a hundred years ago? Why weren’t muslims flying their planes into the Empire State building in the 30’s?

    It seems to me that to simply argue its all terrorism, and they’re terrorists because of their religion is extremely reductive and really doesn’t help anything.

    A number of terrorist movements seem to be principally local. There is or was, for instance, the ‘terrorist’ movement of the Sahel against Morocco. A little history there, when the Spanish finally gave up their Spanish Sahara colony in the 70’s, the Moroccans marched right in and annexed it as a province. The Spanish Sahara (Sahel) people fought a nasty guerilla war until the Moroccans went home. Haven’t bothered anyone since.

    On the other hand, there’s a nasty civil war going on in Algeria between the military government and Islamic fundamentalists. What seems to have happened is that the fundamentalists were winning elections, the military got tired of it, and imposed a totalitarian dictatorship. People have been dying ever since. As someone once said, it’s like Nazi’s versus Vampires, it’s hard to know who you should be rooting for.

    There’s also an ongoing insurrection, of a much lower order, in Egypt, by fundamentalists against a ruling dictatorship.

    Then we’ve got that six cornered thing going down in the Congo. Big mess there.

    In the Phillipines the muslim terrorists of the Moro islands just want their independence. They’re muslim islands, the rest of the Phillipines are christian.

    In Chechnya, the muslim terrorists are fighting for independence against the Russians.

    In Iran, secular terrorist groups operating out of Iraq conduct raids.

    Most terrorism seems to be local, and more significantly, it tends to be driven by local issues. It’s whatever peeves people off in the neighborhoods.

    If you were to ask Sahel or Eritrean terrorists what they wanted, it would be along the lines of “I want my goddammed country back!”

    There is of course the whole Palestinian thing, which is its own big cause. You’d need a book for this, but the basics are there was the PLO, a secular terrorist/political organization, from which sprang off a whole bunch of other spin offs, splinter groups, rival factions, etc. Then Mossad the Israeli security agency had this great idea to weaken the PLO by creating another Palestinian representative group. Since the PLO was a secular organization, they approached Mullah’s to create a religious alternative. The idea was, there’d be this Palestinian spokespersons organization which they’d control and which would supplant the PLO. What they created was Hamas, and they’ve been trying to uncreate it ever since.

    And there was the Afghan war against the Russians, which created perhaps, more of a problem than we anticipated.

    If you really want to know what the big terrorist theology is, Osama Bin Laden has addressed several letters to the west, setting out his reasons for Jihad. Some of them can be tracked down on the internet. I’m sure you can find it if you look.

    As nearly as I can recall (its been a while), Osama’s thesis seems to be that he thinks the United States is in a state of war with the Muslim world. To justify this, he refers to the situation of the Palestinians and to America’s support of their oppression by Israel. He also relies heavily on the sanctions against Iraq. He notes that the US has sanctions against several other muslim countries, including Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran and Afghanistan, and is “occupying” or maintaining troops in several others, notably Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Quatar, Bahrain. Further, the United States supports or sponsors repressive ‘puppet’ tyrannies in Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Saudi Arabia which deny peoples aspirations and interfere with the Muslim faith.

    You can see from this why the Saudi’s kicked him out. In truth, Osama Bin was not a popular guy with many muslim states.

    But Bin Laden goes further, and argues that American aggression against Islam has two other dimensions: Economic and Cultural. That American economic imperialism, and the pursuit of control over oil, has consistently isolated and impoverished muslim economies and have prevented them from developing, trapping their people in a cycle of poverty. Further, Bin Laden claims that the United States is engaged in a ‘culture war’ to promote homosexuality, prostitution, pornography, sexual license, the breakdowns of family and tradition, both as explicit political goals and as a consequence of imposing culture – ie, Madonna videos.

    It’s kind of ironic, since before he got religion, by all accounts, Bin Laden was something of a party boy.

    But there you have it. Their case. Or one of their cases.

    #68837
    sgtdraino
    Participant
    ”Valdron” wrote:

    Anyway, I feel no special need to go all nine yards. But just a few points in reply to SgtDraino.

    Butt of course. ๐Ÿ™‚

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    I’m not condescending. I’m vicious. Huge difference.

    And you consider this a good thing?
    Why?

    Hey, if you’re Vicious, does that mean I get to be Spike Spiegel? ๐Ÿ™‚

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    I like liberals because they’re tolerant.

    Liberals are no more or less tolerant than anybody else. That is just another generalization.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    But I’m not tolerant, I go for the throat.

    Why?

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    You consider yourself media savvy. But, on the other hand, you have no clue as to what’s going on in Afghanistan, apparently?

    That is certainly, most definitely, your opinion. ๐Ÿ™‚

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    My problem is that there’s been no shortage of coverage of Afghanistan.

    Wouldn’t that be a good thing?

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    As to the Christian Reconstruction movement, it is a particularly American home grown movement. There is no corresponding faction in Europe for instance, or Latin America. Likely, Europe got all its bloodthirstiness out during the reformation.

    Oh, I’m sure Europe has its share of crazies.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    As for Fundamentalist Christians not blowing things up and killing people, I do believe that some advocate exactly that for abortion clinics.

    And I do believe that those particular few are individual lunatics who ultimately get what they deserve.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    In fact, there may be evidence to show that fundamentalists have provided material aid and assistance to abortion terrorists.

    Or, in fact, there may not be. ๐Ÿ™‚ Unless you’re talking about individual lunatics again.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    There’s a close relationship between extreme fundamentalism and extremist right wing viewpoints that would tend to argue overlaps.

    If by “overlaps” you’re saying that some “extreme fundamentalists” (I assume you mean Christian fundamentalists) hold “extremist right wing viewpoints,” well I can hardly argue with that. But so what? Some ______ hold ______ viewpoints. Fill in the blanks with anything you want. It will almost always hold true for a few people.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    Even discounting McVeigh, for instance, I’d point out that there was an extremist Christian terrorist group who assassinated a radio jockey named Alan Berg in the 80’s, and who robbed banks and killed people. If you’d like I can go searching and get the skinny on this gang.

    Nah. Don’t really care enough. Not seeing the relevence. Certainly there are Christian lunatics, just as there are Jewish lunatics, Islamic lunatics, athiest lunatics, and every other kind of lunatic. BUT, unless you think there’s some kind of huge media coverup or something, terrorism in the modern day and age does seem to generally be perpetrated by Islamic lunatics.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    And as far as Christian terrorism goes, all we have to do is look at Northern Ireland where it is Catholics against Protestants, or Bosnia and Kosovo where it was Christians laying the smackdown on Muslims.

    All true.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    The point is that any religion or religious tradition can produce vile and unpleasant madmen dedicated to the slaughter of their neighbors. Islam, for what its worth isn’t necessarily the bible for terrorists.

    Absolutely agreed. Never argued otherwise.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    But it raises questions. Why is there terrorism now? Why wasn’t there terrorism a hundred years ago? Why weren’t muslims flying their planes into the Empire State building in the 30’s?

    Well, there’s a matter of access. And certainly the tools of terrorism have become more efficient. But one could argue that there WAS terrorism a hundred years ago. It just didn’t take the form it takes now.

    But one might as well wonder why the Nazis came into power when they did, and not at some other time. What matters is the here-and-now. You can’t prevent what has already happened. Knowing how Hitler came into power might prevent another Hitler from happening, but it doesn’t get rid of the one you’ve already got. In other words, knowing how to prevent something isn’t necessarily the same thing as knowing how to stop or get rid of the same thing, after it’s already happened.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    It seems to me that to simply argue its all terrorism, and they’re terrorists because of their religion is extremely reductive and really doesn’t help anything.

    That is certainly true. Thankfully nobody here is arguing that, as far as I know.

    Although I’m not sure what you mean by “it’s all terrorism.” I’m assuming you’re saying that I’m arguing “it’s all terrorism,” but I’m not sure what you mean by that. What’s all terrorism?

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    The Spanish Sahara (Sahel) people fought a nasty guerilla war until the Moroccans went home. Haven’t bothered anyone since.

    So, in this case anyway, the solution to terrorism was to give in to the terrorists. Give them what they want and they’ll stop bothering you. Unfortunately, I don’t think that solution will work with our current problem.

    Of course, back in the 40s that was called “appeasement.” They tried it on the Nazis. Didn’t really have the desired effect.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    As someone once said, it’s like Nazi’s versus Vampires, it’s hard to know who you should be rooting for.

    Yes, unfortunately there are altogether too many situations like that these days.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    In the Phillipines the muslim terrorists of the Moro islands just want their independence. They’re muslim islands, the rest of the Phillipines are christian.

    A fight for independence is one thing. Using terrorism to fight for independence is quite another. In my opinion, using terrorist tactics robs a group of any moral standing it might have had. Terrorism is terrorism. The ends do not justify the means.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    In Chechnya, the muslim terrorists are fighting for independence against the Russians.

    If they really are terrorists, then they don’t have a leg to stand on. You can fight for freedom without resorting to terrorism. Terrorism is NEVER justified.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    If you really want to know what the big terrorist theology is, Osama Bin Laden has addressed several letters to the west, setting out his reasons for Jihad. Some of them can be tracked down on the internet. I’m sure you can find it if you look.

    I’m sure he has his reasons, just like the unibomber.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    As nearly as I can recall (its been a while), Osama’s thesis seems to be that he thinks the United States is in a state of war with the Muslim world.

    <clipped for brevity>

    Yeah, that sounds pretty accurate. But what do you think the solution is?

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    But there you have it. Their case. Or one of their cases.

    Good summary.

    #68840
    Anonymous
    Guest
    sgtdraino wrote:

    But one might as well wonder why the Nazis came into power when they did, and not at some other time. What matters is the here-and-now. You can’t prevent what has already happened. Knowing how Hitler came into power might prevent another Hitler from happening, but it doesn’t get rid of the one you’ve already got. In other words, knowing how to prevent something isn’t necessarily the same thing as knowing how to stop or get rid of the same thing, after it’s already happened.

    My god, but this statement reminds me of that episode of the Simpsons where Homer forgets to pick up his son for six hours, finally arrives at the deserted baseball field and goes “All right, let’s not argue about who left who at the baseball park all night, let’s just admit we were both at fault and move on.”

    This is where we differ. The world is not a succession of random events. There are patterns, there are causes and effect. Actions have consequences which continue. The past does have bearing on the present and on the future.

    With all due respect, you seem to be advocating a sort of ahistorical pragmatism which has proven itself a failure over and over again.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    The Spanish Sahara (Sahel) people fought a nasty guerilla war until the Moroccans went home. Haven’t bothered anyone since.

    sgtdraino wrote:

    So, in this case anyway, the solution to terrorism was to give in to the terrorists. Give them what they want and they’ll stop bothering you. Unfortunately, I don’t think that solution will work with our current problem. Of course, back in the 40s that was called “appeasement.” They tried it on the Nazis. Didn’t really have the desired effect.

    I wasn’t advocating it as a solution, I was simply making an observation on a situation of terrorism. The point was that in the Sahel, terrorism emerged as a local issue and as a response to a local situation – Morocco’s imperial ambitions and conquest of their country. Did the terrorists win? Looks like it. Were the terrorists in the right? That depends on whether you agreed with the Sahel’s rights to have their own country, or the Moroccans rights to invade it. Were the Sahel’s happy with the outcome? Yes. Were the Moroccans? No.

    And you’re a decade out on the Hitler thing. The doctrine of “appeasement” was the 1930’s, and anyone who studied Hitler and his rise to power back then was of the opinion that it wasn’t going to work. That’s one of those situations I’ve referred to where ‘ahistorical pragmatists’ blew it.

    sgtdraino wrote:

    A fight for independence is one thing. Using terrorism to fight for independence is quite another. In my opinion, using terrorist tactics robs a group of any moral standing it might have had. Terrorism is terrorism. The ends do not justify the means.

    All too often, however, governments have concluded that the ends do justify the means. This includes America. What about the American revolution, where terrorist tactics were used by the colonists to defeat the British? What about the situation of the contras in Nicaragua, who were also terrorists by any standards?

    Still, I agree with you that the ends do not justify the means, and that using terrorist tactics, either as a state or as a group of guerillas voids any moral standing it might claim.

    But I don’t think that the statement, Terrorism is Terrorism, should be taken as the end of the matter. Things are always more complex. By the way, was that an Ayn Rand reference?

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    In Chechnya, the muslim terrorists are fighting for independence against the Russians.

    sgtdraino wrote:

    If they really are terrorists, then they don’t have a leg to stand on. You can fight for freedom without resorting to terrorism. Terrorism is NEVER justified.

    All right, but that begs the question of what is terrorism and who is a terrorist. Let’s try some examples.

    Example #1 – A Palestinian from the occupied territories straps dynamite to their body and blows up a busload of Israeli’s. Terrorism? Probably.

    But then, an Israeli fighter pilot, acting on orders, based on a rumour that a high ranking member of Hamas might be there, fires incendiary rockets into an apartment building packed with civilians, and kills several innocent women and children. Terrorism? You tell me.

    sgtdraino wrote:

    Yeah, that sounds pretty accurate. But what do you think the solution is?

    The Solution:

    1) Stop subsidizing Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza strip. Require them to dismantle their settlements, recognize civil rights for palestinians and negotiate a two state settlement… or cut off their money. Resolving the Palestinian issue will eliminate a lot of breeding grounds for terrorism.

    2) Hand Iraq over to the UN for rapid transition to self rule. Pay for the rebuilding (you broke it, you pay for it).

    3) Try a sensible international foreign policy.

    4) Coordinate with international intelligence and law enforcement agencies, for effective police work.

    5) Reform airport security, put some real money and effort into cargo inspections, monitor immigration properly, properly train and equip first responders.

    6) Generally do sensible things that are rationally connected to the goals you want to achieve.

    Not a Solution:

    1) Flounder around like a drunk in a bathtub, whining about how everyone hates America.

    2) Invade random countries, especially if they’ve got oil or are sites for pipelines.

    3) Get in bed with scummy tyrants, under the belief that they’re more reliable and easier to buy.

    4) Screw the bill of rights, it’s 200 years old and obviously out of date.

    5) Screw the UN and everyone else as well, America has a sovereign right to do whatever it wants to anyone else, and international law and the geneva convention be damned. Punish France and every other country that disagrees with you.

    6) Spend billions on a Star Wars missile defense system that can never possibly work, and whose every successful test has been fraudulent.

    7) Pump the military budget up to 500 billion and 50% of the entire world’s defence expenditures. Who needs to invest in the actual American infrastructure as long as you’ve got enough guns.

    8) Don’t actually take any sensible measures to improve security from terrorism, like reforming airport security, putting more resources into tracking immigration, proper training and equipment for first responders, ensuring security and modernization for vulnerable points like electrical grids, nuclear plants, etc.

    9) Shut down investigations which involve political sensitivities, like things involving the Saudi’s.

    10) Use the word ‘terrorism’ like a club to beat your political opponents with.

    11) Talk big. Big talk always works.

    Now, before you go dissecting this, I’d like to hear your solutions.

    And by the way, it looks like Rumsfield has fallen out of favour in a hard and public way. Iraq and Afghanistan have been handed over to Condoleeza Rice to deal with. This suggests that the Bush administration itself believes that Iraq and Afghanistan are being completely bunged up. Rummy may yet find himself running a frontier outpost after all.

    #68849
    sgtdraino
    Participant
    ”Valdron” wrote:

    My god, but this statement reminds me of that episode of the Simpsons where Homer forgets to pick up his son for six hours, finally arrives at the deserted baseball field and goes “All right, let’s not argue about who left who at the baseball park all night, let’s just admit we were both at fault and move on.”

    Maybe, if I were Bin Laden. But I’m not.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    This is where we differ. The world is not a succession of random events. There are patterns, there are causes and effect. Actions have consequences which continue. The past does have bearing on the present and on the future.

    Certainly the past has a bearing. We agree on that. But in this instance, does it solve our problems? Using the history of the situation, what solution to the present situations do you see?

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    With all due respect, you seem to be advocating a sort of ahistorical pragmatism which has proven itself a failure over and over again.

    I thought you considered yourself a pragmatist. Didn’t you say “what works, works?”

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    Here’s my philosophy: What works, works. Anything else is surplusage.

    Ah yes, I thought you did.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    I wasn’t advocating it as a solution, I was simply making an observation on a situation of terrorism. The point was that in the Sahel, terrorism emerged as a local issue and as a response to a local situation – Morocco’s imperial ambitions and conquest of their country. Did the terrorists win? Looks like it. Were the terrorists in the right? That depends on whether you agreed with the Sahel’s rights to have their own country, or the Moroccans rights to invade it. Were the Sahel’s happy with the outcome? Yes. Were the Moroccans? No.

    Are you then arguing that terrorism is a local issue, in response to imperialism? In some cases that may be true. Some. But terrorists are never in the right. They’re terrorists. ๐Ÿ™‚

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    And you’re a decade out on the Hitler thing. The doctrine of “appeasement” was the 1930’s, and anyone who studied Hitler and his rise to power back then was of the opinion that it wasn’t going to work. That’s one of those situations I’ve referred to where ‘ahistorical pragmatists’ blew it.

    Whatever. The lesson is the same: appeasement that rewards evil tactics only encourages more evil tactics.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    All too often, however, governments have concluded that the ends do justify the means.

    Sometimes the ends do justify certain means. If I have to spray somebody to keep them from taking a swing at me, the end justifies my means. However, I would argue that terrorism is a means that is NEVER justified, no matter what the ends.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    What about the American revolution, where terrorist tactics were used by the colonists to defeat the British?

    Perhaps we need a clear definition of terrorism. Terrorism is not the same thing as guerrilla fighting. I define it as:

    “The organized intentional killing of noncombatants.”

    Note that an element of intent is required. There are civilians unintentionally hurt and killed in every war. That is not terrorism.

    Note also that it is an organized attempt, not the individual act of a few lunatics here and there, but sponsored by the organization itself. Individual soldiers who cross the line and murder civilians are not commiting terrorism, but individual war crimes for which they should individually be punished.

    Real terrorism is when the group actively targets civilian noncombatants in an organized way. They aren’t breaking their organization’s rules, they are following their overall mission plan. I believe that an organization that consciously uses the tactics of terrorism, the organized intentional killing of noncombatants, forfeits their moral rights to whatever it was they were fighting for.

    That may seem harsh, but I believe it is imperative to NEVER reward terrorist tactics. A victory gained through terrorism perpetuates terrorism as an effective tactic. That in turn perpetuates more terrorism. That is why you don’t negotiate with terrorists.

    And, getting back on track, I don’t believe the colonists engaged in terrorism.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    Still, I agree with you that the ends do not justify the means, and that using terrorist tactics, either as a state or as a group of guerillas voids any moral standing it might claim.

    Excellent.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    But I don’t think that the statement, Terrorism is Terrorism, should be taken as the end of the matter. Things are always more complex.

    Not once we agree on a definition of terrorism. What do you think of mine?

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    By the way, was that an Ayn Rand reference?

    lol. No, I’m not that sophistocated.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    All right, but that begs the question of what is terrorism and who is a terrorist. Let’s try some examples.

    Example #1 – A Palestinian from the occupied territories straps dynamite to their body and blows up a busload of Israeli’s. Terrorism? Probably.

    Agreed.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    But then, an Israeli fighter pilot, acting on orders, based on a rumour that a high ranking member of Hamas might be there, fires incendiary rockets into an apartment building packed with civilians, and kills several innocent women and children. Terrorism? You tell me.

    That’s a tough one, I admit. It’s similar to situations where we have bombed areas even knowing that some of our own troops were being held prisoner there, as hostages, specifically to prevent us bombing. Of course, it was not our intent to kill them, but in bombing we knew that there was a distinct possibility they could be killed.

    Back during WWII, bombs were dropped on Germany to destroy military targets, but were often dropped in areas where we knew there would be civilian collateral damage. And, of course, we dropped two nukes on Japan, and we knew that many civilians would be killed by them. But was the intent to kill civilians, or was the intent to cripple the Japanese war machine? I’m sure we could go back and forth on that one for a while, and I’m not even sure which side I would argue.

    But in your fighter pilot example, I think I would say that it is not terrorism, as the primary target (a Hamas leader) is still military in nature. Civilians know that if they remain in close proximity of military targets, there is a greater chance that they will become collateral damage. Of course, they might NOT have even known the Hamas guy was staying there. But those that did know, knew they were taking a risk.

    Now, while I don’t think firing a missle into a building to kill a terrorist leader is the same thing as blowing up a bunch of civilians on a bus to kill… a bunch of civilians on a bus, I do think that a disregard for collateral damage on that level would be classified as war crimes. Not quite the same thing as terrorism, but still bad.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    The Solution:

    1) Stop subsidizing Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza strip.

    Israel is the only democracy in the region. It is far from perfect, but they are still our strongest ally. We support them, but I don’t think we’re subsidizing their occupation of the WB and GS. Weren’t Bush and Clinton trying to negotiate their removal from those areas?

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    Require them to dismantle their settlements, recognize civil rights for palestinians and negotiate a two state settlement… or cut off their money.

    I recall that, back during President Clinton’s tenure, Arafat was offered just about all the territory he was asking for. He walked out of the negotiations. Arafat does not want peace. The struggle against Israel is part of what maintains his power base. Even now he is sabotaging the peace process. There will not be peace while Arafat remains in power.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    Resolving the Palestinian issue will eliminate a lot of breeding grounds for terrorism.

    Agreed. Easier said than done, though. I have heard that the goal of some Palestinians is to ultimately push Israel into the sea, and take it all. And giving up ground while Palestinians continue to engage in terrorist tactics rewards their terrorism, and encourages more of the same.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    2) Hand Iraq over to the UN for rapid transition to self rule.

    I don’t trust the UN. But I might be willing to compromise, and let them try to manage things for a limited time period. Say, give the UN two years. If things are working out after that, great. If the UN proves itself to be as effective as it usually is, then we step back in.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    Pay for the rebuilding (you broke it, you pay for it).

    If you break a man’s leg who repeatedly keeps trying to kick you in the balls, should you pay to have his leg fixed? I don’t think so. Be that as it may, we probably will end up paying for a lot of it, because we want the world to see us as nice guys.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    3) Try a sensible international foreign policy.

    4) Coordinate with international intelligence and law enforcement agencies, for effective police work.

    Subjective generalities. btw, what’s an “international foreign policy?” Kinda redundant, eh? ๐Ÿ™‚

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    5) Reform airport security, put some real money and effort into cargo inspections, monitor immigration properly, properly train and equip first responders.

    I’m all for these, but specific plans are needed. Especially when it comes to immigration.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    6) Generally do sensible things that are rationally connected to the goals you want to achieve.

    Subjective generality.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    Not a Solution:

    1) Flounder around like a drunk in a bathtub, whining about how everyone hates America.

    Now exiting rational debate, entering the Hyperbole Zone. I’m not going to respond to garbage like this anymore.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    Now, before you go dissecting this, I’d like to hear your solutions.

    You first. ๐Ÿ™‚ Specifics please.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    And by the way, it looks like Rumsfield has fallen out of favour in a hard and public way.

    Rumsfeld. Sorry, everytime you spell it like that, it’s like a crooked picture on the wall.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    Iraq and Afghanistan have been handed over to Condoleeza Rice to deal with. This suggests that the Bush administration itself believes that Iraq and Afghanistan are being completely bunged up.

    Or maybe it suggests that tactics are shifting from military, over to the civilian realm of national security. It could be a natural progression.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    Rummy may yet find himself running a frontier outpost after all.

    Maybe, if this were Hogan’s Heroes.

    #68862
    Anonymous
    Guest

    In a recent article in McLean’s Magazine (a Canadian version of Time or Newsweek), it is estimated that Afghanistan will require at least 20 billion dollars over five years to rebuild.

    So far, international aid pledges have come to only a quarter of that, or 5 billion.

    You remember that 87 billion dollars that President Bush requested for Iraq and Afghanistan? Only 800 million of that is going towards Afghan reconstruction. Wow.

    In other Afghan news, the negotiations are well underway to increase the size of the UN committment in that country. Originally, UN involvement was limited by the United States to a force of 7500. This is inadequate to provide basic security in the Kabul region, let alone the rest of Afghanistan.

    While the increase has been badly needed for some time, and it was generally admitted that the force was inadequate, the fact that the parties are now breaking down and agreeing an increase might just be taken as a sign that things are bad there…. and getting worse.

    #68870
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Yo Sarge. I replied to your post, something glitched so it didn’t appear. With all due respect, it isn’t worth replying to again.

    Please note: Afghanistan is still massively bunged up. I’ve proven it over and over.

    #68875
    sgtdraino
    Participant
    ”Valdron” wrote:

    Yo Sarge. I replied to your post, something glitched so it didn’t appear. With all due respect, it isn’t worth replying to again.

    You’re probably right. As before, this debate is ultimately an exercise in futility.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    Please note: Afghanistan is still massively bunged up. I’ve proven it over and over.

    If all else fails, declare victory, eh? ๐Ÿ™‚

    #68876
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dude,

    Let’s recap. I have gone through the last 25 years of Afghan history. I have gone through the current situation in that country. I have quoted in detail a number of recent reports indicating problems with that country. I have quoted and referred to recent articles to demonstrate to all and sundry that it is not that hard to find if you keep your eyes open.

    What do you bring to the table? Abxolutlely nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

    Can you prove that the situation in Afghanistan now is good? No.

    Can you prove that the situation in Afghanistan now is substantially better than it was? No.

    Can you prove that we’ve made one drops worth of headway against Al Quaeda by going into Afghanistan? No.

    You haven’t even made those arguments. You certainly haven’t justified them. All you’ve done is sneer, evade, move the bar around, and waste my time. You got nothing, and you never had anything.

    I titled this thread Afghanimatrix, because it is the Matrix. In the Matrix, there are two realities. There’s the Matrix, which everyone knows and everyone sees, the matrix that is all around you, and which is a complete lie. Then there’s reality, which is not pleasant, which is not comforting, but which has the regrettable advantage of being real.

    So you take the blue pill, or the red pill. You can sleep away in the matrix, or live in reality.

    This is Afghanistan, you can keep on blithely sleeping your way through it, believing the comfortable bull, never questioning and never bothering to look. Or you can open your eyes and deal with reality.

    It’s not complicated. But you have to make a choice.

    So yes, Captain Roadkill. I’m declaring victory. You’ve come to the field of battle with nothing, you offer nothing, you got nothing, and you end with nothing.

    #68886
    bonnee
    Participant
    #68893
    sgtdraino
    Participant
    ”Valdron” wrote:

    What do you bring to the table? Abxolutlely nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

    That’s largely correct. I have openly stated that I am not qualified to pass judgement on Afghanistan. The only thing I’ve argued, is that you’re not qualified either. Ultimately, what you’ve got is an opinion. An informed opinion, to be sure, but still just an opinion. Your sources of information have convinced you that your opinion is fact. They have not convinced me. That’s really the only difference between us.

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    I titled this thread Afghanimatrix, because it is the Matrix. In the Matrix, there are two realities. There’s the Matrix, which everyone knows and everyone sees, the matrix that is all around you, and which is a complete lie. Then there’s reality, which is not pleasant, which is not comforting, but which has the regrettable advantage of being real.

    You know, until this moment, I couldn’t figure out why you were making these Matrix parallels. Thank you for explaining.

    The thing is, to use your example, we are BOTH inside a matrix. The difference between us, is that you think your matrix is real. I know mine is at least potentially fiction. Your matrix is affecting the way you view the world. The vision is biased, but you see it as fact. I require a higher standard of proof. Certainly I take in and analyze information, but I treat that information with suspicion. Always with suspicion.

    I don’t trust the opinions of some people who actually live and work in Afghanistan. Why would I trust yours? I don’t trust your sources, I don’t trust your opinion. I don’t ignore your opinion, I do file it away along with everything else I hear. But it’s not the end-all final judgement on the matter.

    At least not on Afghanistan. Certainly you are our foremost authority on Lexx. ๐Ÿ™‚

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    So yes, Captain Roadkill. I’m declaring victory. You’ve come to the field of battle with nothing, you offer nothing, you got nothing, and you end with nothing.

    Is name-calling necessary? You can declare victory, if it makes you feel better. You are certainly very sure of yourself. But there is a fine line between confidence and arrogance.

    #68894
    Anonymous
    Inactive
    bonnee wrote:

    http://www.newamericancentury.org/

    ๐Ÿ˜ฏ

    Truly scary stuff. Here’s some info on PNAC:
    http://pnac.info/

    http://pnacrevealed.com/ (info on PNACers such as [was/is] “Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, convicted Iran-Contra perjurer and current National Security Council (NSC) staffer Elliot Abrams, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. Lewis Libby, Cheney’s chief of staff and assistant for national security affairs” (qtd from here. And info on Perle, Jeb Bush, Woolsey…

    #68896
    Anonymous
    Inactive
    sgtdraino wrote:

    ”Valdron” wrote:

    What do you bring to the table? Abxolutlely nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

    That’s largely correct. I have openly stated that I am not qualified to pass judgement on Afghanistan. The only thing I’ve argued, is that you’re not qualified either. Ultimately, what you’ve got is an opinion. An informed opinion, to be sure, but still just an opinion. Your sources of information have convinced you that your opinion is fact. They have not convinced me. That’s really the only difference between us.[/quote]

    Nor are you really qualified to pass judgement on Valdron or the veracity of his sources, and yet it appears to me that you’ve done so. So ultimately does your stance boil down to “I don’t know and neither do you?” Hmm, if so, then it seems a rather long-winded way to say it. But if you don’t know, why are you apparently so dismissive of Valdron’s arguments and sources? You… don’t… know. If he had argued, for instance, that Afghanistan was a rousing success would you have been so emphatic about expressing your doubts?

    A note to all on formal arguing:

    Always keep in mind The Principle of Charity when debating — you should put the other’s argument into the strongest possible form and discard the irrelevant bits etc (don’t be nitpicky, and be really careful not to take out of context). This principle suggests that the arguer be given the benefit of the doubt, but remember that when you come up with a rebuttal that the burden of proof is your responsibility. The only opinion (position claim, belief, or thesis) that should be accepted is one that you can defend with a good argument (are the premises acceptable, relevant, and sufficient to support your conclusion). Here’s a simple form of an argument:

    Since… (premise),
    and… (premise)
    and… (premise)
    Therefore… (conclusion)

    BTW, ad hominems are not acceptable; keep it civil. Nor is arguing from ignorance (one of the logical fallacies). Also in a rebuttal beware of the Denying the Counterevidence fallacy, straw man, red herrings, and don’t ever resort to ridicule (or humour as a way of dismissing an argument).

    I tend not to get involved in these discussions anymore because so often the arguer will take portions of my posts out of context (a majorly bad fallacy in arguing).

    And a suggestion, keep the various logical fallacies in mind when arguing. It would be fun to go through the posts here and try to find all the fallacies, especially in the rebuttals, but then I don’t know if this would even fit the form of a true debate at all…. One more suggestion as a general rule, try to respond to the content of everybody’s posts as much as possible (don’t ignore other people in the thread for a one-one debate… for instance, I asked some questions on p. 1 but got no response — well it was sort of covered — me so sad ๐Ÿ™ ;)). A good and stimulating board discussion generally involves a few people.

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