Progress in Afghanistan: What's Next After 6 Years of War?

[rootX]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17165410

Nato has withdrawn all its personnel from Afghan ministries after two senior US officers were shot dead in the interior ministry building in Kabul.

It is getting worse.

 

[Dotini]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17165410

It is getting worse.

This is a bad development, burning the Koran.
For the last 10 years our problems in Afghanistan were all about the Taliban, who are Pashtuns, who are the majority tribe. We were even starting to negotiate with them for a way out. But now we have, I suppose inadvertently, angered the Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, Aimak, Turkmen, Baloch and others who are the remaining population of the country, which is 99% Islamic. Another stupid blunder, own goal or self-inflicted wound which only fans their worst fears about us. It is our nature, and not fixable.

Respectfully submitted,
Steve

 

[Q_Goest]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17165410

It is getting worse.

I have a very close friend who's a colonel in the USMC who is there. According to news reports, the two officers were a liutenant colonel and a major, so I'm hoping that's correct and my friend wasn't one of the two - realizing there must be dozens of officers there.

 

[thorium1010]

Yes, that's exactly the point. Isn't that what they're doing in Afghanistan? Are only muslims allowed to do that?

I think you really should learn how cultures differ in treating their religion. Religion is not only their culture , it is their everyday life.

 

[Q_Goest]

Religion is not only their culture , it is their everyday life.

Well said, I agree. How does their religion guide their actions?

 

[thorium1010]

Well said, I agree. How does their religion guide their actions?

Are you serious? or are you being sarcastic ? I am not going to have a religious discussion about any religion . However, i think you know how sensitivities run in Afghanistan which is driven most of the time by religious fanaticism.

Btw the current protest is by the local people who have similar degree of sensitiveness towards religion. I do not support the protests as much i do not support careless mistake of the U.S. soldiers.

 

[rootX]

Q_Goest, I best hope you don't serve in military/any kind of foreign affairs services with the mentality as such in post #214.

This is a bad development, burning the Koran.
For the last 10 years our problems in Afghanistan were all about the Taliban, who are Pashtuns, who are the majority tribe. We were even starting to negotiate with them for a way out. But now we have, I suppose inadvertently, angered the Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, Aimak, Turkmen, Baloch and others who are the remaining population of the country, which is 99% Islamic. Another stupid blunder, own goal or self-inflicted wound which only fans their worst fears about us. It is our nature, and not fixable.

Respectfully submitted,
Steve

The troops who burned Koran shouldn't have been there in the first place. After ten years of continuous involvement in that region U.S. should have bit higher standards on who get to work in that region. But there will always be idiots home/serving abroad who will do something to endanger U.S. interests and U.S. troops in M.E.

 

[MarcoD]

I gave up on deciding on the legality issue. Having said that, you can't burn a US flag on US soil either.

Somewhere in between clusterfluff and dung happens.

 

[Q_Goest]

i think you know how sensitivities run in Afghanistan which is driven most of the time by religious fanaticism.

exactly. And I don't think it's fair to those people who practice Islam to gloss over their religion and the things that they do in the name of religion and just say, 'that's ok. It's their culture.' or 'it's their religious beliefs.' and for some reason we need to accept that and overlook their actions.

Prejudicm needs to be stamped out and should never be tolerated. We need to maintain our diverse outlook, our acceptance of different cultures, and embrace the differences, but not regardless of whatever these differences may be. These protests aren't "ridiculously over-the-top" and "barbaric" because this is simply a different culture.

I'm having a very hard time understanding why these kinds of acts should be so well tolerated and so well excused. Clearly, the week long riots, the killing dozens of innocent Afgans and other people from around the world is an indication of just how far this religion has taken a very large group of people away from the moralities that everyone else holds so dear.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

I'm having a very hard time understanding why these kinds of acts should be so well tolerated and so well excused. Clearly, the week long riots, the killing dozens of innocent Afgans and other people from around the world is an indication of just how far this religion has taken a very large group of people away from the moralities that everyone else holds so dear.

Who on Earth is excusing them? I haven't met anyone nor seen anyone on this forum who doesn't find murder on the basis of such a trivial "offence" justifiable by any means. But the fact that it was a stupid idea to burn the Koran by those soldiers is irrelevant to whether or not the retaliation was good/bad/other.

It was tactically stupid for them to do that and now they have the blood of their comrades on their hands. It's like standing next to a guy with a gun who says he's going to shoot anyone who blinks then blinking in his face. His actions are deplorable, yours are stupid. There's a time and a place for fighting deplorable actions and this wasn't it.

 

[thorium1010]

I'm having a very hard time understanding why these kinds of acts should be so well tolerated and so well excused. Clearly, the week long riots, the killing dozens of innocent Afgans and other people from around the world is an indication of just how far this religion has taken a very large group of people away from the moralities that everyone else holds so dear.

Also what you call moralities is a different standard for them ( i am not arguing they are justified in their action). They hold their religious beliefs to a different standard and do not tolerate anyone dishonoring them. That is their practice and that is their way of life, you can't change that nor can force them to adopt western standard of morals (although i do not what exactly that means).

 

[Q_Goest]

Q_Goest, I best hope you don't serve in military/any kind of foreign affairs services with the mentality as such in post #214.

I hope you're right. I hope I never have to serve again. I've already served in the armed forces and as mentioned, I have a very close friend of 30+ years who is at the ministry in Kabul where this took place. In some sad way, I'm hoping those news reports are correct and it was a lieutenant colonel and a major who were killed. If that's the case, I'm sure my friend knew those people very well.

The troops who burned Koran shouldn't have been there in the first place. After ten years of continuous involvement in that region U.S. should have bit higher standards on who get to work in that region. But there will always be idiots home/serving abroad who will do something to endanger U.S. interests and U.S. troops in M.E.

I agree, I don't think we should have ever intervened in the first place. There were so many other things we could have done following 9/11. And I suspect my friend in the marine corp would agree too. But he always states that his is not to decide what is the best policy when performing those missions, so when asked, he basically refuses to even offer an opinion on the government's policies. He simply follows orders like everyone and asks for the same kind of professionalism of the troops he leads.

 

[MarcoD]

Yeah, well, another manner of looking at the conflict is that now Afghans need to think about how far they are willing to go about the burning of a book. No idea if it will achieve anything, but maybe it isn't all that bad.

 

[Q_Goest]

Who on Earth is excusing them? ... It's like standing next to a guy with a gun who says he's going to shoot anyone who blinks then blinking in his face. [your actions] are stupid

Would you say that a cartoonist who draws muhammed is stupid? That people in some part of the country OTHER than the middle east are stupid for burning the koran? Should we all keep from doing stupid things so someone else doesn't commit deplorable acts?

I guess I have to disagree with your assessment. People should not be held hostage by the fear of doing something that might cause another to perform deplorable acts. Doing so, in some way, is to excuse them from what they do, and to be held hostage by them.

 

[Galteeth]

An interesting piece about the situation on the ground by Col. Daniel Davis.http://armedforcesjournal.com/2012/02/8904030

 

[russ_watters]

I gave up on deciding on the legality issue. Having said that, you can't burn a US flag on US soil either.

Not true. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_desecration#United_States

Moreover, this is not about whether or not it is legal to burn the Koran, it is about killing people over burning the Koran.

 

[MarcoD]

Not true. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_desecration#United_States

Moreover, this is not about whether or not it is legal to burn the Koran, it is about killing people over burning the Koran.

Oh, I actually agree with you. I should have said "You can't burn a US flag on US soil without (some) public outrage." I.e., to some of them the incident is comparable to the US being occupied by Afghans who then started burning the US flag.

I am a westerner. I don't think (extreme) Islamic values are compatible with my western values, and I favor freedom of speech (or freedom of these acts) over violent retribution. (Actually, I think I am probably a bit more extreme on freedom than most people.)

Having said that, it's their country; I don't believe in enforcing my values on them. And it wouldn't surprise me if burning a Koran under normal circumstances is against their laws and would have ended in one's death.

 

[MarcoD]

On another note, I guess the following is the real problem:

I don't have a similar picture for civilian casualties, but the war seems to be escalating. Which you can interpret in multiple manners.

 

[Dotini]

Moreover, this is not about whether or not it is legal to burn the Koran, it is about killing people over burning the Koran.

I don't understand. It seems our people are being killed not by our enemy, the Taliban, but now by our putative allies. Talking heads on TV are saying the whole 10 year mission is in jeopardy. How can we pull out and leave the country to those who are now shooting at us?

Respectfully submitted,
Steve

 

[lisab]

An interesting piece about the situation on the ground by Col. Daniel Davis.


http://armedforcesjournal.com/2012/02/8904030

That's pretty depressing.

 

[mheslep]

On another note, I guess the following is the real problem:

[...]

I don't have a similar picture for civilian casualties, but the war seems to be escalating. Which you can interpret in multiple manners.

Yes these last three years have been the worst of the conflict in Afghanistan, though 2010 seems to have been the worst year for fatalities.

I see some 10% of the fatalities are 'non-hostile', truck rollovers, helicopter crashes, illness and the like.
http://www.icasualties.org/OEF/Fatalities.aspx

 

[BobG]

I see some 10% of the fatalities are 'non-hostile', truck rollovers, helicopter crashes, illness and the like.
http://www.icasualties.org/OEF/Fatalities.aspx

That's a pretty good safety record.

In Gulf War I, more military died in accidents than were killed by the enemy (145 vs 114).

In World War II, there were about 94,000 air combat crew casualties, with about 30,000 of those killed in action. Nearly 15,000 were killed in military air accidents in the US, with those aircrews never even seeing combat. (With high altitude aviation being new and its affects on human physiology something learned by experience, one could almost expect extremely high accident rates - especially when trying to land after hours long flights. I read the book "Unbroken" and one of the ironies was a plane crashing into the ocean due to personel error while searching for survivors of another plane that had suffered an accidental crash into the ocean.)

 

[Galteeth]

That's pretty depressing.

Yes. Another serious concern is that a good deal of the Afghan security forces are junkies.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/02/03/IN5R1N0U1G.DTL

 

[russ_watters]

That's a pretty good safety record.

In Gulf War I, more military died in accidents than were killed by the enemy (145 vs 114).

I read it the other way around: it's a pretty dangerous war.

 

[ThomasT]

Why hasn't this thread been locked?

 

[russ_watters]

Why should it be?

 

[ThomasT]

Why should it be?

I don't see any recent posts relating to progress in Afghanistan.

 

[WhoWee]

This situation in Afghanistan deserves it's own thread, since although it is one of two states in which which the US military is involved in direct conflict with entities designated as terrorists in the 'War on Terror', it is quite different from Iraq.

In an article, Joel Fitzgibbon, Australia's new Minister for Defense, outlines the challenge and the need for a strategic plan to secure democracy and stability in Afghanistan.

http://www.the-diplomat.com/article.aspx?aeid=5804

This thread was started on March 17, 2008 - 4 years ago. A major component of this thread is "the challenge and the need for a strategic plan to secure democracy and stability in Afghanistan". If there aren't any posts related to progress - might it be possible there still isn't a viable plan in place - after 4 years of observance by us?

 

[mheslep]

I don't see any recent posts relating to progress in Afghanistan.

Posts 232, 235 on casualty figures don't relate to progress (or lack thereof)? The issue of the violent fall out from the message passing and then burning of Korans in an Afghan POW camp went on for a page or two.

 

[Dotini]

This thread was started on March 17, 2008 - 4 years ago. A major component of this thread is "the challenge and the need for a strategic plan to secure democracy and stability in Afghanistan". If there aren't any posts related to progress - might it be possible there still isn't a viable plan in place - after 4 years of observance by us?

Obviously there is no progress toward securing democracy in Afghanistan. Even the neocons have given up on that.

The current plan seems to be to negotiate with the Taliban, turn the country over to Karzai and the Afghan government in 2014, and then depart - leaving enough (20K?) boots on the ground and airbases to continue suppressing the Taliban in perpetuity.

The first fly in the ointment is the candid report by Colonel Davis that progress towards standing up a reliable Afghan army and police force is largely a pack of lies. The new fly in the ointment is that we have suddenly alienated our "host" by foolishly burning their bible, and if they don't calm down about it, we may be forced to leave earlier than anticipated, leaving stability an open question. Another underlying problem is that the Taliban will always have safe havens in Pakistan. Oh, it's a little messy, but as long as we keep special ops and airpower suppressing the Afghan Taliban from in-country or nearby, we will have achieved the essential goals of revenge for 9/11 and ongoing suppression of terrorist bases in Afghanistan.

Thinking like a realist (as opposed to a Paulite), I suppose it's all well and good to be a global hegemon, world policemen and indispensable force for good. But it would be a welcome change to occasionally win one of these wars we are always getting into, and then actually benefit from it so we can pay the bills.

Respectfully submitted,
Steve