Australia should pull out of Afghanistan

[Prospero]

Afghanistan has been fucked over not just by the West but, before that, by Russia.

[robertlouis]

Afghanistan has been fucked over not just by the West but, before that, by Russia.

And before that, by Britain, and before that, by Russia, and before that, by Britain.....

It's an old song with a sad refrain.

[Stavros]

Thought more of you than that, tbh, Irvin.

They didn't invite us in. The Afghans have never invited invasion.

No matter when we do finally leave, the country and its people will be in a worse state than when we went in. Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, the alleged targets, were safely ensconced in Pakistan throughout, as allied intelligence knew only too well.

And it was America's bone-headed stance in the 1980's under Reagan's somnolent leadership that actively created and encouraged the Taliban.

Afghanistan is every bit as much the west's fuck-up as it is of their own making.

I would amend your post -Mujahideen rather than Taliban: the Reagan presidency's support for General Zia was in part a cold war balancing act to what Washington had seen for years as a pro-Soviet bias in India; the Taliban were nurtured in the madrassas of Pakistan in the mid-1980s during the Soviet occupation when the USA/Saudi partnership was more focused on the Mujahideen rather than the Madrassas -I don't doubt that US dollars sent to Pakistan were used to fund the Madrassas but mostly it was Saudi money, so I don't believe you could argue the Taliban were 'created and encouraged' by Reagan given that they really took off in the 1990s when Reagan was out of office. Benazir Bhutto played a strategic role in the promotion of the Taliban, appointing them security guards for trade convoys in 1994.

Britain now has the problem in the decommissioning of its military apparatus in Afghanistan: Pakistan is the logical route out of the country but is not safe; Uzbekistan is now the favoured route but as head of state Islam Karimov wants a state visit to the UK as a quid pro quo so he can stay at Buckingham Palace -because of its appalling record on human rights, British foreign policy makers are stuck between the two....the other route is through Iran...

[Ben]

As Ron Paul has stated: the Afghanistan war is an "illegal" war, an "immoral" war and an "unconstitutional" war. In other words: it's fully justified -- ha ha!
And now only 30 percent of Americans approve of it. But public opinion doesn't shape public policy. It's called: a democratic deficit.
I think we should re-institute the draft. And that'll end these wars pretty quickly. And if politicians really believe in these wars, well, they should send their own children. (One thing I respect about Sarah Palin: her son served in Iraq.)

[Ben]

Interesting read...

[irvin66]

To be serious for a while, there is no simple solution to the problems in Afghanistan. The Taliban are strong in some parts of the country and removing them is not easy. Ordinary people have want to do something themselves, unless it becomes difficult to stop them. They must agree among themselves but they do not agree, there are too many different clans and ethnic groups.