Why is the US in Afghanistan?

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Originally Posted by hippifried

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Perhaps Afghanistan is a country that needs to be dragged by the scruff of it's neck into the modern world

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Perhaps not. That doesn't work. It never works. The Brits & other eurotrash have been using that as an excuse for military adventurism, colonization, & subjugation for centuries. We took it a step further & called it "manifest destiny". We committed genocide against the natives to save them from themselves & bring them into the modern world. There's only about a million left, & we stuck them on reservations with no modernity. Same thing in Canada. Australia too. It's that kind of arrogance that causes all this animosity in the first place. Nobody ever moves into the modern world while they're subjugated by Europeans, eurocentrics, or anybody else for that matter. Anybody will move into the modern world within a couple of generations if all the militarists & skimmers get the hell out of the way & let them do business with the rest of the world.

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I think you're completely wrong about people modernizing all by themselves, hippi. To think like that you have to have a complete lack of understanding as to how life truly works. And by life, I don't just mean Homo sapiens. As I've already tried to point out, the war in Afghanistan isn't a land grab... unless you're a conspiracy theorist. :wink: The occupations of Germany and Japan weren't land grabs either, and all three ain't genocides. Please don't mention chalk when we're talking cheese. And by far the largest number of people to be occupied by the colonial British, the Indians, have had the tendency to look at things differently to what you've just said.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1871britishrule.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dadabhai_Naoroji

You also stated previously on this thread that, "wars of conquest are unamerican". Now you're saying differently. As well as the wars against the native Americans, there's also that little matter of the war in the Philippines the same time that the British were having their last colonial war against the Boers.

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Originally Posted by hippifried

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What kind of countries were Germany and Japan before they were occupied at the end of World War II?

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They were state of the art modern industrial countries. They just got stupid & thought they could actually accomplish something, anything, with threats, bully tactics, & war. Acting on stupid usualy equates to acting counterproductively.

The occupation of Japan didn't do anything. Those big Japanese companies were already there before the war. Mitsubishi was the target of the Nagasaki bomb. They just retooled, & look where they are today. Did we create the Japanese business model? I don't think so.

The German occupation gave us 40 years of east/west division, the Berlin wall, & a huge barbed wire industry. Meanwhile, the Germans just ignored the bullshit between the US & Soviets, & went back to becoming the industrial powerhouse they were before. We didn't really have a shoot-em-up type problem with Germany. We just got into the European conflict to keep the Brits from totally getting their clock cleaned after they got uppity & in over their head. The European tribes have been fighting each other since prehistory. There was no reason for us to give a shit. Did we create the German business model? I don't think so.

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So, Japan was a military dictatorship both before and after it's occupation, right? As already intimated earlier on this thread, and for excellent reasons, I tend to look at things quite differently again from you on the matter of World War Two. Also remember that it was Germany who declared war on the States after Pearl Harbor, not vice-versa. And had it not been pretty much solely because of Churchill, an American on his mother's side, the British would have dealt with Hitler after Dunkirk. It's quite possibly the reason why the deputy Fuhrer, Hess, flew to Scotland.
http://wgordon.web.wesleyan.edu/papers/alliedoc.htm

Pacifism is a real nice concept, hippi, but it simply doesn't explain the current reality, or any past one for that matter. As for me, I'm much more interested in trying to understand the way the world does work AND the way it's going, that's all. It don't make me a war-monger, but it does mean I'm not going to agree with either you or lover on the subject of Afghanistan.

I bet you would have voted for McClellan and not Lincoln in 1864. Now be truthful. :wink: How would a victorious anti-war ticket back then have worked out for the slaves, and for America as a whole for that matter? Some good things do come out of wars, and whether you like it or not, war drives civilization. Pacifism and appeasement are just as much extremes as war-mongering is. Hitler would have backed down from the get-go had Britain and France moved to stop him re-occupying the Rhineland.

Lover's sig.:
"Make your voice count - free Aung San Suu Kyi"

Aung's husband died a few years back, a very long way away from her. Aung will quite probably die too before the Burmese get their freedom, and certainly a long time before the Tibetans do, if ever. You believe in freedom and human rights for all, but you don't want nations that believe in them too to fight for them in a country that they've been unwillingly dragged into. I don't know whether to laugh or to scream at that kind of ideology. :banghead

'Hippie' apes like to make war as well as love, reveals new study of human-like bonobos
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...e-bonobos.html

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Originally Posted by Rogers

I think you're completely wrong about people modernizing all by themselves, hippi.
Pacifism is a real nice concept, hippi, but it simply doesn't explain the current reality, or any past one for that matter. As for me, I'm much more interested in trying to understand the way the world does work AND the way it's going, that's all. It don't make me a war-monger, but it does mean I'm not going to agree with either you or lover on the subject of Afghanistan.

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Modernisation is a process, not an outcome. Does Afghanistan qualify as a "modern" country when McDonalds opens in downtown Kabul?
Each civilisation modernised in it's own way, at it's own pace while recognising the communities traditions and values. There are many, many ways in which Moslem communities are modernising differently from western communities. Look at the financial sector as one example.

One of the fundamental principles of the United Nations charter is self-determination. Over and over again we have seen what happens when external entities seek to impose their wishes on indigeanous populations. Look at the French Resistance in WW2, the Americans fighting for independence against Britain, the "freedom fighter" in Afghanistan resisting the Russians in 1980 - although those same people are called "insurgents" when resisting US troops.

There is a natural resistance to any external entity entering a nation. I can't think of any recent examples where such action has achieved anything except death and on-going problems (Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan). Maybe you can think of an example - ANY - to back up your statements.

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Originally Posted by Rogers

Lover's sig.:
"Make your voice count - free Aung San Suu Kyi"

Aung's husband died a few years back, a very long way away from her. Aung will quite probably die too before the Burmese get their freedom, and certainly a long time before the Tibetans do, if ever. You believe in freedom and human rights for all, but you don't want nations that believe in them too to fight for them in a country that they've been unwillingly dragged into. I don't know whether to laugh or to scream at that kind of ideology. :banghead

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Do you think for one second that Aung San Suu Kyi would want foreign forces invading her country? Absolutely not. It would cause a blood-bath and achieve only destruction.

The Myunmar government has committed to democratic elections in 2010. You may be sceptical about this being achieved - I know that I am - but that's the best way forward for the country. To determine it's own future within the community of nations.

You're calling me a pacifist? That's a real big assumption. Based on what? My nic? If that's the case, then both you & the unnamed author of the almost story on bonobos don't understand the hippies. Hippies were an anarchist movement. There were pacifists in the movement, but the movement wasn't pacifist.

I have a much bigger problem putting career military people in charge of the civilian government than I have with Lincoln putting down the southern rebellion & ending slavery in the US. It was the right thing to do at the time. The Indian wars are a whole different story.

Do I need to keep answering to lame assumptions or are you done?

Monkeys aren't apes. Eating another species is not canabalism. Chimps & bonobos are not the same species. Hunting is not war. The idea that hunting is a strictly male undertaking is & has always been an unsupported assumption. I still haven't seen evidence that bonobos organize to attack their own kind, although it's not outside the realm of possibility. That would be war. Was there a point to this?

Japan was never a military dictatorship. They were an empire, with an emperor. They were just being imperial, like the Brits. Imperial doesn't necessarily equate to invincible. They got stupid by thinking they were actually superior, & got their asses handed to them. Sound familiar?

That little war in the Philipines was actually the war with Spain. We kicked them out of all of their colonies worldwide in less than a year. I can't help but wonder what kind of world we'd have today if we'd just continued & bounced the rest of the Europeans out of their colonies too. The Brits lost the Boer war. They've been pretty much losing for the last 2 centuries. I don't know why anybody bothers with them. I certainly don't understand why the US keeps making excuses for their stupidity. If the Asian Indians were so happy under British rule, why were they so adament about getting out from under it. They have their share of problems, but at least they've managed to modernize since getting back on their own.

Wars of conquest are unAmerican because they fly in the face of our stated core beliefs. The periodic violation of those beliefs through our history doesn't negate them. At least we have them.

The Brits weren't going to do anything about the Germans. They couldn't. Either time. Didn't have the wherewithal. That's why they had to come begging. If Brazil had allowed the Argentines to refuel & go on their way, they would have sunk the QE II & probably taken back the Malvinas. Personally, I think we should have supported Argentina. There shouldn't be any foreign colonies in the western hemisphere.

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Some good things do come out of wars, and whether you like it or not, war drives civilization.

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No it doesn't. It stifles civilization. Trade drives civilizatiion. War gets in the way. Got a list of those good things?

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Originally Posted by tstv_lover

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Originally Posted by Rogers

I think you're completely wrong about people modernizing all by themselves, hippi.
Pacifism is a real nice concept, hippi, but it simply doesn't explain the current reality, or any past one for that matter. As for me, I'm much more interested in trying to understand the way the world does work AND the way it's going, that's all. It don't make me a war-monger, but it does mean I'm not going to agree with either you or lover on the subject of Afghanistan.

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Modernisation is a process, not an outcome. Does Afghanistan qualify as a "modern" country when McDonalds opens in downtown Kabul?
Each civilisation modernised in it's own way, at it's own pace while recognising the communities traditions and values. There are many, many ways in which Moslem communities are modernising differently from western communities. Look at the financial sector as one example.

One of the fundamental principles of the United Nations charter is self-determination. Over and over again we have seen what happens when external entities seek to impose their wishes on indigeanous populations. Look at the French Resistance in WW2, the Americans fighting for independence against Britain, the "freedom fighter" in Afghanistan resisting the Russians in 1980 - although those same people are called "insurgents" when resisting US troops.

There is a natural resistance to any external entity entering a nation. I can't think of any recent examples where such action has achieved anything except death and on-going problems (Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan). Maybe you can think of an example - ANY - to back up your statements.

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Originally Posted by Rogers

Lover's sig.:
"Make your voice count - free Aung San Suu Kyi"

Aung's husband died a few years back, a very long way away from her. Aung will quite probably die too before the Burmese get their freedom, and certainly a long time before the Tibetans do, if ever. You believe in freedom and human rights for all, but you don't want nations that believe in them too to fight for them in a country that they've been unwillingly dragged into. I don't know whether to laugh or to scream at that kind of ideology. :banghead

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Do you think for one second that Aung San Suu Kyi would want foreign forces invading her country? Absolutely not. It would cause a blood-bath and achieve only destruction.

The Myunmar government has committed to democratic elections in 2010. You may be sceptical about this being achieved - I know that I am - but that's the best way forward for the country. To determine it's own future within the community of nations.

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I've already given you examples, Germany and Japan. And their occupations never happened 2,000+ years ago. I'm also sure that the Iraqi Kurds and others are extremely glad that Saddam is gone too.

Have I ever said anything about wanting to invade another country on this board, ever? Please quote me. :lol: Your question was, "why is the U.S. in Afghanistan?", right? All through both of your posts you have tried to skew the debate as to why the U.S. SHOULDN'T be there in your opinion using arguments with little relevance to the actual question at hand, e.g. no links between Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, former land-grab invasions of the country dating as far back as two thousand years ago, genocides in North America, etc.. The reality is that the U.S. and many other countries are there for good reasons, at least in the minds of those who count, and they'll most likely be there for sometime to come. Others who have posted on this thread get that as well. If you don't like that, and you clearly don't, well BOO-HOO to you! :wink:

And I still disagree with both of you on the process of modernization. The more contact a culture has with more advanced ones the faster it modernizes. Whether it is done by force or trade it's STILL MODERNIZATION!!! That's why you still have stone-age tribes in the remotest parts of the world, despite them having contact with the outer world. I'm sure those tribes managed to invent the computer and the internet independently all by themselves "within a few generations of trading", right? Go read some anthropology...

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Originally Posted by hippifried

You're calling me a pacifist? That's a real big assumption. Based on what? My nic? If that's the case, then both you & the unnamed author of the almost story on bonobos don't understand the hippies. Hippies were an anarchist movement. There were pacifists in the movement, but the movement wasn't pacifist.

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The hippies were a good bit before my time, so I'm no expert on them for sure. The 60's wasn't that great a decade to be honest. The highly overrated JFK nearly blew the world up because he couldn't allow nukes to be based in Cuba, though him having them in Turkey had not been previously a problem. But if you aren't a pacifist, then you've certainly given me a good impression that you are one.

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Originally Posted by hippifried

I have a much bigger problem putting career military people in charge of the civilian government than I have with Lincoln putting down the southern rebellion & ending slavery in the US. It was the right thing to do at the time. The Indian wars are a whole different story.

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That a YES or a NO? :wink: So something good did come out of at least one war, right?

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Originally Posted by hippifried

Monkeys aren't apes. Eating another species is not canabalism. Chimps & bonobos are not the same species. Hunting is not war. The idea that hunting is a strictly male undertaking is & has always been an unsupported assumption. I still haven't seen evidence that bonobos organize to attack their own kind, although it's not outside the realm of possibility. That would be war. Was there a point to this?

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The bonobos link is just another example that war-like aggression is a natural trait in the animal kingdom, and that's why pacifism doesn't work. Here are a few more I've posted on this board previously. You seem to have taken the word hippie personally, and that was in no way intentional on my part.
http://www.world-science.net/exclusi...209_warfrm.htm
http://www.howardbloom.net/chimpanzees_and_romans.htm
http://www.lessonsforhope.org/abc/sh....asp?abc_id=47
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sciencean...our-genes.html

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Originally Posted by hippifried

That little war in the Philipines was actually the war with Spain. We kicked them out of all of their colonies worldwide in less than a year. I can't help but wonder what kind of world we'd have today if we'd just continued & bounced the rest of the Europeans out of their colonies too. The Brits lost the Boer war. They've been pretty much losing for the last 2 centuries. I don't know why anybody bothers with them. I certainly don't understand why the US keeps making excuses for their stupidity. If the Asian Indians were so happy under British rule, why were they so adament about getting out from under it. They have their share of problems, but at least they've managed to modernize since getting back on their own.

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A liberation, oh really?
"The U.S. conquest of the Philippines has been described as a genocide, and resulted in the death of 1.4 million Filipinos (out of a total population of seven million)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine-American_War

America has been an empire since day one, it just tries to make itself look like it isn't one. The real motives of both George Washington (one of the biggest slave owners in the country) and the Boston Tea Partiers (tea smugglers) have always been suspicious.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...xt=va&aid=5564
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Rrjf-UaANA

The Brits won the Boer War.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boer_War

The Brits occupied India to make money, but their rule was commonly refered to by the Indians as the "sugar knife". I'm going to say it one LAST time, the current conflict in Afghanistan isn't a land-grab or about money.

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Originally Posted by hippifried

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Some good things do come out of wars, and whether you like it or not, war drives civilization.

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No it doesn't. It stifles civilization. Trade drives civilizatiion. War gets in the way. Got a list of those good things?

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Yup I have. Technology comes on in leaps and bounds both during conflicts and from preparing for them. The classic example is nuclear energy, though you most likely think that's a bad thing. What's currently hardcore military tech ends up benefiting civilians a few years later, e.g. jet engines, satellite T.V., G.P.S. tracking sytems. The internet was originally developed to help keep communications open in the event of a nuclear war. Same goes for medicine and surgery, e.g. penicillin.

Life in general is an evolutionary arms race. War is simply a form of intra-specific competition, and competiton both in and between species is what drives evolution. I'm not saying that war is right, it just will most likely be with us forever. Like Plato apparently said, "only the dead have seen an end to war".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...14592499103809

The U.S. and N.A.T.O. are in Afghanistan because of 9/11. 9/11 was a direct consequence of America's unconditional support for Israel, and the bases it has/had in Saudi in my honest opinion. The invasion of Afghanistan was a given even if Gore had won the election. Both U.S. and N.A.T.O. troops are staying in Afghanistan for the reasons I've already suggested. It may indeed be the wrong decision, but the question was, "why is the U.S. in Afghanistan?". Not whether you agree with it in terms of moral sensibilities. Wingnuts want to nuke every camel jockey and raghead to death, and moonbats want them to come into the modern world all by themselves… ain’t not happy medium or realism with most.

I'm not a pacifist, & I've never deliberately given anybody that impression. I don't have a problem with defense. There's assholes in the world, & I accept that reality. I don't want my country to be one, & I especially don't want assholish behavior done in my name. I want smart, & I'm tired of hearing all the lame excuses for being stupid. I do take the word "hippy" personally, because I was part of the movement, & the stereotypes are a lie.

We're in Afghanistan for no other reason than vengeance. After 9/11, somebody had to pay. Afghanistan was an easy target & a connection could be made. The problem was that we invaded. Never needed to happen. Through reorganization of the old Mujihaddin & US air support, the Taliban was already deposed before US troops ever hit the ground there. Osama binLaden was already long gone. It's been downhill since the army showed up. What's been accomplished? & it is a land grab. It's strategic. It isolates both Pakistan & Iran.

What the US did in the Philipines during their overt imperial period was horrendous, although the numbers of dead include the cholera victims. (liberation isn't my word, by the way) It still doesn't negate our basic principles, just because "leaders" choose to ignore them from time to time. That was a dark period in our history, & we're currently in the process of repeating it. The reality is that we're every bit as dismal a failure at imperialism as the Brits. I think it's because the the ideal of imperialism is basically flawed. The only examples of it working is when the population is supplanted.

As for Lincoln: Slavery was going to end regardless of the southern rebellion. Lincoln was forced to put down the rebels because they took up arms & tried to sever a section of the country. That wouldn't have happened if the slavers had thought they were going to be able to hold on to their slaves. Putting down the rebellion was the right thing to do at the time. It wasn't a war of conquest.

Hunting is not war. There's no animosity in a hunt. There's no comparison between the 2. There's competition among the predators, but deliberate hostility is not the norm. Lions & hyenas don't get along at all, & they'll definitely fight, but either of them going out of their way to pick a fight with the other is rare. Both species share the same food supply & both are opportunistic thieves. There's animosity & mistrust, but they still live in close proximity & scavenge off each other. Human beings aren't even natural predators. We're omnivorous & best suited for scavenging. I guess you could make a case that theft is a natural part of our makeup, but extending that to war is a stretch.

Civilization is just people settling into one spot & producing their own sustinence. We're farmers. By the time anybody ever started writing down their thoughts, the only "hunter/gatherers" left on the planet were the aboriginal Australians, & I'm still having a hard time believing they never planted anything. They were so easily subjugated because organized warfare was unknown to them. They've been there for 50,000 years. If war is human nature, how come they weren't doing it?

Tools are developed regardless of warfare. The first metal tool was probably a knife. A knife can be a weapon, but it's chief purpose has always been food preparation. Projectiles like spears & arrows are hunting tools for the gathering of meat. Explosives are tools. They allow the expidited building of roads & rails & tunnels & mines & canals. A tank is a piece of construction equipment that's armor plated with mounted guns. It's a step backwards from construction to destruction. The airplane wasn't developed for war. The helicopter was developed between wars. I wonder if we'd even be flying yet if those primitive hunter/gatherers hadn't invented the airfoil as a hunting tool. The atom had been split before the war & there were scientists all over looking for ways to harness the power. All they did at Los Alamos was weaponize it by releasing the power without control. The computer you're reading right now is a product of trying to reach the moon. The military didn't develop the technology. They did classify it & withhold it from the public for years. The internet isn't new. We had the telephone, telegraph, smoke signals, & there's the drum language in Africa that can send messages across & throughout the continent. What we have is a huge technological upgrade, but the concept isn't military at all. Radio & television are commercial technological developments. Telstar was built by ATT to relay phone calls. All these weaponized toys are just retrofits. Technology development is commercial. War is counterproductive. The military is just a big customer for high & higher tech because we can't seem to get out of this perpetual war mode.

The top of the alQaeda hitlist is & always was the royal family of Saudi Arabia. Saddam Hussein was #2. We did them a favor. We were above Israel on the list. Mostly because of our support of the Saudis & our refusal to get out of the Muslim holy land after Gulf I. It's really not about us. It never was. Like the Brits, we keep sticking our noses into anything & everything that might show a profit. For the most part, military action is just a stifling of free trade, & therefore a stifling of civilized development. It's an economic drain. It's just a memetic mindset. The idea that war might not be a good thing but it's good for you, is just total bullshit. We need to stop looking for & making up lame excuses for bad behavior.

Article on BBC website today:

"'Credibility gap'

Mr Ainsworth (the UK Defence Secretary) - and John Hutton before him - have tried to set out clearly why Britain is in Afghanistan in the first place.

But there is a credibility gap here. Most of the country doesn't really understand why we are there.

Indeed, there are holes in the government's argument too. If we are trying to stop al-Qaeda building bases from which to attacking us - well, al-Qaeda doesn't have proper bases in Afghanistan.

Their bases are on the Pakistani side of the border.

The idea that if you have forces in Afghanistan it'll stop al-Qaeda attacking Britain doesn't completely hold water because ministers have said themselves that 75% of the terror plots in this country are linked back to Pakistan.

Really, it would be more accurate to say Nato is trying to keep al-Qaeda out of Afghanistan, while admitting that it has successfully transplanted itself elsewhere.

Moreover, the very fact that there are Western troops in Afghanistan is an incentive, a recruiting agent, for al-Qaeda and other jihadist groups to go and fight the West and drive them out.

It is certainly quite a complicated jigsaw."

The official reasons don't really make sense.

1) Get Osama. nope.
2) Bring Democracy to Afghanistan, nope.

I can see 4 reasons that we could possibly be in Afghanistan.

1) Oil pipeline routes from central asia to India&China.

There's every reason to believe that western nations want control of central asian energy resources. That means either we build and control pipelines from central asia to China&India or we keep the entire region unstable and force energy resources to be shipped to India/China via western controlled sea lanes.

2) Control of world opium production. The naughty Taliban had stopped the growing of poppies the year before they were invaded.

The Bush family, not to mention the British, have a significant history of involvement with drug smugglers. Afghanistan is hands down the biggest opium producer in the world. There's a ton of money to be made pushing opium. So we'd have the CIA&MI6 running the operation while the army gives the beatdown to any producers and smugglers that try to go independant. Overall it would look like we were trying and failing to crack down on the drug trade.

3) Give us an excuse to completely surround Russia with military bases. Crazy neocon Project for a new American Century stuff. Crazy but I really think this is what the neocons want.... sigh.

4) Destablized the asian continent to the point where local wars break out. People that talk about Zbignew Brzezinski and his "grand chess game" think that Zbig wants to get the land powers in asia to fight one another... burn down Russia.

US arms sales would boom. Asian economic development would collapse, leaving the Asian continent as a raw material exporter to the west.

Two things are for sure, American forces now have control of some of the worlds biggest Oil and Opium resources. And the continued US bombing of Pakistan has the potential to destabilize that country beyond the breaking point.

Given the endemic fraud that pervaded the election in Afghanistan, is there really any justification to continue - let alone increase - the US military presence?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8225745.stm

Even more telling than accusations of fraud is that only 35% turned out to vote in the first place.