Something I wish a U.S. president would say about Afghanistan (or some place similar).

[Dayton3]

Dayton3 we had no business in Korea

Your opinion. Which no one with any common sense cares about. I only reply because I hate allowing your idiocy to go unanswered.

 

[kyzr]

I'm not saying there isnt a lot to what you say. There is a middle ground at some point and there are costs vs gains ALWAYS. But I cant help but see, we had a very few people over there only 3,000 at most, in the entire country and it was helping them hold it together, so obviously there were Afghanis who had the will to work with us and trying to do it for themselves but obviously they were just not strong enough yet. I cant see how providing logistics and technical support was such a bad thing. Our presence there I think was also symbolic of our resolve and that along with the Afghan military seemed to be enough to keep the Taliban back.
I'm not convinced as you are that those people all want to remain backwards. They are just facing the Taliban who are actually a minority and made up of different peoples anyway. They are just savages.

We agree with the summary, they are just savages. We gave them 20-years which should have been enough time to become civilized. It wasn't.
I don't want my grandson or anyone's loved one over there. We're out, AFG is none of our business. IMHO the 3,000 there were negotiated and the Taliban knew not to hurt any of them or there would have been serious consequences. I saw a Pompeo interview where he said that, and the "truce" generally held.

 

[Rigby5]

1) The only WMDs Iraq had were leftover chemical shells.
2) That said, Iraq was not supposed to have those either.
3) Iraq was never going to attack the U.S.
4) But Iraq was still committing acts of war against the U.S. by attempting to lock SAM radar missiles on American aircraft patrolling the no fly zones.

5) I don't care if another nation is a direct threat to the U.S. or not in order to justify military action by us.

2) Iraq was supposed to have those left over chemical weapons because we gave them to them when Iran started attacking them with chemical weapons in the 1970s.

4) It was the US that was committing acts of war by declaring a no-fly-zone where al Qaeda was operating in the north.
The US no-fly-zones were totally and completely illegal.
Iraq was a sovereign country we could not legally trespass over.

 

[Rigby5]

You got a point, maybe we should send sniper teams to S.F. to stop the shoplifters!

Naw, the Taliban was welcoming Alquida and giving them support

No, the CIA forced the Mujahedeen to reluctantly accept al Qaeda.

{...
The Taliban government in Afghanistan offered to present Osama bin Laden for a trial long before the attacks of September 11, 2001, but the US government showed no interest, according to a senior aide to the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar.
Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, Taliban’s last foreign minister, told Al Jazeera in an exclusive interview that his government had made several proposals to the United States to present the al-Qaeda leader, considered the mastermind of the 2001 attacks, for trial for his involvement in plots targeting US facilities during the 1990s.
“Even before the [9/11] attacks, our Islamic Emirate had tried through various proposals to resolve the Osama issue. One such proposal was to set up a three-nation court, or something under the supervision of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference [OIC],” Muttawakil said.
“But the US showed no interest in it. They kept demanding we hand him over, but we had no relations with the US, no agreement of any sort. They did not recognise our government.”
The US did not recognise the Taliban government and had no direct diplomatic relations with the group which controlled most of Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001.
But proposals by the Taliban were relayed to the US through indirect channels such as the US embassy in Pakistan or the informal Taliban office for the UN in New York, Muttawakil said.

Robert Grenier, the CIA station chief in Pakistan at the time of 9/11, confirmed that such proposals had been made to US officials.
Grenier said the US considered the offers to bring in Bin Laden to trial a “ploy”.

“Another idea was that [bin Laden] would be brought to trial before a group of Ulema [religious scholars] in Afghanistan.
“No one in the US government took these [offers] seriously because they did not trust the Taliban and their ability to conduct a proper trial.”
Subsequent to the 1998 US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, as US pressure grew, the Taliban insisted on a procedure under the supervision of OIC because it considered it a “neutral international organisation”.
The OIC is a Saudi Arabia-based organisation representing 56 Muslim nations. Al Jazeera contacted the OIC, but nobody was available for comment.

​

​

Afghanistan’s seat at the United Nations at the time was occupied by the anti-Taliban resistance, led by Burhanuddin Rabbani, the country’s ousted president, but its seat at the OIC had remained empty, Muttawakil said.

Grenier said a top US prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, visited Pakistan to present evidence implicating bin Laden in US embassy bombings.
“He met with the Pakistani interior minister and the idea was to convince the Paksitani government to help in turning over bin Laden,” he said.

Grenier could not recall whether Fitzgerald met with Taliban officials in Pakistan to discuss their proposals or not.
Muttawakil, who now lives in Kabul and advises an Islamic educational foundation, reportedly tried to negotiate a ceasefire in the days after the US launched operations in the country in 2001 by seeking to convince Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, to part ways with bin Laden.
He was taken into US custody in the notorious Bagram prison early in 2002. After months of detention, he was released under house arrest in Kandahar and then moved to Kabul.
Bin Laden had first moved to Afghanistan during the war against the Soviet invasion in 1979 as part of large number of Arab fighters in the region. After the Soviet withdrawal, he moved to Sudan in 1992 as a factional war broke out in Afghanistan.

When Sudan came under increasing pressure from the US, bin Laden was flown back to Afghanistan in a chartered plane hired by Rabbani’s government.
“They [al-Qaeda] were people from the time of Jihad, and Rabbani’s government brought them back into the country. The Taliban simply inherited them,” Muttawakil said.
Taliban and al-Qaeda links
A movement of predominantly students from religious schools, the Taliban emerged from the south of country in late 1996 as a beacon of hope to end the years of bloodshed and factional fighting.
Bringing a message of peace and security, they swept through the country, with only a small pocket of resistance in the north that endured throughout their rule.
But they suffered their share of pressure and sanctions from the international community for the extreme measures they imposed, including banning women from school and work, and for harbouring bin Laden.

When they conquered the eastern city of Jalalabad, where bin Laden was staying, Saudi Arabia, his home country that had revoked his citizenship, pressured them to restrict his movement.
“Saudi Arabia had problems with him – that he should not be giving press conferences and coming out to the media,” Muttawakil said. “Their request was to keep Osama silent. So the Emirate decided to bring him to Kandahar, where our leader stayed, to keep him under our focus”.
When the attacks of September 11 happened, Muttawakil was in the foreign ministry in Kabul. He immediately contacted Mullah Omar, who remained in Kandahar throughout his government.
“Afghanistan was one of the first few governments that condemned the attacks,” Muttawakil said.
“Neither for the US, nor for Afghanistan – and the Afghan people – the attacks were not a good thing. Because subsequent to those attacks, many more people have died here in Afghanistan.”
That attack was a disaster on civilians, and on the pretext of that attack, disasters have been afflicted on the people of Afghanistan and Iraq,” he said.

Muttawakil said that there had always been differences of opinion between the Arab fighters of al-Qaeda and his Taliban colleagues. Such differences surfaced further after 9/11.
“There is no doubt that the stance of the Emirate and the views of some of the Arab activists differed. We condemned the attacks because the people targeted were defenseless civilians, women, children, Muslim and non-Muslim. But al-Qaeda praised it.”
Days after 9/11, with the US military campaign looming, the Taliban government convened an advisory gathering of over 1,500 religious scholars at a Kabul hotel to discuss what to do with bin Laden.
The scholars concluded that the Taliban government should ask bin Laden to “leave the country voluntarily”.
“The Americans said that even if he leaves, they will search any place in Afghanistan that they wanted with their military forces. They wanted him dead or alive.”
“Their requests and demands were based on a logic of war. They were preparing for it – preparing their planes in the Gulf and working with Pakistan to open a route. Their decision to go to war was definite.”

Bin Laden’s whereabouts remained a mystery for most of the decade after the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. He was eventually killed in a raid by US special forces in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad in May.
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
...}

 

[Dayton3]

2) Iraq was supposed to have those left over chemical weapons because we gave them to them when Iran started attacking them with chemical weapons in the 1970s.

4) It was the US that was committing acts of war by declaring a no-fly-zone where al Qaeda was operating in the north.
The US no-fly-zones were totally and completely illegal.
Iraq was a sovereign country we could not legally trespass over.

False on all accounts.

For one the U.S. never provided Iraq with actual chemical shells.

 

[Rigby5]

False on all accounts.

For one the U.S. never provided Iraq with actual chemical shells.

Agreed we did not provide Iraq with actual chemical shells, just all the ingredients and instructions.

With Desert Storm, that was totally illegal too, because Saddam actually asked ambassador Glasspie for permission to punish Kuwait for stealing oil.

The no-fly-zones we imposed on Iraq were totally illegal. Iraq was a sovereign country, we had no right to even fly over their territory.

 

[zaangalewa]

"We can't win. No one wants us there. We don't want to be there. Our troops will never be popular there nor supported by the locals. It will always be dangerous and expensive.

But we can't walk away. Anymore than police can simply walk away from a domestic violence situation. Sometimes all you can do is do your best in an utterly thankless situation. But we can't walk away and ignore it anymore than you can walk away and ignore a small fire burning. Small fires almost inevitably become bigger fires and then holocausts.

Sometimes the best we can do is kill people that need to be killed and hope for the best.

And why not to kill no one and hope for the best?

 

[zaangalewa]

Afghanistan had never before had the chance to experience the concept of a national identity I think. You are right to say they are backwards. They are divided up into so many factions, however... it was starting to happen with advances in education, especially among the women.
As the lives of women go.. civilized societies also seem to follow. You let the 14th century ingrates shove them back into a burqua and you will see all that progress dissapear. I think they probably needed another 20- 40 years before they had a sense of something to fight for. It has a lot to do with national identity vs tribal identity

Unfortunatelly you are right. On the other side: Many Afghans saw it exist other ways. But what's most important now: How many refugees from Afghanistan is the USA ready to overtake? 38 million inhabitants is not a little problem. How big will be the stream of refugees?

 

[SweetSue92]

We tell Afghanistan:

We are leaving and taking our people out along with those who helped us.

Govern yourselves....

but....

If you think "govern yourselves" translates to "destroy the US homeland" in any capacity, we are coming back. And not to "nation build" either.

This will happen under the next Republican president, House and Senate. 2024.

 

[zaangalewa]

You got a point, maybe we should send sniper teams to S.F. to stop the shoplifters!

Naw, the Taliban was welcoming Alquida and giving them support

Hmm ... Al Quaeda existed or still exists worldwide. Was one of the pilots of Al Queda from 9/11 not supported from the USA, who taught him to fly an aeroplane? One of them had for sure studied in Germany mechanical engineering. We were very suprised about here after 9/11.

 

[Rigby5]

You got a point, maybe we should send sniper teams to S.F. to stop the shoplifters!

Naw, the Taliban was welcoming Alquida and giving them support

Totally wrong.
The Taliban are Pashtun and not Arab, and traditionally hate Arabs.
They did not at all want bin Laden there or al Qaeda, but the CIA bribed them into allowing the Saudis to be there,
Osama bin Laden was arrested by the Taliban many times, and offered to Clinton and Bush, who both turned down the offers because they would only extradite him to an Islamic country.

 

[zaangalewa]

I'm not saying there isnt a lot to what you say. There is a middle ground at some point and there are costs vs gains ALWAYS. But I cant help but see, we had a very few people over there only 3,000 at most, in the entire country and it was helping them hold it together, so obviously there were Afghanis who had the will to work with us and trying to do it for themselves but obviously they were just not strong enough yet. I cant see how providing logistics and technical support was such a bad thing. Our presence there I think was also symbolic of our resolve and that along with the Afghan military seemed to be enough to keep the Taliban back.
I'm not convinced as you are that those people all want to remain backwards. They are just facing the Taliban who are actually a minority and made up of different peoples anyway. They are just savages.

¿Savages? ... Wrong expression. Without any scruple were perhaps about 5% convinced Nazis in Germany under Hitler. This was a based on a philosophy of the will. ... So how unscrupulous will be the Taliban? And what is their will? ...

 

[Rigby5]

Hmm ... Al Quaeda existed or still exists worldwide. Was one of the pilots of Al Queda from 9/11 not supported from the USA, who taught him to fly an aeroplane? One of them had for sure studied in Germany mechanical engineering. We were very suprised about here after 9/11.

Good point in that the Saudis who committed the attacks on 9/11, like the WTC, had never even been to Afghanistan.

 

[Rigby5]

¿Savages? ... Wrong expression. Without any scruple were perhaps about 5% convinced Nazis in Germany under Hitler. This was a based on a philosophy of the will. ... So how unscrupulous will be the Taliban? And what is their will? ...

The Taliban were the most scrupulous.
After the Soviet defeat and withdraw, it was anarchy, so the Taliban were the most honest, and got the most popular support because of that.
They prevented the rampant murders and rapes, and tried to restore law and order.

 

[zaangalewa]

Oh, so do you believe Iraq really was stockpiling WMD for attack on the US, that the Taliban knew about the attack on the WTC ahead of time and supported it?

Face it, the Pentagon and Bush were all total liars.

They were. And others. The only thing what no one seems to understans up to today is why they were liars. I guess it was a divisionary tactic. But what tried this war to hide?

 

[zaangalewa]

Dayton3 we had no business in Korea

You was nearly kicked out of Korea after world war 2. Then you understood the first time what you had done when you had eliminated Germany and Japan. The decision was now: Should the USA go in isolation and let rule your allies, the Soviets, the rest of the world? You decided no to go in isolation and to throw out the Soviets from Korea - what was not fully possible because of the criminal traitor Kim Jong-Un ... ahm sorry: the criminal traitor Kim Jong-Il ... oh - again sorry: the criminal traitor of the Korean people Kim Il-sung. So your government needed 15 minutes to make a border between North- and Southkorea to find a compromise between "East" and "West". How many people died in North Korea because of the incompetence and the evil will of the tyrannic governments of North Korea I don't know.

 

[harmonica]

zaangalewa ?????
Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Cuba, etc fell to the communists---and guess what??? the USA is till here

 

[Likkmee]

"We can't win. No one wants us there. We don't want to be there. Our troops will never be popular there nor supported by the locals. It will always be dangerous and expensive.

But we can't walk away. Anymore than police can simply walk away from a domestic violence situation. Sometimes all you can do is do your best in an utterly thankless situation. But we can't walk away and ignore it anymore than you can walk away and ignore a small fire burning. Small fires almost inevitably become bigger fires and then holocausts.

Sometimes the best we can do is kill people that need to be killed and hope for the best.

Head to DC and get started

 

[harmonica]

Dayton3
hahahhahahh, yes, your knowledge of history is limited
Cambodia
Cuba
Laos
Vietnam
China
..please look up their histories --all fell to communism

 

[Dayton3]

Agreed we did not provide Iraq with actual chemical shells, just all the ingredients and instructions.

With Desert Storm, that was totally illegal too, because Saddam actually asked ambassador Glasspie for permission to punish Kuwait for stealing oil.

The no-fly-zones we imposed on Iraq were totally illegal. Iraq was a sovereign country, we had no right to even fly over their territory.

If the Iraq is a "sovereign country" then Kuwait is as well, as nothing the U.S. told Saddam Hussein can be considered "permission" to punish Kuwait.