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A matter of opinion?

Oh_Bollox said:
For me such news would be like landing of the Martians.

Okay, but most people don't care that much. Whereas 'Squaddy kills and eats 10,000 Afghans' goes straight to the top of the charts. The human interest stuff just doesn't interest a lot of humans.

Well, American, British, Canandian and other NATO troops fight, fight, fight... against Taliban until one side would be tired. And what side would be tired first? Maybe Taliban?

That's how most conflicts are fought, yes. They go on until one side is defeated, surrenders, etc. The main thing here is to win hearts and minds instead of just killing lots and lots of Afghans (which has the effect of turning hearts and minds to the Taliban). The more hearts and minds you win, the smaller the pool of support for the Taliban gets, until we win.

Of course you are right. But more than 5 years passed and still NATO troops are needed to fight Taliban. In fact it means that Afghani army doesn't exist or unviable. It is a real indicator of results of the struggle for hearts and minds. In fact the struggle failed.
 
No, Sergey, the difference between now and when Russia was in, is that now we (the coalition) are actually attempting to improve conditions and not take control, which is something I think many Afghans appreciate.

It's not the same as when Russia was in, and it is grossly wrong to suggest that it is.

Editted to add that five years in you're suggesting it's been a complete failure. it has not turned out as panned, but it took 38 years to get to a peaceful (ish) Northern Ireland, and that was already a part of the UK, similar customs, same language etc.

I think you call the game too soon, Sergey.
 
The_Goon said:
No, Sergey, the difference between now and when Russia was in, is that now we (the coalition) are actually attempting to improve conditions and not take control, which is something I think many Afghans appreciate.

It's not the same as when Russia was in, and it is grossly wrong to suggest that it is.

Editted to add that five years in you're suggesting it's been a complete failure. it has not turned out as panned, but it took 38 years to get to a peaceful (ish) Northern Ireland, and that was already a part of the UK, similar customs, same language etc.

I think you call the game too soon, Sergey.

So NI required 38 years while 2/3 of population actively supported the government in London.

But how many in fact support NATO troops in Afghanistan? Very few.

Edited to add. Soviet leadership in its way wished only good for Afghans. Kremlin elders naively thought that socialist system would improve life in Afghanisatan.
 
Pretty naive to think socialism would work in Afghanistan when it wasn't even working in Russia, but hey hum.

Facts to back up your claim that very few support NATO in Afghanistan would be appreciated.
 
The_Goon said:
Pretty naive to think socialism would work in Afghanistan when it wasn't even working in Russia, but hey hum.

Absolutely agree.

The_Goon said:
Facts to back up your claim that very few support NATO in Afghanistan would be appreciated.

Goon, follow my logic please.

Suppose that there is a lot of supporters of NATO troops in Afghanistan. Then it would be an easy task to form the whole army that would fight Taliban and lives of British, Canadian and American soldiers would be saved.

As we know anti-Taliban army doesn't exist. So it proves that a number of NATO supporters in Afghanistan is very small.
 
Suppose that there is a lot of supporters of NATO troops in Afghanistan. Then it would be an easy task to form the whole army that would fight Taliban and lives of British, Canadian and American soldiers would be saved.

As we know anti-Taliban army doesn't exist. So it proves that a number of NATO supporters in Afghanistan is very small.

Why does someone who supports NATO have to join the ANA? Regional militias etc soak up a lot of men of fighting age. And the ANA itself is being built up, you can't whip up an army out of nothing.
 
Oh_Bollox said:
Suppose that there is a lot of supporters of NATO troops in Afghanistan. Then it would be an easy task to form the whole army that would fight Taliban and lives of British, Canadian and American soldiers would be saved.

As we know anti-Taliban army doesn't exist. So it proves that a number of NATO supporters in Afghanistan is very small.

Why does someone who supports NATO have to join the ANA? Regional militias etc soak up a lot of men of fighting age. And the ANA itself is being built up, you can't whip up an army out of nothing.

Without real action on the battlefield this so called 'army' costs no more than a half penny.

As we know the British, the Americans, the Canadians die in battles with Taliban and after more than five years pro-Western forces in Afganistan are weak or at least not strong enough to fight.

It is a reality.
 
Rubbish. As usual Sergey you twist facts to suit your own opinion. I suspect it is a waste of time discussing it with you, because i have never ever seen you admit that you were wrong. But anyway...
The ANA is out there, and it is fighting, but war is darwinian by nature and it takes time and blood to create an army, and experience to build true leaders. That by definition takes time. Methinks you are calling time on the locals too soon. Plus the regional warlords have to be persuaded to give up their own militias. That takes more time, but has been suceeding.

And if, at the end of all this, the people decide to have a tribal system of government, then fine so be it. The whole point of the NATO campaign is to get AFghanistan to a position where it can choose its own future, and not have it decided by a repressive minority that allows the training of genocidal terrorists. The locals want peace, and the option to live the way they want to live, not the life inflicted on them by others, Western, communism, islamism (deliberate use of word btw) or whatever.
 
Without real action on the battlefield this so called 'army' costs no more than a half penny.

The ANA has taken part in operations, alongside ISAF forces, and the kit they have cost a lot more than half a penny. Remember that there is a massive amount of work going into rebuilding, not just the military but civilian infrastructure. You can't just bring a country up to par and establish a quality military as easily or as quickly as you destroy them.
 
Read more sense of here than most newspapers.

From what I've seen/read it doesn't look currently like the NATO forces are fighting all the pashtun. A lot of them seem to be in "wait and see" mode. If that is maintained while the ANA is built up and no stupid mistakes are made re trying to impose a western form of government or messing up the poppy fields question then it might work out.

I wonder if there should be a sort-of NGO that is made up of ex-services people and takes direction from the military command? From reading about places like Somalia it seems the normal ones often cause more problems than they solve.

re the ANA fighting comments. a year old but a good doc on that here, seems like they were fighting to me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhjP-VQcyoU&mode=related&search=
 
The_Goon said:
Pretty naive to think socialism would work in Afghanistan when it wasn't even working in Russia, but hey hum.

Facts to back up your claim that very few support NATO in Afghanistan would be appreciated.

As it happens socialism works better in underdeveloped countries than the rampant style of capitalism offered by the Dick Cheney's of this world.

Towards the end of the Soviet occupation things were in fact beginning to look up in Afghanistan. The universities were beginning to get on their feet. Kabul was becoming secure even flourishing and more woman were getting educated. A great deal of this was happening in spite of the Russians rather than because of them but things for a while looked like they had turned the corner.

And it was that rather than Soviet occupation that annoyed the American right. They weren't prepared to see Afghanistan become successful in those circumstances. So that is when they began to collaborate with the backward religious lot to up the fight against the Soviets who anyway were on their way out having grown exhausted by their rash and stupid occupation.

This of course will be repeated by us. And will at some point grow exhausted and at least mentally withdraw whilst still being in the country.

As to whether Afghan society would start again to flourish as we grow tired is doubtful. Almost inadvertently rather than by design the Russians had left the Afghans a system of politics that can when adapted by locals for local needs be quite useful in helping social development. I'm certainly no fan of communism. But in certain circumstances variations of it have worked at times the further one gets away from Europe and the British library reading room where Marx did his writing.

We alas will leave them nothing rather than waded down by debts to Citicorp and their balls kept in a vice by the IMF.
And that can only be the blueprints for continuing corruption and impoverishment.

(And goon don't take 38 years as some new standard by which to work. The fact that it took a whole 38 years to get to the half solution it has currently arrived at is a grave failure. There is nothing there to model future campaigns on.)
 
chrisg46 said:
Rubbish. As usual Sergey you twist facts to suit your own opinion.

The fact is that namely NATO troops fight and die. That without NATO troops the government in Kabul would not control many areas in Afghanistan.

How it is possible to twist these obvious facts?

chrisg46 said:
I suspect it is a waste of time discussing it with you, because i have never ever seen you admit that you were wrong.

No problem. I'm ready to accept any good argument. As for opinions then we only can exchange them, no more.

chrisg46 said:
But anyway...
The ANA is out there, and it is fighting

Agreed. Though ANA is not strong enough just now.

chrisg46 said:
, but war is darwinian by nature and it takes time and blood to create an army, and experience to build true leaders. That by definition takes time.

In theory you are right.

chrisg46 said:
Methinks you are calling time on the locals too soon.

Not sure. The Afghans are natural warriors. Children are being learned to walk, to ride and to shoot at the same age. British wars in Afghanistan, the Soviet invasion showed that with propper motivation the Afghans are ready to fight (and fight fiersly) just immediately. So we can make a conlusion that either

1. The Afghans are not motivated.
or/and
2. Our American friends don't allow to form real big and strong Afghan army.

From my point of view both are true. It's my opinion

chrisg46 said:
Plus the regional warlords have to be persuaded to give up their own militias. That takes more time, but has been suceeding.

Yes, it is right.

chrisg46 said:
And if, at the end of all this, the people decide to have a tribal system of government, then fine so be it.

Couldn't agree more.

chrisg46 said:
The whole point of the NATO campaign is to get AFghanistan to a position where it can choose its own future, and not have it decided by a repressive minority that allows the training of genocidal terrorists.

On this point I have my opinion. Maybe some NATO countries try to reach this noble goal. But our American friends have thier objectives: military, strategic presence in the region.

So here I see a couse of realtive weakness of ANA. Stong Afghan army contradicts to American intersts in the region.

chrisg46 said:
The locals want peace

Of course.

chrisg46 said:
, and the option to live the way they want to live, not the life inflicted on them by others, Western, communism, islamism (deliberate use of word btw) or whatever.

And as a result the locals see foreing soldiers that kill them, bomb their villages. The invaders implanted their puppet as a president and even don't plan to go home.
 
Thanks, Goodkurtz, but you have missed the point I was making by mentioning the 38 years. Far from suggesting this to be a standard to work towards, I was presenting it as an example of how long it can take to start to get a more normal situation.

I've yet to see true socialism work in any country. "Variations to fit the locals needs", as you word it, inevitably changes the nature of the beast, and it would be incorrect to refer to it as socialism by that point.

To you, Sergey, I would suggest you stop listening to mass media and try and get a more balanced view of what is happening on the ground in Afghanistan. Many of the posters on this site have been and seen what happens. NATO troops are indeed dying in Afghanistan. This is not indicative of anti-NATO feeling. It simply shows that the Afghans are not ready to take control for themselves as yet. I for one am surprised that you take this fact to mean that the government is a failure. They need time to get on their feet properly - five years is unrealistic in the extreme.
 
The_Goon said:
To you, Sergey, I would suggest you stop listening to mass media and try and get a more balanced view of what is happening on the ground in Afghanistan. Many of the posters on this site have been and seen what happens. NATO troops are indeed dying in Afghanistan. This is not indicative of anti-NATO feeling. It simply shows that the Afghans are not ready to take control for themselves as yet. I for one am surprised that you take this fact to mean that the government is a failure. They need time to get on their feet properly - five years is unrealistic in the extreme.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/01/12/wafg12.xml

11/01/2004

Thousands of soldiers have deserted the fledgling Afghan National Army after completing training by instructors from the United States, Britain and France, the defence ministry in Kabul said yesterday.

"Some 3,000 ANA soldiers have fled the army," said the ministry spokesman Gen Mohammad Zahir Azimi. He said that unless they returned, the recruits would have to pay for their training.

The desertions are a serious blow to the nascent ANA, which the ministry says numbers around 10,000 troops but international observers say is closer to 7,000-strong.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...al09.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/06/09/ixworld.html

09/06/2005
...
Thousands of soldiers are deserting Afghanistan's new British- and American-trained national army, their morale undermined by poor conditions and the threat from the Taliban.
...
of 31,000 men who have been trained for the national army only 20,000 currently remain with their units.

So no one knows real size of Afghani army.

http://www.state.gov/p/us/rm/2006/75421.htm

October 31, 2006

The Afghan National Army, 40,000 and growing

After a month...

http://www.nato.int/docu/briefing/afghanistan-2006/html_en/afghanistan12.html

01-Dec-2006
...
The Afghan National Army has some 35 000 soldiers, including the first elements of four regional corps headquarters in Gardez, Kandahar, Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif.

Regional corps is another word for militias.
 
Again, we've all accepted that militias are taking up a swathe of fighting fit Afghans. Sometimes you labour a single point too much, Sergey. I think everything you just said has been accepted by the posters on this thread. We're aware of ANA problems, we're aware that militias exist, it's an ongoing issue which is being tackled.
 

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