Unbeliever
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- Joined
- Mar 6, 2009
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It seems more an more obvious that we can't bring peace and progress to a people that have a "fighting season"..
Germany should get out, our army isn't well trained for this environment anyway and we can't keep wasting lives and massive amounts of money on this seemingly hopeless endeavor..
I was for the ISAF mission for many years since I thought that once NATO invaded we had a responsibility to rebuild, to end the massive abuse of women and girls and to yank Afghanistan into the 21st or maybe at least the 20th century.
However, this seems impossible. Maybe we overestimated what change can actually be achieved.
Also to us the costs are immense both financial as in loss of life, since every life lost is a heavy cost in our minds.
To the Taliban and their Al Quaida allies this insurgency is very low cost and the lives lost are bearable to a population of mostly young war-hardened people, that embrace death.
Since we have general elections in 2013 I wager that in that very year troop withdrawal is likely to begin.
Over 75% of the German population are against our involvement in the War in Afghanistan.
This is not easy to say since I met an Afghan from the north who said the German troops are very welcome since they are like police patrolling the streets and basically not bothering anybody who isn't doing anything bad.
Also there was an Afghan in my poker group who still has family in Afghanistan and they too say the German ISAF troops are (or at least were) popular and made people feel more secure.
And these personal experiences were supported for many years by the polls taking in our area of responsibility.
This however is changing for the worse since the Taliban brought the fight to the north as well.
In the end only the Afghans can truly reform their country. With all the money and weapons in the country it is gonna be everything but easy though...
Germany should get out, our army isn't well trained for this environment anyway and we can't keep wasting lives and massive amounts of money on this seemingly hopeless endeavor..
I was for the ISAF mission for many years since I thought that once NATO invaded we had a responsibility to rebuild, to end the massive abuse of women and girls and to yank Afghanistan into the 21st or maybe at least the 20th century.
However, this seems impossible. Maybe we overestimated what change can actually be achieved.
Also to us the costs are immense both financial as in loss of life, since every life lost is a heavy cost in our minds.
To the Taliban and their Al Quaida allies this insurgency is very low cost and the lives lost are bearable to a population of mostly young war-hardened people, that embrace death.
Since we have general elections in 2013 I wager that in that very year troop withdrawal is likely to begin.
Over 75% of the German population are against our involvement in the War in Afghanistan.
This is not easy to say since I met an Afghan from the north who said the German troops are very welcome since they are like police patrolling the streets and basically not bothering anybody who isn't doing anything bad.
Also there was an Afghan in my poker group who still has family in Afghanistan and they too say the German ISAF troops are (or at least were) popular and made people feel more secure.
And these personal experiences were supported for many years by the polls taking in our area of responsibility.
This however is changing for the worse since the Taliban brought the fight to the north as well.
In the end only the Afghans can truly reform their country. With all the money and weapons in the country it is gonna be everything but easy though...
