US deploys 1200 soldiers as cross-border Taliban support gains momentum

[janon]

You didn't ask me that question, I told you I support the Afghan army and government in ruling the nation. Unless you could provide evidence to me that these certain armed villagers were there to kill civilians and not combat foreign occupiers then I have no reason to believe you. The Taliban poses no threat to America, you mean American interests in mineral rich Afghanistan and pipeline project. This isn't a black and white matter about good vs evil, the evil are the colonialists seeking to dominate the world through force as they did with your country not so long ago.

I didn't put a question mark at the end of it, but I did pose the point. I asked/told you that when the americans leave, these talibas are not going to trade their swords for sickles and settle down to a peaceful life.

"Armed villagers"? More like one of the most sophisticated insurgencies on the planet today. No, I won't spend time giving you evidence of them attacking civilians - read a newspaper, for christsake. Or this forum. You are exhibitting wilful blindness by asking that.

No, they don't pose any threat to USA any more - but they do pose a threat to ordinary afghans, and the democratic setup they have accomplished over the past few years. The talibs want to overthrow the elected govt and install themselves in power, as they did before. The americans are spending blood and treasure to help them afghans ward off this evil.

No, Americans are not there for mineral wealth. If so, there is a far cheaper way to get it, than fighting years of war - sign a check for it. Yes, purchasing minerals with money is far cheaper than what they spend on war there. The same goes for Iraqi oil as well. These are simplistic strawmen arguments put up by anti-americans all the time.

As for your last few words - when Britain ruled India, they RULED India. Meaning, we did not have a parliament of elections or representation, only taxation. We paid taxes to the British crown, but we could not form our own govt. On the other hand, Afghans pay no taxes to the USA (indeed, americans pay taxes to maintain a functioning govt system in afgh, and for many other amenities like food and schools for afghans), and Afghans have a parliament and president and elections and can govern themselves, but for the insurgent threat. See the difference between colonialism and this situation?

For once, stop seeing everthing through anti-americanism, and you will realize what you wrote - that it is not so black and white.

Allah speed to our Afghan brothers in wiping these scum out. Finally it has finally dawned onto people that the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani Taliban are the same thing, with identical objectives.

Unfortunately, I don't think it has still dawned on many of your fellow countrypeople.

 

[nangyale]

Yes, I have heard these platitudes before - "One man's terrorist is another's FF" and so on. But terrorism does have a useable definition in the modern age - use of certain tactics to cause terror among the population, and deliberately targetting civilians in bomb blasts and other attacks.

Ask any insurgent group and they will tell you that they will never target civilians. The basic principal of an insurgency which Mao Zedong explained so brilliantly is " The guerrilla must move among the people as the fish swim in the sea". Now if the water is not supportive of the fish, it will die off.
So the point is any insurgency which deliberately causes harm to majority of the population will die off. In order to survive it has to have support of a very major segment of the host population. So any insurgency which has any chance of success and any which has been there for long time definitely has that support.

The point here is that the Taliban are not figthing occupation - if and when the US leaves, do you think the taliban will stop fighting? No, they will continue fighting their countrymen who are working to keep a democratic setup going. They are fighting the afghan govt, which is democratically elected by the afghan people. (Despite the threats of these terrorists, afghans came out in large numbers to exercise their vote, just 2-3 days back.)

Here you are assuming things and want everyone want to go with your assumption. What I think and not is not important, what's important is what is the reality on the ground today.
Now for your democracy story. I will say is that any country which has elections held under the barrel of the gun is not democracy, no matter how many vote or doesn't vote the basic point is if the government cannot survive without assistance from outside, is not representative of the people.

The aim of these talibturds are to dismantle that representative democracy, and to come to power themselves - not through winning votes, but with guns.

Calling people bad names no matter how much you hate them just makes you look stupid and immature. If you hate some organisation just say so and explain your reason for that hatred, let the reader make up their own mind. It's just childish coming up with playground kind of name calling.

The ANA is paid for by the country. They may depend on foreign aid, but so does every other part of Afghanistani society, which happens to be one of the poorest countries in the world. Their food is also paid for by USA and other western countries.

Tell me what percent of the ANA budget comes from the coffers of Afghan government, how much is the US spending on war related activities and how much are they spending on building schools, hospitals and other civilian ( i-e non war related) activities? Let's see the figures and the readers can make their own mind.

The poster I was responding to was trying to paint it as US versus muslims, which is simply not the case. Both the stakeholders there are muslims. Do you want the nation of Afghanistan to be rulled by the ballot, or by the bullet? Why would you want to deprive them of the basic political rights that the country you live in takes for granted, and the country you originate from is trying to protect?

The poster you were responding to is a Palestinian. A nation which has suffered tremendous pain and suffering because of the country that you are defending.
As far Afghanistan I think everybody wants the country to be ruled by Afghans and Afghans only, bullets from any country should be criticized.

 

[janon]

Ask any insurgent group and they will tell you that they will never target civilians. The basic principal of an insurgency which Mao Zedong explained so brilliantly is " The guerrilla must move among the people as the fish swim in the sea". Now if the water is not supportive of the fish, it will die off.
So the point is any insurgency which deliberately causes harm to majority of the population will die off. In order to survive it has to have support of a very major segment of the host population. So any insurgency which has any chance of success and any which has been there for long time definitely has that support.

And that is why Mao's war was called a guerilla war, not terrorism. Some insurgents resort to terrorism, and the taliban is one example. Guerilla warfare is only one example of assymmetric warfare. It is not the only kind of assymmetric war that can be succesful.

Here you are assuming things and want everyone want to go with your assumption. What I think and not is not important, what's important is what is the reality on the ground today.
Now for your democracy story. I will say is that any country which has elections held under the barrel of the gun is not democracy, no matter how many vote or doesn't vote the basic point is if the government cannot survive without assistance from outside, is not representative of the people.
The reason that guns are needed is because of taliban terrorists threatening to kill voters. And it is not just in afgh, in most places there will be security during elections. In India, during the general elections, some half a million CRPF personnal are deployed, not to mention state police forces and BSF and other security agencies. Afgh is a new country, and yes it needs external assistance to survive, so that the taliban will not take control again and rule people through guns alone, and no elections. All countries had such assistance when they were formed, including many european countries after WW2. It took some time for them to stand on their own feet.

Calling people bad names no matter how much you hate them just makes you look stupid and immature. If you hate some organisation just say so and explain your reason for that hatred, let the reader make up their own mind. It's just childish coming up with playground kind of name calling.
I did not come up with that name, it is what many pakistani posters call the pakistani taliban. About the rest of this part, I did spend time to explain why I hate them, and did not simply call them names and leave it at that, which would have been juvenile behaviour.

Tell me what percent of the ANA budget comes from the coffers of Afghan government, how much is the US spending on war related activities and how much are they spending on building schools, hospitals and other civilian ( i-e non war related) activities? Let's see the figures and the readers can make their own mind.


The poster you were responding to is a Palestinian. A nation which has suffered tremendous pain and suffering because of the country that you are defending.

Irrelevant. The topic is afghanistan, not Palestine. BTW, that poster also happens to live in the country I was defending. But stick to the topic.

As far Afghanistan I think everybody wants the country to be ruled by Afghans and Afghans only, bullets from any country should be criticized.

The country is ruled by Afghans. The entire parliament, elected representatives, president and ministers and the entire govt machinery is composed of Afghans. The system in place is representative democracy. The system that taliban wants to bring back is themselves in power, no votes, no elections, their laws.

My responses in red.

 

[MastanKhan]

k_arura said: ↑
WADR, you seem to be a Pak disguised as .PS. Dont you know of the Pak army's atrocities against .PS in Jordan in the mid 70's. Worse tha what Israel may EVER have done against you directly.

Hi,

Pak army did not commit any atrocities aginst the palestinians---. The palestinian refugees attacked the nation of jordan----the King order the then Brg. Zia to neutralize them---he did as he was ordered.

 

[nangyale]

My responses in red.

Want to elaborate. Maybe you can explain to us how a bunch of AK 47 welding terrorists, didn't get completely wiped out by the most powerful military alliance in the world. Lead by the biggest military spender in the world.

 

[Thəorətic Muslim]

@Hazzy997

How come you haven't ended up in Guantanamo Bay yet?

 

[janon]

Want to elaborate. Maybe you can explain to us how a bunch of AK 47 welding terrorists, didn't get completely wiped out by the most powerful military alliance in the world. Lead by the biggest military spender in the world.

Explained so many times by so many people. Because it is assymmetric war, and they are mostly doing hit and run attacks and waiting for the US to leave, before trying to regain power.

The taliban were decisively thrown out of power in the first few days of the US invasion. The country they ruled with no mandate or accountability, is now ruled by elected representatives.

As of now, the taliban fighters are mostly living in remote hilly regions and caves or even among villagers, and the US simply does not have the desire to saturate the entire territory with boots on the ground. All that the US wants to do is keep the cities and power centers safe, and to ensure that the taliban cannot govern.

If the US simply wants to kill them all, it is pretty easy - nuke the entire country, or carpet bomb every inch of the hindu kush using B-52s. That is not the aim of the Americans presently.

And yes, it is possible for rag tag insurgents to keep doing hit and run attacks against large conventional militaries which are in a foreign land. Examples abound. In India, the maoist insurgents have been doing this for the past 40 years, and still do it. They live deep in forests and dont control any territory, and all they do is an ambush or a hit and run attack on policemen every now and then. Why is it that with over 2 million central and state police forces India cannot completely eliminate them?

But they will not come to power as long as the american military is present there. They know that too, and are waiting for the US to leave. What the US is doing is to build up the civil society and the afghan military to the point where they will be able to hold off the talibs after the US leaves.

There is no other reason for the US to be there.

@Hazzy997

How come you haven't ended up in Guantanamo Bay yet?

Because the US has a wonderful thing called freedom of speech, and freedom to dissent.

 

[Thəorətic Muslim]

Because the US has a wonderful thing called freedom of speech, and freedom to dissent.

The real world hasn't hit you yet has it?

 

[nangyale]

Explained so many times by so many people. Because it is assymmetric war, and they are mostly doing hit and run attacks and waiting for the US to leave, before trying to regain power.

The taliban were decisively thrown out of power in the first few days of the US invasion. The country they ruled with no mandate or accountability, is now ruled by elected representatives.

As of now, the taliban fighters are mostly living in remote hilly regions and caves or even among villagers, and the US simply does not have the desire to saturate the entire territory with boots on the ground. All that the US wants to do is keep the cities and power centers safe, and to ensure that the taliban cannot govern.

Actually they have enough boots on the ground. there are about 100,000 foreign troops and another 400,000 American paid local forces. On top of that they can call on any local warlord and have his private army at the disposal for a fee.
Tell us how much Taliban fighters are there?
Let's have a comparison.
Elected representatives is just another term for the warlords that have just been recycled. Maybe you need to look at the presidential candidates again.
Ashraf Ghani used to call General Dostum a known killer. Today he is his running mate for VP. Some representation that is.

If the US simply wants to kill them all, it is pretty easy - nuke the entire country, or carpet bomb every inch of the hindu kush using B-52s. That is not the aim of the Americans presently.

Kill them all. Kill who? Are you saying that the US cannot get rid of Taliban in Afghanistan unless they kill everything that is in Afghanistan.

And yes, it is possible for rag tag insurgents to keep doing hit and run attacks against large conventional militaries which are in a foreign land. Examples abound. In India, the maoist insurgents have been doing this for the past 40 years, and still do it. They live deep in forests and dont control any territory, and all they do is an ambush or a hit and run attack on policemen every now and then. Why is it that with over 2 million central and state police forces India cannot completely eliminate them?

But they will not come to power as long as the american military is present there. They know that too, and are waiting for the US to leave. What the US is doing is to build up the civil society and the afghan military to the point where they will be able to hold off the talibs after the US leaves.

The truth of the matter is that the ANSF are suffering many more causalities compared to all the foreign forces. So it's not just a story of foreign and local, the difference is what the people actually support and who they don't.

There is no other reason for the US to be there.


Because the US has a wonderful thing called freedom of speech, and freedom to dissent.

Right, the US is such a do-gooder, it goes around the world and spreads freedom of speech and democracy. Tell me why don't they go to Africa and help lets say CAR or maybe DR Congo. Or maybe they should help bring Morsi back to power and give a lesson about democracy to the Generals in Egypt.
How gullible do you think people are here.
You need to try a bit harder.

 

[janon]

The real world hasn't hit you yet has it?

Care to explain what was wrong in that statement?

 

[Thəorətic Muslim]

Care to explain what was wrong in that statement?

Because the US has a wonderful thing called freedom of speech, and freedom to dissent.

 

[janon]

Actually they have enough boots on the ground. there are about 100,000 foreign troops and another 400,000 American paid local forces. On top of that they can call on any local warlord and have his private army at the disposal for a fee.

And you think that number is enough to saturate a country with the size and geography of afghanistan? This is not conventional war, as I explained earlier, the talibs are doing assymmetric war. To counter that, you need complete area domination - and the US simply does not have the numbers for that. For example, check out how many counter insurgency forces are deployed by India in Kashmir, although the number of insurgents is barely 3000. There are 60,000 dedicated counter insurgency specialists, in addition to the hundreds of thousands of regular army and police forces, all for a state the size of Kashmir. And how do they operate? They saturate the entire area with boots on the ground to prevent the 3000 insurgents from causing trouble to Kashmiris.

Tell us how much Taliban fighters are there?
Let's have a comparison.

It is not number v/s number that matters in assymmetric warfare. (That term itself should tell you that.) There are no frontlines, no battle formations, no pitched battles, no enemy camps. The insurgents are spread thin and wide, often living among the population.

Elected representatives is just another term for the warlords that have just been recycled. Maybe you need to look at the presidential candidates again.

They have to be elected by the people, which is at least one step better than what it was during taliban rule. And yes, democracy cannot flourish overnight - it will take time for it to take root in the country. But the election of this year was much more promising than that of 2008. Check out the threads about the afghan elections, and see the people defying the taliban and turning out to vote in large numbers.
Ashraf Ghani used to call General Dostum a known killer. Today he is his running mate for VP. Some representation that is.



Kill them all. Kill who? Are you saying that the US cannot get rid of Taliban in Afghanistan unless they kill everything that is in Afghanistan.

Yes, that is how it is when insurgents live among the people, and do not wear uniforms or distinctive insignia as the laws of war mandate. Either kill the entire population, or keep thwarting the aims of the insurgents until civil society can develop and flourish, and the insurgency will die a natural death. It is the latter approach that is being taken.

The truth of the matter is that the ANSF are suffering many more causalities compared to all the foreign forces. So it's not just a story of foreign and local, the difference is what the people actually support and who they don't.

That only strengthens my initial point, that it is not USA v/s muslims, or colonisers v/s freedom fighters. The people who are battling the Taliban are also muslims, and sons of the soil.

Right, the US is such a do-gooder, it goes around the world and spreads freedom of speech and democracy. Tell me why don't they go to Africa and help lets say CAR or maybe DR Congo. Or maybe they should help bring Morsi back to power and give a lesson about democracy to the Generals in Egypt.
How gullible do you think people are here.

You need to try a bit harder.
Not in the mood to entertain off topic rants.

Responses in red.

...

I know what my statement was. I was asking what was wrong in it.

 

[Thəorətic Muslim]

I know what my statement was. I was asking what was wrong in it.

The statement itself.

Listen, everyone thinks American streets are paved with gold and money falls from the trees. The truth is it's far from it. Gold and money only come to people who work for it. Bill Gates could have been Kenyan, if the necessary socio-economic requirements were there.

Yes there isn't any Secret Police that can come into your house in the middle of the night. But ever heard of the Patriot Act?

Yes things are better than in North Korea, but the fact of the matter is, its not what it used to be. Allot has changed.

 

[janon]

The statement itself.

Listen, everyone thinks American streets are paved with gold and money falls from the trees. The truth is it's far from it. Gold and money only come to people who work for it. Bill Gates could have been Kenyan, if the necessary socio-economic requirements were there.

Yes there isn't any Secret Police that can come into your house in the middle of the night. But ever heard of the Patriot Act?

Yes things are better than in North Korea, but the fact of the matter is, its not what it used to be. Allot has changed.

I am perfectly away that the streets are not paved with gold and money doesn't grow on trees. I should know, I pay taxes there.

Things are better than not just North Korea, but better than most other places on earth, including entire continents. Only a handful of countries have more freedom of speech and freedom of dissent than the USA does.

And by the way, neither the patriot act nor anything else you said in your post deprives you of freedom of speech. It may violate freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, but that's a different topic.

 

[Thəorətic Muslim]

And by the way, neither the patriot act nor anything else you said in your post deprives you of freedom of speech. It may violate freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, but that's a different topic.

Read it again Janon.