more turmoil in Afghanistan

[GePap]

Originally posted by Ted Striker

Take the amount of crimes done by the state against its own people under the Taliban and measure it against the amount of crime done by petty criminals under the new regime. I would say the amount of damage done against the people was much worse.

Fine, lets compare how many afghan civilians died each year under Taliban law vs the number killed in fighting since the invasion-that would be the comparison to use. I supported the invasion, but that does not mena I think it brought stability yet

Not only that, the situation was rapidly deteriorating as the Taliban gained more and more total control over the average person's life. A control that would let them do whatever they wanted to to people.

This is not a counterarguement for why people would want stability, now is it?

At least under the new regime there are things like police, the army, the Coalition forces, and a justice system, that day by day grow stronger. More and more the people have a chance for justice because they can turn to these groups for help.

Under the old regime there was an army, police, and a judiciary..you point? Again, you are not addressing the point, which is why people would want stability. For example, by 2001 the Taliban had been able to stamp out opiu porduction prety solidly-Kazai could not even try today. So what evidence do you have of this increased stability? That the new powers that be are more liberal and less repressive than the old is not a counterarguement to the old having borught stability.

In the case of the Taliban, the situation was worse, because THE PEOPLE IN CHARGE *WERE* THE CRIMINALS.

NO, they were repressive fundies: that does not make them criminals. What laws were they breaking?

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Yet for all this, from everything I hear, no Afghans other than rural Pashtuns want the Taliban back. And even they are divided.

They saw the Taliban brought not only stability but repression as well.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger




As I pointed out somewhere else, the current "regime" has very little control outside of Kabul. Everywhere else is as bad if not worse than Taliban days. The only difference is it was more stable with less crimes during the Taliban days.

From the Globe and Mail:

"But Mr. Khan has refused to hand over $250-million (U.S.) a year in customs money from this boom to the central government -- money that has cemented his rule and benefited the city. While most of Kabul retains signs of the destructive civil war of the 1990s, Herat's paved streets are lined with soaring pines, and early-morning joggers do laps around the track at a new stadium."

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap



They saw the Taliban brought not only stability but repression as well.

but according to posters here, 90% of afghanistan is controlled by warlords who are only marginally less repressive than the Taliban. Not a very good tradeoff for the stability is it?? Are the Afghans stupid?

Or is that posters here A. Exaggerate the portion of the country under warlord control B. Exaggerate the repressiveness of the warlords compared to the Taliban C. Exagerate the degree of instability D. All of the above

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


but according to posters here, 90% of afghanistan is controlled by warlords who are only marginally less repressive than the Taliban. Not a very good tradeoff for the stability is it?? Are the Afghans stupid?

Or is that posters here A. Exaggerate the portion of the country under warlord control B. Exaggerate the repressiveness of the warlords compared to the Taliban C. Exagerate the degree of instability D. All of the above

D. most likely.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov


Yes, in the 5% of Afghanistan they still held. The Taliban had them boxed in. The other 95% of the country was virtually free of strife and very much under the control of the Taliban. While it may not have been pleasant, it was stable.

And what percent of Afghanistan today is subject to strife on any given day??? By the way, the strategic situation pre Sept 2001 was more dynamic than you seem to realize. For example the Taliban had held Mazar i Sharif for only a relatively short time. There was no assurance that the NA wouldnt have been able to recoup Taliban gains, esp in the non-Pashtun sections of the country.

BTW, if by "not pleasant" people think that this refers only to the forced wearing of Burkas, or the lack of female education, they are not correct. In Mazar there was a massacre of the Uzbek population, and in Bamiyan a virtual genocide of the Hazara. The poster who made the Hitler comparison was not all that far off.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap


D. most likely.

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark

BTW, if by "not pleasant" people think that this refers only to the forced wearing of Burkas, or the lack of female education, they are not correct. In Mazar there was a massacre of the Uzbek population, and in Bamiyan a virtual genocide of the Hazara. The poster who made the Hitler comparison was not all that far off.

Don't you go throwing Hitler around as well!

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap


NO, they were repressive fundies: that does not make them criminals. What laws were they breaking?

while i dont have the facts on the massacres of the Hazara handy, I believe a case could be made that they were in violation of the genocide convention. Perhaps thats not what the earlier poster was referring to however.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap


Don't you go throwing Hitler around as well!

Goodwins law is overrated. Sometimes Hitler comparisons have an element of truth.

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Perhaps thats not what the earlier poster was referring to however.

Ted, giving a damn about international conventions? hardly.

Goodwins law is overrated. Sometimes Hitler comparisons have an element of truth.

Hitler had more than one side. After all, he was a vegeterian and a non-smoker..can I compare vegeterians and non-smokers to Hitler?

I know, Bloomberg in NY is like Hitler, cause he hates smoking!

[East Street Trader]

The Afghan's handed the British empire it's ass more than once and the Russians too. If there doesn't happen to be an imperialist power in easy reach they fight each other.

I guess the joys of the consumer society will reach such corners of the world before too long and things may change.

If the world still seemed big enough for the barbarity to be comfortably far off, and if it were possible to ignore the truly appalling way women seem to be treated there for a moment, it might almost be possible to feel a regret for the passing of a romantic sort of something.

Kipling and the noble savage and such like stuff, don't ya know?!

[Ted Striker]

I put a search into Google, with "Taliban rule," and this was the very first hit that I found:

IMAGINE, if you can, living in a society where a woman can have her fingers amputated as a punishment for wearing nail polish and a man can be beaten senseless and imprisoned for shaving. Where singing or listening to any kind of music is forbidden. And where the mere possession of literature deemed objectionable by the government is an offense punishable by death.

Few people except those who actually live under the rule of the Taliban have more than a vague conception of what a cruel, horrible regime the Taliban is. There almost certainly is no more oppressive or brutal regime on the face of the earth today, nor seldom has there been in recorded history. Its brutality is on a par with that of Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia or China under Chairman Mao during the Cultural Revolution or Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge.

The oppressive hand of the Taliban comes down most heavily on women. Numerous restrictions are placed on women, on the pretext of protecting their honor and virtue and preventing them from corrupting males.

On women

Women are basically prisoners in their own homes. They are not allowed to leave their homes unless accompanied by a close male relative (called a mahram) such as a father, brother or husband. For a woman to be found in the presence of a male other than a mahram is a serious offense.

They are not allowed to shake hands with or talk to non-mahram males. They are forbidden from laughing or talking loudly enough that a stranger can hear their voice. They are prohibited from wearing shoes that make noise as they walk, as a man must never hear a woman's footsteps.

Women and girls are prohibited from going to school, and any attempt to educate females has been banned by the Taliban.

Except for a handful of female nurses and doctors that are allowed to work in some hospitals in the capital city of Kabul, women are forbidden to work outside the home.

Women are not allowed to be treated by mail doctors or even dentists. And since there are so few female medical personnel in Afghanistan (and no new ones being trained), it means that most Afghan women are deprived of any professional medical care whatsoever.


"Stable" and "helpful" government agencies

Patrolling the streets of the cities and villages throughout the areas of Afghanistan controlled by the Taliban are compliance squads from what is euphemistically called the Ministry of Fostering Virtue and Suppressing Vice. These are groups of young Taliban militia armed with guns and whips who ride around in trucks in search of anyone who they deem may be violating Taliban orders.

"Stable" law enforcement

The penalty for adultery is execution by stoning. The penalty for preaching any religion other than Islam is death. The penalty for possessing objectionable literature is death. The penalty for converting from Islam to any other religion is death. The penalty for organizing a class to educate girls over the age of 12 is death by hanging, and the same penalty is imposed on the students.


Public Executions

Among other things, she [BBC News reporter Saira Shah] secretly filmed footage of a public execution in a football stadium in which a woman was "shot dead to the cheers of the watching crowds."

No cheering is allowed at sporting events, but at executions, apparently, it is encouraged and expected.

http://www.perspicacityonline.com/10...nrule10924.htm

[Ted Striker]

Under the old regime there was an army, police, and a judiciary..you point?

Which were used to oppress the people. The new army, police, and judiciary system are used to SERVE the people. The stable enviornment allowed them to do their oppression even more effectively.

Again, you are not addressing the point, which is why people would want stability. For example, by 2001 the Taliban had been able to stamp out opiu porduction prety solidly-Kazai could not even try today. So what evidence do you have of this increased stability? That the new powers that be are more liberal and less repressive than the old is not a counterarguement to the old having borught stability.

You are making your own side argument and what point it is that you are trying to make I have no idea. The very fact that Karzai could take his own troops, not coalition troops, and exert authority outside of Kabul, which wasn't even possible a year ago, shows an improvement.

I'm sure you've heard the famous Jefferson quote, "Those who would trade safety for freedom deserve neither." Well in this case the people had neither freedom OR safety. Safety from who? Their neighbors? Okay so instead of common criminals breaking into your home you have the omnipotent government (which NOBODY can stand up to) breaking into your home and doing whatever they want to.

The whole Taliban stability argument is complete nonsense. It hinges on two things:

1) Wipeout of the opium production
2) Low crime rates

2 has clearly been debunked because the people in charge were the ones doing all of the crimes. The only thing you are left with is 1. Considering the US itself has never been able to totally eradicate drugs ourselves, I'd say that's not so bad. It's not great but it can be dealt with in time.

NO, they were repressive fundies: that does not make them criminals. What laws were they breaking?

Nonsense. Cut the semantics crap. Oppressing and murdering your own citizens still counts as being criminal. Okay so they were repressive fundamentalist criminals.

Finally, the Taliban environment wasn't even stable! It was OPPRESSIVE. How can I assure myself of safety and stabilty when I could have my life taken away for making a mistake and accidentally speaking to a woman?

Yeah, sounds real stable to me. Stable for who?

Is the situation better or worse for the average person now or under the Taliban?

Why don't you ask a woman who lived through it and see what she says.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
I can not believe you are that stupid.

Show me what you did is not misquoting Mr DinoDoc, and you might have a leg to stand on.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
From the Globe and Mail:

"But Mr. Khan has refused to hand over $250-million (U.S.) a year in customs money from this boom to the central government -- money that has cemented his rule and benefited the city. While most of Kabul retains signs of the destructive civil war of the 1990s, Herat's paved streets are lined with soaring pines, and early-morning joggers do laps around the track at a new stadium."

As I said, Kazai has little control outside of Kabul.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Goodwins law is overrated. Sometimes Hitler comparisons have an element of truth.

There are very good reasons why Godwin's Law came into existence.

Too many people didn't (still don't) argue properly, instead they just throw this "Nazi" "Hitler" stuff around the very first chance they got.

Furthermore, discussions can stand on themselves without any references to either Nazis or Hitler (or Commies or Stalin, for that matter).

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
2 has clearly been debunked because the people in charge were the ones doing all of the crimes.

Crimes are actions that break the law. I cannot see where your assertion is coming from.

[The Mad Monk]

http://www.wordreference.com/english...n.asp?en=spoof

It wasn't a misquote, it was a spoof.

[LiberalAtheist]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


Cites? Links? Evidence?

Which of course your position has mountains of......in the form of pieces written of single incidents, which may or may not be representative, which may or may not be taken out of context.


Incidents of things like murders, attacks, and "turmoil" ,something absent from Afghanistan before the occupation right? Couldn't be post hoc, could it?


I will agree that Afghanistan will face some serious hurdles and that the Bush administration should do more to aid them, (instead of giving tax breaks to the wealthiest americans) but it is simply not proven that the US invasion and occupation has done more harm then good.


Quite the contrary, at least now the country has a chance to do better, or at least more of a chance then it used to.

Likewise certain facts should be kept in mind:

How did the Taliban treat Afghanistan?s population?


Terribly. While the country remained among the world?s poorest, the Taliban dictatorship imposed a fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic law and carried out executions and other medieval punishments in public. Women?s groups protested Taliban abuses, noting that the Taliban?s big 1998 military push was accompanied by widespread reports of rape and looting, that women were routinely abused and beaten by Taliban enforcers of ?modesty,? and that girls? education beyond primary school was stopped.

Did the Taliban truly represent the people of Afghanistan?
Not really. Early on, many Afghans welcomed the Taliban after the corrupt Soviet puppets who ran Afghanistan in the 1980s and the anarchy that followed their demise. Pashtuns, members of Afghanistan?s largest ethnic group, also welcomed the Taliban, whose ranks were largely Pashtun. But over time, many Afghans soured on the Taliban because of their radical view of Islam, their clashes with neighboring countries, their inability to provide prosperity, and their disregard for human rights. Without polling, there?s no way to quantify how much support the Taliban had. But when the Taliban were kicked out of Afghanistan?s cities in November 2001, the victorious Northern Alliance troops were greeted with cheers.

http://cfrterrorism.org/afghanistan/taliban2.html

How severe are the human needs in Afghanistan?
Extremely severe. Afghanistan is among the poorest countries on earth. It has an estimated annual per capita income of $250, and one in four Afghan children die before reaching the age of five. The country has one doctor for every 50,000 people, and less than a quarter of the population has access to clean drinking water. Afghanistan?s social systems and physical infrastructure, which were never that advanced, have been devastated by more than two decades of constant conflict. Moreover, a severe drought that began in 1999 has halved the country?s food production, caused widespread loss of livestock, and cut access to drinking water. Experts say the Taliban?s misrule compounded the problems.

(italics added)

http://www.cfrterrorism.org/policy/refugees.html

Did the U.S. bombing make things worse?
A little. By some human rights groups? estimates, the civilian death toll from the U.S. bombing campaign stands at around 4,000, in comparison to the 2 million or so Afghans killed in fighting since 1979. (In one particularly harrowing incident, a U.S. AC-130 aircraft?whose crew thought they were under fire?accidentally attacked civilian villagers near Kandahar in July 2002, killing about 40 and triggering a rare rebuke from Afghan President Hamid Karzai.)

The 200,000 Afghans who fled the country during the fall of 2001 came on top of the approximately 4 million refugees already abroad. Human Rights Watch says the U.S. air campaign may have added several thousand unexploded bombs to those already littering the Afghan countryside, but they landed in a country strewn with an estimated 10 million land mines laid over the previous 23 years, which make Afghanistan the most heavily mined country in the world. And unlike past conflicts, such as the 1979-89 Soviet invasion and the subsequent civil war, experts say the recent U.S.-led war may be the catalyst to finally addressing the country?s problems.

In any event, the US is not even in charge of the show anyways, the UN is in charge of peacekeeping in Afghanistan, so there is enough blame to go around.

Will the peacekeeping force be deployed beyond Kabul?
For now, no. Afghanistan?s interim government asked the United Nations to provide tens of thousands of additional peacekeeping troops to curb local lawlessness and prevent violence by rival warlords in areas beyond the capital. A small force in Kabul, Afghan officials warn, cannot hope to maintain national order during the estimated two years it could take to form a new Afghan army. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf supported this expansion of the peacekeeping mission, but neither the United States nor any of the countries supplying peacekeeping troops were willing to dispatch peacekeepers to the rest of Afghanistan, U.N. officials say.

http://cfrterrorism.org/afghanistan/peacekeeping2.html


IMO, I think all involved in Afghanistan should be helping more, and the US isn't helping enough. However there is no clear indication yet that the invasion has made things any worse in this region that has suffered turmoil for decades, if anything things may finally improve via international aid.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by GePap
So will you please ignore Fez? threads are much better of that way.

Yea, I'm in full agreement.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by GePap

Hitler had more than one side. After all, he was a vegeterian and a non-smoker..can I compare vegeterians and non-smokers to Hitler?

Do you want a serious answer?

Ok, give them the same amount of power and see how they handle it.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


As I said, Kazai has little control outside of Kabul.

he has little control in Herat, to be sure.

My point was that the notion that every part of afghanistan where karzai lacks control is ipso facto anarchy, is false.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


There are very good reasons why Godwin's Law came into existence.

Too many people didn't (still don't) argue properly, instead they just throw this "Nazi" "Hitler" stuff around the very first chance they got.

Furthermore, discussions can stand on themselves without any references to either Nazis or Hitler (or Commies or Stalin, for that matter).

Its natural to mention hitler when discussing Totalitarian regimes, or genocide, or particularly when discussing totalitarian regimes that commit genocide. Invokation of GL in these cases is often used to prevent serious discussion, rather than to protect it.

Note I did not say GL shouldnt exist, merely that its overrated.

[Ted Striker]

I don't have the exact article, but the disarmament of those 100,000 militiamen is going down this year. They are going to be integrated into the Afghan Army. Troop strength of the Afghan Army is expected to be at around 70,000 by the end of the year.

The US commander in charge of the operation says that recruiting is picking up exponentially.

The US just committed this week an additional 1 BILLION dollars to back the Afghan Army.

Mark my words.

Afghanistan WILL succeed.

And it will succeed DAMN WELL.