• Ashraf Ghani to be next Afghan president, as Abdullah says fuck it
    14 replies, posted
[img]http://imgkk.com/i/ese2.png[/img] [url]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-29299088[/url] [quote]Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah has said he accepts that his rival Ashraf Ghani should be leader, following months of deadlock. Mr Abdullah's spokesman told the BBC that both men had agreed to form a government of national unity with Mr Ghani as president and Mr Abdullah nominating a chief executive. An official announcement is expected to be made on Sunday. Both sides have accused the other of fraud following June's election. The move follows the completion of a comprehensive audit of all eight million votes which began in July.[/quote]
Afghanistan is a lost cause.
[QUOTE=LoganIsAwesome;46036169]Afghanistan is a lost cause.[/QUOTE] Things are finally beginning to improve (albeit slowly), and it's a 'lost cause'?
[QUOTE=LoganIsAwesome;46036169]Afghanistan is a lost cause.[/QUOTE] I'm not that big of a fan of technocracies, but it is a pretty big step forward.
[QUOTE=Jamsponge;46038564]Things are finally beginning to improve (albeit slowly), and it's a 'lost cause'?[/QUOTE] No it isnt. That place is called the graveyard of empires for a reason. Afghanistan's government is one of the most corrupt and mafia like countries that exists. Pumping money and blood into it isnt going to solve anything. We gave so much for so little and that so little will soon not matter, say hello to Vietnam v2.
[QUOTE=SexualShark;46039108]No it isnt. That place is called the graveyard of empires for a reason. Afghanistan's government is one of the most corrupt and mafia like countries that exists. Pumping money and blood into it isnt going to solve anything. We gave so much for so little and that so little will soon not matter, say hello to Vietnam v2.[/QUOTE] [quote]Afghanistan is not really a graveyard by any stretch of the imagination - the British lost terribly during the First Anglo-Afghan War, then won handily in the second, and gained a Pyrrhic victory in the Third. The Soviets lost a lot of men, but they succeeded in propping up a socialist Afghan state up until the USSR collapsed. People also forget just how effectively Genghis Khan decimated the Khwarazmian Empire (which included parts of Northeastern Afghanistan). Usually what the "Graveyard of Empires" refers to is the fact that foreign powers attempting to impose a central government on Afghanistan have failed miserably. During the country's most peaceful and stable times, its government was very highly decentralized. (Source: Seth Jones "Graveyard of Empires: America's War with Afghanistan" 2011; Quick note: there are probably better resources to read on this, but Jones is a decent source)"[/quote]
does it really matter who's the president there because it seems to me that they're corrupt as fuck and have no power anyway
Abdullah Abdullah is the greatest name
[QUOTE=Lone Wolf807;46039162]reddit paste[/QUOTE] Afghanistan isnt tameable, at least not for the long term. Pumping large amounts of men, materiel, and cash into something like Afghanistan is like shoving perfectly good stuff into the toilet and flushing it down. The problem isnt the country itself but the people that inhabit Afghanistan, they are an extremely tough, ferocious and determined people that can resist and drain you for long periods. If you notice on that said piece of information you posted that the common theme on it is losing lots of men and suffering pyrrhic "victories" and propping up short term solutions for a while- A pyrrhic victory is not much of a victory at all.
I like the idea of anthropologists as politicians, especially in a country like Afghanistan, so good on Ghani.
The thing Afghanistan needs to do in order to shoot up their economy is to expand it's mining field. I remember reading an article that Afghanistan has literally 1 trillion dollars worth of Iron and other metals that can be mined. But the problem about that is that China is trying to get it's companies to mine in Afghanistan territory.
That's because Afghan land is [i]too cool[/i] and everyone wants the good resource rich lands, causing a ethnic shit storm. Look at Balkans for comparison, the place is of such strategic value as the connection between Europe and Asia everyone wanted a piece
[QUOTE=SexualShark;46039108]No it isnt. That place is called the graveyard of empires for a reason. Afghanistan's government is one of the most corrupt and mafia like countries that exists. Pumping money and blood into it isnt going to solve anything. We gave so much for so little and that so little will soon not matter, say hello to Vietnam v2.[/QUOTE] To be fair its a hell of a lot better than it was once the communist government fell in the 90s, at least now the country isn't super xenophobic even if the southern half has problems, what doesn't look good though is that it appears the candidates were pretty much divided north vs south
[QUOTE=SexualShark;46039234]Afghanistan isnt tameable, at least not for the long term. Pumping large amounts of men, materiel, and cash into something like Afghanistan is like shoving perfectly good stuff into the toilet and flushing it down. The problem isnt the country itself but the people that inhabit Afghanistan, they are an extremely tough, ferocious and determined people that can resist and drain you for long periods. If you notice on that said piece of information you posted that the common theme on it is losing lots of men and suffering pyrrhic "victories" and propping up short term solutions for a while- A pyrrhic victory is not much of a victory at all.[/QUOTE]We're not really doing that though, we could be dumping far, far more than we are right now and we could mobilize enough people to scour the countryside by foot and drive the Taliban out forever. We could technically do a lot of things, we have enough space to put all of Northern Pakistan (the real fucking problem here) into internment camps and carefully interrogate every single person. We're not doing any of that. Just because we can doesn't mean that we should, and our current efforts are a shadow of what they once were so clearly we're not just showering them in support. We've achieved our goals of dismantling the Taliban, killing the people responsible for 9/11, and setting up a potentially stable and friendly government in Afghanistan. Everyone, especially the Taliban, knows that we're going to pull out and we're going to let Afghanistan stand on it's own and hopefully they'll be our friends for a long time. Our ultimate goal of stamping out and destroying the ideology that's seeking to crush our country will be that much closer, and as the Middle East begins to modernize and is more connected with the world then things will [i]really[/i] start to change. Right now the heart of Islamic radicalism is in the Middle East, it's the motherland for all the crazy shit, and if that goes the rest will follow.
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