• Have We Won in Afghanistan? - Afghanistan is fucked
    73 replies, posted
[QUOTE=JaegerMonster;40624149]Its hard to say without extensively comparing the strategies employed by both countries and it has to be said, you are comparing afghanistan THEN to afghanistan NOW. The taliban are fucking terrible people so its no surprise their is quite a bit of popularity residing in the ISAF. Certainly the US's campaign focus on hearts and minds is a strategy they've built on since vietnam and arguably the most successful example of defeating insurgencies, but the soviets also utilized similar tactics and had a focus on heart and mind campaigns. I don't compare the two because I dont know enough about soviet culture at the time to have an honest opinion - and by extension I doubt most of the people going "lol fuck the soviets!" do either.[/QUOTE]Soviet culture was entirely fucking alien to the Afghan population. Not just on an economic level, religion played a huge role in the lack of success the Soviet occupation had. You're dealing with tribal people who's only real things in common have historically been, "we like to pillage," and, "praise Allah." An orderly, rigid, and atheist government trying to win them over was destined to fail. Before the Soviets showed up, the Afghan people haven't really had to deal with the likes of the Taliban before. So yeah, it is no surprise that the ISAF is popular because they're not beating and killing people for watching TV, having fun, or wanting their daughter to be able to read. In fact, they're providing the means for the population to have these things.
It's somewhat absurd how the US can invade pretty much any smaller, non-industrial country they want and get away with it. Imperialists.
[QUOTE=JaegerMonster;40624149]I don't compare the two because I dont know enough about soviet culture at the time to have an honest opinion - and by extension I doubt most of the people going "lol fuck the soviets!" do either.[/QUOTE] I know enough about Soviet culture, I think I can have a say. Fuck the soviets, most of what people think about it is just true. You can't make up something so horrible that it had no place in real USSR.
[QUOTE=Stalk;40625444]Yes. There is nothing is wrong with the world, but only because you don't care to find out. I think you would be very suprised if you people actually took your time and looked up this some of this stuff. Some of you will, but most of you just don't care. Keep on rating dumbs and have your laughs. I'm sure that will aleast give you a sense of feeling that you are somehow right.[/QUOTE]I think the real conspiracy is that there's a machine under Area 51 cloning you guys. I've never read a more generic, carbon-copied conspiracy theorist post in my life.
[QUOTE=CabooseRvB;40623558] That's not how you fucking prevent an insurgency, you do realize the more people you murder or the more you treat them like shit, the harder a resistance becomes right? That example can be seen throughout all of history, all the way back to when the Romans took in Germans. Why did you think the Soviets had to deal with such a horrendous insurgency when they were in Afghanistan? Or how the Germans had to put up with a bloody uprising in Warsaw? You don't curbstomp a local populace thinking that they'll shut up and sit down. Why would I prefer to have a region whose capital got turned into the equivalent of [b]Stalingrad[/b] aside from a US presence in Afghanistan? [img]http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lrubkpyMNF1r18o95o1_1280.jpg[/img] [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Chechen_War[/url] [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Chechen_War[/url] Face it, Soviet occupation strategies and modus operandis isn't exactly the most stellar as compared to what the United States is trying to do.[/QUOTE] i know that, but you don't see many Chechen terrorists trying to take over countries like mali for instance, my point is al-qaeda would probably not be nowhere near as strong as it is today, even is the results would be pretty fucked like Chechnya. [QUOTE=galenmarek;40624176]You were alright until you brought up oil. Oil has 100% nothing to do with anything unless you think Iraq has somehow become one with Afghanistan.[/QUOTE] i refered to oil because everything in the middle east is connected with each other, even if Afghanistan doesn't have oil, it doesn't mean their situation isn't connected with the rest of the middle east.
[QUOTE=Wizards Court;40627423]i know that, but you [b]don't see many Chechen terrorists trying to take over countries like mali for instance[/b], my point is al-qaeda would probably not be nowhere near as strong as it is today, even is the results would be pretty fucked like Chechnya.[/QUOTE] Did you ever wonder why Chechen terrorists never bothered to go international? Their enemy was [b]right above them[/b] [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_hostage_crisis]Beslan Hostage Crisis[/url] [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis]Moscow Theather Hostage Crisis[/url] [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_2004_Moscow_metro_bombing]Moscow Metro Bombing[/url] [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domodedovo_International_Airport_bombing]Domodedevo Intl Airport Bombing[/url] Fuck, I'll be bold enough to cite the Boston Bombings. Their radicalism came from the same Mujaheddin separatists in Chechnya. Those separatists were able to travel to Russia and cause some of the biggest terror attacks the country has seen since the Second World War.
[url]http://www.vice.com/vice-news/this-is-what-winning-looks-like-part-1[/url] [editline]13th May 2013[/editline] watch it!
[QUOTE=JaegerMonster;40624149]Its hard to say without extensively comparing the strategies employed by both countries and it has to be said, you are comparing afghanistan THEN to afghanistan NOW. The taliban are fucking terrible people so its no surprise their is quite a bit of popularity residing in the ISAF. Certainly the US's campaign focus on hearts and minds is a strategy they've built on since vietnam and arguably the most successful example of defeating insurgencies, but the soviets also utilized similar tactics and had a focus on heart and mind campaigns. I don't compare the two because I dont know enough about soviet culture at the time to have an honest opinion - and by extension I doubt most of the people going "lol fuck the soviets!" do either.[/QUOTE] I'd go 'fuck the soviets' when they start throwing cluster bombs and mines all over my home and killing civilians.
The one thing you're all forgetting is how brutal the soviets we're against the Afghans during their invasion. The government of Kabul was massacred by Spetznaz at the start of the war, the soviets carpet bombed entire villages suspected of holding Taliban fighters, and they weren't discriminate about who they shot at when they went into a village. Yeah the communists promoted science, learning, understanding, women's rights, among other things when they we're in power before the war started, but the Soviets basically annihilated the countries infrastructure when they invaded, and because the resistance was so effective, the fighters believing they were fighting against the godless communists, it's no surprise that the radicalized factions came into power, considering what they had seen with the communist invasion. If you have anyone to blame, blame the religious extremism, not the US for giving them the means to fight our biggest rival.
Really interesting video, and gives you a good insight on the situation currently in Afghanistan.
Here is the actual documentary, not just a podcast: [url]http://www.vice.com/vice-news/this-is-what-winning-looks-like-part-1[/url]
[QUOTE=danelo;40619102]Who got rich from all of this?[/QUOTE] defense contractors.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.