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| How do we counter the Taliban feudalists? |
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| kojax |
 Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2009 11:06 am Post subject: |
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Forum Radioactive Isotope
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| iceaura wrote: |
So what do you think is actually happening? |
You might be right. Maybe they want to be ruled under the Islamic feudal system to which they are accustomed, and would rather just have us leave. I think what they really want is a perfect contradiction: to have their system, and at the same time to be economically prosperous. If they had any education at all, they'd know the two things are not mutually possible, but they don't, so they will blame us for something caused by the very nature of their own reality, and choices.
Even if you limit it to just agriculture: we'll always be well fed, while they're hungry most of their lives. They'll watch us resentfully, wanting us to "share" with them, but totally unwilling to properly join in our economic endeavors.
So, I guess we lose either way. Either we leave them to their economic ruin, or we change their way of life. We just have to pick which evil we want to do, since there's no third option. Changing their way of life is better for the USA, because then terrorist groups like Al Qaida can't stage out of their territory. |
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| Pong |
| Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2009 3:07 pm Post subject: |
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| kojax wrote: |
| So, I guess we lose either way. Either we leave them to their economic ruin, or we change their way of life. We just have to pick which evil we want to do, since there's no third option. Changing their way of life is better for the USA, because then terrorist groups like Al Qaida can't stage out of their territory. |
Not to endorse the current generation of Taliban, but after 9/11 they did offer to arrest and deport their "guests" Osama bin Laden and co. if the US presented evidence of the crime. I.e. they insisted on operating as sovereign state within international law.
I guess in hindsight Afghanistan would be better today if we had not isolated it as a pariah state and pumped it full of war all these years. Contrast the development of Afghanistan with Libya since the 80's. Stability plus fair international relations works wonders.
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| kojax |
| Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 9:19 am Post subject: |
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Forum Radioactive Isotope
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| Pong wrote: |
| kojax wrote: |
| So, I guess we lose either way. Either we leave them to their economic ruin, or we change their way of life. We just have to pick which evil we want to do, since there's no third option. Changing their way of life is better for the USA, because then terrorist groups like Al Qaida can't stage out of their territory. |
Not to endorse the current generation of Taliban, but after 9/11 they did offer to arrest and deport their "guests" Osama bin Laden and co. if the US presented evidence of the crime. I.e. they insisted on operating as sovereign state within international law.
I guess in hindsight Afghanistan would be better today if we had not isolated it as a pariah state and pumped it full of war all these years. Contrast the development of Afghanistan with Libya since the 80's. Stability plus fair international relations works wonders. |
True. Remember, though: that was both us and Russia. From what I understand, the Russians were slaughtering them wholesale until we started giving them guns and rockets to defend themselves.
How realistic is it for them to want all foreign influence to just leave? What will they do if Russia attacks them after they've repelled us? Will they run at them with pitch forks? There's no reason we'd want to give them guns and rockets a second time after they've been so foolish as to fire them at us. |
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| iceaura |
| Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 6:38 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Bachelors Degree
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| kojax wrote: |
| So, I guess we lose either way. |
If "we" lose either way, obviously the choice is not military invasion and occupation of other people's countries, the killing of innocents and multiplying of refugees, the destruction of others and the damaging of ourselves. We can at least lose without that.
| kojax wrote: |
| Maybe they want to be ruled under the Islamic feudal system to which they are accustomed, and would rather just have us leave. |
Very few people want to be ruled by organized criminals backed up with an overwhelmingly powerful foreign army.
The Afghanis would have been better off under the Soviets, as well, if those are your standards. |
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| kojax |
| Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 7:04 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Radioactive Isotope
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| iceaura wrote: |
| kojax wrote: |
| Maybe they want to be ruled under the Islamic feudal system to which they are accustomed, and would rather just have us leave. |
Very few people want to be ruled by organized criminals backed up with an overwhelmingly powerful foreign army.
The Afghanis would have been better off under the Soviets, as well, if those are your standards. |
You mean in the sense that the Soviets would have officially adopted them into their communist system? You might be right about that. The USA is wary of doing anything that would grant citizenship to the denizens of the occupied territory, so we tend to set up puppet regimes, and then hope they become democratic.
Probably our advantage in rebuilding Japan, Germany, and ... maybe S. Korea was that they already had an educated public that could turn our puppet government into something genuinely democratic and ready to serve its people. Under educated societies like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam, know that's not going to happen for them. |
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| Pong |
| Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 10:17 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Radioactive Isotope
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Why won't you
| Pong wrote: |
| Contrast the development of Afghanistan with Libya since the 80's. |
Stability plus fair international relations works wonders!
And Iraq is not undereducated. It's gone downhill lately because the schools and universities were ransacked or demolished, the staff and students displaced. Many professionals who could, left for secure employment in other countries.
Afghanistan is overeducated. What passes for an economy can't employ much skill right now because it has no participation in the global economy. IKEA wouldn't even risk a tea-light factory in Kabul, despite a 40% unemployed population to skim the best from. So Afghanistan's development boasts a frikkin Coca Cola bottling plant that is basically ex-pat charity investment... then the ex-pats visit with their foreign earned dollars to buy Cokes with dollars thus "helping" the economy. It's that bad.
Afghanistan needs stability above all else. When it's profitable to drive unescorted truckloads of cherries through Kandahar and across the border, things will gradually improve. That's true whether it's the Taliban or tribes or Kabul or NATO patrolling those roads, but not all of the above stirring chaos.
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| kojax |
| Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 11:47 am Post subject: |
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Forum Radioactive Isotope
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| Pong wrote: |
Why won't you
| Pong wrote: |
| Contrast the development of Afghanistan with Libya since the 80's. |
Stability plus fair international relations works wonders!
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So does oil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Libya
| Wiki:Economy of Libya wrote: |
Libya's socialist-oriented and centrally planned economy depends primarily upon revenues from the petroleum sector, which contributes practically all export earnings and over half of GDP. |
| Quote: |
And Iraq is not undereducated. It's gone downhill lately because the schools and universities were ransacked or demolished, the staff and students displaced. Many professionals who could, left for secure employment in other countries. |
Iraq certainly has an educated class. It also has a lot of people out in the hills who still practice tribalism. It's main problem, however, is this lack of a unified national identity.
| Wiki:Iraq Diaspora wrote: |
In 2007, the U.N. said that about 40% of Iraq's middle class is believed to have fled and that most are fleeing systematic persecution and have no desire to return.[97] Refugees are mired in poverty as they are generally barred from working in their host countries. |
Once your disunity reaches the point where some people feel like they have to flee for their lives, it becomes pretty hard to organize anything on a large scale.
| Quote: |
Afghanistan is overeducated. What passes for an economy can't employ much skill right now because it has no participation in the global economy. IKEA wouldn't even risk a tea-light factory in Kabul, despite a 40% unemployed population to skim the best from. So Afghanistan's development boasts a frikkin Coca Cola bottling plant that is basically ex-pat charity investment... then the ex-pats visit with their foreign earned dollars to buy Cokes with dollars thus "helping" the economy. It's that bad.
Afghanistan needs stability above all else. When it's profitable to drive unescorted truckloads of cherries through Kandahar and across the border, things will gradually improve. That's true whether it's the Taliban or tribes or Kabul or NATO patrolling those roads, but not all of the above stirring chaos. |
People seem to have a somewhat mistaken view of education's role in building a country. There's technical education, like engineers, skilled business people.... basically stuff that imparts professional skill.
There's also liberal education. While it has next to no economic value, it's value to building a functional government is absolute. If the majority of people in your country have no sense of how they want to be governed, then it's impossible that they will vote intelligently. You need activists. You need philosophers. You need firebrands who open up newspapers. Those are the people who can organize the public, and reach them on the ground level. |
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| Pong |
| Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 2:17 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Radioactive Isotope
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| kojax wrote: |
| You need activists. You need philosophers. You need firebrands who open up newspapers. Those are the people who can organize the public, and reach them on the ground level. |
Lol well Afghanistan has those in spades.
I know it ain't the "Town Hall" democracy and "Vote for Me" campaign style one might idealize. Afghanistan is drowning in politics. They certainly don't need another group of foreigners teaching them as to "how they want to be governed". Also remember that a significant portion of the population despite limited means has left the country and returned, often repeatedly from diverse nations. So there is plenty of foreign perspective in the mix. And as the country returns to normalcy still more are ready to return, from Brazil, Canada, Russia, etc. etc. and those returnees will bring wealth and broader perspectives.
Lucky for Afghanistan it like Libya can raise an economy on oil. I'm sure you've heard about the pipeline schemes. Also there's a lot of cheaply extracted natural gas. And minerals. And serious agricultural export is possible. And as I mentioned earlier, a ready flow of now relatively wealthy returnees. But all this requires stability in one form or another.
Perhaps I devalue ideological correctness of countries' laws, being raised where my head of state is a monarch and seeing that does no harm whatsoever. I think that conditions of stability and economic development make the reality, not what's written in the law books or how people rationalize politics.
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| kojax |
| Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 12:51 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Radioactive Isotope
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| Pong wrote: |
| kojax wrote: |
| You need activists. You need philosophers. You need firebrands who open up newspapers. Those are the people who can organize the public, and reach them on the ground level. |
Lol well Afghanistan has those in spades.
I know it ain't the "Town Hall" democracy and "Vote for Me" campaign style one might idealize. Afghanistan is drowning in politics. They certainly don't need another group of foreigners teaching them as to "how they want to be governed". Also remember that a significant portion of the population despite limited means has left the country and returned, often repeatedly from diverse nations. So there is plenty of foreign perspective in the mix. And as the country returns to normalcy still more are ready to return, from Brazil, Canada, Russia, etc. etc. and those returnees will bring wealth and broader perspectives. |
I guess if their rabble rousers don't agree with the type of government we set up, they're not going to try and modify it, just destroy it. Japan and Germany probably had the right compatibilities with our culture so they wouldn't feel the need to completely reject the system we set up.
| Quote: |
Lucky for Afghanistan it like Libya can raise an economy on oil. I'm sure you've heard about the pipeline schemes. Also there's a lot of cheaply extracted natural gas. And minerals. And serious agricultural export is possible. And as I mentioned earlier, a ready flow of now relatively wealthy returnees. But all this requires stability in one form or another. |
Kind of a recurring theme is that it seems like it's not so much about Islamic rule as it is about having a command economy. It sounds like they want those resources to be shared as public property instead of hoarded as private property. And, of course, the USA wants it to be private property so it will cost less to get our hands on it.
I have to sympathize with them on that. Management of natural resources is a serious weakness of capitalism. The private sector is always way too shortsighted. If it were up to them, all that natural gas would be extracted in a single day, and sold for 5 cents a gallon.
This leads to a new question: how do we convince the USA's industrial complex to leave Afghanistan's (and Iraq's) natural resources alone, and allow for the new government to distribute that wealth the way the people want it done? Is that really the great impossibility that makes this war unfinishable? |
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| iceaura |
| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 6:26 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Bachelors Degree
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| kojax wrote: |
| This leads to a new question: how do we convince the USA's industrial complex to leave Afghanistan's (and Iraq's) natural resources alone, and allow for the new government to distribute that wealth the way the people want it done? |
Uh, why do you think the US started these wars, in the first place?
You are asking the warrior corporations to admit defeat, to give up on he gravy train right in the middle, when the preliminary rake was beyond expectations and the big payoff is so close they can taste it. |
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| kojax |
| Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 11:54 am Post subject: |
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Forum Radioactive Isotope
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Lol.. 
That is just too true. |
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| Valkyrie |
| Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2010 3:38 pm Post subject: |
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The problem with Afghanistan is that we're using the same tactics to fight the Taliban as we used to fight the Viet Cong.
In Vietnam, the Viet Cong ambushed us in small groups, then went back into hiding. The Taliban is doing the same thing! And we're still using the same tactics we fought the Viet Cong with.
58,000 names can tell you that didn't work! |
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| kojax |
| Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2010 11:32 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Radioactive Isotope
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So, what do you propose that we do? I totally agree, sending out patrols to get ambushed isn't going to move things forward no matter how favorable the kill ratio is between us dying and us killing them.
We need to go on the aggressive, but everyone's worried about provoking the population. Maybe the reason we fail to win "hearts and minds" is because we're trying too hard, the same reason a stand up comedian fails if they try too hard. We're like that nerdy kid who's falling all over himself trying to appease a hot chick into dating him. Then she decides to date some dangerous hoodlum who treats her like crap, and he's all wondering: what did he do wrong? |
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| JX |
| Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2010 11:45 pm Post subject: |
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| kojax wrote: |
| We need to go on the aggressive, but everyone's worried about provoking the population. Maybe the reason we fail to win "hearts and minds" is because we're trying too hard, the same reason a stand up comedian fails if they try too hard. |
| Valkyrie wrote: |
| The problem with Afghanistan is that we're using the same tactics to fight the Taliban as we used to fight the Viet Cong. |
That's exactly the problem, like in Vietnam, we have failed to 'win hearts and minds' with a population that does not want a perceived occupier, even if we believe what we are doing will benefit them in the long run. At the end of the day, the inevitable conclusion is unless we can change their minds Afghanistan will end exactly like Vietnam did, hasty withdrawal. And at this point, we are merely revitalizing the Taliban with more Afghanis seeking revenge. I doubt going 'on the aggressive' will do anything another than exacerbate the problem. |
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| kojax |
| Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 3:23 am Post subject: |
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Forum Radioactive Isotope
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| Jacques.X wrote: |
| kojax wrote: |
| We need to go on the aggressive, but everyone's worried about provoking the population. Maybe the reason we fail to win "hearts and minds" is because we're trying too hard, the same reason a stand up comedian fails if they try too hard. |
| Valkyrie wrote: |
| The problem with Afghanistan is that we're using the same tactics to fight the Taliban as we used to fight the Viet Cong. |
That's exactly the problem, like in Vietnam, we have failed to 'win hearts and minds' with a population that does not want a perceived occupier, even if we believe what we are doing will benefit them in the long run. At the end of the day, the inevitable conclusion is unless we can change their minds Afghanistan will end exactly like Vietnam did, hasty withdrawal. And at this point, we are merely revitalizing the Taliban with more Afghanis seeking revenge. I doubt going 'on the aggressive' will do anything another than exacerbate the problem. |
I think we lose when we show that we're not able to impose order as well as our competition. People want order. We need to demonstrate that we can impose and enforce rules, and not always popular ones. They're scared there might be reprisals if they cooperate with us, but not if they cooperate with our enemy. We need to make them respect us as a form of authority, preferably as an authority figure that's more fair and reasonable than our opposition, but still tough enough that we don't let them walk all over us. Nobody's going to respect us if we're just pandering.
I think we should make arbitrary rules and enforce them, just to show that we're an entity that is capable of doing so. They don't need to be overly sensible rules, and we should tailor them so that they're easy to enforce, and it's easy to observe if they're not being obeyed. An example might be to require that every village fly the national flag of the coalition government. We could punish failure to do so with anything from fines to imprisonment. (Maybe we haul the tribal elder off to prison if we see the flag pole empty.) |
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