The Military Fights to Defend our Freedom, or absurdist things the news tells me.

[Aquitaine]

Comparing it to Vietnam is just silly

Maybe, maybe not. However, I have a fair amount of confidence that in the future, we will refer to Afghanistan as "Britain's Vietnam".

Whats patriotism got to do with it?

"Patriotism" (as in the blind flag waving and unquestioning loyalty) along with fear-mongering are what's played on in order to drum up support for conflicts like these. Of course, the real Patriots are those who are oppossed to pointless events which result in the deaths of British citizens, wasting of British equipment, and economic strain - all for unneccessary reasons. The conlfict in Afghanistan (and Iraq) are prime examples.

What I'm trying to say is: don't be pressured into thinking that oppossing wars like these make you some sort of "unpatriotic piece of trash lefty" or whatever. I think there's a certian amount of peer pressure in our society (and in the US) in relation to whether or not people oppose this and the Iraq war. What was it Bush said again "You are either with us, or you are with the Terrorists!". Pffft.

and we have to stay there until it is such a place that groups of murdering scum like Alqueda cannot call it home.

I have no support or sympathy with the likes of Al-Qaeda - ideally it would be great to see people like them eliminated. But if that's going to be our excuse for staying in foreign countries like that, then why not just declare war on every Terrorist group on the planet? We'd waste all our money and drain our nation instantly.

Yes, there are Barbarians who exist in the World, and there's untold amounts of suffering in other countries, but frankly it simply isn't our business. Not only that, but our presence often tends to just make things worse: more Civilians get killed, more anti-western sentiment gets spread etc. I have often noticed the attitude of "Since we invaded them we may aswell just stay until we get the job properly done" or "We now have a responsiblity to leave the country in a safe and secure state". But I disagree, I think we're just gonna end up creating more Vietnams.

Let's pull out, and just leave Afghan be, instead of trying to "Police" the World and making tons of new enemies (and dead bodies) in the process.

No Paul we are there to kill civillians and rape the country of all its worth( a bit of a jolly really) but you already know that and i dont know how you obtained that information as its classified 00 agents only, so i guess the cat is well and trully out of the bag.

Hehehe! ^_^

Believe it or not, but I don't actually think that our Armed Forces are foaming-at-the-mouth Vikings who are Hell-bent on killing Civilians. There's a differrence between saying "Hey, the government we are backing is corrupt and not acting in the interests of the Afghan people, and our continued presence in the region is accumulating more Civilian/Soldier casualities - all for completely unneccessary reasons" to "OMFG our troops are murdering baby-killers who sign up just to kill innocents and pillage Afghanistan of all it's worth."

 

[kai]

Look Paul If 9/11 never happened then the invasion of Afghanistan would never have happened the troops were not sent there on any humanitarian mission they were sent there to deny Alqueda a base of operations. The fact that the international community is trying to give the Afghans a chance to take the first steps to gaining some kind of freedom from tyrants is a thing to be applauded. I am also under no illusions that the world would have left the Afghans to the Mercy of the Taliban if not for 9/11.

As for Vietnam there is no comparison except for the obvious like "theres a war on" firstly the invasion was a direct result of an attack on American soil and there is no super power support for Alqueda or the Taliban. Afghanistan is whats known as a“low intensity” conflict – a counter-insurgency campaign.

The Afghanistan insurrection has not achieved broad support comparable to the revolutionary NLF . The Viet Cong, the NLF military arm, demonstrated highly disciplined nationwide unity the Taliban do not ,Put it this way theres no way the Taliban could carry out something like the Tet offensive and there just isnt an Afghan version of the NVA.the forces supporting the Afghan government are authorized by the U.N. and NATO, in stark contrast to the the Vietnam War.and i havnt even touched on differences in tactical US military strategy

No they are not really comparible at all really.

 

[Aquitaine]

Look Paul If 9/11 never happened then the invasion of Afghanistan would never have happened the troops were not sent there on any humanitarian mission they were sent there to deny Alqueda a base of operations. The fact that the international community is trying to give the Afghans a chance to take the first steps to gaining some kind of freedom from tyrants is a thing to be applauded. I am also under no illusions that the world would have left the Afghans to the Mercy of the Taliban if not for 9/11.

As for Vietnam there is no comparison except for the obvious like "theres a war on" firstly the invasion was a direct result of an attack on American soil and there is no super power support for Alqueda or the Taliban. Afghanistan is whats known as a“low intensity” conflict – a counter-insurgency campaign.

The Afghanistan insurrection has not achieved broad support comparable to the revolutionary NLF . The Viet Cong, the NLF military arm, demonstrated highly disciplined nationwide unity the Taliban do not ,Put it this way theres no way the Taliban could carry out something like the Tet offensive and there just isnt an Afghan version of the NVA.the forces supporting the Afghan government are authorized by the U.N. and NATO, in stark contrast to the the Vietnam War.and i havnt even touched on differences in tactical US military strategy

No they are not really comparible at all really.

Honestly kai, me and you have argued against each other on topics like this endlessly, and I doubt we'll reach much of a conclusion in this thread.

But hey with Afghanistan, let's just wait and see what happens then. We're apparently pulling out by 2014, so when we look back on it we'd still be arguing about whether or not it was worth it.

I personally believe it's all a pointless waste, and the Taliban will regain control eventually and we'd have made more enemies in the end. You, on the other hand, don't.

We'll see.

 

[kai]

Honestly kai, me and you have argued against each other on topics like this endlessly, and I doubt we'll reach much of a conclusion in this thread.

But hey with Afghanistan, let's just wait and see what happens then. We're apparently pulling out by 2014, so when we look back on it we'd still be arguing about whether or not it was worth it.

I personally believe it's all a pointless waste, and the Taliban will regain control eventually and we'd have made more enemies in the end. You, on the other hand, don't.

We'll see.

The Taliban and People like Mulla Omar and Bin Laden will always be our enemies Paul and they always side with our enemies its in their make-up. I believe if the international community puts the will behind the rhetoric there's nothing it couldn't do ,including making Afghanistan a decent place to live for ordinary people who just want to survive without their government shooting them in the back of the head for violating laws that we would consider too trivial to even be a law.

I have no qualms about negotiating with the Taliban because not all of them are Mullah Omar's far from it.I think whats a sure thing in my mind though is the Taliban will not last as long as you think.

Once people can see that there is an alternative they will lose what support they have. And that's what we have been doing showing them that the Taliban is not the divinely inspired invincible hand of God and that there is another way and that the Talibans interpretation of their own scripture is also not the only one.