If anything than turning Afghanistan into a perfect little peaceful progressive democracy counts as defeat, then the war was lost before it began.
If the goal was kicking Taleban and al-Qaida ass, it seems to be going pretty well. The more of them we kill the happier I will be, and the better a place the world will be. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
If the goal was kicking Taleban and al-Qaida ass, it seems to be going pretty well.
No. It's not going pretty well even in this limited sense and it cannot go well until there is a stable, competent and somewhat legitimate government functioning everywhere in Afghanistan. Plus there is the issue of Pakistan northwest frontier that also requires a stable, competent and somewhat legitimate government functioning over there.
The more of them we kill the happier I will be, and the better a place the world will be.
May be satisfying at a primal level but perfectly useless and counterproductive if doing that spawns more of them and they keep coming back.
Anyway, there cannot be any type of success in the region until Saudi Arabia is dealt with one way or the other.
Then maybe maybe an Afghan state, or several ones, will eventually reform. But the more we meddle with their domestic affairs, the smaller is the chance that will happen.
Keeping al-Qaida and the Taliban down is the best we can hope for. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
But the more we meddle with their domestic affairs, the smaller is the chance that will happen.
Starvid:
Keeping al-Qaida and the Taliban down is the best we can hope for.
Aren't these two statements contradictory? Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
Why? What did the Taleban ever do to you? (Please don't say '911', as they had nothing to do with it and even offered to hand over the suspects upon the production of evidence against them.)
The world is full of people who are just as vile as the Taleban, who are in fact even worse. I don't see you calling for their heads on a plate. And it really isn't up to you, is it. Plenty of people in Afghanistan actually prefer the Taleban to the available options.
The US has done much greater harm to peoples across the world than the Taleban has ever managed. Shall I admit to my desire to cheer every time a US soldier gets blown to pieces, and not meet a chorus of boos and revulsion here on ET?
But I suppose it's OK to exterminate the Taleban, they must be just raghead vermin or something, and the ultimate evil, by definition. Otherwise it just wouldn't make sense.
What makes my answer and yours different? Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
Too bad the Americans are our friends and Osama is not. But I actually prefer it that way around. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
Well, that was sad, sure. But it was about revenge.
So you're arguing that it would similarly be legitimate for the Afghani populace to inflict casualties inside America, after all it's about revenge. Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
Or really, the queation does not make sense. This is international relations so the concept "legitimate" does not exist, except as a propaganda tool. Which is why having the UN on your side is a good thing. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
(...)
Aside of being morally questionable, your thinking is also rather inaccurate. People have a sense of justice. If wars are fought without legitimacy that has consequences for how people react. Like, say, the infractions against their sense of justice might lead them to become insurgents and start blowing stuff up.
On the question of LEGITIMACY:
But what about the UN mandate? Doesn't a UN mandate count for anything? Doesn't it confer legitimacy, say on the intervention by member nations of NATO in Afghanistan? Let us not forget that it was the govt in Kabul that sought that intervention.
When the US invaded Afghanistan to get back at the Taleban, Al-Qaeda and at every possible old and young Afghan leader, to me quite frankly, their act was not justifiable -- it was not a reason for invasion. I personally was opposed to the outright destruction of Afghanistan being perpetuated cowboy-like by America without so much as a thought for the civilians, children who would get caught in the crossfire. If NATO, which unfortunately counts the United States as one of its major members, fails in Afghanistan (and it may fail), in my opinion it will largely be on account of the conduct of the Afghanistan war that was waged from the time the United States invaded Afghanistan armed with the wrong purpose and deploying the wrong tactics, i.e., purely punitive measures, bomb and awe, destruction and revenge, etc.
However, once the Afghan govt obtained a UN mandate for the UN to intervene and NATO was appointed to execute that mission on behalf of the United Nations, that to me was conferring legitimacy on the said NATO intervention in Afghanistan, America notwithstading.
If, on the other hand, we cannot and don't want to accept that the particular UN mandate was legitimate in itself, then of course, that gives a totally different legitimacy color to the NATO member nations' intervention in Afghanistan. Sadly, this is where I differ with my highly-esteemed fellow 'diarists' -- either we accept a UN mandate as legitimate or not but we cannot accuse NATO of intervening in Afghanistan illegally. In that, we either support the United Nations or not. The UN is, in my humble opinion, one of the avenues we can take towards clarifying, or at the very least, towards helping sort out a political and sometimes moral dilemma that most nations and peoples face when the lives of millions of human beings are at stake.
If we believe we that our govts shouldn't or cannot trust the UN or should only support it halfway when the said intl body decides to confer a mission on an agency or another institution, on another nation or nations, groups of peoples, then I suppose we should be prepared to face more debacles in the future. At the moment, it is realistically the only international body that we can rightly call upon in the most legitimate manner to help nations resolve some of the most difficult political and security conflicts they face.
I accept that there is a strong chance that NATO might fail in Afghanistan and there is a plethora of reasons, beginning with lack of meaningful public support because of costs, moral dilemma, political ideologies, personal beliefs, and more, etc., etc., etc. Unfortunately, the United States has been on the ground much ahead of EU-NATO member nations, doing what they've always known best (harsh punitive measures, bomb and awe, destruction and revenge) so, if we all truly believe EU member nations are incapable of providing the necessary balance to slow down America's ardour for war and counterbalance the United States' supremacist doctrine, if we all believe these EU nations in NATO are not up to the task of reversing the tide of horror in Afghanistan, then I must agree with all of you, these EU member nations should pull out of Afghanistan illico and perhaps, Europeans should demand that their govts disband or withdraw NATO altogether immediately afterwards. (I believe in following up what a man, or woman for that matter, strongly believes with determined actions.)
Meanwhile, I think it is fair to ask those who are deeply concerned for Afghanistan to call on, nay, demand of the United Nations via their governments to apply international pressure on the government of Pres Hamid Karzai in Kabul and to require the Afghan govt to do more than what they are doing today in order to help alleviate very worried and concerned Europeans of their moral (and financial) burden and so that the European NGOs and military personnel stationed in Afghanistan can come back home soon!
For him it is OK, when NATO does not help Afghanis, but just kills the Taleban and he clearly justifies the invasion, not just the nation building part. Of course the NATO mission has other goals than those which Starvid stated.
And to you comment, I think one can be in a way critical to the UN without blasting it. Maybe an intervention can be argued as legal, if it has UN support, but that doesn't mean, that we can't think it is wrong, and we don't have to support it, just because it is legal. I haven't seen too much people here demanding all the govs and MPs which have voted in their respective countries for the NATO mission to go to jail. Der Amerikaner ist die Orchidee unter den MenschenVolker Pispers
Sorry, been busy in other threads and elsewhere -- haven't really checked this thread, part of the reason is it's become too long and tires my eyes scanning the posts.
Yes, I've just read some of his comments. I'd say his view on killing all the Taleban and never mind the rest was a bit extreme. To adopt that sort of strategy would be no more no less adopting the American way of doing things which was something I believe the majority here rejected outright -- me included and to think that my view on the matter may already be considered far too "rightish" for the sensitivities of most here (although I may be wrong.)
To set the record straight, it is my belief that every single decision, or at least the major ones to which the general public have direct access, made by any institution in the name of the citizens of a republic, a union or a federation of states, international or regional, national or local should be scrutinised and if warranted, criticised -- and this goes very much so for the UN. However, just to remind you, the tenor of my earlier post does pertain to the notion of not criticising the UN but rather to the legitimacy of the NATO intervention in Afghanistan.
Al Quaeda? We could always have shown the evidence we had to the Taleban, and allowed a trial in a neutral country. After all if we're sop convinced we're right it wouldn't have hurt. Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
or is it just that you think there's nowhere sufficiently neutral? Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
Like law matters an ounce in international relations! Like anyone would trust the verdict! Like al-Qaida wouldn't fight to the death against anyone who tried to arrest them! Like you could turn over evidence without compromising vast amounts of intelligence! Like the Americans would put their indepence in the hands of some international organization, whithout any kind of that precious legitimacy!
Et cetera ad infinitum. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
Like law matters an ounce in international relations!
The core of the matter. Might makes right.
On this basis, terrorism, genocide and anything the fuck else you like is legal.
Insanity consists of doing the same thing over and over and over and expecting different results.
Vicious idiots and arrogant fools.
t! Like al-Qaida wouldn't fight to the death against anyone who tried to arrest them!
Like you could turn over evidence without compromising vast amounts of intelligence!
Step one might be to stop doing all the stuff that enables them to recruit new members. Like feeding the House of Saud jillions of dollars so they can run a reactionary government and harbor a huge population of unemployable young men. Like not arming and funding the Taliban in the first place as part of a previous crackpot plan to kick the Russians out of Afghanistan. Like not subsidizing western agriculture to the point where the third world farmers have to sell drugs to us to make any money. Like not invading a country because the ruler "tried to kill my daddy" despite the pleas of practically every other country.
With the current strategy, we're creating enemy soldiers faster than we can kill them.
But in top of that, after 9/11 some people needed killing. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
so whenever there was an IRA attack in the UK, it needed the RAF to drop a large bomb somewhere near the houses of supporters of NORAID? Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
This is a pretty interesting comment. First off, the whole revenge thing is not exactly, you know, whatever. Secondly, if you want to kill people in revenge, you could choose between the perps, or their families, or maybe the (Saudi) government that provided their inspiration. But the U.S. decided to go after Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11.
Thirdly, there is a question of appropriate levels of response. In 9/11 there were about 3000 American fatalities, some of them more awful than others, and all televised (repeatedly). In Iraq so far we have killed over 3000 American soldiers, and wounded about 10,000 (and "wounded" in modern language essentially means "killed" because the minor sort of flesh wounds that used to pump up the casualty figures are mostly avoided because of the widespread use of body armor, the current wounded have no arms, legs, or faces), and we don't count mental wounds or long-term health problems among the casualties. So the true American total casualty figures are certainly over 20,000 people. And then we have killed somewhere between 100,000 and 1,000,000 Iraqis, depending on whose numbers you want to use. So the current response ratio to 9/11 is around, say, using 600,000:3000, about 200:1.
Is that enough revenge killing yet?
Migeru:
"The war is wrong" "3,000 Americans died on 9/11" At that time, the body count in Iraq was reported to be 30,000. "10 times more people have already died in Iraq. Is that not enough for you?" "Whatever it takes to make America safe"
"The war is wrong"
"3,000 Americans died on 9/11"
At that time, the body count in Iraq was reported to be 30,000.
"10 times more people have already died in Iraq. Is that not enough for you?"
"Whatever it takes to make America safe"
I won't mourn the Taliban, any more than I'll mourn the troops that die in this mindlessly stupid "war", but I'm not happy when they die. I'm not even convinced they were notably unpleasant in the general scheme of things.
The whole thing is a tragic fuck-up as far as I'm concerned, caused precisely by the sort of world view that can write "The more of them we kill the happier I will be, and the better a place the world will be".
Al Qaeda, Afghanistan and the Good War The U.S. war in Afghanistan often is seen as a "good war" even by those who oppose the U.S. involvement in Iraq. The Afghan war is in trouble, however. Whether that matters depends upon the status of al Qaeda.
Thanks a lot. Perfect illustration of how deep up their collective arse US political elites are, no matter which side of the spectrum they stand.
I kind of agree/disagree with the notion that the Afghanistan occupation is lost.
It will be if the US don't put real resources there and, for a start, stop behaving like complete morons (something they really need to do on many, many issues; they can't afford being morons any longer). But overwhelming force always win when there is a good cause to sustain it. The US neocon psychos are partially right when they try to practice revisionism for instance about the Vietnam War. The US would have won is they had gone all out. Where they demonstrate they are dangerous psychos is that they forget that there was no remotely good reason to fight in Vietnam in the first place. I think Afghanistan is different in this respect. There is a good reason to fight over there and if it's not done now, it will come back even worse.
Anyway, if Obama's approach to the issue is to dump on Europe, then, yes, it's lost. The US had their chance with Europe. NATO voted article 5 on September 12 2001 and confirmed the vote on October 4. The US walked away. Their decision. Their problem to deal with.
If Obama wants to revisit the issue, he will have three things to do: 1) apologize on all fours and forehead in the ground for the US shunning NATO and accept full responsibility for the mess, 2) restore the basic credibility of the US by holding the previous team accountable and show the allies that a Bush administration will never happen again and 3) commit serious resources to Afghanistan (not point talking if it's anything under 300,000 US combat troops) and to deal with the Saudis.
None of that is going to happen.
Rather, Europe will watch from the sidelines, a fairly uninvolved and uninterested bystander.
Angela Merkel is already doing that with a lot of talent. Gordon has a lot of problems on his hands and Sarkozy will have to follow.
Looking at the polls, not just Sarkozy's but in comparison Fillon's, the population has already told him (with very good reasons) that it really doesn't like him to have ideas. The French voted for "Sarkozy the Doer, knees deep in the muck", not "Sarkozy the Grand Strategist". Big casting mistake. If Jerome and the polls are right about ground level opinions on the US, Sarkozy won't dare fart. The French don't wait for elections to give their opinions and make them heard.
They too are bought and paid for by corporations, just as American politician are.
Having a supra-bureaucracy of leaders that rise up through party structures is not optimal democracy.
When I look at the EU project, many of its pro-corporatist laws seem pretty onerous. Laws which are designed to allow media monopolies, for instance, or let's say laws that support the dissemination of genetically modified foods. Euro defense industry dealings.
Nobody who would be better at doing their job really wants to do it as far as I see it.
"They too are bought and paid for by corporations, just as American politician are."
Some are, but in general they are not. I'm not at all sure that other people would be much less receptive to big capital offers. They are much more doing what the base wants than you seem to think.
"Having a supra-bureaucracy of leaders that rise up through party structures is not optimal democracy."
I don't know anything better.
"When I look at the EU project..."
Often people's fault. The EU parliament is much more direct responsible to the people and less easy influencable by corporations than the comisson and its bureaucracy. But many people don't want to give power to the parliament, because this would reduce national influence and would be clearly a step towards a superstate EU, which I have doubts that this is what a majority of people want. The EU project has some flaws, but it is a development in the right direction. Der Amerikaner ist die Orchidee unter den MenschenVolker Pispers
The problem is, both systems are corrupted by the powerful.
Europe is not an effective counterbalance for the US.
Absolutely true. But it wasn't designed with the premise to be one. And while some parts of the system should be redesigned (but I actually don't object to a EU superstate which many people do) to make the EU more independent of the US in the future, not everything should be rebuild under the premise to counterbalance the US. It is as well not build to reduce bad Chinese influence in Africa. The EU has no single strongman position who can speak for Europeans, like the US president can for the Americans. Such a position would clearly help to counterbalance, but it would be against the general European way of doing things. The EU has made war between some of the longest enemies in history impossible, the EU helps countries devasted by the real existing communism to master their situation in a difficult world. The EU saves cultural divergence, and offers a framework for common tasks as environmental protection in an atmosphere where national thinking of 'My country first' still plays a big role (don't take ETers as the common man), with people with different historic experiences and interpretations of it, languages and economies.
I think if liberal Americans hope that the EU will help them in the sense as to influence the US to become more in accordance with their position, they will always be disappointed. Phlegmatic apathy is the best you should hope for, everything else is bonus. Der Amerikaner ist die Orchidee unter den MenschenVolker Pispers
Often people's fault. The EU parliament is much more direct responsible to the people and less easy influencable by corporations than the comisson and its bureaucracy. But many people don't want to give power to the parliament, because this would reduce national influence and would be clearly a step towards a superstate EU, which I have doubts that this is what a majority of people want.
I have read this many times as the stated reason why the EU parliament does not have greater power within the EU structure. However, I have not often met people who would object to such things as giving the parliament greater power over appointing the commission or giving it the right to propose legislation. The parliament tends to poll highest of the EU institutions when people are asked about their confidence in the institutions.
I am now leaning towards the conclusion that it is our national politicians who prefer the current system. It gives them ample cover to blame Brussels for unpopular policies while keeping power in their own hands. A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
Maybe that's because the European Parliament is the only EU institution which, to most people, is readily understandable and recognizable. It appears to resemble the workings of a national parliament, which it does to a substantial degree. The members are known to the people of the country they represent, at least somewhat, speak their language, share aspects of their national identity, are directly chosen in elections. You need to follow a year-long course to understand how the rest of the EU works. Hardly anyone understands it, even reasonably informed people. Now there's a president coming of one commission or another. It's so difficult to comprehend that the 'president' will be different from a national president. You have a parliament, you have a president. So what else does anyone need?
P.S. Obama is a national politician. I can't see him substantially diverging from the US nationalistic-imperialistic approach. Oh, the Elites. The term makes these people, whoever they are, seem like a choir of singing angels. Why don't we finally get down to Marxist earth and just call them the Ruling Class, which they are?
The worth of fighting in Afghanistan is purely a personal opinion. And I totally disagree with the way it's done right now, by the way.
I think it would have been easy to get European opinions firmly on board right after 9/11, even Germany(?). But Bush really poisoned that well with his lies and his incompetence. It would take something incredibly spectacular from the US to turn that around now.
Can Europe do this?
I'm not aware that there would be a widely agreed approach to the ME, other than talk only do nothing, which is tremendously better than the US approach of make it worse. But if a 'Yes, we can president' can be convinced to do just nothing?
On stronger efforts to reduce dependency of oil, I think any strong climate change policy will include that unintentionally. But that really is one of the points, where Europe really is trying to influence the US and the world.
Talk Obama into pressure Israel will as well not happen. I don't think Sarkozy will do it and I hope you understand that it is impossible for a German gov to ask for such a thing. To Turkey our elite tries to talk directly (neither very skilled, nor very successful; Erdogan has recently asked Turks living 3rd generation in Germany not to become Germans) and Saudi Arabia - well, if the fact that 9/11 included a number of Saudis and that doesn't do it, I don't know what Europeans shall matter. What has India done?
Anyhow, if the answer to Obama's request for troops is a non/no/nein, then I don't expect Obama to care much for any advice given to him. Der Amerikaner ist die Orchidee unter den MenschenVolker Pispers
a carefully thought out and widely agreed European approach
The US neocon psychos are partially right when they try to practice revisionism for instance about the Vietnam War. The US would have won is they had gone all out.
Only if by "won" you mean "depopulate Vietnam". Wait this is important. Someone is wrong on the Internet.
They and the soviets had a reason against Germany and the the US alone against Japan. They went all out and they won.
I've clearly stated that was no reason whatsoever to do it.
By the way, the diary on Modernising the British Army radically does not speak of Afghanistan, Kosovo or NATO.
