How can this happen and not be vindicated?

Yeah I guess it’s just part of war, you would think after all the wars of the past, some would say ‘Hmmm, maybe all this senseless killing isn’t such a good idea”, but that is just one incident, the slaughters of the vietnam in that war, and the holocaust etc…...much worse. We can’t stop it all.

These are exactly my thoughts. its like crime in America. a police officer cannot be your escort 24/7 for your safety. its society that needs the attention. i feel the war in Afghanistan will never be won. some of these countries have lived this life for centuries and there is no way America can change this. this is the life these people have grown to accept. will America ever make a difference is some of these countries? no. trying to make a difference is slowly bankrupting America.

@Blackberry
I disagree that’s it’s part of war.

I would appreciate if someone could give a synopsis of the history of Afghanistan. This has a long history of involvement with us and Russia and bears elaboration.

@john65pennington
Yes and that’s why I ask, “what is the point at which we decided it’s over”? It’s very much like Vietnam and unlike WW2. There is no clear agenda save to rid ourselves of Bin Laden and Al Qaeda and only one of those seems plausible.

These things do happen in war or warlike situations. But this is how many jihadists are created. I don’t blame them but it’s unfortunate.

But McChrystal seems to have his head on the shoulders. It’s only with the support of the people the US can end the mission and withdraw. The Russian strategy simply doesn’t work and he seems to acknowledge that.

The coalition has to show the peoples of Afghanistan why they it’s in their interest to allow foreign troops on their soil. This is not easy. I don’t think many would throw flowers at chinese troops in Washington either.

Things like this come out of war. One can only hope that the children would learn to live with the loss and that such an atrocity would never happen again.

Seriously…what is it with people and their trigger-happy fingers?

@belakyre
Well you see if you’re raised in the Heartland and believe the president is a Muslim, are weaned on talk news, then they’re all just Sand N*&^%RS. They’re not human beings.

Don’t you just love the effectiveness of the military’s cultural sensitivity training programs?

We don’t know what we’re doing there and we never have. We haven’t a clue about effective ways to combat terrorism. We don’t understand it. We don’t understand world politics. But the worst thing is that we don’t understand how much we don’t understand.

There’s got to be a better way.

@wundayatta
I agree. One should not even be able to set foot in these countries without being briefed on their customs and history.

What a terrible situation for everyone involved! This is not a conflict where the combatants are clearly identifiable. The genius of the insurgents has been to merge seamlessly with the population. This forces the coalition forces to constantly make instantaneous judgment calls. I don’t think any of us who haven’t been in this situation can properly appreciate what it must be like to be in a situation where anyone around you could be trying to kill you (or your friends), and you have only seconds to make the call. The ambiguity makes it awfully hard to fix blame.

That same ambiguity provides cover for anyone who wishes to kill out of hatred. The fact is that warfare requires the dehumanization of the enemy in the mind of the soldier. War would not be possible otherwise. When the enemy looks like everyone else, how can we expect that all of these guys are going to succeed in neatly compartmentalizing this dehumanization? Even in conventional warfare, soldiers returning to society have to relearn how to turn off this dehumanization. In a way, it’s a miracle that they’re not all just opening up on anyone with as beard. Not so long ago, that’s what would have happened in a war like this.

This is why we should never, ever unleash the dogs of war lightly.

The wars can be won, and it would only cost a few trillion in, say, 10 years: that is, a few percentages of the American GDP; and certainly fewer than the lives of a few 100 000 American soldiers. However, one has to weigh cost-benefits. Bush didn’t do so well in that, whereas Obama had to trade-off lives in Afghanistan to give up (most of) Iraq, lest the GOP, and their supporters, called him a left-lib-soft-on-Islam-sissy.

@Harp
Yes it’s always the callous dehumanization which strikes me as so disturbing-
collateral damage- A father of 14 children, three of whom were probably screaming at the top of their lungs while splattered with blood in the back seat of a car.

US troops are there because the pipeline to ferry out oil and gas to the West is there, and TPTB don’t want Russia or China having control of it. I’ll bet you very few US and allied soldiers are aware of this, and think they’re there to “root out terrorism”, but there’s no lofty goal here, only realpolitik.

I’m sure there’s any number of scenarios as to why this killing was carried out. Bad intel? US soldiers used to do some local dirty work? Perhaps this imam was speaking out against the US military presence and the decision was made to eliminate him? Regardless, executing him in front of his neighbours would most definitely send a message to anyone who might be concerned that “We can get you when we want to, and we don’t give a fuck how we do it.”

It’s stupid as all hell, because this vicious action has spawned new jihadists today, but since when have arrogant powermongers considered the repercussions? The Soviet Union didn’t 20-odd years ago, and they got their arses handed back to them. What does the The Carlyle Group, their ilk, and their lapdogs at the Pentagon expect to happen now? Idiots.

In any case, I highly doubt that this man’s murder was a “mistake”.

@aprilsimnel
You raise some interesting points and certainly worth consideration and lest anyone simply want to brand me a leftist or pacifist that is not the case. I just believe our elected officials are beholden to us to offer an explanation of the END GAME.

In WW2 there was a clear objective and a clear idea of when that objective would be accomplished. This war seems to be obfuscation plain and simple. What is our objective and what will be the indication that our objective has been accomplished? If that can’t be answered to the American public then we have the right to an explanation.

Hmmm, I wonder why people are fighting against us over there.

@benjaminlevi They hate us for our freedom. Didn’t you get the memo?

@Harp Good thing we’ve been losing civil liberties left and right over the past 9 years, soon they wont hate us at all!

We have no business making the world safe for McDonalds, Disney and Haliburton. Our nation must rid itself of oil addiction. This means nuclear power plants, high-speed passenger rail, plug-in electric vehicles, superinsulated housing, fewer power-consuming gadgets, eating less meat, buying locally produced products. If the big corporations control the government, then we turn our backs on these corporations.

A nation that attacks us or harbors those who do should be crushed, but not occupied or rebuilt. Get out of where we are not wanted, but don’t give up the “big stick”. We have no right to be the worlds policeman or social arbiter. If the people of other nations want change, it is up to them to make those changes. Our fight is here, taking our nation back from fascist corporate interests.

Thus endeth the rant.

I wonder why we don’t see China engaging in these types of resource wars around the world. They are certainly capable.

Nothing a nuke could not solve.

@SeventhSense Not very capable in more than numbers of soldiers, but they are very much present in Africa and countries of resources. But they are expanding their military capacity as well.

We have what we need right here at home. Let Asia and Africa sort out their own problems as long as they don’t step on our toes.

@ChazMaz
Meaning?

Meanking you drop a bomb, all done.

@ChazMaz
Well that’s what I thought you meant and of course it doesn’t even warrant a response.
I guess you would burn down your own house in order to kill a mouse?

If the mouse was big enough a problem.

Actually the analogy is incomplete….And if you’re house was filled with innocent men, women and children who were sleeping

If any of you had ever been in a combat zone, you would know that incidents like this happen. They’re almost inevitable when you have thousands of men and women with fully loaded weapons. There are always going to be about the same percentage of ding-a-lings in uniform as there are ding-a-lings in the general population. Plus, it’s very easy to misinterpret the actions of indigenous people when you’re expecting for some of them to shoot you or blow you up at any moment. You cannot apply the same standards to combat operations as you can to police operations; they are two different things. Of course it’s tragic… war itself is tragic, but it’s also virtually inevitable once in awhile.

“Actually the analogy is incomplete”

Not really, If the mouse was big enough a problem.

@CaptainHarley
True and I certainly respect anyone put in this situation but this does not seem to be an inadvertent occurrence. Killing someone with children in transit is beyond negligent.

@ChazMaz
So you are pathological.

No I am proprietary.

It’ll all get sorted out in the end, don’t worry. ”‘Vengeance is Mine,’ sayeth the LORD” and all that.

@ChazMaz
??

Just the War Business doing its stuff.
Money in the Bank.

If we somehow found bin Laden right now, Obama would leave Afganistan.
Things wouldn’t change, but we would have something to point at and say Mission Accomplished.

@filmfann
I question that.

President Eisenhower certainly knew what he was talking about when he warned in the closing days of his administration of the dangers of letting the growing “military industrial complex” unduly influence American foreign policy. We now spend more on defense that all the other nations on earth combined. And most of the spending that isn’t ours is by our allies. Clearly, there is a better way. But selling that idea to a country so entralled with right wing ideology isn’t going to be an easy task.

@filmfann I question that as well. The Afghanistan is hardly about Al-Qaeda or even bin Laden anymore, if it’s ever been.

These were the statements of Bush:

“The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him.”
9/13/01

”...Secondly, he is not escaping us. This is a guy, who, three months ago, was in control of a county [sic]. Now he’s maybe in control of a cave. He’s on the run. Listen, a while ago I said to the American people, our objective is more than bin Laden. But one of the things for certain is we’re going to get him running and keep him running, and bring him to justice. And that’s what’s happening. He’s on the run, if he’s running at all. So we don’t know whether he’s in cave with the door shut, or a cave with the door open—we just don’t know….”
12/28/01

“I don’t know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don’t care. It’s not that important. It’s not our priority.”
3/13/02

Obama

“We’ve seen a sense of drift in the mission in Afghanistan”
2/27/2009

Now, the mission goal seem to be foremost exiting a political stable country with judiciary and military control. The exit strategy and timeline seem unlikely to work with such an agenda. With the Karzai government as the lesser evil which relies on coalition support to function, McChrystal has a mission that seems improbable to succeed. Under pressure to leave and likewise to stay.

Personally, I think that the mission should be taken over by either UN or shouldered more with the geopolital interests of the SAARC countries, China, Iran and the turkish neighbors. I am aware that the UN is seen as less potent in conflict solving, but I also know it doesn’t need to be. It’s all about consensus.

@oratio
I second the Chinese solution. Talk about a speedy end to fanatic religion. Send in about a million Chinese soldiers. That should put the fear of God in al Qaeda.

@SeventhSense Lol, yes. I suspect that would also make the west shit their pants. But I agree. I believe that the region must take more responsibility sooner or later. I also think that Japan needs to expand their military and peace keeping participation.

I say let em have Afghanistan. Set up some manufacturing plants and set up high speed trains to Eastern Europe for the goods.

@oratio
For the record, Japan barely even has a military.

@Nullo That is correct.

@Japan, at least until recently, was the richest country. It has lots of nuclear technology. Its SDForces are bigger than many armies—with high officer to enlisted ratios.

Wouldn’t take much.

@Captain Harley
I got a lot of flak in Yahoo! Answers and Answerbag for my questions about soldiers, but soldiers were once civilians. They chose to enlist, either knowing, or should be knowing, history. They enlisted, they are placed in a bad situation, where they can make grave mistakes—some physical, some moral—do you shoot the pregnant woman, or is that belly of hers a concealed bomb?

Now, while I suppose this can be ameliorated in the just and conventional war. “Sorry Fritz about bombing your hospital, we were aiming for the munitions factory.” “Zat’s okay Villiam Yank, soon our Luftwaffe vill destwoy youw aiwfowce. Enjoy youw Wed Cwoss schocolade.”; as you implied soldiers have been sent to do the work of police; but again, they volunteered.

By the way, what’s your view about Ivan Demanuk not trying to entrap you: I have no good answer myself. I understand that he was captured by the Nazis and had two choices: the Russian front or guarding a death camp. He likely had far less choice in the matter than the typical American (or Canadian) soldier, yet they are still trying him—at 90.

@ChazMaz and the nuke’em policy.
I’m sure Osama bin Ladan would love that. “The Amrikans must use their nukes to kill me; and still they fail; nor can they nuke Islamic Jihad my brothers and sisters in Islam.”

“Wo! Have no fear for atomic energy,
‘Cause none of them-a can-a stop-a the time.
How long shall they kill our prophets,
While we stand aside and look?
Yes, some say it’s just a part of it:
We’ve got to fullfil the book.”
Bob Marley.
(Here are all the lyrics.)

Next, what do you nuke, ChazMaz?
Afghanistan’s a big country.

I suppose heavy nuking would encourage Russia, China, India, Iran, et al to not only double, but multiply, their nuke weapon and delivery programs and civil defense budgets.

As for the mice, it’s not that the mice are so big, but rather some of the American residents are terrified of mice. “Eek!!! I saw a mouse!! Nuke it!! Nuke it!! GOP’ers say the mice will kill me!! Ahhhh!!!”
(Granted, the Al Qaeda mice murdered 3 000 in New York, but likely 3x as many have been murdered since.)

Here’s my take on the issue:
Iraq was a poorly thought out war, and a perfect Al Qaeda tar baby: US stays, and they get beaten up; US pulls out, and Al Qaeda boasts; US pursues a scorched earth policy, and other, if you will, Al Qaedas start.

I’d still recommend pulling out. Let Osama claim victory. American survived the humiliation of Vietnam. Ho Chih Minh, however, died in 1969. Mao died in 1976.

Afghanistan.
Still, I don’t entirely buy into the “grave of empires” reputation.

First, they converted to Islam, and I’m not all convinced that it was all that peaceful. The Taliban are arguably as foreign as the US-ANA alliance. Also, the Soviets likely would have succeeded had it not been for Brezinski, CIA, and company—“What was more important in the world view of history? The Taliban or the fall of the Soviet Empire? A few stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?”
(Some more of his stuff in Wikiquotes)

Here’s Brezinski possibly shaking hands with Osama here and here, though there is some dispute in this

Yet even despite this, the Soviets also had a lot of other “-istans.”

As I mentioned before, if President Obama pulled out of Afghanistan, the Republicans would have a field day; though it will likely get easier to have pulled out, as America, and her allies, tire of the misadventure.

The Taliban are toppled and Al Qaeda are on the run—likely dispersed throughout the world; and such happened within months of 911. If the Afghans can’t make the most of their freedom, then neither can the West, at least not without the $ trillions, and the lives of 10 000’s of American soldiers, spent.

Pull out. Let Afghanis deal with the Taliban—and this is assuming that the Taliban are all that worse than Karzai. (Here’s the Wikipedia article on him and the Conservapedia article)

Also keep in mind that other countries will likely maintain an interest: they won’t let the Taliban get too uppity.

First there is China. They don’t want the Taliban to be rich and powerful enough to support the Uighars. Tehran has some issues of the Taliban suppressing Hazaras and other Shiites in Afghanistan, as the recent killing of high level officers in the Revolutionary Guard. Also, Ahmadinejad is probably more disliked in much of Arabia than the (relative) liberals Khatamai and Mousavi. Unless the Saudis and Yemenis convince him that they aren’t still helping the Taliban, he’ll likely finance and support their Shiite insurgents, as Iran has Hezbollah, or even Sunni Hamas.

(One argument for the Iranian bomb is if Sunni Pakistan can have one, so should Iran—besides, it (Pakistan) is not really a nation—unlike Persia. (Also though Pakistan is Sunni, they too have lots of Shiites—numerically at least—that Iran could support. They might even help Pakistan’s Christian minority a bit.))

Neither India is going to make life for Taliban-supporting-Pakistan easy. Also they have 4 routes to funnel supplies to anti-Taliban elements in Afghanistan to choose from (Iran, Russia, China, and Caucases).

If America was to withdrawal from Afghanistan, there might be a lot of hootin’, hollerin’, and flag burning; but the party will soon end. Unlike the Viet Cong, the Taliban have far fewer friends.

Time to go home America (and her allies).
Osama bin Ladan and Mullah Omar are seen as liabilities by many, if not most, Afghanis.

Besides, as hinted by others, for the cost of the wars, America could have been energy self-sufficient, more relaxed, and have one of those lunar colonies like in Space 1999.

2001 a space odyssey

:-D

@Civic_Cat
Thanks for going out on a limb and raising some interesting and salient points. Albeit a long and circuitous scenic route through the stream of your conscious, nevertheless some important considerations. There are other nations certainly capable of exerting pressure besides us and we are not alone. If we can ever imagine that the rest of the free world can also handle skirmishes maybe we can abandon our nation’s teen angst and mature. We always think our domestic standard is so stellar but compared to much of Europe it sucks. We need to tend to the home fire now.

@Civic_Cat
■ I think it’s debatable if Japan and the SDF can effectively defend their islands on their own, but they do have a somewhat strong navy. It’s all in comparison. The US forces stationed on the islands and the article 9 of the japanese constitution prohits Japan from waging war as well as keeping sufficient forces to do so.

As the article has grown increasingly irrelevant, there has been US encouragement to take a larger responsibility of the military burden of the region though there seems to be some ambivalence to the issue. It would be in the interest of japanese souverignity as well as global stability to increase the defence and take a stronger posistion in global security with emphasis on peace keeping operations.

The economic, military and political polarization of the world is slowly making it harder for the US to assert unilateralism and hegemony, and an important country like Japan needs to take an increasingly important position on the political world stage. This is a global issue of importance as well as the status of the BRIC countries are rapidly changing, with the Security Council under increasing pressure of radical reform.

■ The Taliban is a movement not entirely to be considered apart from Afghanis. They are almost all Pashtun, which is the major ethnic group of Afghanistan. Even though most Pashtun don’t support taliban ideas, US air strikes and drone attacks that kill civilians inflame Pashtun sentiments and largely push those differences away.

The Taliban being Pashtun also means that when they kill a Taliban fighter they are also killing a Pashtun. As Pashtun nationalism has increasingly been merging with the interests of the Taliban movement, in spite of differences of values, they are in part uniting against yet a foreign invader. What one has in the end is a movement being more Pashtun that islamist, and the coalition fighting the people they are there to support. This is what McChrystal seem to acknowledge as being contraproductive.

Killing one Pashtun spawns severel more willing to fight, increasing the war instead of solving it. This means that you can’t kill of the Talibans, and you have to make the Taliban a part of the solution. It means emphasies on negotiation. The US tactic of paying talibans not to fight doesn’t seem very productive.

Yes, Iran as well as China have issues with the situation in Afghanistan. The drug trade into Iran is a big problem. This is part of when I say that the region should be more included in the solution of Afghanistan; Iran, China, Pakistan and India as well as “Turkestan”. What is needed are regional conferences, combatting the issues politically.

@Civic_Cat
Heck, we could have had a moon base if NASA had gotten its act together sooner, and if the government didn’t keep cutting their funding.

@oratio
Yes who is the real enemy? Is it people. ideas. institutions, ideologies or nations? How it is any different than jihad in sentiment. It is a violent attack against a perceived threat to one’s ideology and against those who will not adapt to ones ideology. And assigning a blanket approach to making all those of a certain culture, the enemy or friend is just impossible if you’re an outsider.
“Hey you’re my friend now that I crushed your house and killed the goats in your yard. okay?” “Sure Mr. American, we love the freedom”..“son of a bitch when are these filthy dogs going to leave our neighborhood?’’ They call it Islam we call it democracy. We love life. They say they love death. We are the West. They are the East. All of these simply have a non existential interdependent quality and have no existence save their vehement defense. Truth is self evident. It needs no army to prop it up nor defend it.

P.S.- Re: The economic, military and political polarization of the world is slowly making it harder for the US to assert unilateralism and hegemony
I don’t think you mean polarization but globalization.

@SeventhSense I mean that we are slowly leaving the current unipolar international order – and growing into a multi-polar world – where the global influence of power concentrate in several parts of the world instead of one. EU, Russia, China, India and Brazil will equally and increasingly demand influence, and the internationalization and supra-national movements of future EU-like entities will only grow in importance; such as USAN, ASEAN and SAARC.

@oratio
Polarization has to do with two extremes. The world was polarized when the US and the former Soviet Union were the two dominant superpowers. Multi polar is actually a misnomer unless referring to a system where multiple locations have an even number of directly proportionate opposing forces . But I see what you’re driving at which is basically multiple areas of the world that have powerful political and economic impact.

@SeventhSense Ah well. That is the political terminology of the academic world in the area of international relations. I just use it. :) It seems that the usage of the terms of polarization in international relations originates from the bipolar world. Yes, polarization of an issue or political stance is a divide in two extremes. Different contexts, different meaning and the occasional definition drift. The words liberal and liberalism are other words that can mean very different things depending on context. A cultural realist and a political one has nothing in common more than the spelling.

@oratio
Different shades of grey gray I suppose

@oratio,
A number of bi-polarities, as opposed to a world multipolarity.
Thanks for the concept.
:-D