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Culprit 
Joined: 06 Feb 2003
Location: Port Melbourne
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| Post subject: Bring the Troops home. |  |
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| Cut the crap, it's Vietnam MKII. Nothing will be achieved in this police action except for more young men coming home in body bags. Bring our troops home. |
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Presti35 
Dick Lee for Legend Status
Joined: 05 Oct 2001
Location: London, England
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"...war is over, if you want it..." - John Lennon.
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David 
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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In hindsight, perhaps the debate over Afghanistan and Iraq shouldn't even have been "whether it should be done" but "whether it can be done". Quite arrogant to assume that your military can just waltz into another country, knock over another regime or two and leave again with everything fixed. Perhaps this will be taken into account next time Western powers are tossing up between war and diplomacy.
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Nick - Pie Man
Joined: 04 Aug 2010
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| What would happen if there was a war but nobody showed up? |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| David wrote: | | In hindsight, perhaps the debate over Afghanistan and Iraq shouldn't even have been "whether it should be done" but "whether it can be done". Quite arrogant to assume that your military can just waltz into another country, knock over another regime or two and leave again with everything fixed. Perhaps this will be taken into account next time Western powers are tossing up between war and diplomacy. |
Yes, but if you're stupid and arrogant enough to think you ought to do it, it follows you are likely to be stupid and arrogant enough to think you can do it. Anyone who knew anything about Iraq and Afghanistan also knew what the outcome would be, so presumably this was never about winning and losing. The war is over not because it failed, but because those who started it have already gotten what they want.
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Tannin 
Can't remember
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Location: Huon Valley Tasmania
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^ yup, that's about the size of it.
I lean towards the view that, having started as we have in Afghanistan, we have a moral duty to remain a while longer to allow the people who made life choices around the "safety" we provided to prepare to defend themselves. If we just walk away, the religious warlord scum there will massacre thousands, perhaps millions of ordinary people. If we just walk away, it will be our fault.
I should also mention that the group we are fighting is the group that we ourselves brought into being because we thought it would be fun to give the Soviets a hard time. Back then, the Soviets were trying to do pretty much what we are trying to do now - establish a quasi-modern, quasi-democratic regime which provides stability and basic safety for its citizens. But we (or rather the Americans we regard as our bum chums) decided to go looking for disaffected loonies willing to shoot missiles at the Soviets and give them arms and other "help". Now the Soviets have gone, and we are fighting our own creation.
How stupid can a nation get?
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�Let's eat Grandma.� Commas save lives! |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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Black_White 
Joined: 19 Mar 2001
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And don't forget, as war mongers ourselves, we have an obligation to those fleeing persecution in Afghanistan.
Could someone please tell Tony? |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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| Tannin wrote: | ^ yup, that's about the size of it.
I lean towards the view that, having started as we have in Afghanistan, we have a moral duty to remain a while longer to allow the people who made life choices around the "safety" we provided to prepare to defend themselves. If we just walk away, the religious warlord scum there will massacre thousands, perhaps millions of ordinary people. If we just walk away, it will be our fault.
I should also mention that the group we are fighting is the group that we ourselves brought into being because we thought it would be fun to give the Soviets a hard time. Back then, the Soviets were trying to do pretty much what we are trying to do now - establish a quasi-modern, quasi-democratic regime which provides stability and basic safety for its citizens. But we (or rather the Americans we regard as our bum chums) decided to go looking for disaffected loonies willing to shoot missiles at the Soviets and give them arms and other "help". Now the Soviets have gone, and we are fighting our own creation.
How stupid can a nation get? |
Good post. I particularly agree with the first paragraph, and have had many arguments with hand-wringing lefties on this very point. Sure, we can leave, but we're going to leave a #&@$ing mess if we do.
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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Black_White
Joined: 19 Mar 2001
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| David wrote: | | Sure, we can leave, but we're going to leave a #&@$ing mess if we do. |
As long as you acknowledge that the place was a f*rking mess when we first got there, then that statement is true. |
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stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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^
It was a mess when we got there, it's better now because of our presence. If we leave now it will be a worse mess than when we arrived. We have an obligation to stay for a while yet.
it's not Vietnam, it's not about winning anymore.
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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Black_White
Joined: 19 Mar 2001
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| stui magpie wrote: | ^
it's not Vietnam, it's not about winning anymore. |
That's because we cannot "win".
So it is just like Vietnam. |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| stui magpie wrote: | | It was a mess when we got there... |
An old favourite that one. You can just hear the British saying it after the Anglo-Afghan Wars. No doubt the Soviets thought as much, too.
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In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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Tannin
Can't remember
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Location: Huon Valley Tasmania
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| member34259 wrote: | | stui magpie wrote: | ^
it's not Vietnam, it's not about winning anymore. |
That's because we cannot "win".
So it is just like Vietnam. |
Yes indeed insofar as the "cannot win" part goes, but it is nonsensical to claim that that it is "like Vietnam" - yes, in Vietnam, there was also some justice to the war, but we were on the wrong side. In Afganistan we are, more-or-less and as approximately as these things so often are, on the side of justice and freedom.
(I don't suppose anyone here would take me for an American lackey, let alone one who believes in their ultra-right Bush style propaganda, so I shouldn't need to qualify that last para. But, just in case there are some very ignorant people here, and just for the record, I will anyway: in the Afghanistan conflict, there is no "good" side. no perfect answers. The administration we are supporting is corrupt, non-democratiuc, and anything but user-friendly. Nevertheless, the other side is a good deal worse - as nasty a mob of crazed religious lunatics as you could ever hope not to meet. So, on balance, our support for the least-worst option is a good thing. The same logic applies in Vietnam except in reverse - neither side was by any means wonderful but, on balance, the side we fought against was the lesser evil and we were very, very wrong to be there at all.
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�Let's eat Grandma.� Commas save lives! |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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^As said above, I agree with you that we have to stay and clean up the pathetic mess (note that means actually helping locals, not international mining companies). But as bad as the Taliban are, let's not forget who aided them in their struggles in the first instance. So is the group which armed the Taliban less evil than the great evil it funded? It's a pathetic mess and the Coalition of the Drilling doesn't warrant even the insipid moniker "lesser evil". From a broader perspective it's just another evil, albeit one with media training which speaks our language and has no incentive to promote its own crimes to us.
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In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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