Article

2011-06-21 Afghanistan

Don't Call Us Occupiers When We're Dying for Your Country, U.S. Tells Karzai

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Posted by Steve White 2011-06-21 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11131 views ] Top

#1 I believe most Afghans DO think of the USA as an occupying infidel force. It's not just the Karzai gov't with that idea. The only armed foreigners Afghans will tolerate are jihadis. Which is why we're there in the first place.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2011-06-21 01:40|| 2011-06-21 01:40|| Front Page Top

#2 Practicing scorched earth meaning never having to stay around to do any occupying.

Posted by Procopius2k 2011-06-21 07:38|| 2011-06-21 07:38|| Front Page Top

#3 I believe most Afghans DO think of the USA as an occupying infidel force.

Well sure. That's because that's what we are. But there are benefits as well -- schools, wells, roads, power plants, bio-gas home power designs... I'm seeing things which indicate that, like in Iraq, thinking Afghans are starting to realize the downside of us leaving them to the tender mercies of their neighbors.

Posted by trailing wife 2011-06-21 07:46|| 2011-06-21 07:46|| Front Page Top

#4 This kind of thing always makes me think of The Mouse That Roared. There are real advantages to losing to America, once one gets over the humiliation.

Posted by trailing wife 2011-06-21 07:52|| 2011-06-21 07:52|| Front Page Top

#5 Why should Western troops be obliged to die for the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan? This is a country that has the death penalty for ideological deviation, a country that officially demands the abolition of non-Muslim's civil rights in the West, a country that wants to make peace with the sponsors of 9/11?

The problem is that the ambassador is right, there is no occupation but there should have been an occupation.

Had Bush followed his own doctrine (no distinction between terrorists and state sponsors) he would have requested a declaration of war ON the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

Afghanistan would have been defeated and the Afghans would have been forced (at gunpoint) to abide by minimal standards of decency as defined by Western Civilization.

Instead the Bush administration made sure that Western military superiority could not be used to gain political and cultural influence in Afghanistan. That would have been insensitive, feelings would have been hurt.

Instead we are paying danegeld in the form of aid, and our troops are fighting one faction of islamofascists at the behest of another faction of islamofascists. And if some citizen of any Western nation dares to exercise his civil rights in a way that displeases any of the islamofascists he or she will be roundly condemned, legally harassed and told to shut up and voluntarily obey Sharia.
/rant

Posted by Vernal Dingle1079 2011-06-21 09:04|| 2011-06-21 09:04|| Front Page Top

#6 the Afghans would have been forced (at gunpoint) to abide by minimal standards of decency as defined by Western Civilization. That probably had a chance of succeeding, had it been initiated in the fall of 2001. However, it would have necessitated an imperial army on Afghan soil for about 50 years, with a matching cash outlay and casualties (a squad a month) going on that whole time. The USA electorate never would have tolerated that. The US did something like that in defeated Japan & Germany after WWII, but that was probably a once in a country's history type thing.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2011-06-21 14:51|| 2011-06-21 14:51|| Front Page Top

#7 Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany were once civilized. That hasn't been true for Afghanistan since the Mongols build pyramids of severed heads there in the 13th century.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2011-06-21 14:53|| 2011-06-21 14:53|| Front Page Top

#8 My two-cents: We started off on the right foot, but after the Taliban were toppled we really should have let the Afghans fight for themselves. I think the reason we stayed was to drain the swamp of all the Jihadis in the area. They enemy cannot field an Army or capture territory so they can only win the public opinion battle. Declare victory, hand the key to Kazai, and get our troops out.

Posted by Cyber Sarge 2011-06-21 16:22|| 2011-06-21 16:22|| Front Page Top

#9 Suggest to Karzai that the first group of troops we're going to pull out include his personal security detail.
I bet he'll come around.

Posted by Rambler in Virginia 2011-06-21 17:40|| 2011-06-21 17:40|| Front Page Top

#10 Amscray and burn down the roads, rails, runsways and ports behind us. This is an Indian problem.

Posted by Zombie Hillary Lover 2011-06-21 18:57|| 2011-06-21 18:57|| Front Page Top

#11 "...Great cost in terms of Lives + Treasure".

THOMAS JEFFERSON? BEN FRANKLIN? MADISON?

That sound you're hearing are Amers suddenly + mysteriously missing their Shakepeare + Latin classes from youth.

Posted by JosephMendiola 2011-06-21 22:23|| 2011-06-21 22:23|| Front Page Top

23:29 trailing wife
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