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  1. #1
    has a Senior Member HoreTore's Avatar
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    Default Re: 9/11

    Quote Originally Posted by rvg View Post
    And Libyan opposition was a collection of tribal elders fighting for oil. Same deal.
    Nonsense. The level of popular support is day and night compared to the northern alliance(who were genrally as despised as the taliban). A better comparison for the libyan opposition would be the mujaheddin during the 80's.

    And considering that ol' Gaffy bribed everyone and their mother with oil money, I do wonder where you came up with the idea that they were in it for the oil. Why on earth would they cut off a stable source of oil...?
    Last edited by HoreTore; 09-12-2012 at 13:19.
    Still maintain that crying on the pitch should warrant a 3 match ban

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    Upstanding Member rvg's Avatar
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    Default Re: 9/11

    Quote Originally Posted by HoreTore View Post
    The level of popular support is day and night compared to the northern alliance(who were genrally as despised as the taliban).
    You got some numbers to back that up?
    "And if the people raise a great howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will answer that war is war and not popularity seeking. If they want peace, they and their relatives must stop the war." - William Tecumseh Sherman

    “The market, like the Lord, helps those who help themselves. But unlike the Lord, the market does not forgive those who know not what they do.” - Warren Buffett

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    smell the glove Senior Member Major Robert Dump's Avatar
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    Default Re: 9/11

    Quote Originally Posted by rvg View Post
    You got some numbers to back that up?
    He probably does not.

    However, the NA (or, the United Front, as they called themselves) was guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, just not on the same scope as the Taliban. Also, the NA/UF did not generally treat their women like cattle and commodities, and did not initiate movements of ethnic cleansing.

    I would also disagree at his contention that this was a fight over Heroin. It went far, far deeper than that. The Taliban were Johnny-come-lateleys who arrived on the scene with the backing of Pakistanis and warped Saudis. This was religious, this was about land and property, this was about control of resources (heroin) and this was about extorting international funds from donor nations to clean up mines and develop infrasctructre, which in the Talibans case, they used to buy weapons, live luxurious lives while their people suffered, and build a whopping six miles of paved road... around their HQ of course.

    The Northern Allaince as recognized by the UN. The Taliban was not.
    Baby Quit Your Cryin' Put Your Clown Britches On!!!

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    Default Re: 9/11

    Quote Originally Posted by Major Robert Dump View Post
    He probably does not.
    The Taliban wiuld never have gained eniugh support to take control of almost the entire country if the warlordw had not engaged in a civil war which tired out an already tired population. The Taliban was, as I'm sure you know, founded as a protest movement to the behaviour of the warlords. It started as a few men who executed a man who had raped one or two local girls(can't remember); it's tremendously fast growth would never have occured if most of the population did not hate the warlords.
    Still maintain that crying on the pitch should warrant a 3 match ban

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    Upstanding Member rvg's Avatar
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    Default Re: 9/11

    Quote Originally Posted by HoreTore View Post
    The Taliban wiuld never have gained eniugh support to take control of almost the entire country if the warlordw had not engaged in a civil war which tired out an already tired population. The Taliban was, as I'm sure you know, founded as a protest movement to the behaviour of the warlords. It started as a few men who executed a man who had raped one or two local girls(can't remember); it's tremendously fast growth would never have occured if most of the population did not hate the warlords.
    Taliban started out in Pakistan. The reason they we able to gain ground in Afghanistan is because they are a Pashto movement. About 40% of Afghanistan (a plurality) is Pashto. The Taliban treated minorities non-Pashto horribly, regardless of their religious affiliation. Northern Alliance was primarily non-Pashto, and thus represented the interests of the majority.
    "And if the people raise a great howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will answer that war is war and not popularity seeking. If they want peace, they and their relatives must stop the war." - William Tecumseh Sherman

    “The market, like the Lord, helps those who help themselves. But unlike the Lord, the market does not forgive those who know not what they do.” - Warren Buffett

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    Default Re: 9/11

    Quote Originally Posted by rvg View Post
    Taliban started out in Pakistan. The reason they we able to gain ground in Afghanistan is because they are a Pashto movement. About 40% of Afghanistan (a plurality) is Pashto. The Taliban treated minorities non-Pashto horribly, regardless of their religious affiliation. Northern Alliance was primarily non-Pashto, and thus represented the interests of the majority.
    Oh really? I believe you are in over your head, dear sir.

    Hekmatyar, Sayyat, Mojadeddi, Haq and Sherzai are all Pashto.

    Mullah Omar started his movement, according to the tale, with 40 men outside Kandahar. They were joined in a few months by around 15.000 men educated in pakistani madrassas(thus the name), with mixed origins. 15.040 untrained hillbillys is quite a long way from what you need to subdue a hostile population containing several armies with over a decade of combat experience.
    Still maintain that crying on the pitch should warrant a 3 match ban

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    Upstanding Member rvg's Avatar
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    Default Re: 9/11

    Quote Originally Posted by HoreTore View Post
    Oh really? I believe you are in over your head, dear sir.

    Hekmatyar, Sayyat, Mojadeddi, Haq and Sherzai are all Pashto.
    That's four men. The alliance was quite bigger than that. You also conveniently overlooked its leader Masood, who was a Tajik, as well as Gen. Dostum who is an Uzbek.

    Mullah Omar started his movement, according to the tale, with 40 men outside Kandahar. They were joined in a few months by around 15.000 men educated in pakistani madrassas(thus the name), with mixed origins. 15.040 untrained hillbillys is quite a long way from what you need to subdue a hostile population containing several armies with over a decade of combat experience.
    15,040 Pashto hillbillies. Their ranks grew because they were Pashto.
    "And if the people raise a great howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will answer that war is war and not popularity seeking. If they want peace, they and their relatives must stop the war." - William Tecumseh Sherman

    “The market, like the Lord, helps those who help themselves. But unlike the Lord, the market does not forgive those who know not what they do.” - Warren Buffett

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    smell the glove Senior Member Major Robert Dump's Avatar
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    Default Re: 9/11

    Quote Originally Posted by HoreTore View Post
    The Taliban wiuld never have gained eniugh support to take control of almost the entire country if the warlordw had not engaged in a civil war which tired out an already tired population. The Taliban was, as I'm sure you know, founded as a protest movement to the behaviour of the warlords. It started as a few men who executed a man who had raped one or two local girls(can't remember); it's tremendously fast growth would never have occured if most of the population did not hate the warlords.
    This completely ignores the Pakistani desire to annex Eastern Afghanistan and funding a popular movement with money and bodies by promising to turn Afghanistan into a bug muslim frat boy party where the men were men and the women were commodities. The United Front did not have such support, and by yours or my standards the United Front was liberal compared to the Taliban. In northern Afghanistan women walk about uncovered and people do not need to ride in armored vehicles because is is a compeltely different mindset than the monsters in the south.

    I freely admit that the warlords did bad things, but not nearly as bad as the Taliban. The idea that this was some sort of popular movement is comical, considering there was very little infrastructure, print media, broadcast media, no cell phones and no internet. Your idea of a popular movement is my idea of some goat herers exchanging runors.

    If the Taliban was so popular, they why was there brutal fighting to take Kabul?
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  9. #9
    has a Senior Member HoreTore's Avatar
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    Default Re: 9/11

    Quote Originally Posted by Major Robert Dump View Post
    This completely ignores the Pakistani desire to annex Eastern Afghanistan and funding a popular movement with money and bodies by promising to turn Afghanistan into a bug muslim frat boy party where the men were men and the women were commodities. The United Front did not have such support, and by yours or my standards the United Front was liberal compared to the Taliban. In northern Afghanistan women walk about uncovered and people do not need to ride in armored vehicles because is is a compeltely different mindset than the monsters in the south.

    I freely admit that the warlords did bad things, but not nearly as bad as the Taliban. The idea that this was some sort of popular movement is comical, considering there was very little infrastructure, print media, broadcast media, no cell phones and no internet. Your idea of a popular movement is my idea of some goat herers exchanging runors.

    If the Taliban was so popular, they why was there brutal fighting to take Kabul?
    First of all: sorry for the late reply, MRD. But I wanted to give you a proper, well-thought out answer to this, which hasn't been possible until now. I don't think your high level posts deserve my regular spin-of-the-moment drivel...

    There are a number of points here, and I'll adress them in no particular order:

    First off, the pakistani issue. Would the Taliban have succeeded without pakistani, more importantly, the arab support the pakistani connection gave them? No, I don't think so. Mullah Omar and his men were untrained and piss-poor, facing off against several battle-hardened and well-armed armies. In my opinion, this situation is on a very low level comparable to Balkan: without foreign support, the Serbs would probably have steamrolled everyone. With support, the other factions managed a stalemate. Same as for the Taliban - they needed foreign support.

    But is it then correct to state that the Taliban only gained control because of their allies? I don't think that's correct either. I believe one has to look to the civil war period to explain Taliban. Let's say Pakistan had pumped money into Hekmatyar, for example, would they have succeeded? I don't think so. And then we have to explain the popular support the Taliban had.

    How can anyone support an organization that is loooking to make life niserable for practically everyone? It's because they didn't advertise that aspect. The civil war period made Afghanistan a chaotic, lawless mess. The Taliban offered two things: civil order and no corruption. Let's take civil order first. Even in our societies, which have experienced a century or two of democratic rule, you quite often hear arguments in favour of strongmen who will fix things. Mostly they're talking abiut foreign countries(like Iraq or Somalia), but I have also heard arguments that Norway needs a strong man who will fix things. One must assume that a country with no democratic experience is even more positive towards a strongman. A country in a civil war even more so. Then onto corruption. Afghanistan in 1994 was full of it, on every level of society. Those with power did what they wanted as long as they were able to do it. A religious man is generally seen as less corrupt than others. This is a rather common argument when trying to explain why religion survives through history. Whether the statement is actually true or not is irrelevant, what matters is how they are percieved by others.

    The founding story(the one where they hung the governor) of the Taliban is interesting, again whether or not it's actually true. In the story, the Taliban ended the corruption and restored proper order. I think it offers an insight into the Talibans two selling points. The founding story isn't about ordering all the women to remain indoors, for example. Anti-corruption and public order was how they sold themselves, and I believe that message gained quite a lot of support among an exhausted population.

    A small digression on the availability of print media and so on. Being a dirty commie bastard, I have learned to history of the revolutions well. In the run up to the Russian revolution, how did Lenin spread his thoughts? He published articles in party newspapers. Newspapers mostly read by fellow exiles. In fact, when he returned to Russia in 1917, he walked around without any protection, simply because noone knew who he was or what he looked like. A year later he was the leader of the state. The media was important, but it's big effect was to give the exiles and important figures a means to communicate and debate their thoughts, it wasn't used to incite the population. That was done without media. Nonetheless, it is ridiculous to claim that the Bolsheviks did not have enormous popular support.

    Another similarity to the Russians appear here. In my mind, there is absolutely no doubt that the events on Bloody Sunday gave the commies massive support. Of course, as we all know, the later regime committed atrocities which made it pale in comparison. Lenin also enacted extremely authoritarian laws from day 1, among them the death penalty for skipping work. Nevertheless, the commies gained more support day by day.

    This was the situation back in 1994, as I see it. The situation in 2001 was quite different, and I doubt the Taliban had much support by then. Even then, I do not think that the corrupt warlords of the Northern Alliance had much support either, I don't think the Afghans had forgottenå their rule so soon. I believe it was more of a "screw 'em all"-situaton.

    As such, I do not believe that the US invasion was "simple imperalism" as the thread title reads. I believe the Afghan population longed for someone to appear who would end the rule of their tyrants, and that the US invasion was completely justified, even if we take 9/11 out of the equation.

    However, I also believe that they did not want the warlords to return, and I believe doing so was one of the worst mistakes the US did. Besides being incompetent rulers, I believe they also made people turn to the resistance movement, which the Taliban has rebranded itself as.
    Still maintain that crying on the pitch should warrant a 3 match ban

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  10. #10
    smell the glove Senior Member Major Robert Dump's Avatar
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    Default Re: 9/11

    Great points. And yes, the Taliban did sell themselves on the anti-corruption angle, and an illiterate, war-torn people bought into it, not realizing that without a tax system that there had to be some way of the governmnet to make revenue, and that way would turn out to be simple shakedowns, purchasing of justice and the siphoning of aid money meant for public works. This is exactly what worries me most about the future of Afghanistan:

    - Other than licensing and fees, they have no form of national tax and no way to collect it. They also have a couple million nomads who have their own parliament, further complicating things
    - The country can feed itself, even with its backwards, counter productive farming techniques and outdated forms of irrigation, but a poor intra state trade system leaves certain pockets hungry with other pockets throwing away bumper harvests because they dont need that much
    - The country and the tribes in the north have practically sold all of their mining rights to China in long term deals for fractions of a cent to the dollar. China lowballed Tribals who had no desire or effort to mine themselves. I doubt many of them have any idea what lithium even is.
    - Reintergration of tribal leaders. Amnesty for mid level Haqqani and Taliban. The northern alliance guys are bad enough to have as your allies. The former mujahadeen who claim to have stayed nuetral are either liars or very skilled double crossers, because very few districts stayed nuetral, so they are creepy to have as allies. And now you have former Taliban in the ranks as well. Of course, some of the amnestied Taliban are serious apparently, as several of them have been assassinated by their former association, however what is untlimately unsettling is that they basically did it for money and to be on what they thought would be the winning side. I suppose people can be redeemed, I would just rather not share a tent with them
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