Afghanistan...what future.?

[Clever Dic]

Just finished reading an article in the Times magazine on Afghanistan and honestly you can weep . A fact I didn't know is that more Afghan soldiers and policemen are killed every 6 months than the coalition lost in 16 years.
It has become a battlefield of so many shifting alliances that now unbelievably the Russians are supplying arms and money to the Taliban despite the fact in 1989 it was some of these same people who forced the Russians to withdraw in1989 and hung President Najiibullah .
The Isreali Palestinian conflict looks simple compared to this.
The only possible hope is that a younger generation can gain enough of an education to change it from the bottom up but this requires a huge financial and military commitment for decades to come from a world uninterested in providing that open ended cheque .
I can see no change but it is a tragedy for a country to have no future but vicious civil war and a steady and unrelenting stream of innocent victims.

 

[uztrac]

I have visited the bridge across the Amudarya that seperates Afganistan from Uzbekistan and have done a number of deals with young Afgans.As you say it will have to be the younger element that cause change. It was always a tribal nation going back to the days of the Raj,and more recently Churchills comments on the country.We should (must) keep our noses out of this region now,they have to resolve it themselves from the bottom up,not top down as that will not work.

 

[rob1]

You might have thought that from the russians onwards countries might have realised that no one will ever gain total control there the landscape just makes it impossible and the fighters just melt back into their villages,we have to let them sort it out

 

[Danllan]

You might have thought that from the russians onwards countries might have realised that no one will ever gain total control there the landscape just makes it impossible and the fighters just melt back into their villages,we have to let them sort it out

Agreed, but we also have to make sure they can't export problems.

I feel great pity for many there, Afghanistan will be weighed down by religious dogma and tribalism for the foreseeable future. Child marriage / rape, extrajudicial killing, total corruption and feuds are the norm and while the current 'society' continues, so will they; it is self-perpetuating and very hard to see how change can occur from an internal start.

 

[rob1]

Agreed, but we also have to make sure they can't export problems.

I feel great pity for many there, Afghanistan will be weighed down by religious dogma and tribalism for the foreseeable future. Child marriage / rape, extrajudicial killing, total corruption and feuds are the norm and while the current 'society' continues, so will they; it is self-perpetuating and very hard to see how change can occur from an internal start.

I agree but the ruskies tried and we tried in the last few years and of course the uk had a bit of a go before in the 1800's the landscape makes it very hard to rule for its own government let alone invaders, if we had spent as much on our borders keeping out the drugs as we have fighting there I think we would have had as much success and lost a lot less lives, its up to the native afghans to improve their lot not us to impose it on them

 

[Danllan]

I agree but the ruskies tried and we tried in the last few years and of course the uk had a bit of a go before in the 1800's the landscape makes it very hard to rule for its own government let alone invaders, if we had spent as much on our borders keeping out the drugs as we have fighting there I think we would have had as much success and lost a lot less lives, its up to the native afghans to improve their lot not us to impose it on them

With respect to our recent involvement in Afghanistan, the true strategic reason we (the West) were there was tied to that of our involvement in Iraq - to demonstrate to Iran that we could and would project the power if needed. It more or less worked in that regard, but the nominal reason for our deploying in Afghanistan was / is an utter failure.

I agree entirely with the alternative use of resources, a great deal of the billions spent in the near East could have been better spent here at home, ditto with regards to 'aid', other than disaster relief, too. Borders are important, extraditionary facilities and more space for short and long term detention are too.

 

[ollie989898]

It is a hideous place. The Soviets tried, they even fought dirty, seeded vast areas with mines, used cluster bombs, even chemical weapons, you just can't 'win' in the conventional sense, you would have to systematically execute the entire population. It isn't a country so much as a region on a map in which a collection of rival factions vie for territory just for the craic of it.

Just thank God there isn't any oil worth having there.

The only hope is that the young people from these places realise that there is an alternative life to be led besides senseless killing and violence.

 

[rob1]

It is a hideous place. The Soviets tried, they even fought dirty, seeded vast areas with mines, used cluster bombs, even chemical weapons, you just can't 'win' in the conventional sense, you would have to systematically execute the entire population. It isn't a country so much as a region on a map in which a collection of rival factions vie for territory just for the craic of it.

Just thank God there isn't any oil worth having there.

The only hope is that the young people from these places realise that there is an alternative life to be led besides senseless killing and violence.

they do but its in europe

 

[Hindsight]

they do but its in europe

Indeed. And I was a young afghan who watched a bit of European TV and had spoken to a young UK trooper on patrol in Helmand then I too might risk my life to head west.

 

[Henarar]

I wonder what it would have been like if every other bugger had just kept their nose out

 

[rob1]

I wonder what it would have been like if every other bugger had just kept their nose out

Much like it is now but we wouldnt have several hundred dead soldiers and millions of quid spent and maybe less of a terror threat