Good plan for the taliban (1 Viewer)

Fifty2One

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Good to hear the right honourable British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is endorsing a plan to give much needed funds to the taliban. Thos black market weapons are getting expensive and supplies for improvised explosives are just becoming so unaffordable they may have to turn to selling drugs to make ends meet.
Perhaps next he will just let everyone out of jail and give each inmate a few thousand £ so they would never think of reoffending :)
 

scott-atkinson

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Perhaps next he will just let everyone out of jail and give each inmate a few thousand £ so they would never think of reoffending :)

That's on the Labour Party Manifesto for the next election :eek:;)
 

The_Doc_Man

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I'm known to be radical on this topic so it probably would be better if I didn't post. Rich and Col would just crawl out of the woodwork with an "I told you so..." However, it is a hot button to me so I can't let it pass.

Let me make this clear. I have no use for other radicals of any kind, be they political or religious in nature. Other radicals than me, of course! My opinion is not representative of the US Government (that I know of).

If we really wanted to spend money on the Taliban, I would spend it on a device known to create instant, very flat, glazed-over parking lots. I would give it to them in a big box that was very difficult to open. I wouldn't tell them it was armed. I would leave before they tried to open it.

Can you say, "Candygram for Mr. Mongo!" in a high, falsetto voice? (...with apologies to Mel Brooks and Cleavon Little.)

OK, maybe a BIT extreme, but that is what it takes to get through to other extremists.
 

Rabbie

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That's on the Labour Party Manifesto for the next election :eek:;)
So you have reliable inside information about a document that has not been published.:confused: I suggest you sell it to the press ASAP :D
 

Rich

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Good to hear the right honourable British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is endorsing a plan to give much needed funds to the taliban.
Why change the habits of a lifetime, he's been giving our money away to any tosser that asks for a handout for years:mad:
 

ColinEssex

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I'm known to be radical on this topic so it probably would be better if I didn't post. Rich and Col would just crawl out of the woodwork with an "I told you so..." However, it is a hot button to me so I can't let it pass.

I agree with you Doc. Afghanistan is a god forsaken place. I spent just over two weeks travelling through there in the 70's.

The sooner it is razed to the ground the better.

If I was to tell you some of the things there (truthfully) I would be banned for being a liar and using foul language, it is disgusting. Also, looking at the TV footage, it seems little has changed.

What puzzles me is that the "western world" spends millions on searching for heroin at airports etc. About 80% comes from Afghanistan.
The heroin poppies are growing in Afghanistan in big fields of massive size. Why don't we (the west) use something like napalm to destroy the heroin at source?

Col
 

The_Doc_Man

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Colin, I can only guess why we don't use aggressive weed killer on the poppies. Part of it might be that we don't want to alienate the low-level farmers who otherwise could be growing something useful. Napalm on the poppy fields would stop a lot of the traffic but make that ground unusable for at least a while, so they couldn't grow food crops there, either. I think that factor applies at least a little.

I have never been (and have no desire to go) but I know others who have been there as part of the US military rotation. They tell me that it isn't pretty, unless pretty awful counts for something.

I sometimes try to remember to be civil to others even if I disagree with their beliefs. It is supposed to be a basic part of being a USA citizen. But sometimes the Afghani news is so incredibly depressing that I have to switch to something else on the TV. And the online stuff isn't any better. I used to think that USA fundamentalist Christians were bad because of their persecution of gays, Muslims, and atheists. But the fundamentalists over there are worse, if that is even possible.

I think that if ANY place were a good testing ground for covering whole counties with solar cells, Afghanistan and a few other places there would be great candidates. At least that way, it would do someone some good somewhere, instead of its current state of near total worthlessness.
 

Rich

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Which begs the question, why the hell are we there in the first place. More Bush/Bliars' lies
 

The_Doc_Man

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Which begs the question, why the hell are we there in the first place. More Bush/Bliars' lies

I don't claim to know everything about why we are in Afghanistan now, but in my own mind I wonder why we EVER went into Iraq. At the time of the 9/11 tragedy, we did not think that the training camps or recruiters were in Iraq. We thought they were in the Afgani highlands somewhere. So OF COURSE we went into Iraq. The WMD intelligence was true - but dated. (Out of date.) One has to wonder if GWB had a delusion of the need to finish what daddy started?

Gang, I'm about as patriotic as it gets, but I don't believe that the USA can "do no wrong." I know it can, it has, and it probably will again at some indefinite future time. I only can hope to survive its mistakes. (As I'm sure our cousins across the pond wish to survive their own government's mistakes.)

I voted for GWB twice only because his opponents scared me more. I didn't vote for Obama only because at that point it was almost literally a coin toss. (He lost the toss.)

I'll give Mr. Obama credit for trying to push the generals into a serious time-table for troop extraction. But there is this other factor that I must consider carefully as a reason why it might be better for the USA if they pushed back a little bit.

Before those troops come back, we are already looking at 10% unemployment now. Does the current regime want those troops back looking for jobs that don't currently exist? You have to look for ulterior motives.

GWB drove us into a recession. BO doesn't want to make it worse by piling on even higher unemployment and thereby driving up the entitlement rolls. Keeping the Afghani campaign alive would be a way to ease the troops out over a slower withdrawal profile. But then, what do I know about government at that level, right?
 

ColinEssex

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Doc, we toured through Afghanistan from the Khyber Pass into Herat to Kabul, down to Kandahar, then up to Iran.

We went into many villages where they made guns of all types and heroin and other drugs were openly available. We were searched on the way out. Guns and heroin were the main income for many people we met.

Trying to change a culture to the "better Western" one is and always will be extremely difficult. It's like telling a lion to be a tiger, or a cat it's a dog.

Who is to say the western culture is better for them?

Col
 

Fifty2One

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The UK and US were training the taliban in counteroffensive strategy when Russia invaded their country. Once the taliban became too strong their attempts to suppress then with a western backed and chosen government became the catalyst to the subsequent hostilities against the countries who trained their freedom fighters. Eventually the taliban decided the western world were enemies who needed to be eliminated from their territories.

I think some CL415s need to be loaded up with glyphosate, dump it on the opium poppy fields and give the farmers some GMO crops. The incapability to generate drug revenue will stem the funds to back their weapon purchases. It has worked in part in Colombia, except the coca growers moved to protected land so this has to be planned out so the taliban will set up camp and drug production is certain areas where they can be delt with with minimum colateral damage.

Perhaps they could consult with Sylvester Stalone because he did a marvelous job supporting the taliban in the movie Rambo 3 and he might have some inside information on their operations.
 

Banana

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The UK and US were training the taliban in counteroffensive strategy when Russia invaded their country. Once the taliban became too strong their attempts to suppress then with a western backed and chosen government became the catalyst to the subsequent hostilities against the countries who trained their freedom fighters. Eventually the taliban decided the western world were enemies who needed to be eliminated from their territories.

Not the way I understand it.

US funded and backed the Taliban (were they the Taliban back then?) but once the Soviets was driven out, US up and left, leaving Afghan in a middle of stumble and ruins. One rationale for the animosity against US given was just that.

You know the old saying about what happens to one's nose when it pokes in the place where it doesn't belong.
 

Rich

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The UK and US were training the taliban in counteroffensive strategy when Russia invaded their country. Once the taliban became too strong their attempts to suppress then with a western backed and chosen government became the catalyst to the subsequent hostilities against the countries who trained their freedom fighters. Eventually the taliban decided the western world were enemies who needed to be eliminated from their territories.
Actually it was the Mujahideen financed by the CIA, and also by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan under Zia-ul-Haq, Iran, the People's Republic of China and several Western European countries. Pakistan's secret service, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), was used as an intermediary for most of these activities to disguise the sources of support for the resistance.
 

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