Guest 690- Registered: 10 Oct 2009
- Posts: 4,150
Spot on Sid, and I thought it was just me. I remember some years back, of some event, where some police officer`s were claiming for stress (and compensation?). I thought at the time, for Christ`s sake, it`s the job you chose in life, that`s what you`re being paid for.
Tell them that I came, and no one answered.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Sid - it is Iraq we were lied to about and was based on a questionable premise. The Afghan mission is different and has a full UN mandate though some of the expectations originally voiced publicly are shown to be over optimistic.
The troops I know are proud, rightly, of the job they do and of their service in Afghanistan (and Iraq come to that). They are highly professional and consider it and the risks associated with it as part of doing the job they are so good at. That does not mean that we should take their bravery and sacrifice lightly.
Guest 693- Registered: 12 Nov 2009
- Posts: 1,266
Withdrawal from Afghanistan is betrayal of the dead only if the job is left undone and the Taliban take control unchallenged of a country abandoned to its fate. It is betrayal of those who are sent to serve in such places - and a betrayal of their families - if we do not question the validity of the risk they are being asked to take.
True friends stab you in the front.
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
talking of war dead,there there is a cwgc cematry in iraq tended by iraqs.if memory serves me right it dates back to ww1.now leting that go to rack and ruin would be a betrayl of those war dead.
Guest 645- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 4,463
Brian
Very good point and well said.
Marek
I think therefore I am (not a Tory supporter)
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Ian, my dad served 22 years in the British Army, was posted in many areas, but what you stated about soldiers not wanting to go home unless the 'job is done' does not correspond to soldiers' mentalitiy. To be fair, they might say this so as not to be demoralised knowing that politicians are sacrificing them, but in reality, they have been betrayed by the lack of common sense of us people in general, who should know better where to tell those politicians to get off when it comes to sacrificing our men!
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
lost me there brian, cwgc??
Guest 675- Registered: 30 Jun 2008
- Posts: 1,610
Commonwealth War Graves Commission Howard. (you have to learn to speak Brianish).
I must agree here with Sid and Ian on the troops and Barry on the real reasons for hanging on until 'the job's done. However as to when that will be is questionable. Iraq is three countries being held together by military presence when it would have been more sensible to support three semi-autonomous regions (Kurdish, Sunni etc.) with a central governing structure. Afghanistan has a more complex system of tribal and warlord regions that make it difficult to hand over to any one regional control. Winning 'hearts and minds' was a strategy discredited in Vietnam when the Americans tried to win over the Vietnamese with Coke and toothbrushes (I'm not joking). Reason would say that you could win them over by restoring and improving the physical infra-structure but there are too many armed factions with a vested interest in seeing that such a thing does not happen.
This war can only end when there is no chance of it spilling over into other Islamic nations and that is a very long way off.
Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong.
Richard Armour
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
thanks for info chris, on the subject of your last sentence i totally disagree.
the issue here is tribalism not religion, the regions in the north east of pakistan and their counterparts over the border are only interested in their own freedom to run the show how they like.
i doubt whether the rest of pakistan or any other islamic nation is interested in what goes in afghanistan.
until patronising people in the west understand that the people of afghanistan have no interest in western democracy then the war will continue. the army and police there may pretend to be acting as independent forces interested in law and order, this is only a front to make the alliance pack up and go so that they can live their lives as they wish to.
Guest 675- Registered: 30 Jun 2008
- Posts: 1,610
Not disagreeing with you there Howard. What I meant there was that, until the Western powers so no chance of it spilling over. However, having said that, I would dispute your contention that it is all about tribal policy and not religion. Islam was and is opposed to democracy in the Western form, being firmly in favour of a theocracy. Islamic fundamentalists in all countries will continue to support those that offer such a policy and thus prop-up extremists. Any 'inclusion' of Islamic laws, while seemingly appropriate to some as a compromise to some, will only provide a opening for pressure to fully adopt the rest.
Islamic fighters will use whatever best achieves their objectives, whether it be tribal loyalties, ethnic traditions or just the basic fear of Western influence which has been in the region since the days of Alexander the Great.
Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong.
Richard Armour
Guest 672- Registered: 3 Jun 2008
- Posts: 2,119
I think I'll give up on this one, It could get messy.
I shall bow out to superior knowledge that some people tend to have, or feel to have.
grass grows by the inches but dies by the feet.
Sid Perkins,
Please do not insult me by lecturing me on what being in the armed forces is all about."I KNOW WHAT IT IS ALL ABOUT".
My point which you conveniantly chose to ignore is that we should not be there in the first place.
I have no objection to our squaddies and lassies gambling with there lives in a justifiable war, a war fought exclusevely to protect british interests and people.
As you are all seeing Sid, I will ask you in your own time explain to a dumb old squaddy why are we there??
Do not trot out the excuse that the pashtuns are a direct threat to us and therefore we must spend Billions of pounds and waste hundreds of british lives on a lost cause purely because no politician can come up with an exit strategy, we do not need an exit strategy all we need is a politician to have the balls to say "this is not our war" lets go home and leave the Afghans to beat there wives and pray to Allah.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
If only they would restrict themselves to beating their wives and praying to Allah Jimmy, if that were so I would be with you 100% - but that is not the case. If the Taliban get control again the Afghanistan will be their training ground for world terror and would be using as a base to undermine Pakistan. We cannot afford to risk that.
Jimmy, no offnce was intended mate. Sorry if you took some. As Barry rightly pioints out, a Taliban controlled Afghanistan would be a superb safe haven for Al Qaueda, again.
If we don't mind people being blown up on our own trains and buses we could just pull out and let it happen. That is what the terrorists are expecting us top do.
Personally, I'd up the ante and bomb the place to smithereens, and parts of Pakistan too. I would always prefer to work on th basis of, "you kill one of mine, I'll kill 10,000 of yours - take it or leave it". It would be a sure way to reduce the nuclear arsenal and scratch this cowardly scum from the arths surface..
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
I agree with you Sid. The one and only thing they respect is strength, if they percieve weakness then they despise you and redouble their efforts. Even 'talks about talks' is seen as our weakness in their eyes.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
There certainly needs to be some clarity here, so a brief account of how events unfolded in Afghanistan: in the 60's of the last century, a coup put an end to the Afghan monarchy, and the king went into exile. The new government in Kabul introduced some modernist reforms into Afghan society, only as far as they thought they could go, leaving the tribal constitutions and traditions in place. Thirteen years later, in the 70's, another coup replaced that government, and an even more socialist government came to power, with the intention of introducing more modernist reforms. This government in Kabul asked for and received military training from the Soviet Union. However, the Afghan Socialist party was split in two, and another coup saw a pro-Chinese faction get to power, and the pro-Soviet leader was killed. This sparked off the intervention of Moscow (still in the seventies) which led to mass Soviet military action and the Soviet army fighting the war on the side of the Afghan army.
Many Afghan soldiers had already deserted, and those who were recruited to replace them were fighting for a government that was proclaiming not Communism, but modernisation of Afghan society. This is what the Soviet government also claimed: to be fighting to "help Afghans become modern".
It all led to disaster. Eventually the Soviet forces pulled out, and the Afghan tribal armies that had fought them spent years fighting each other, even dividing Kabul into sectors, continuing their war, which saw many civilians being killed or injured in the fighting. Then the Taliban got to power, uniting all the Pashtun tribes, but not managing to overrun the northern areas of Afghanistan, where the Uzbeks and Tajiks live.
So, then Blair got in power and sent the British Army in, and the Americans sent troops, and a few other countries joined in.
It all began from the start: they want to help the Afghans to become modern, to help Afghan women take off their veil and walk bear-feet in sandals and not in DM's! And to help Afghan children play war-games on computers, and so on.
And over the years, the numbers of American and British and other soldiers in Afghanistan fighting for all this has been steadily increasing, as too the death-toll and the number of wounded! Blair is the worst night-mare that ever hit the British Isles, and what the Coalition troops are trying to achieve now in Afghanistan is no more and no less than what the Soviet soldiers tried to achieve then. Both the Soviets of then and the Coalition of today rely on "Afghan allies who want to modernise Afghanistan". They will NEVER succeed! This is sheer murder, and the self-styled heads of the British Army have no military Strategy, this we all know!
They are only symbolically heads of this that and the other. So now the British government is changing the notes from "fighting the Taliban" to "fighting Al Quaeda". It's all tripe! Al Quaeda is not Taliban, and have nothing to say in Afghanistan, and the Pashtun Taliban are not fighting for Al Quaeda, but for an independent Pashtun area of Afghanistan. It's not even religious warfare, but ethnic. Pashtuns are Pashtuns, and they live in tribes, and we should not get involved in their wars. Some war minister in London has recently stated that the British MUST put up with four more years of killings in Afghanistan of our soldiers. We must tell the government ministers who preach the sacrifice of our soldiers in Afghanistan where to get off, and we must have the courage to do so!
They are sacrificing our soldiers to the same hell that the Soviet army went through, and for the same cause. They MUST not be allowed to continue sacrificing and sacrificing our soldiers in Afghanistan, and I suggest that the British People tell them this! You will no-doubt know that so-called 'heads of this that and the other' who join the British Army and get promoted to commanders, never go to Afghanistan to fight, just as they didn't go to Iraq to fight. Try telling their 'family' that their sons MUST go to Afghanistan to fight! They won't!
They send other soldiers to die instead!
If Britain were invaded, I'd go straight away to defend our Shores, in the Name of Britannia and no other, and would NEVER surrender, but Afghanistan is not worth the life of one British Grenadier!
Afghan families have many children, their population increases, and as far as many Afghans are concerned, it's worth losing some of their own fighting men to fight off foreign soldiers, but we are just letting people send our soldiers to be sacrificed there! People who don't care about us in our own Country, living in a world of their own! They claim that we are defending them and our Country in Afghanistan!
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Sid! You have gone to far! I take offence at your statements that our soldiers have to stay on in Afghanistan and fight or else the Taliban (or as you wrongly call them 'Al Quaeda' will send terrorists to plant bombs in Britain. It is a blatent untruth! And as for bombing to smithereens millions of Afghan women and children, let me tell you straight forward, I am not a racist but, I would never order the bombing or blowing up of civilians! The war you are preachin, Sid, could get out of hand and lead to terrible massacres, if they started listening toyou and doing what you suggest! Have you flipped out?
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Barry, you too surprise me! How can you preach this! Do you realise what you are implying, with agreeing to blow up tens of thousands of civilians???
Guest 645- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 4,463
AlexD
This is how the Afghans retell their history (as extracted from their website)
1826 - 1839 Dost Mohammad Khan takes Kabul, and establishes control. During his rule the status of Afghanistan became an international problem, as Britain and Russia contested for influence in central Asia. Aiming to control access to the northern approaches to India, the British tried to replace Dost Muhammad with a former emir, subordinate to them. This policy caused the first Afghan War (1838-42) between the British and the Afghans. Dost Muhammad was at first deposed but, after an Afghan revolt in Kabul, was restored. In 1857, Dost Muhammad signed an alliance with the British. He died in 1863 and was succeeded, after family fighting, by his third son, Sher Ali.
King of Afghanistan (1826 - 39; second time 1843 - 63)
1832--1833 Persia moves into Khurasan (province), and threatens Herat. Afghans defend Herat successfully.
1834-- (May) Afghans lose Peshawar to the Sikhs; later they crushed the Sikhs under the leadership of Akbar Khan who defeated the Sikhs near Jamrud, and killed the great Sikh general Hari Singh. However, they failed to retake Peshawar due to disunity and bad judgment on the part of Dost Mohammad Khan.
1836 Dost Mohammad Khan is proclaimed as Amir al-mu' minin (commander of the faithful). He was well on the road toward reunifying the whole of Afghanistan when the British, in collaboration with an ex-king (Shah Shuja), invade Afghanistan to curtail the growing Russian and Persian influence.
1839 - 1842 Shah Shuja is installed as a "puppet king" by the British .
First Anglo-Afghan War
After some resistance, Amir Dost Mohammad Khan surrenders to the British and is deported to India. (1839-1842)
April 1842--Shah Shuja killed by Afghans. 1842-1844 Akbar Khan (Afghan hero) is victorious against the British. The ferocity was such that the 16,500- B British garrison with 12,000 support staff and dependents were wiped out. Only one survived, of mixed British-Indian garrison, reaches the fort in Jalalabad, on a stumbling pony.
Mohammad Akbar Khan was a major player in the defeat of the British army in the first Anglo-Afghan War (1839-1842). He outsmarted and killed Sir William MacNaughten, a top British official who highly advocated the invasion and subjugation of Afghanistan by the British army. Mohammad Akbar was very ambitous and wanted to regain all the land that was lost by the Afghans, and rebuild another great empire, similar to Ahmad Shah Abdali's. However, his father, Dost Mohammad Khan, who wanted to work with the British, feared his son's rise to power. Many believed that Amir Dost Mohammad poisoned his own son at the age of 29. Mohammad Akbar Khan is highly revered by Afghans today, and is seen as a major historical hero. A residential area of Kabul is named after him.
By 1843 the nation declares independence, Dost Khan returns to occupy the throne.
In 1844, Akbar Khan dies.
1843 - 1863 Dost Mohammad Khan comes back and occupies the royal throne. After the annihilation of British troops, Afghanistan once again becomes independent.
1859-- British take Baluchistan , and Afghanistan becomes completely landlocked.
1863 - 1866 Sher Ali Dost Mohammad Khan's son , succeeds to the throne.
King of Afghanistan (1863 - 66; second time 1868 - 79)
(1865)--Russia takes Bukhara, Tashkent, and Samerkand.
1866 - 1867 Mohamad Afzal
Mohammad Afzal occupies Kabul and proclaims himself Amir.
October, 1867--Mohammad Afzal dies.
1867 - 1868 Mohammad Azam
Mohammad Azam succeeds to the throne
1868--Mohammad Azam flees to Persia
1868 - 1879 Sher Ali reasserts control
1873 Russia establishes a fixed boundary with Afghanistan and promises to respect its territorial integrity.
1878-British launch their second war. For the second time, the Afghans' spirited resistance forces them to withdraw. Sher Ali dies. Mohammad Yaqub Khan takes over but concedes to the British such key territories as Khyber and Pischin. The Afghans will never get back these regions.
1879 - Amir Muhammad Yaqub Khan takes over until October 1879.
Amir Muhammad Yaqub Khan gives up the following Afghan territories to the British: Kurram, Khyber, Michni, Pishin, and Sibi. Afghans lose these territories permanently.
Kabul occupied by British forces
1880 - 1901 Abdur Rahman takes throne of Afghanistan. He was, however, recognized by the British as emir in 1880, and he supported British interests against Russia..
Battle of Maiwand
July 1880, Afghan woman named Malalai carries the Afghan flag forward after the soldiers carrying the flag were killed by the British. She becomes a hero for her show of courage and valour.
The British, shortly after the accession of the new Amir, withdraw from Afghanistan, although they retain the right to handle Afghanistan's foreign relations.
Abdur Rahman establishes fixed borders and he loses a lot of Afghan land.
Nuristan converted to Islam.
1885- Russian forces seize the Panjdeh Oasis, a piece of Afghan territory north of the Oxus River. Afghans tried to retake it, but was finally forced to allow the Russians to keep Panjdeh, and the Russians promised to honor Afghan territorial integrity in the future.
1893- The Durand line fixes borders of Afghanistan with British India, splitting Afghan tribal areas, leaving half of Afghans in what is now Pakistan.
1895 Afghanistan's northern border is fixed and guaranteed by Russia
1901-- Abdur Rahman dies, his son Habibullah succeeds him.
1907- 1919 Habibullah Khan's regime.Russia and Great Britain sign the convention of St. Petersburg, Agreement reached between British and Russian governments over the territorial integrity of Afghanistan
1919 - 1929 Amanullah Khan (The reform King)
1921--Third Anglo-Afghan war.
1929 - 1930 Habibullah Kalakani (Bachae Saqaw)
1930 - 1933 Nadir Khan takes the throne; his tribal army loots government buildings and houses of wealthy citizens because the treasury was empty. Habibullah Kalakani, along with his supporters, and a few supporters of Amanullah Khan are killed by Nadir Khan. Now Nadir Khan establishes full control.
1933-- Nadir Khan was assassinated by a High School student whos father served Amanullah Khan and was killed by Nadir Khan.
Zahir Shaw, at the age of 19 inherits the throne, even though he did not want to take the throne. He rules until 1973. Zahir Shah's uncles serve as prime ministers and advisors until 1953.
Mahmud Tarzi dies in Turkey at the age of 68 with a heart full of sorrow and despair toward his country.
1940 - 1973 Zahir Shah proclaims Afghanistan as neutral during WW2
The rest I think you know.
As a pointer no Afghan has been arrested in the UK for terrorist acts. Maybe its more aboout destroying the Poppy fields rather than fighting the insurgents and Mr Al (underneath the arches) Qaida (Al Qaeda) both spellings are accepted.
Marek
I think therefore I am (not a Tory supporter)
Marek - as ever, thank you. BarryW and Sid - of course we should be in Afghanistan, for all the reasons you have said. Our troops also know this and should take pride and have our support in their vital mission - they are protecting us and their own by being there, and they know it.