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Doug Buchanan
Mountain climber
Fairbanks Alaska
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For every enemy leader killed, on either side, their are 100 more-capable, more dynamic, more angered soldiers trying to get the position. The positions are immediately filled.
The US leaders fool fools in suggesting some benefit of killing the leaders.
For every common soldier and civilian killed by an invader army, there are 1,000 people more angry at the invaders.
Military dolts, as I once was, are clueless of how the human mind reacts toward killers and invaders, which is why they so eagerly kill, invade and are defeated. If it were otherwise, The Romans or an earlier empire would rule the world.
Military dolts cannot understand the above even if you hand them a dictionary and the entire history of world military actions.
Enjoy the show of the dolts.
And anytime at the AlaskanAlpineClub HQ is a good time to fire-up the Mountain Dragon elevated Fire Pit, and start the party, even though I am down in Montana at the moment, doing a little rabble rousing, as usual. I will return.
DougBuchanan.com
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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If it were otherwise, The Romans or an earlier empire would rule the world.
So maybe we should all just hold hands and everything will be okay, Doug?
Your self-righteousness is growing old.
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JoeSimo
Trad climber
New York
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Actually the problem is deeper than just locals fighting off invaders. Afghanistan isn't really a country in the western sense. THe tribes that have lived in the area did so long before the country was artificially created.
In the north you have Tajiks, the south has the Pashtun, the Hazara are in the middle and to a lesser extent there are Uzbeks further north. When talking about the politics of the region you have to consider that these tribes have been fighting each other for a long time and continue to do so. When a western power comes in they usually have no sense of the ethnic arena and will simply ally with whom ever pops up offering help first. This always alienates the other tribes in the country that feel they are being left out. To this day there is no solid cohesion on either the allied forces side or Taliban side. After the latest attack, which killed several CIA operatives, you had various Taliban factions fighting each other trying to claim responsibility for it. Since a significant number of Taliban fighters are foreign fighters and displaced locals the pressure to attract the most recruits is high. If one faction can present itself as the more dominate and powerful faction, making real strikes and wins against the American or Allied forces, they will attract more supporters and in a sense be able to dominate the other weaker factions.
This was also problematic on the Allied side during the first days of the war. The "Northern Alliance" was the only organized military force in the country that posed and threat or put up any resistance to the Taliban in Afghanistan. When the American special forces began arriving there were times were tribes within the Northern Alliance would fight each other, nearly erupting in straight on gun battles, to determine who would get to work with the latest special forces team to arrive in the country. The American commanders on the ground were able to solve this problem by simply splitting the teams up and giving out equal equipment and support to each group. Kind of the way you deal with a group of whining school children.
To further exacerbate the problem the Pakistanis desire to have a pro pakistani government in Afghanistan. This means a government run by the Pashtun southern Majority. Their reasoning here is Afghanistan can act as a buffer zone and support area for any potential war against India, which they fear more than anything else. Despite all the problems the Pakistanis have with Talibani militants trying to over throw their government in the west, they have the vast majority of their entire armed forces stationed along their border with India. So, the Pakistani intelligence services are actively involved in trying to make Afghanistan a nation they can control and manipulate for their own benefit. Since the US model for Afghanistan shows no mention of Pakistani interest in the region they have no reason to support American efforts there in any large degree.
Of course all the politics of the region doesn't factor in the simple idea that imposing a western style democracy onto a country is not ready for it means certain disaster. For the democracy American in visions to survive several things would have to exist in Afghanistan that are perhaps decades off. For starters the country has a literacy rate of approximately 49% for males age 15-24 and 18% for females of the same age. Compare that to the United States 99%. There also needs to be a stable middle class, something that would require decades of economic investment to achieve. Lastly, and most difficult, there would need to be a willingness on the part of the Afghans to partake in a truly secular government. "Religious Democracies", as seen in several other islamic countries, suffer greatly because they empower the clerics, which in turn encourages them to get involved in politics, leading to corruption and fundamentalist policies; ie. Iran, Israel, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia.
Well, guess thats all I have to say on the matter. I didnt read all the posts on this thread. Decided to instead just vomit all the info I could remember on the regions politics and situation.
time to do something more constructive like readin my Big Walls book and trying to decide what I want to climb.
Joe
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Ontario, Canada, eh?
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I live next to the Highway of Heroes, which is the stretch of Highway 401 from CFB Trenton to the coroner's office in Toronto. It is along this route that the bodies of fallen Canadian soldiers are brought after they are repatriated.
As you know, we lost four Canadian soldiers and one Canadian journalist on December 30th. This is a staggeringly high loss for a country who supplies such a small contingent of troops. Afganistan is a hella dangerous place.
A couple of days ago, I was driving to my dad's along the 401, and I passed the motorcade heading from Toronto towards Trenton. There were a number of cop cars with their lights flashing, and in between perhaps ten or so hearses and limos holding the families of the fallen. It is a sad and sombre sight.
Too many times over the past few years have I passed the motorcade carrying our fallen back to Toronto. On the Brock Street overpass, near where I live, hundreds of people stood for three hours in the sub-zero temperatures to pay their respects to our fallen.
We are blessed to live in the freedom of countries like Canada and the USA, and we need to remember and thank our veterans who have made this possible. My condolences and thanks to the friends and families of those Canadians, and others from the Coalition, who have made the Ultimate Sacrifice. How fortunate I am to have never been called thus.
Peter Zabrok
Whitby, Ontario
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Mason
Trad climber
Yay Area
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http://afghanistan.blogs.cnn.com/2010/01/07/past-war-offers-afghanistan-lessons-and-its-not-vietnam/
I guess this is where the US invented "water boarding." They used it on the poor filipinos.
Pure evil, I tell ya!
"Filipino fighters deliberately sought to drag the war on with hit-and-run tactics that would turn the American public against the war, historians say. It was the classic guerilla strategy: Win by avoiding big, pitched battles and melt into the civilian population.
But the U.S. military responded to the guerilla strategy with a simple strategy of their own, some historians say:
Kill them all."
Sounds like the American way.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Jan 13, 2010 - 11:27am PT
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This is a good piece illustrating how the enemy uses lies and propaganda to stir up anti-NATO sentiment.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=35171
from the link;
By early afternoon rioting groups had separated to other sides of the Helmand River near the town and the situation calmed, Marines also contacted village and town elders they had worked with since October and held an emergency Shura (council) with them and district officials to explain the situation and convinced them to go to the rioters and end the violence.
“In two hours you destroyed three years of work,” the district governor reportedly told the elders, according to a witness. “You say a Koran was maybe destroyed. You destroyed more than 300 when you burned the school.”
EDIT:
Updated story from Dawn News;
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/world/04-garmsir-protest-shooting-qs-01
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Sak
Mountain climber
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Jan 13, 2010 - 11:42am PT
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If a foreign power was occupying Lee Vining and killed my family member, I would go to Ace Hardware, get some kind of vest and try to blow up their headquarters.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Jan 13, 2010 - 11:59am PT
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Sak, what if religious fundamentalists took over Lee Vining, imposed strict and oppressive religious laws on you, and NATO came in to remove them and then hand your town back over to you...would you still oppose that?
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quietpartner
Trad climber
Moantannah
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Jan 13, 2010 - 12:00pm PT
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For me, the best summary of Afghanistan is by an Afghan woman:
We've killed our fellow Afghanis for a very long time, so why don't you Americans butt out and let us get back to killing each other as usual?
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Binks
Social climber
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Jan 13, 2010 - 12:11pm PT
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One of the most satisfying moments of Avatar was watching the military get wiped out by the indigenous. I almost cheered. Screw Dumbphuckistan and all wars run by our Demonocracy.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jan 13, 2010 - 01:01pm PT
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Bluring wrote
Sak, what if religious fundamentalists took over Lee Vining, imposed strict and oppressive religious laws on you, and NATO came in to remove them and then hand your town back over to you...would you still oppose that?
Not a fair comparison, you needed to write
"Sak, what if Christain fundamentalists took over Lee Vining, imposed strict and oppressive religious laws on you, and Iranians invaded the country and came in to remove them and then hand your town back over to you, albeit still under their military power if ya'll didn't play by their rules..would you still oppose that?"
Maybe you could answer that question for yourself as well.
PEace
Karl
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jan 13, 2010 - 01:06pm PT
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TGT quotes the net
KABUL -- Nearly seven in 10 Afghans support the presence of U.S. forces in their country, and 61 percent favor the military buildup of 37,000 U.S. and NATO reinforcements now deploying, according to a poll released Monday.
I, for one, welcome our foreign devil overlords who ask my opinion about them!
If 7 of 10 Afghans support us, and only 1 in 10 support the Taliban, and our weapons are FAR FAR superior to the Taliban, just how have they gained ground there? How are we still losing when we have the people and the muscle behind us?
Fact is, they are against us and always will be, just as we would be against them if somehow they invaded us.
peace
Karl
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 13, 2010 - 01:22pm PT
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TGT quotes the net
TGT quotes the "New York Compost"
Not some random blog.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Jan 13, 2010 - 01:26pm PT
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I, for one, welcome our foreign devil overlords who ask my opinion about them!
If 7 of 10 Afghans support us, and only 1 in 10 support the Taliban, and our weapons are FAR FAR superior to the Taliban, just how have they gained ground there? How are we still losing when we have the people and the muscle behind us?
Fact is, they are against us and always will be, just as we would be against them if somehow they invaded us.
Ah, yes, America the devil. Just how has the Taliban gained ground? How do you figure that we're losing? Because we're still there?
You make it sound like they'd rather live under the Taliban. That we went in and ruined a good thing. The only reason the remnants of the Taliban still exists is because they hide and our rules of engagement are very strict.
Now that Pakistan is actually policing it's border with Afghanistan, things are changing pretty quickly, for the better.
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ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Trad climber
San Francisco, Ca
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Jan 15, 2010 - 01:01pm PT
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I heard a report about how we pay the Taliban not to attack supply trucks used to transport supplies used to fight the Taliban.
I've yet to hear an intelligent/realistic explanation of what we hope to accomplish in the middle east.
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corniss chopper
Mountain climber
san jose, ca
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Jan 21, 2010 - 06:18pm PT
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Thank God our guys are so superior to those Afghans else Nancy would be gravy on the sidewalk.
She has a tough enough job to do and does not need IED's to distract her!
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