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Afghanistan: it ain't over.

 
 
Naked Flame
23:56 / 23.01.02
round and round we go...
 
 
Tempus
00:34 / 24.01.02
In light of this, would anyone care to place a bet on how deep the US's "commitment to Afghanistan's future" might run? Hm?

I'm sure we'll get some fine conservative commentary on respecting a nation's sovereignity out of this, though. "Andrew Sullivan on why we should leave Afghanistan alone." Should be quite morbidly amusing.
 
 
grant
18:51 / 24.01.02
quote:The violence is further evidence that Afghanistan is rapidly devolving into the factionalism and warlordism that gripped the country a decade ago. Those groups that are represented in the new interim Afghan government will attempt to keep a lid on ethnic infighting only long enough to receive Western aid while those factions left out will encourage the use of violence to expose the government's frailty.

No surprises here.
A couple weeks back they were refusing to give back their guns until the new gov't coughed up some money.
 
 
The Monkey
01:04 / 25.01.02
Remember when the noble Kosovars we backed tromped in to a Serbian nunnery and gangraped everyone? Mmyep.
Or was that the noble Bosnians?

Afghanistan is dirt poor, and doesn't even have any natural resources. The people there are killing each other to get tiny bits of not much at all...and drought has made the whole thing much worse.
The planet sucks, and any moment now the US is just going to jerk out of the whole situation, which means "we" suck even more, and that I will have to go back to setting conservative lobbyists on fire....
 
 
The Damned Yankee
06:28 / 27.01.02
Of course not. Peacekeeping doesn't sell like fighting a war(if you call high-altitude bombing against guys with rifles a fight).

As I recall, the US bowed out of committing forces to the proposed international peacekeping force that was supposed to oversee matters in Afghanistan. Dubya wants to keep playing war games, coz war games are mistaken for positive action, and thus garner votes.
 
 
A fall of geckos
08:24 / 06.05.04
I've just been sent a link to a post on Cory Doctorow's weblog boingboing. Apparently the Candadian Broadcasting Corporation has put together a documentary on war-crimes committed against Afghani prisoners with the complicity of the military.

From the Boingboing post

"It alleges that thousands of Taliban POWs were murdered -- most by being locked in baking shipping containers in the middle of the desert, with the survivors brought to a remote place and executed with 30-50 US soldiers in attendance. The UN has offered to investigate, but only if the safety of the investigators can be guaranteed, something that the US-allied Afghani warlord has refused to consider -- and since the making of the documentary, many of the sources have been tortured or disappeared."

CBC Link
52MB Quicktime Link
 
 
Magic Mutley
08:04 / 07.05.04
That Quicktime link is pretty grim, but well worth watching...

There's an interview with the director here
 
 
grant
13:05 / 13.10.06
Afghanistan: descending into ridiculousness.

From Yahoo News/Reuters:

Canada troops battle 10-ft Afghan marijuana plants

This is the whole story. It's short:

Thu Oct 12, 4:52 PM ET



OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian troops fighting Taliban militants in Afghanistan have stumbled across an unexpected and potent enemy -- almost impenetrable forests of 10-feet (three metre) high marijuana plants.

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General Rick Hillier, chief of the Canadian defence staff, said on Thursday that Taliban fighters were using the forests as cover. In response, the crew of at least one armored car had camouflaged their vehicle with marijuana.

"The challenge is that marijuana plants absorb energy, heat very readily. It's very difficult to penetrate with thermal devices ... and as a result you really have to be careful that the Taliban don't dodge in and out of those marijuana forests," he said in a speech in Ottawa.

"We tried burning them with white phosphorous -- it didn't work. We tried burning them with diesel -- it didn't work. The plants are so full of water right now ... that we simply couldn't burn them," he said.

Even successful incineration had its drawbacks.

"A couple of brown plants on the edges of some of those (forests) did catch on fire. But a section of soldiers that was downwind from that had some ill effects and decided that was probably not the right course of action," Hillier said dryly.

One soldier told him later: "Sir, three years ago before I joined the army, I never thought I'd say 'That damn marijuana'."
 
  
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