Should troops leave Afghanistan

[spot]

There's a discussion on Radio 4 this evening with that title.

To quote a small detail,

ICM asked a random sample of 1,013 adults whether or not Britain should withdraw its armed forces from Afghanistan within the next 12 months.

More than two-thirds (68%) of those questioned said the UK should pull its soldiers out during the next year. Less than a quarter (24%) said they believed the troops should remain.

Afghanistan was guaranteed to turn fundamentalist the moment the US armed the Mujahedeen against the Soviets through the 1980s. Nothing that anyone has done, will do or can do is going to change that final reality.

The only consequence of Western troops remaining in Afghanistan now is more needless Afghan deaths. They should all pull out immediately and allow Afghanistan to mend itself over the next fifty years - and yes, that means reverting to Taliban control for at least a generation in reaction to the Western outrage that's been committed on it.

The one immediate advantage to the West would be an end to the heroin exports.

[Galbally]

I fear that indeed the war against the Taleban in Afganistan is unwinnable with the current lack of anything like enough political or public will in the West for what is going to be a very difficult and expensive conflict.

Where I disagree is that the probablility of a NATO withdrawal would be a good outcome for the Afganistani people, or the West itself, it will be a diaster for the region and also for the West, but no doubt the siren calls for "peace with honour" will be heeded and we will retreat further back in the face of the civilizational challenges being posed.

Eventually, that whole region will become destabilized, Islamicized and brutalized, spreading ever westwards and northwards. Blustering Western politicans who in reality have neither the ability or the courage to face up to the spread of the new religious facism, which they have embolded with their failed occupation of Iraq will now equivocate, bargain and plead for civilizational "peace and understanding", the Islamicists will make suitably soothing noises while continuing to wipe out all secular and moderate opposition in the Islamic world.

The appeasement crowd will see secular Turkey drawn as the "new" line in the sand, but after its Islamicization over the next couple of decades, it will fall as well, then secular Christian Europe will itself come under increasing demands to accomodate its ever increasing and emboldened muslim minority, until it too is unrecognizable from what it is today.

[spot]

Originally Posted by Galbally

Where I disagree is that the probablility of a NATO withdrawal would be a good outcome for the Afganistani people

Perhaps you'd like to start by justifying that. Far more Afghans are dying, year after year after year, at the hands of Western armies since the invasion - irrespective of the massive casualty numbers resulting from the invasion itself - than ever died at the hands of any Taliban administration. Would you dispute that?

[Galbally]

Originally Posted by spot

Perhaps you'd like to start by justifying that. Far more Afghans are dying, year after year after year, at the hands of Western armies since the invasion - irrespective of the massive casualty numbers resulting from the invasion itself - than ever died at the hands of any Taliban administration. Would you dispute that?

I will justify it easily, because the regime they were subjected to under the Taleban was despicable as far as I am concerned. They would be better off without having to endure another vengeful Taleban government in Kabul, and people getting killed is on occasion worth getting rid of people like the Taleban; one can only shudder at the probable consequences for Afganistanis should that regime regain power happen, and the retaliation they will take upon the population, partiulcarly the educated, the moderates, and the women. I don't know whether the figures that were used during the taleban's reign of terror over the afganistani people are of much use in any comparison of the causualites.

[spot]

There you go then, we differ entirely on whether or not we regard the Taliban as a law-abiding government acting on behalf of their citizens within their own philosophy. You find both their philosophy and their rule despicable, I find despicable the sight of a practically invulnerable Western fighter surrounded by ten million dollars worth of armour routinely killing unarmed defenceless civilians on the grounds that "collateral damage" has been unilaterally written out of the Geneva Conventions by the US government. Each of us has a measure of reason, no doubt. It comes down to priorities. We differ on what matters most.

Are you at least agreed that Afghanistan turned fundamentalist when the US armed the Mujahedeen against the Soviets through the 1980s? Is that a starting point to find whatever agreement we might have? Do you think it had already happened by then? Do you think the arming was irrelevant to any fundamentalist swing?

[Galbally]

Originally Posted by spot

There you go then, we differ entirely on whether or not we regard the Taliban as a law-abiding government acting on behalf of their citizens within their own philosophy. You find both their philosophy and their rule despicable, I find despicable the sight of a practically invulnerable Western fighter surrounded by ten million dollars worth of armour routinely killing unarmed defenceless civilians on the grounds that "collateral damage" has been unilaterally written out of the Geneva Conventions by the US government. Each of us has a measure of reason, no doubt. It comes down to priorities. We differ on what matters most.

Are you at least agreed that Afghanistan turned fundamentalist when the US armed the Mujahedeen against the Soviets through the 1980s? Is that a starting point to find whatever agreement we might have? Do you think it had already happened by then? Do you think the arming was irrelevant to any fundamentalist swing?

Yes, we have sharply differing opinions on this matter fundamentally. I also agree that arming the mujahadeen can now be seen as a strategic error that is having massive consequences and should have been recognized given the nature of the Revolution in Iran in 1979, and the latent power of the philosophy of Islamicizm that emerged in Egypt and other areas of the middle east in the late 1950s and Early 1960s.

In short, the West has completely underestimated these people, failed to recognize that movements and philosophies have been emerging in the middle east over the past 50 years that are of as much historic significance as the Reformation or the Enlightenment were in Western Europe; and our leaders have spectacularly failed to deal on any level with it.

In fact the recent policies of agressive confrontation and concurrent appeasment of the wrong people, at the wrong place, in the wrong time (mutually exclusive policies conducted at the same time) have made the problem signifcantly worse.

I suppose the people can be forgiven in that its hard to see things of such magnitude as they actually occur, and its only with some level of hindsight that the implications become clear.

Its my opinion, that the emergence of this religious philosophy in the Middle East is the greatest threat to Western Europe (particularly) since the Ottomans were seen off at Lepanto and the Gates of Vienna. Whether Europe and its civilization will survive this latest in a long series of threats emerging from the world of Islam, only time will tell. Given the current complacency and general inability to recognize and confront these issues effectively, then its not looking great at the moment, but then Europe has faced challenges in the past, not least from within, we shall see what time brings.

[spot]

Then I have a solution. Every person in the West who converts to Islam is an antidote to Islamic fundamentalism. If enough Westerners, with a moderate approach to life and commitments to equality for women for example (which is equally depreciated by fundamentalist Christians as much as by fundamentalist Muslims) enter Islam and insist on re-evaluating from the inside, Islam will necessarily change in its attitudes to modern-day concerns while remaining a haven of rather more meaningful worship than the West currently offers to whatever omnipotent devil is out there running our ultimate salvation, may he rot.

I suggest we both press for mass conversions to Islam within Western society.

[Galbally]

Originally Posted by spot

Then I have a solution. Every person in the West who converts to Islam is an antidote to Islamic fundamentalism. If enough Westerners, with a moderate approach to life and commitments to equality for women for example (which is equally depreciated by fundamentalist Christians as much as by fundamentalist Muslims) enter Islam and insist on re-evaluating from the inside, Islam will necessarily change in its attitudes to modern-day concerns while remaining a haven of rather more meaningful worship than the West currently offers to whatever omnipotent devil is out there running our ultimate salvation, may he rot.

I suggest we both press for mass conversions to Islam within Western society.

Your being facetious now, you naughty spot.

[gmc]

posted by galbally

Yes, we have sharply differing opinions on this matter fundamentally. I also agree that arming the mujahadeen can now be seen as a strategic error that is having massive consequences and should have been recognized given the nature of the Revolution in Iran in 1979, and the latent power of the philosophy of Islamicizm that emerged in Egypt and other areas of the middle east in the late 1950s and Early 1960s.

Actually the error was seen at the time but not by those in power-in the UK as well as the US who confused moral certainty with being right.

[oscar]

I'm beiginning to See Afghanistan more and more as a 'Vietnam' or 'Korea'.
I think even our government faces the fact that this a very difficult war to win and the longer it goes on, the more blood is shed either side and waste of our Troops.
If we pull out, ultimately, the Taliban will have their own battle with the Muhajadeen but Herion cultivation and production will change dramatically once the Taliban re-gain control.
I think we could possibly keep troops in there but by far scaled down, as a peace keeping mission while the two rebel forces battle it out in the South. There would have to be talks with the Taliban and agreements drawn up that British forces were no longer the enemy but a kind of over-seer.
I see more and more innocent people killed in Afghanistan nearly every day, yes, i know that's war for you but at the moment, it's all a little pointless.