By success, I don't mean a utopia. I mean a vast improvement. The backup: a recent poll of Afghans (note that bitter anti war leftists in the west were not polled): Heres the summary http://abcnews.go.com/International/PollVault/story?id=1363276, here's the full poll http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/998a1Afghanistan.pdf, and for those who want to challenge the poll here a note on methodology http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/998MethodologyNote.pdf. 77% of interviewees thought the country was now heading in the right direction politically, compared to 6% who remain to be convinced. 9% wanted the return of the Taliban - as opposed to the 87% who approved of the US led overthrow of their previous Islamist rulers. Despite the country’s continued problems, 85% of Afghans say living conditions there are better now than they were under the Taliban. 80% cite improved freedom to express political views. And 75% say their security from crime and violence has improved as well. 9 in 10 Afghans support girls' education and women voting, three-quarters support women holding jobs and two-thirds support women holding government office. Perhaps surprisingly, support for most of these is nearly as high among men as it is among women. 3 in 10 households have a mobile phone; at the time of the invasion the ratio would have been zero. Perceived dangers to the country: Taliban 41% Drug Traffickers 28% Warlords 22% U.S. 4% Current Afghanistan Govt. 2% ======= Now the reality is that I'm not a big fan of polls, they don't prove anything right or wrong. The only poll which really matters is the elections, which was won by Karzai. But I wondered if people have seen this poll and what they thought.
I was in Kandahar, the people there loved americans. Every now and then we would get attacked, but the local viligers would turn them in to us. Plus at the Bazaar you could get a carton of cigerettes for $2, and 5 in one DVD's for a $1!
This is good news But you have to wonder just how much better things could have been if the neo-cons hadn’t taken away the men, materials, and money for their misguided Iraqi adventure. It is a matter of relatives, is Afghanistan better now than under the taliban? Well the taliban were fanatics and international social pariahs. Now Afghanistan is mostly under the more pragmatic (but still brutal) rule of warlords and the international community is sending aid. So compared to taliban control, Afghanistan is better off, but compared with just about everywhere else (except maybe some areas of Sudan, Somalia and the Congo) it is still pretty bad. So I hope such ‘success’ does not make the international community complacent, I mean there are rumours that the US is thinking of reducing it’s troop numbers in the light of Iraq and its aid packages was always small compared to that earmarked for Iraq. My criticism of the US strategy toward Afghanistan has always been that it tried to do the war on the cheap (because the neo-cons wanted to go to Iraq more) and has been distracted by Iraq. ** Success? This is like a child that gets a C minus for a project at school because he’d wanted to play a computer game instead, then trying to pass off the low score as a ‘success’. Well all I can say is that it might be ok for the amount of effort put into it but really it could have been so much better if they had put their minds to it rather than going off to play Grand Theft Auto: The Iraq Job.
Ina So are you claiming that the neo-con adventure in Iraq did not and has not had an effect on the US’s commitment and efforts in Afghanistan if so I thing you are incredibly naïve. “What has been done over there simply cannot be read about on Google and seen through your computer screen, and anybody who has not been there cannot honsetly say otherwise.” I’ve seen you use this argument several times now and it always makes me laugh. What you seem to be saying is that people cannot debate any subject unless they have first hand physical experience of it – You can only ‘know’ if you have been there, so if you haven’t been there you cannot ‘know’, so shut up. Well I can only surmise that you don’t understand the implications of such a belief because otherwise you must have such a boring life you would have topped yourself. I mean it would put a server limit on virtually all human interaction and most endeavours of the human race. I mean any discussions on history or politics would virtually have to stop. Were the allies right to attack Hitler Oh sorry you can’t talk about that because you were not there and so cannot honestly have an opinion. You were not in the cabinet meeting so you cannot discuss government policy. Whole branches of science would have to come to an end, how can astronomers discuss theories about stars that are light years away (and hundreds, thousands even millions of years in the past) because only by being there can you ‘know’, so if you haven’t been there you cannot ‘know’, so shut up. Imagine police work based on such ideas, if someone was murdered and nobody other than the victim and the killer were there the police would not investigate whatever the amount of evidence because if nobody was there nobody could know and so their would be no point in an investigation. But then if you examine the idea further the more stupid it becomes, because it is a matter of an ‘observer’ knowing all because they have ‘been there’. But as anyone with any brains will understand just ‘being there’ does not mean a person knows and sees everything and so has complete understanding. I lived in France for a few years but that doesn’t not make me an expert on all things French an neither would I claim to be, someone that has studied French politics but has never lived their will now a lot more about it than I do. For example I have talked to US service men that have claimed to have lived in Germany, Japan and Britain and to therefore ‘know’ those countries. However after talking to them for a while it turned out that for 99.9% of their time they lived on US bases. Where they admitted that the television was American, the radio was American, the magazines and newspapers were American, the food was American and the entertainment places were American. They might have visited London, Berlin or Tokyo but only as short stay tourists. In fact it became clear that their knowledge of Britain at least seemed more influenced by US media than having ‘been there’. Just because someone claims to have ‘been there’ does not make them an expert and only authority. As a race we strive to know to discover, by collecting evidence from many places and then debating ideas that come out of those investigations. If such debates were limited to only those that had physical contact with the thing under debate and only the viewpoints of those people counted then most of human endeavours would falter and fade. ** Ina please stop putting forward this silly, irrational and if you are the one claiming to ‘know’ everything because you were there, egotistical, argument.
Yes things are better in Afganistan, now that opium production (nearly wiped out by the fundamentalist taliban) is at an ALL-TIME HIGH, thanks to our invasion. Soon, converted to heroin, it will be injected into the veins of the U.S.-supported opiates trade, and into the veins of people world-wide. god bless america. Let's be thankful that the control of most of the country has been given back to local warlords, who were responsible for 50,000 lives lost in the years before the taliban took over. Btw, the president of the U.S. installed gov't in Afganistan is held by a former unocal lobbyist & chaney associate.
So Ina, there we have it! Opium production is up so therefore Afghanistan is a total failure. And RD, Karzai never worked for Unocal. Thank you for repeating internet myths. Want some DU fries with that? http://www.unocal.com/uclnews/2004news/063004.htm
Point So are you claiming that the neo-con adventure in Iraq did not and has not had an effect on the US’s commitment and efforts in Afghanistan if so I think you are incredibly naïve.
The reason jr invaded Afganistan is 2-fold: To kick up opium production, nearly wiped out by the taliban and to build a pipeline across Afganistan. The U.S., through the cia, makes billions of the illegal drug trade (for people who don't believe the U.S.A./cia imports and distrubutes millions/billions of $$ of illegal drugs into this country, read up on Iran/Contra). The pipeline: For at least a year an a half prior to 9/11, the U.S. had been engaged in dialoge with the taliban about building a pipeline across Afganistan. As recently as June of '01, the taliban had reps in the U.S., and the U.S. had people in Afganistan. Finally, based on the U.S.'s support for Isreal's war against the Palistinians, the taliban said no. The U.S. did not invade to get bin-laden. In fact, after 9/11, and jr's assertions than bin was involved, the taliban offetred to turn him over to an international court, if only jr. would present evidence of why the U.S. believed that bin was involved (part of justice systems worldwide--present evidence on why someone should be arrested). jr. said no. It wasn't out of concern for the Afgani people. We have supported (and continue to support) regimes equal (or worse) human rights-wise, than the taliban. Chile (Pinochet) and Kuwait (the emir) come to mind. We wanted to revitalize opium poppy production (last year was the best year in HISTORY for opium poppy production) and to build a pipeline (which is being built as we speak).
