BF2S Forums Religion and 9-11

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

Kmarion wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

More than every other country isn't very nutritious.

Thank you Dr.Specific. Maybe they should flip some of the poppy fields to something a little more nutritious. Er.. wait they did and we paid them for that as well. How very evil of us.

Oh come on, poppy translates to money translates to food. I seriously doubt the money we gave the Taliban to put a ban on poppy sufficiently compensated the farmers as it is, you know they weren't very nice people.

How about the more obvious answer of it translating to funds for the warlords?

Oh cmon, if you want to eat grow food. You'll even get paid for feeding yourself.

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

Mek-Stizzle wrote:

Bin Laden wouldn't have even been part of the glorious jihad against the soviets had he not been a Muslim. The only reason he and other Arabs and shit went to Afghanistan to fight the soviets was to help out their fellow Muslims in Jihad (why else would they have travelled to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets?), and the only reason the US helped them was because it was the Cold War.

To help an obviously inferior friendly nation against an overwhelmingly evil invasion? No, the "jihad" was not the reason they fought the Soviets. Any nations in their right mind in the immediate area would help fight the Soviets, what do you think the Soviets would have done had Afghanistan fallen easily?

Yeah right, if that was the case why did it only happen to be Muslims fighting there.

Fact is, Bin Laden and many other people went to fight in Afghanistan for the Muslim cause. Just like how lots of people went into Iraq for the Muslim cause, just how lots of people are again coming into Afghanistan for the Muslim cause

Afghanistan really isn't anywhere near Arab Lands. Arabs (Bin Laden) have no links whatsoever, except for religion, with the Indo-Iranian peoples that live in that part of the world. The only connection they have is religion.

I can understand if Iranian/Pakistani people went in. Neigbouring countries, related ethnic and language groups and all that. But to say that some Arabs thousands of miles away who have no affinity in that area other than religion would want to fight for a reason, other than religion, just doesn't make sense.

Last edited by Mek-Stizzle (2008-08-07 11:32:32)

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

Kmarion wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

Oh come on, poppy translates to money translates to food. I seriously doubt the money we gave the Taliban to put a ban on poppy sufficiently compensated the farmers as it is, you know they weren't very nice people.

How about the more obvious answer of it translating to funds for the warlords?

Oh cmon, if you want to eat grow food. You'll even get paid for feeding yourself.

Warlords is such a dirty word. More like business men that happen to have a small personal army in lieu of any semblance of federal order in the state. Business people don't want to kill their assets, it is in their best interest to keep them alive and growing poppy.

Afghanistan is not the best place to grow food ya know, and without basic infrastructure like irrigation it makes it even harder. Thinking you will actually make enough food to be able to sell off the extra in a place like that is pretty amusing.

Standing behind a drug trade that supports warring factions is even more amusing. Obviously there is a lot of work to be done on a multitude of fronts. Encouraging them to be productive in a self destructive manner is not one of them.

Kmarion wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

Kmarion wrote:

How about the more obvious answer of it translating to funds for the warlords?

Oh cmon, if you want to eat grow food. You'll even get paid for feeding yourself.

Warlords is such a dirty word. More like business men that happen to have a small personal army in lieu of any semblance of federal order in the state. Business people don't want to kill their assets, it is in their best interest to keep them alive and growing poppy.

Afghanistan is not the best place to grow food ya know, and without basic infrastructure like irrigation it makes it even harder. Thinking you will actually make enough food to be able to sell off the extra in a place like that is pretty amusing.

Standing behind a drug trade that supports warring factions is even more amusing. Obviously there is a lot of work to be done on a multitude of fronts. Encouraging them to be productive in a self destructive manner is not one of them.

Standing behind a drug trade? Encouraging them to be self destructive? Hardly. Abandoning them is what drove them to be the world's heroin producer. Growing poppy is not noble, but in a choice between quite literally starvation and growing poppy, what do you expect people to do?

As I have been saying, we created this problem. It was our responsibility to fix it before things got worse, for both us and them.

You have not shown me evidence, you have shown me crap. I have only seen relatively small amounts of money going to the Taliban in exchange for stopping poppy production, all more than a decade too late, and a huge number that includes the aid from the Cold War and our more modern war. You have yet to show pertinent aid when it was needed.

No one, not even the would-be terrorists would have a problem with U.S. aid if we never left in the first place. You scratch our back, then we scratch yours, except we kicked them over into the mud as soon as they finished scratching our back. This wasn't just foreign aid, it was an unspoken deal, and it didn't have to be imperialistic either. We didn't have to occupy the country when we were giving them money and arms to fight the Soviets, and the CIA and special forces agents that were already there could have overseen where the money was going.

Giving aid to poor African countries is one thing. Help between what could have been partners is something completely different.

First off, AQ and the Taliban are not one and the same. The formation of the Taliban had little to do with the US (been reading a book on the history of the Taliban) and it appears the Taliban movement arose as a reaction to the brutal internecine warfare  that was happening, warlordism and chaos was supreme, the Taliban were an alternative to that, they offered a unifying force against all the various factions under the comfort of a strong Islamic based blanket.
When the movement really took hold, warlords were pushed back, many surrendered and swaths of the population were disarmed. The trade off, was utterly strict adherence to probably the most militant enforcement of sharia law and throwback extremist islam ever seen in modern times. All that stuff about banning music, subjugating women, edicts about shaving your beard, etc etc took hold.
Had little to do with US antisoviet policy at that point...though it can be argued that the earliest foundations of Islamist power got a boost from the CIA/ISI support structure, the actual rise of the Taliban was more of a reaction of desperate people stuck in endless civil wars.

Al Qaeda just happened to find a safe haven there, being extremist muslims themselves... OBL had previosly been based in Sudan until they threw him out probably due to international pressure once he became a wanted terrorist after the African embassy bombings.{edit, it was actually earlier than that, after the attempt on Mubarek}   Some have already pointed out the reasons for AQ's formation, I'd add that not only was it OBL's hate for the Saudi Royal family (selling out to the west) but it was also being spurned by them; he had offered to be the protector of the Holy Lands, and SA said "no thanks, we're bringing in the Americans" I think this "spurning" was the start of it, with the galling presence of American boots in the Kingdom.  Much of the other stuff (support of Israel, killing of muslims in Iraq with the sanctions, etc) was added later on as the US 'kaffirs' were turned into the great satan and the rhetoric ramped up.
Of course there is a certain amount of overlap, and especially once the US went back over in 2001, Mullah Omar put AQ "in the fold" when he wouldn't give them up, and certainly the two entities have the extremist thing in common.
 
I find myself agreeing with those who are saying that 9/11 likely wouldn't have happened without the extremist (religious) element.

Last edited by Vax (2008-08-07 13:25:41)

Kmarion wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

You have not shown me evidence, you have shown me crap. I have only seen relatively small amounts of money going to the Taliban in exchange for stopping poppy production, all more than a decade too late, and a huge number that includes the aid from the Cold War and our more modern war. You have yet to show pertinent aid when it was needed.

No one, not even the would-be terrorists would have a problem with U.S. aid if we never left in the first place. You scratch our back, then we scratch yours, except we kicked them over into the mud as soon as they finished scratching our back. This wasn't just foreign aid, it was an unspoken deal, and it didn't have to be imperialistic either. We didn't have to occupy the country when we were giving them money and arms to fight the Soviets, and the CIA and special forces agents that were already there could have overseen where the money was going.

Giving aid to poor African countries is one thing. Help between what could have been partners is something completely different.

I've shown you plenty. You have just deemed the hundreds of millions we have put in there not enough. You've some how got it in your head that this is abandonment. You might want to go back to the original article I posted if you think it was all going to the Taliban. It was the Taliban themselves who made it hard to get aid where it was needed previously. Of course Bill Clinton would have had a tough time selling the idea of aid to a country that openly supported people who had already attacked us. You can just imagine the hystaria. That probably explains the deficency during the Clinton years.. but hey, he reduced the deficit right?

You keep repeating the same tired old obvious points. Who is saying we weren't in it for ourselves? You are being obnoxiously repetitive about something I have never disagreed with you on. We did in fact provide them with opportunity.. self governing and accountability turned out to be a wasted attempt.

No, hundreds of millions that came to a corrupt regime too late and for the wrong reasons. Money we gave to them after the fact could not have helped avoid creating a situation where AQ could have been created in the first place. Your timeline is all messed.

Me: We didn't give them money when they needed it.

You: but we gave them a lot of money.

Me: ...but we didn't give them money when they needed it.

Maybe I'm repeating the same points because you're still ignoring them.

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

I'll feel better when you stop dancing your increasingly ungraceful dance and say the U.S. cultivated AQ from its brutish foreign policy in Afghanistan from the late 70s and 80s.

I wouldn't apply to Juilliard.

Can we imagine a world without religion?
Most of the people who fight or fought were brainwashed by the religion.
Wars that laned our present life, i cannot imagine it.

It's all about money in the end.

Kmarion wrote:

The war ended in 1989. Are you are trying to tell me that within 4 years (actually less if you consider recruiting and planning) we should have turned a complete shit hole around? We were also fighting our own war in 1990.

It's not about what has been done in the country, it's about progress. If they saw we were holding up our end of the bargain why would they have attacked us? Again, these people are not stupid.

Kmarion wrote:

I'll feel better when you stop dancing your increasingly ungraceful dance and say the U.S. cultivated AQ from its brutish foreign policy in Afghanistan from the late 70s and 80s.

That's not entirely true. What they did do was create a situation that made it possible for people to exploit foreign involvement. Single minded people such as yourself fall into that trap easily. You ignore the little benefits like national sovereignty and independence. TBH I personally wish we would have left Afghanistan to be taken over by the Soviets. The Soviet Union was doomed anyways. It would have saved us millions and avoided the cries from the narrow minded.

Well my narrow mind and your extreme mind can go walking hand in hand down the beach then eh?

We don't have to take over the whole damn country to help them. When India was rocked by the tsunami did we have to take away the country's independence and sovereignty to aid them? You don't have to be imperialistic to aid a country. The point is the U.S. of all countries needs to be making friends, not enemies, and they could not have spurned the friends we had made in Afghanistan any worse. That mistake can directly be traced to the first WTC attack,  the second WTC attack, and our current predicament in the Middle East.

You call that narrow minded?

Kmarion wrote:

And what end of the bargain was that exactly? Helping them gain their independence? We didn't go attack Paris after the French helped us did we? No, we went to the fields and built a nation.

Oh lawdy lawdy, save some patriotism for the rest of us will ya?

You can only use that metaphor if it was the French waging a war on the English using the U.S. as a battleground. They may not have liked the English, but it was still our war. The war against the Soviet Union was not a war between the U.S.S.R. and Afghanistan, it was a war between Democracy and Communism. It isn't fair to use third parties as meat shields.

Kmarion wrote:

I think it's narrow minded because you are only seeing one side. I never said imperialism is the way to make friends. In fact what I said was I wish we'd have left that whole situation alone. However through our military aid the afghans were presented with an opportunity to self govern. We should have known they would fail. They were failing long before we even existed.

Yeah, we should have stayed out of it. That does not mean we should have dropped the ball once we were already there. We made mistakes, we are paying for those mistakes. I find it kind of shocking you don't see this as a one sided issue seeing as we have the advantage of hindsight. If we helped them after the war, it would have been a small price to pay for stability.

Kmarion wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

You can only use that metaphor if it was the French waging a war on the English using the U.S. as a battleground. They may not have liked the English, but it was still our war. The war against the Soviet Union was not a war between the U.S.S.R. and Afghanistan, it was a war between Democracy and Communism. It isn't fair to use third parties as meat shields.

Really? So the Afghans were completely cool with the Soviets taking control of them? We were willing French meat shields. That metaphor fits rather nicely.

No, it does not work. In the Revolutionary War the French were a relatively minor willing third party participants between the two major parties. In the Cold War case Afghanistan was an unwilling major participant, forced into a war. The U.S. in that case was the minor third party participant that should have been the one taking casualties.

Of course Afghanistan wanted their independence and was going to fight for it. That does not mean they should have had to.

Kmarion wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

Kmarion wrote:

I think it's narrow minded because you are only seeing one side. I never said imperialism is the way to make friends. In fact what I said was I wish we'd have left that whole situation alone. However through our military aid the afghans were presented with an opportunity to self govern. We should have known they would fail. They were failing long before we even existed.

Yeah, we should have stayed out of it. That does not mean we should have dropped the ball once we were already there. We made mistakes, we are paying for those mistakes. I find it kind of shocking you don't see this as a one sided issue seeing as we have the advantage of hindsight. If we helped them after the war, it would have been a small price to pay for stability.

I'm assuming at this point you think we should keep our troops in Iraq for as long as it takes. Anything short of that would be a repeat. I know of the benefits the US had. The good majority of this discuscion has been me trying to tell you that there was some overlooked and obvious advantages for the afghans as well.

Yes, U.S. forces should remain in the ME until whatever conflict we have caused has been solved. That is not a fair judgment of my opinion on foreign policy however, because the whole situation has been a real clusterfuck on the part of the U.S. government. Anyone who disagrees is a nutjob.

I would however love to have all these Afghan advantages in a neat little bulleted list.

Kmarion wrote:

Again, these people are not stupid... just stupid enough to not understand the retribution following a terrorist attack.

And that right there is the thinking that has screwed us over in the Middle East. These people are not stupid by any sense of the word, and are probably smarter than the average American, and certainly the average American politician. They wanted us to attack the Middle East. We are not some badass biker that can invincibly pound on everyone we want. They catch us with our pants down to show everyone how vulnerable we can be, leaving us no choice but be made a fool of or come fight. So they get us to pick a fight across the world, out of our element, and further proceed to embarrass us both because of our incompetent leadership and the monumental task we took on. The only way for us to win was to have a quick, decisive victory in the ME, and they know that. They didn't have to beat us militarily, which they don't have a snowball's chance in hell at, all they have to do is prolong the engagement, which they have done very well. That achieved America looks even worse in the eyes of particularly Islam and rest of the world, and they sit back as recruitment skyrockets.

No, these people were smart enough to put America in a no-win situation. Underestimation is a terrible thing.