BBC: Helmand Afghans Want to be Governed by Taliban

reply to post by PuterMan


You are absolutely incorrect. The claims of mineral wealth are a ruse planted by the USAmerican intelligence agencies to offer a sense of meaning and purpose to being in Afghanistan.

It was and is all about a pipeline. Any suggestion regarding mineral wealth is simply an interesting bit of disinformation.

Sure did they did the interview while in distress? Based on Talibans reputation to kill anyone that is allied with the govt. or is not with the Taliban? Assassinations, intimidation and beheadings etc. Happening in Pakistan as well. I guess the Pakistani people also wants to be ruled under the Taliban in Pakistan.

news.yahoo.com...

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan – Intelligence officials say a roadside bomb exploded as army troops were clearing a road in Pakistan's northwestern tribal region, killing two soldiers.

The officials say the bomb was detonated by remote control Sunday on the road connecting the villages of Sararogha and Janata in South Waziristan, a former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

The army launched a massive ground offensive in South Waziristan last year to rout the Pakistani Taliban from its most important sanctuary in the country. But periodic attacks have continued in the rugged, mountainous area near the Afghan border.

The Pakistani military cannot defeat the Taliban because it shows that the people want to be ruled under the Taliban. And they will keep attacking and attacking until it happens.

[edit on 1-8-2010 by deltaboy]

reply to post by deltaboy


Your point is more valid than you might think. I worked closely with an advisor in Afghanistan who happened to be a retired NCO from the Vietnam war. The taliban is eerily identical to the vietcong in its treatment and intimidation of the civilian population, as this advisor pointed out after only a week of time in-country.

The brutal mentality of these idiots is something that apparently can only be shot out of them. It really sickens me to say it, but when a group is willing to torture, kill and dismember its own civilian population to maintain control over every single aspect of their life, well then I feel no empathy or sympathy when they end up in the crosshairs of our operators.

Make no mistake, our reasons for going to war in Afghanistan may be varied, complex and some even shady, but the Taliban is a brutal and barbaric entity. Walk up to an 8 year old boy missing his right arm (due to the taliban), still able to smile and see the joy in life and tell me you think we should leave them alone.

reply to post by Regensturm


Yes and Osama is of Saudi heritage. Where were his terrorist training bases? Afghanistan
Where did the Saudi terrorists go to get their training?
Afghanistan

It makes perfect sense to deny the enemy any safe haven.

As for the "winning the hearts and minds" argument. It's completely bogus because of the complete inability of government trained atheists to understand fundamentalist thinking. You will never win the hearts and minds of the muslim populace. They will always view you as the hated christian crusader invaders, even if you are a perverted libertine, hardcore atheist God hater that wants nothing to do with the christian religion.

Their mullahs preach it to them every day. In fact the same vitriol and hatred is being spewed everyday from the mosques that cover Dearborn Michigan. I know this from someone who frequents the area and understands the language. They preach destruction and death to the unbelievers in the West. That would be you and me.

Now if you want to slaughter all of the mullah's, I suppose that's one strategy, but it's not likely to work either. So again I rule out the winning the hearts and minds strategy as a complete waste, and contrary to the core fundamentals of the Muslim religion.

It would be far better to have strategies rooted in reality and not the wistful utopian dreamings of a failed post-modernist culture. You will not make them love you if you ply them with liquor and pornography, no matter how appealing that is for those trained in government controlled education camps.

As we found out about the vietnam war,
the gulf of tonkin never happened
which makes the US guilty of
one of the most horrendous acts of war
ever perpetrated on a people who didn't deserve it.
Osama was never guilty as the US proved when the Taliban asked for proof and didn't get any...

If the taliban follow the lead of the viet cong it is because they are emulating a tiny innocent people who kicked the crap out of the world's biggest most dishonest and most cowardly bully...

Truth might hurt, but if it wasn't true the US would have proven their case by now and of course they haven't...
and that's not even touching the NO WMDs issue in Iraq...

Hey every US intelligence agency is saying that Iran stopped their nuclear weapons program in 2003 and what is the US doing?
here we go again...

to all the US ers who get it
I salute you for bravery courage and integrity
may the good lord smile down upon you and bless you well
have a nice day


[edit on 1-8-2010 by Danbones]

[edit on 1-8-2010 by Danbones]

Isn't it clear that WE know what's best for those Afghans? Remember, democracy is only legitimate if they choose what we want.

reply to post by wcitizen

Basically, I would guess that this group of Afghan locals are not alone in feeling this way.

Did they ask the Afghan women what they want? I'm betting not.

A little taste of local Taliban justice...

[edit on 2-8-2010 by LadySkadi]

reply to post by wcitizen


This was the whole plan from start to finish:

The plan is to divide Afghanistan, that division will cause massive unrest throughout that region, Iran, Pakistan and India will be effected.

America wants to stay in power, those three top powers of that region is pushing against American influence, especially Pakistan and Iran.

Heck Pakistan is under the empire's attack right now, you don't see the drones?

The whole plan is to take down Pakistan before Iran, but how can you take down a nuclear armed nation, this is deeper than people think.

US to invade Pakistan
www.youtube.com...

Very interesting, watch it.

reply to post by LadySkadi

Did they ask the Afghan women what they want? I'm betting not.

A little taste of local Taliban justice...

You have completely fallen for propaganda, you know it wasn't just women who were treated like dirt, but also men.

They used women issues, soley because it stirrs emotions.

If you are gonna continue repeating the propaganda which was meant to be a justification for the invasion, then please, at least go visit Afghanistan.

They don't want the Taliban, but they saw how the Taliban is willing to change, and they have changed, and the occupying force is not.

They would rather live under bad condition than worse conditions. Today it is much, much worse than when the Taliban were in control.

If the people of Helmand Province want to be governed by the fanatical oppressive arm of the Taliban, then more power to them and hold a referendum. Oh wait, they have no concept of modern democratic principles? At least that is what I am beginning to think? Let the the local warlord decide how his people are governed or the man with the most goats. This is really nonsense that these people would want to side with an oppressive regime for the semblance of security and promises of prosperity? Just more snake oil salesmen with turbans and crusty beards selling their wares to a people in crisis along with the US.

As a matter of fact, politicians love a good crisis and the Taliban are just politicians caught in the Dark Ages but politicians all the same. Perhaps, the US PR strategy needs a significant reworking, because the people of Helmand and other provinces are probably contemplating siding with Taliban? These people have a right to self-determination and who do the West think they are in trying to hinder that? It seems they are beating a dead horse in their attempts at placating and pacifying the Afghan people?

I see no military necessity for Western military forces to remain in country where it seems the welcome mat is being pulled out from under them. If Pakistan wants Afghanistan? Great and good luck to them! They are doing a bang-up job containing the security situation in their northern provinces and their major cities. Yet the US continues to pump money into a country that appears to have other intentions than assisting the US in containing the Taliban and allowing Afghanistan to move forward. At least that is what the Wiki Leaks documents alluded to? There are madrasahs churning out fanatics like a fine tuned assembly line with non other than former Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Chief and former buddy of the Central Intelligence Agency, Hamid Gul, pulling the levers. I would love to take a walk around in his head to see what his aims and goals are?

At the very least, NATO forces ought to pull out of Helmand Province and allow the the Taliban to take over if the people deem it necessary. With that, allow them to negotiate for water rights and vital human needs with the Karzai government. Before you know it, the people will be running them out of there like they have with every other regime that have come in and said they could govern them. As far as I am concerned, Afghanistan seems to be ungovernable? Its seems like a land civilization forgot?

However if the Taliban indeed take over, if negotiations sour and they are unable to broker a deal and raids commence against the government and more prosperous provinces then they will welcome attacks and furthermore isolation. Furthermore, the NATO military forces ought to isolate the province with checkpoints and restrictive measures for people who try to leave for other areas. If people try to make unauthorized departures they will be dealt with harshly. In essence, cut them off entirely if need be and let the Taliban provide for them. If it works, they will come crawling back on their hands and knees to rejoin the fold and the rest of Afghanistan.

Like I said earlier, any Western involvement in Afghanistan seems to me like beating a dead horse and has become a money pit. How much treasure, human lives, and resources need to be extended until our benevolent leaders realize that? This is not a slight against the military because they have largely fared well in all military engagements. This is a slight to the politicians who put them there to begin with and not thinking about reasonable objectives to be accomplished before going in. Perhaps, it is time to pack up and go home?

The US and NATO gave it the good college try but Afghanistan is not called the Graveyard of Empires for nothing? With that being said, it will take hell freezing over for the the US and the West to pull out of Afghanistan. There seems to be spoils that need to be had like opium for government black budgets, potential mineral deposits, and talks of a pipeline being built. Then, they will remain with a military presence to put pressure on Russia, China, and Pakistan all neighbors in the region. Afghanistan was a mess for the Soviet Union as it has become for the US. What goes around comes around . . .

Originally posted by SevenThunders

Yes and Osama is of Saudi heritage. Where were his terrorist training bases? Afghanistan

Where were the alleged pilot hijackers of the planes on September 11th 2001 attacks trained? Florida.

Originally posted by SevenThunders
Where did the Saudi terrorists go to get their training?
Afghanistan

Florida. Shall we send B-52's over Miami and Saudi Arabia?

As I have said, the US administration demanded Bin Laden was handed over, and the Taliban asked for proof of his wrongdoing, at which point the US invaded.

Originally posted by SevenThunders
It makes perfect sense to deny the enemy any safe haven.

I propose therefore, that Florida is invaded, and Miami liberated from the cruel grip of terrorists. We can not, in this War on Terror, allow room in this world for terrorist training camp pilot schools.

Saudi Arabia should worry as well.

Of course, it matters little that Florida citizens themselves are mostly unaware of these training camps, we will invade them all the same, and remove their government for driving a hard bargain at doing a gas pipeline deal. Miami will be liberated.

Originally posted by SevenThunders
As for the "winning the hearts and minds" argument. It's completely bogus because of the complete inability of government trained atheists to understand fundamentalist thinking. You will never win the hearts and minds of the muslim populace. They will always view you as the hated christian crusader invaders, even if you are a perverted libertine, hardcore atheist God hater that wants nothing to do with the christian religion.

They will certainly see you as the Christian crusader invader if you propose placing them in camps where Christian Fundamentalists can teach them the so-called errors of their ways.

They will certainly begin to see you as the Christian crusader invader if you invade muslim country after muslim country while doing this.

Originally posted by SevenThunders
Their mullahs preach it to them every day. In fact the same vitriol and hatred is being spewed everyday from the mosques that cover Dearborn Michigan. I know this from someone who frequents the area and understands the language. They preach destruction and death to the unbelievers in the West. That would be you and me.

And that mosque is typicial of all mosques is it? No.

Just like Westboro Church is not typical of all churches.

Muslims are just like you, just like me. There are over 1 billion Muslims in this world, and if they all wanted to preach destruction and death, you would know about it.

As it is, the majority of Muslims, just like people of any other religious faith or athiest and anagnostic etc, live their lives, working, living, having families, have aspirations, have dreams.

Originally posted by SevenThunders
Now if you want to slaughter all of the mullah's, I suppose that's one strategy, but it's not likely to work either. So again I rule out the winning the hearts and minds strategy as a complete waste, and contrary to the core fundamentals of the Muslim religion.

Look, I hate to point it out to you, but slaughtering "all the mullahs" is not likely to advance a hearts and mind strategy very well.

It would be like invading a Catholic country, facing an insurgency, and killing all the Priests.

Winning hearts and minds is about not killing or maiming civillians, not destroying their houses and livlihoods, not killing or maiming their loved ones, not marching around with automatic weapons and screeching overheard with warplanes....

In short, it's about not invading countries.

Originally posted by SevenThunders
It would be far better to have strategies rooted in reality and not the wistful utopian dreamings of a failed post-modernist culture. You will not make them love you if you ply them with liquor and pornography, no matter how appealing that is for those trained in government controlled education camps.

You will certainly not make people love you if you kill and maim them.

[edit on 2-8-2010 by Regensturm]

reply to post by oozyism


Give me a break Ooz. I don't believe that women were used as justification for the war, I doubt anyone here does. The issues are real. Calling it propaganda minimizes them, or negates them. Starting to think that's what you would like to see happen.

Originally posted by LadySkadi
reply to post by oozyism

 

Give me a break Ooz. I don't believe that women were used as justification for the war, I doubt anyone here does. The issues are real. Calling it propaganda minimizes them, or negates them. Starting to think that's what you would like to see happen.

That would be true if you had a belief that men were treated magnificently under the Taliban.

Think, the Taliban forced men to go to mosques and pray 5 times a day, if they didn't, they would get beatings. If they saw you in the street at prayer time, you would get a beating.

Men were forced to grow beards, if they saw men with no beards they would get beatings.

Men were forced to fight, if they didn't fight, they would be killed in some instances.

I heard Afghan men in Peshawer refugee camps were sent by Pakistani Police and handed to the Taliban, and the Taliban would force them to fight.

I can go on..

I can go on..




The over all point is simple, the Taliban looked for the best interest of Afghans, although they didn't quiet absorb the right belief (false teachings by fake verses created by unknown source), and the right system for Afghans, they are, I suspect, willing to change, because they are Afghans non the less. They have changed over the years.

While the occupying force doesn't have a will to change, because I suspect there is a bigger agenda. That agenda doesn't require a stable Afghanistan.

Originally posted by oozyism

Originally posted by LadySkadi
reply to post by oozyism

 

Give me a break Ooz. I don't believe that women were used as justification for the war, I doubt anyone here does. The issues are real. Calling it propaganda minimizes them, or negates them. Starting to think that's what you would like to see happen.

That would be true if you had a belief that men were treated magnificently under the Taliban.

Think, the Taliban forced men to go to mosques and pray 5 times a day, if they didn't, they would get beatings. If they saw you in the street at prayer time, you would get a beating.

Men were forced to grow beards, if they saw men with no beards they would get beatings.

Men were forced to fight, if they didn't fight, they would be killed in some instances.

I heard Afghan men in Peshawer refugee camps were sent by Pakistani Police and handed to the Taliban, and the Taliban would force them to fight.

I can go on..

I can go on..




The over all point is simple, the Taliban looked for the best interest of Afghans, although they didn't quiet absorb the right belief (false teachings by fake verses created by unknown source), and the right system for Afghans, they are, I suspect, willing to change, because they are Afghans non the less. They have changed over the years.

While the occupying force doesn't have a will to change, because I suspect there is a bigger agenda. That agenda doesn't require a stable Afghanistan.

I did star your post, but there are a lot of issues with tribal leaders like Taliban. The BBC reporter did qualify his report in saying that fear could be one reason for all concerned saying that they wanted to be ruled by the Taliban, maybe he had to add that to get his report on air, who knows for sure? All I see is subjucated people most likely wishing that all the people with guns would go away. It is all about power and all the corporations feed on every aspect of it.

reply to post by smurfy


I have made many posts in regards to this subject and taken part in many discussion.

Throughout these thinking processes I have realized that political stability is the true fixture for most of these concerns raised, not just by Westerners, but also by Afghans (hence women's rights etc).

Think..

Afghanistan has been unstable due to external meddling for decades now, and ever since there has been chaos in the country, at no time in the history of unstable Afghanistan has women ever been treated in the right manner/or according to Islam.

Heck if only you knew how the Taliban came to power:

The most credible and often-repeated story of how Mullah Omar first mobilized his followers is that in the spring of 1994 Singesar neighbors told him that a warlord commander had abducted two teenage girls, shaved their heads and taken them to a camp where they were raped repeatedly. 30 Taliban (with only 16 rifles) freed the girls and hanged the commander from the barrel of a tank. Later that year two warlord commanders killed civilians while fighting for the right to sodomize a young boy. The Taliban freed him.

It was the unstable condition in Afghanistan which gave birth to the Taliban in the first place.

All of that being said, think:
Did Afghanistan treat women/men illogically/irrationally, at the time of stability?

All of that combined, find me the source of the problem, and explain to me the solution.

Thanks for your time.

[edit on 2-8-2010 by oozyism]

Did anybody bother to try to find out ANYTHING about these people, ...

First of all they are such a small population in Afghanistan that they aren't even mentioned here, ...

Afghanistan - Ethnic Groups

And, according to Wikipedia, ...

Helmand Province

Helmand is the world's largest opium-producing region, responsible for 42% of the world's total production.[2][3] This is more than the whole of Burma, which is the second largest producing nation after Afghanistan. Afghan opium would account for more than 90% of the global supply.

Fine, let them start their own "tiny" country out of the province they live in in Afghanistan, they "probably" supplied the Taliban with money for YEARS selling opium or whatever!

Let them start their own country!

But I guaranty, 90% of Afghanistan's people DO NOT want to be under the Taliban's rule!

ESPECIALLY the women!

I think we would have heard of more of an outcry from th Afghan people before this then.

Good lord, it seems like A LOT of people just like reading a headline and just running with it.

[edit on 8/2/2010 by Keyhole]

reply to post by oozyism
It is good that people should support a government and vice versa, and I keep thinking on the same lines too. When I mention corporations, I see Taliban as included and not religion incorporated. I see them as elitist enforcers, or mafia outside of any "law" Maybe that's the rub, when countries like ours send militarists, who then use "peculiar" means to gain an objective, whatever it is. In that situation nobody has any "rights" except self-preservation, and that means everybody that is in the arena. At least, Afghanistan has a goverment of sorts if it prevails and unlike Iraq. Here, in the UK, our so-called democracy still has a way to go with a few issues like womens rights, and the right to hold the highest office in the land,

thanks for your reply Oozyism.

[edit on 2-8-2010 by smurfy]