No Cares About Afghanistan

A lull on this forum seems like a good place to talk about Afghanistan because no one wants to hear about it anyway.

1) Mullah Omar's death was announced about at the end of July. This is huge. Omar was not just the head of the Taliban but the spiritual heart. He lost an eye in the 1980s but he seemed indestructible. This is the guy the rich kid Osama Bin Laden wished he could be, I'm not being figurative either (I think there was even a marriage between their children). Mullah Omar was always wrapped in shadows - there is only a few unverified photos of him - and his death is no different. He seems to have died at least a year or two ago and his death was announced for some political reason, perhaps to throw the Taliban into chaos just as they were starting to enter the political process.

Here is a series of headlines from the Guardian Website (British Neo-Liberal Newspaper)

July 15 -Taliban peace talks with Afghan government 'endorsed' by Mullah Omar
July 29 - Taliban leader Mullah Omar is dead, says Afghan government
Aug 15 - Isis stands to gain from Taliban crisis

In North America we like to think MMA fighters or gangsters or marines are 'hardcore' but there is a whole other level of 'hardcore' that only applies to those whose countries have survived brutal military occupation by a superpower. If you have a free hour or two read up on the few scraps on info on his life like that the part where he kills a child-raping warlord or dons the Cloak of the Prophet Mohammed (+10 to all saving throws). Wikipedia has one of my favorite quotes about Mullah Omar

Claiming that the Americans had circulated "propaganda" that Mullah Omar had gone into hiding, Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil stated that he would like to "propose that prime minister Blair and president Bush take Kalashnikovs and come to a specified place where Omar will also appear to see who will run and who not."

2) Next a headline from last week: Taliban condemns ‘brutal’ Isis video of Afghan prisoners being murdered. "Group says film of Afghan prisoners killed by being blown up shows ‘intolerable’ actions by ‘irresponsible ignorant individuals’ in the guise of Islam" A decade ago I read a report that said if the US just kills all the older Taliban commanders than are just going to create a younger, crazier generation of jihadists who don't give a fuck and have few real social ties. You can't kill your way to peace. It wasn't defeating the Nazis that brought peace, it was the Marshall Plan re-building and the advent of possible nuclear armageddon.

3) Now a headline from today: Translator abandoned by UK is executed as he tries to flee Taliban: "Interpreter killed after being captured in Iran amid fears four more have suffered the same fate, The interpreter, known to UK soldiers as Popal, was tortured and murdered
after being refused help by UK investigators despite pleas."

Here are some more headlines:
2011 - Canada rejects majority of Afghan interpreters' refugee claims
2012 - 800 Afghan interpreters settle in Canada
2014 - Afghan interpreters who worked for Canadian Forces say families still at risk

Joining the occupying army is always a risky proposition because eventually they home...

4) And how is the war in Afghanistan going after 14 years: "Afghan Troops Flee Key Southern District Amid Taliban Advance" Afghan forces have fled from the strategically important Naw Zad District in the southern Helmand Province today, abandoning the district governor’s office in the face of a Taliban advance, a move they described as a “tactical retreat.”

Let's just say it is still going.

I wish the Ottoman Empire was still around.... Would have fixed SOOOO many problems :/

True - empires can sometimes bring stability and a strong Islamic empire would end Western occupations. On the other hand, I've read some interesting articles about Turkey trying to revive the Ottoman Empire and using ISIS to do it. See:

Is Turkey attempting to resurrect the Ottoman Empire on the back of the ‘black army’?

Is Turkey On The Path To Restoring The Ottoman Empire?

Turkey is using ISIS for 'Neo-Ottoman' foreign policy of domination.

If this is the case than the fledgling neo-Ottomans and their jihadist pit-bulls are no friend to the Afghan jihadists. Neither is NATO - and Turkey is part of NATO. But the US has actually been really unhappy with Turkey lately...

FoxNews wrote:WASHINGTON – Just hours after a deal last month allowing the U.S. to use Turkey’s air bases to launch sorties against ISIS, Turkey pulled a move that left American military leaders surprised and outraged, and raised questions about the two nations' alliance in the war on the jihadist army.

With only 10 minutes notice to their American partners, Turkey launched a massive air strike of its own July 24 against a Kurdish militant group in the northern mountains of Iraq. The U.S. had barely enough warning to make sure its own forces were out of the way, according to a military source with knowledge of the tension Turkey's attack caused in the Combined Air and Space Operations Center, the allied headquarters in the air war against ISIS.

When the Turkish officer returned the next day to inform his international partners of another strike, U.S. military officials made their objections clear. The Turkish liaison officer was sent away, but not before a back-and-forth in which U.S. leaders demanded specific flight plans of the attacking Turkish warplanes and the Turkish officer sought the locations of the U.S. trainers.

The coalition Air Force officers in the ops center refused to share the sensitive information.

Critics of the new agreement between the U.S. and Turkey say the deal gives Ankara cover to carry out strike missions against Kurdish fighters in Iraq and even Syria, where Kurds have won hard-fought gains against ISIS. While the Kurdish fighters have been remarkably effective fighting the terrorist army, Turkey remains their nemesis

Geo-politics always makes my brain hurt.

I am not a violent person but a gun battle between Bush, Blair and Omar would be ok in my books. If Omar killed Bush and Blair then the world would have two less war criminals.

It was never clear to me what the purpose of the "war" was. I thought it was a given that the Taliban would just wait until the forces left and resume power. I am assuming the war was to build military bases in Afghanistan but I am not even sure anymore. I am not even sure what the Taliban are about either really.

"you can't kill your way to peace"
you'd have to take it all the way, reduce the Earth to a planetary graveyard, the solace of the still is a kind of peace. Cannot kill to peace unless you're willing to kill yourself.
"my enemy exists, because I exist."

it's true (almost) no one cares about afghanistan. the reality of looking out the window at green manicured lawns is so much more approachable than letting the "foreign" truth of torture and murder into your heart. Bad things happening to brown people on the other side of the world. I look at the people around me, and wonder how could they care.

tax payers paying for an unjust war, while some of the real criminals make billions, innocent people dying, the gifts from the Real burning, burning day and night.

A three-way shoot-out. I would watch. Imagine the devilish order-givers actually having to fight their own wars. A lament for cooperation. "War is old men talking and young men dying"

apparently more afghani girls will have access to education… guess that's something. A war that's been going basically my entire adult life...

+10 while donning the Cloak - hilarious

One of the bitterest ironies of the 30-year war is that it began when hard-core Marxists staged a coup in the late 1970s. This moment of instability was transformed by into full-fledged chaos by CIA funds to Islamic terrorists unhappy with the coup. This forced Russia to intervene which was the US's larger plan, to give Russian "their own Vietnam".

One of the main goals of those Marxist was allowing rural females to attend schools. It was conservative Islamists who who hated this challenge to their power, hated the secular Marxists, and so, it they who received millions in US funds.

This is probably the only Eminem song I know but it's a good one. From 'Mosh' way back in 2004:

Let the President answer to a higher anarchy
Strap him with an AK-47, let him go
Fight his own war, let him impress daddy that way

Here is a similar sentiment from a band I cannot be impartial about, the great Dead Celebrity Status:

American planes dropping bombs in Iraq
While billion dollar ads keep telling us to shop
Banks bailed out while the board just rock
And the rich go to war to boost the price of a stock
But Harper don't shoot, Sarkozy don't shoot
Their just cowards hiding behind troops!