Saddam was installed as a sovereign from the USA. That the USA killed him is one more joke. The USA showed to all the arabian world, that they are stupid. Who cares about some killed people in arabia? It's funny to watch americans, how they try to fix the Iraq that was breaking in three parts the same moment Bush thought that he is winning a war in ten days. Arabians are thinking in longer terms. What is America doing in Iraq? It is fightung against itself while some people think it is fighting for democracy.


A "preventional" war is a war without reason, that's all. World War II started with a preventional war from Germany against Poland for example to have better chances in the future confrontations. Preventional wars itself is nothing else than terrorism.

It's funny - that's all. It shows to the whole world that the USA is playing like a little child. The war against Iraq was lost in the moment no one found the weapons of mass dissapearance. This was the moment the USA should stop the whole desaster. "Ups - sorry. Made a mistake! Bye! Shit happens". Now the USA is a prisoner of itself in its own Guantanamo. It always the same "USA cannot go out of Iraq because otherwise in Iraq blablabla ... Germany cannot go out of Afghanistan because otherwise blablabla ..." I think we are all nothing else than stupid idiots and we don't have the freedom of our decisions anymore. Something is going very wrong.

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Scientia et potentia humana in idem coincidunt, quia ignoratio causae destituit effectum
Sir Francis Bacon

On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

By the way: Today I heard that the USA will kill six people in Guantanamo. Are they driving completly crazy in the american government? As long as there is a military responsibility the people in Guantanamo are prisoners of war. If someone kills them the whole world will think, that the americans try to hide criminal secrets. It is as I said: The USA is a prisoner of its own Guantanamo. Close this concentration camp - it's the best you can do.

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Scientia et potentia humana in idem coincidunt, quia ignoratio causae destituit effectum
Sir Francis Bacon

On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Yes prevention war are terrible mistakes, but the Afghan war is a consequence of the 9/11.

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This thread is a quite confusing read, but anyway i'll put in some thaughts ...

... imho there was no alternative to attack the taliban for the western coutries at that time. It would have been a fu***** shame not to do so! The most important question was and still is: what next?

Option 1: Leave the country as it is and come back in case of talibanization
Option 2: Stay in, rebuild and assist in building a nation

But what we have now is somehow in between...

From my point of view the efforts in afghanistan severely lack effort from all sides. The americans got distracted with their iraq adventure, the europeans do not engage as strongly as needed, the russians and chinese don't give a sh** anyway... and it gets even worse ... there is no collective strategy!

While the americans focus on rentlessly hunting down taliban in the south, the germans try rebuilding in the north without stepping on anybodies toes. Both won't lead to success: the u.s. actions (collateral damages) cause plenty of hate among the population and the german approach might help the population, but will not prevail if we can't protect what was built until there's something deserving to be called central goverment - mr. karsai is the major of kabul and not much more!

And it doesn't change the core problems of this nation: large scale opium production in the hands of power hungry people not willing to give up any of their power.

Concerning the oil-topic... the u.s. definitivly have a credibility problems with the wars they're fighting in right now. Even if economic interests were not the reason to engage in afghanistan, it's hard to ignore the fact that the u.s. economy (and even worse goverment officials personally) benefit(s) from it. Historically the u.s. did constantly use it's military power to achieve economic goals since 2nd WW. And wrapping that into some save-the-world-retorics doesn't help much either.

Solution?
Tbh, I have no clue what the best solution would be. But talking about a roamap, with some realistic goals and controll mechanisms would be a good starting point. Moreover I'd like to see some kind of economic marshall plan, giving the afghans the chance to prosper and thereby bringing more stability. I do not think more military action (in terms of taliban hunting) will make anything better... it would just cause more afghans to be alienated from the west and motivated to fight some (almost traditional) david vs. goliath fight!

Afghanistan is a total disgrace for Germany. Citizens here cheered when our gouvernment took its mouth full at the conference in Bonn 2001. The same people now suddendly dont know why we are down there. And the gouvernment tries to talk a half-hearted pseudo-involvement in the events there into a "full success". This whole Afghanistan-thing has costed us a heck of a lot credibility on the international carpet. I wished we stayed out there in September 2001, and I still think we should draw out there immediately.

... but 9/11 is not a consequence of Afghanistan. Osama Bin Laden was only a guest in Afghanistan. For sure: Afghanistan needs help. They have to forget and forgive the long periods of war in the last decades and centuries. But this cannot be done with war.

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Scientia et potentia humana in idem coincidunt, quia ignoratio causae destituit effectum
Sir Francis Bacon

On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

You are implying that we should not fight terrorists in afghanistan because we did not fight terrorists before 911, which is wrong factually, and wrong in opinion. Terrorism is just another method of violence for the purpose of power, which has been fought for thousands of year. The reason we are now fighting it in afghanistan is because that is where the enemy was when we finally decided to go get them. If you think there is another reason, then say it.

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http://www.fairtax.org

Elminate all taxes on income and replace with a national sales tax.

Im pretty sure weve covered this topic. They are not prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention, as they did not follow the rules in the treaty. Beyond that they are being treated as United States law allows, and they are treated extremely well.

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http://www.fairtax.org

Elminate all taxes on income and replace with a national sales tax.

Bin Laden was more than a simple guest, he supported the Talibans and the Talibans supported him.

Totally agree that you don't get peace with a war, but the problem is that the Talibans are attacking again and want Afghanistan back, NATO is just defending themselves this time. We cannot withdraw and let the Talibans rule again just for the sake of "peace", because that will only be a 1st step for Islamist fundamentalist.

The only solution as I see it, is that whoever wins the next elections in Pakistan, we should highly support him, and force him to control the outlaw territory named Warzistan in Pakistan, since most of the Talibans are coming from there and that Bin Laden is apparently hiding there.

And then we should be able to have a durable peace in Afghanistan. Not a temporary peace has we had.

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1. How many citizens of Afganistan were amomg the crew that hijacked planes to ram the WTC towers?
2. If any country which occured to be place of training for some foreign criminal group must be taken as terrorist state and the regime change threin must be achieved with military occupation, then I'd like to know, where did the hijackers trained to pilot the planes?

Are you implying that only the hijackers should be held responsible for the attack? The Taliban were effectively ruling parts of afghanistan, and knowingly allowed and supported AQ in planning the attack. The US did not knowingly allow the hijackers to train for the attack in the US. That makes all the difference.

__________________
http://www.fairtax.org

Elminate all taxes on income and replace with a national sales tax.

Don't you think that after the fraud with reasoning the Iraq war, the word "knowingly" can not be taken for proof? What are proofs that US-made Taliban supported US-made AQ to inspire stupid senseless impact, senseless for everyone except for those who know the psychological consequences of Pearl Harbour and need the growing presense of US military in Central Asia? Saddam, his family, his government who never had WMD and didn't have connection to terrorism are already dead, but who have ever heard or seen anything substantial about mythical Taliban, except for childish videos of "would-be ex" CIA agent Bin Laden? There are no evidences that anyone in Afganistan had anything to do with terrorism against US in better degree than somebody inside of the US or anythere else. Those who blowed trains in Spain lived in Spain, Magrebians. Those who blew underground in London lived in Britain, Pakistani. Those who blew twin towers in New-York lived and trained in the US, non-Afganis, but they invented all idea while being in Afganistan, not in some cozy european internet-cafe. Believe or die.

Let me give another example: Guantanamo for example is a concentration camp like a concentration camp of the Nazis. Nearly every Germans see it in this way.

This would mean clearly: no German would be able anymore to work together with the United States of America. Im thinking about our own history indeed we would be forced to send some soldiers to the USA to arrest the responsible persons and bring them to justice. But we are never doing it in this way, because we cannot hurt the integrity of other nations.

Americans would be very angry if someone came from outside the USA to solve their problems. They like to solve their problems alone. It's the same in all nations in the world: no one likes that the problemes are solved from strange people.

You cannot send soldiers in any country in the world, because americans think some probems are in one way or some problems are in another way and next year you are thinking the problems are completly in another way. And the year after again completly differnt sight. This butterfly politics drives Germans crazy.

For example: Afghanistan cannot conquer the USA, the Taliban are not able to conquer the USA too - the only way for them is an asymetric war - this means "terrorism". In every case someone is attacked by a more mighty power there is no other way than a asymetric, terroristic answer.

The better way is it to give the Afghans a better structure and more possibilities to live in welfare - so they have to loose something and they have to defend something. Forget the men - do something for the women and the children. Better schools, better hospitals, better working conditions and train soldiers and policemen. I'm really very suprised the the USA is not finding good, stable solutions - because I remeber some strcutres like "the 50 nations" or others backgrounds you can perhaps use for good ideas. The USA has a very cultural richdom - I don't know why only so few ideas are coming from the USA in the moment. Seems its creativity is damaged.

If a Taliban is killed for the freedom of the USA - everyone is thinkg about the USA as an imperial power. But if a Taliban is killed because he attacked a school or a hospital, than this makes sense for the people, because he is a criminal. That's a very big difference.

If someone has nothing to loose than only respect then americans are not this people that are really respecting the way of living of other nations because they accept only the american way of live.

I remember for example that Tony Blair one day wanted to have some people from Guantanamo because they were british. I could not trust my ears as Bush said "no" in the first moment. The best allied of the USA in this days and potus Bush said "no". Another example: To me once an american said, that he likes to destroy whole Germany with nuclear bombs because we are like Carthago and the new Rome USA will clear the whole world from our existence and kill every single German. And this overeacting action only because the most Germans thought in this days, that is makes no sense to attack the Iraq. Maybe we are rigth maybe not - the future will show - but it's really funny, how americans try to find friends in the world in some cases.

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Scientia et potentia humana in idem coincidunt, quia ignoratio causae destituit effectum
Sir Francis Bacon

On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Is "nitpicking" the right word? Hope so. The allmighty american government is defining a lot of bullshit if the days are long. But the bullshit stinks whatever it is defining. Seems the american government lost in some cases every feeling what is right or wrong and seems to be the worst enemy of the USA itself.

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Scientia et potentia humana in idem coincidunt, quia ignoratio causae destituit effectum
Sir Francis Bacon

On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

That's an extremely broad and generalising statement if I ever read one.