The few valid points you were beginning to raise were drowned out by the rest of your rant.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think Col Gentile is a proponent of using indiscriminate firepower.
Assuming the Muslims in the west never condemned these terrorist acts, why should they have to? They didn't do it. As a Christian/Conservative, am I required to publicly condemn the actions of the Westboro Baptist Church?So what if 20 civilians die on an operation against the Taliban? Why are WE apologising? How many Muslims currently residing in the “West” condemned the attacks of 7/7, 9/11 etc.? They didn’t. They justified/absolved them (ironically, Arab public opinion seemed less clear cut) and shifted the blame/passed the buck.
As a liberal, should I write my closest military recruiting office and apologize for the actions of Code Pink? Just because somebody is of the same religion/political party/nationality/etc, that doesn’t mean they are obligated to publicly counter-balance the views of extremists?
High speed police chase in Los Angeles... innocent bystander gets run over by cop car... who does the family blame?If the Afghan people (whoever they are and that’s a different matter) don’t like the presence of NATO forces on their soil they should be reminded of why we are there...because of the Taliban. If civilians are dying in operations conducted by NATO to destroy the Taliban who hide like cowards “amongst the people” then that is the fault of the Taliban.
But they didn't ask for these services. Furthermore, this argument has been tried many times colonials but it usually fails to convince the natives to just play along (i know, i know, our intentions are noble). Not to mention the fact that some of the reports published state that we (or our partners) haven't even been that great at providing these services. I believe one of the articles posted in the Marjah thread claimed that the Taliban are much better at providing said services.Just compare the range of “services” we strain ourselves to supply to the Afghans (at no cost to themselves) with what the Taliban did and make the Afghan’s decide.
Even if the message "we will stay here as long as it takes, so you better help us" was going to work, how will it play out at home.If the Afghans want us out why don’t we tie that demand in to the destruction of the Taliban. Once they are long gone (difficult metric to satisfy I know) so will we be and leave the Pakistanis, and Iranians to sort out the mess/responsibility (and blame should they fail); after all Pakistan’s role in this imbroglio nor its responsibility should not be forgotten. Instead of trying to “capture” the hearts and minds of the “Afghan” people why aren’t we making them participants, stakeholders or whatever buzzword is currently in fashion, in a process that will finally get us to some kind of satisfactory situation (another flammable metric) where we can get out “with honour”?
I'm not touching this one.Why are we adhering to these Liberal neo-colonial (there’s no two ways about it) preconceptions that somehow these “primitive children” can be “forced to be free”, that inside every Gook or Arab or Afghan is a middle-class, atheistic, latte drinking, Franz Fanon reading, sexually confused, moral-relativist trying to get out? Take for instance the following neo-developmentalist/modernisation drivel;
I kind of agree that the resources would've been better spent at home.WE [shouldn't be] in business of propping up failed states or building new ones (there’s a pun in there somewhere). I don’t think we got out of the imperial policing business just to return and make the same mistakes. Just think of all the filoos/money that we have spent pouring down the drain in Afghanistan (amongst other places) that could have been spent in our recession hit economies and, more importantly, on homeland defence. WE do not have the answers for THEM (and it’s important we remember that distinction) nor do we need to waste the lives of our young men and women on installing dams or generators when they will be inoperable within a decade after we have gone.
But you have a problem with NATO taking responsibility for civilian casualties.And if we really must educate them in the ways of democracy then let’s introduce them to the concept of accountability for ones actions.
Your basing your argument on a 10-page article by an arguable biased IDF Lt with no hard data and a citation from this guy. You both seem to be making some giant leaps and cherry picking.Definitely, but that’s a language THEY understand (psychologically speaking); in the face of overwhelming power Islam retreats (even to the extent of releasing its spell on Muslims); “The situation changed rapidly a month into the Allied campaign against the Taliban. Muslims saw the unequivocal power of American military might, and turned away from bin Laden and the Taliban” (Lazar Berman , “Understanding Arab Culture”, Small Wars Journal, p.6).
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