said “Educating women is just a bonus to piss off the Taliban and the Persians.”So, you do concur there was no altruistic motive behind attempting to improve the lot of women in Afghanistan. :-| Gresch said “Taliban started to grow poppies because of westerners.”No, not because of Westerners, because of foreign armies occupying Afghanistan. Prior to Oct 2001, there was a poppy ban enforced by the Taliban. And the Taliban themselves do not grow poppies, they allow it to be grown in the areas they effectively control. They’re the middlemen, the protection. It’s a cash-crop which allows them to arm themselves. The Afghan warlords also actually largely run the opium trade in the areas they control. The Afghan government, of whatever they supposedly govern, also have a finger in the drug trade despite very public campaigns of poppy erradication.Your idea of salting poppy fields would mean the land is unlikely to be used for other crops, effectively scorching the earth. Article 54 of Protocol I of the 1977 Geneva Conventions. “It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove, or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies, and irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse Party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or for any other motive”Gresch said “It will take time to re-educate the wife beaters and the west hatersThe supporters of a continued presence in Afghanistan all mention protecting women; that they are treated inhumanely, no better than chattel. And they are right, there is no doubt women are treated incredibly badly. However, your statements tell us you view the Afghans in general in no better light either. How is it that you want to change and improve the local view of women when you treat everyone as beneath contempt. You do place Westeners’ lives above Afghans and they know this. That is why Western involvement is compromised from the start. ”West haters"…so, it’s a persecution complex, of course. They hate us and not the other way around.Gresch said "OHB does not know how to use the army as a police force. Few leaders do.I have no bone in your ideological siding in American politics. If you wish to dismiss 7 years of incredible incompetence in leadership from Oct 2001 to Dec 2008, that’s your problem. I just find it astonishing that you’d like to blame the current mess at the door of the leadership that took over 2009 onwards. It just high-lights your ideological partisanship.shrug
said “Educating women is just a bonus to piss off the Taliban and the Persians.”So, you do concur there was no altruistic motive behind attempting to improve the lot of women in Afghanistan. :-| Gresch said “Taliban started to grow poppies because of westerners.”No, not because of Westerners, because of foreign armies occupying Afghanistan. Prior to Oct 2001, there was a poppy ban enforced by the Taliban. And the Taliban themselves do not grow poppies, they allow it to be grown in the areas they effectively control. They’re the middlemen, the protection. It’s a cash-crop which allows them to arm themselves. The Afghan warlords also actually largely run the opium trade in the areas they control. The Afghan government, of whatever they supposedly govern, also have a finger in the drug trade despite very public campaigns of poppy erradication.Your idea of salting poppy fields would mean the land is unlikely to be used for other crops, effectively scorching the earth. Article 54 of Protocol I of the 1977 Geneva Conventions. “It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove, or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies, and irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse Party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or for any other motive”Gresch said “It will take time to re-educate the wife beaters and the west hatersThe supporters of a continued presence in Afghanistan all mention protecting women; that they are treated inhumanely, no better than chattel. And they are right, there is no doubt women are treated incredibly badly. However, your statements tell us you view the Afghans in general in no better light either. How is it that you want to change and improve the local view of women when you treat everyone as beneath contempt. You do place Westeners’ lives above Afghans and they know this. That is why Western involvement is compromised from the start. ”West haters"…so, it’s a persecution complex, of course. They hate us and not the other way around.Gresch said "OHB does not know how to use the army as a police force. Few leaders do.I have no bone in your ideological siding in American politics. If you wish to dismiss 7 years of incredible incompetence in leadership from Oct 2001 to Dec 2008, that’s your problem. I just find it astonishing that you’d like to blame the current mess at the door of the leadership that took over 2009 onwards. It just high-lights your ideological partisanship.shrug