Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the we-don't-know-much dept.
Several people have reported that the US has begun military operations in Afghanistan. Bush is talking on CNN live right now. Bombing has begun on Kabul. More as we know it. Here the word
a on CNN and The CBC.
Re:According to Bush
by
NutscrapeSucks
·
· Score: 4, Informative
There's probably lots of people here too young to recall what a great orator Reagan was. He was routinely on primetime television, and people placed incredible value on what he said.
Afghanistan's freedom fighters -- the resistance or mujahidin -- represent an indigenous movement that swept through their mountainous land to challenge a foreign military power threatening their religion and their very way of life. With little in the way of arms or organization, the vast majority of the Afghan people have demonstrated that they will not be dominated and that they are prepared to give their lives for independence and freedom. The price they have so willingly paid is incalculable.
Let all of us who live in lands of freedom, along with those who dream of doing so, take inspiration from the spirit and courage of the Afghan patriots. Let us resolve that their quest for freedom will prevail, and that Afghanistan will become, once again, an independent member of the family of nations. -- Ronald Reagan
-- Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
International coverage..
by
T.Hobbes
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Re:To Those Who Are Screaming For Vengeance
by
mmontour
·
· Score: 5, Informative
9) Repeat steps 5 through 8 until they understand that sometimes it is necessary to punch back.
You set up a very artificial scenario. The military person is almost certainly much better at hand-to-hand combat than the student. Even if the student punches back, he probably won't be able to incapacitate the military person. So why would the student think that punching back would stop further attacks, rather than escalating the intensity of those further attacks???
The only reason that "punching back" stops the violence is that the attacker's only goal is to incite the student to punch back. With more likely attack goals (trying to get your lunch money, doesn't like the color of your skin, etc) punching back will only stop the violence if you are strong enough to significantly hurt your attacker.
A student who is being attacked and knows he is outclassed can try to punch back and hope for the best. Or he can give in to the attacker's demands. Or he can run away.
Or he can run away, then find a way to "hit back" at his attacker in a different manner than hand-to-hand combat. A student, tired of being bullied at school every day, might decide to bring in a handgun. A terrorist organization with no chance of defeating the US military might decide to attack soft civilian US targets.
Sometimes it is necessary to punch back. However if you are one of the "good guys" who goes around punching people in the face in order to make this point, don't be surprised when they eventually change the rules and "punch back" in a way that really hurts you!
Disclaimer: Don't support the terrorists or their actions; agree that they must be hunted down. Just don't think that Bush's "Good vs. Evil" attitude is doing anything to reduce the chance of future terrorism.
The CIA taught Arabs the techniques of terrorism.
by
Futurepower(tm)
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Please look beyond what you are being told. This is not an adult video game.
I'd like to express a minority view: If you have been reading the news since
the Vietnam war, this present "war" was entirely predictable in 1980. The U.S.
government began its involvement in Afghanistan 21 years ago. (See the ABC
News timeline link in the article referenced below.)
The CIA brought Arabs to the U.S. and trained them in terrorist techniques.
Here is a quote from an ABC News article:
"Abu Sayyaf... train[ed] terrorists in the methods taught by the CIA..."
For links to stories about this from MSNBC, ABC News, The Atlantic Monthly
magazine, and other respected sources, see the article: What should be the Response to
Violence?
Afghanistan is the 15th country the U.S. government has bombed in 30
years, an average of 5 countries bombed every 10 years. Will there be 5 more
countries in the next 10 years?
It was entirely predictable that someone would try to bring the violence to
the United States, given the violence the U.S. government has done for more
than 30 years. The U.S. government has killed more than 3,000,000 people in
that time. To quote the biblical saying, "You reap what you sow."
If you really, really love the U.S. like I do, you will think carefully about
the problems of the U.S. government.
Weapons making is EXTREMELY profitable. There are people who do hidden things
to push the U.S. government into conflict because they want the money. The
U.S. is the world's largest weapons manufacturer. The World Policy
Institute, in a May 1995 article, "Weapons at War" said, "In the past ten
years, parties to 45 current conflicts have taken delivery of over $42 billion
worth of U.S. weaponry." (The links for these statements are in the article
referenced above.)
-- Bush's education improvements were
Stratfor.com
by
kruczkowski
·
· Score: 5, Informative
For anyone that wants better intel than cnn.com on what is going on, a site called stratfor.com exists. It's setup by x-military intel people who know this stuff, they have good info and a daily newsletter that is free and worth singing up for. They also provide their intel services to companys and media, but that cost a bit.
-- hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
Re:the next step...
by
sigwinch
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Apparently you are not very up to date on contemporary guerilla warfare. If you want to see what a small number of psychotic troops fighting for their homeland can do, take a look at the ass-beating the USA took in Vietnam.
Hardly. The Vietnam War was a proxy war between the US and the USSR, an extended campaign in the Cold War. North Vietnam had essentially zero industrial capacity for fighters, bombers, aircraft, firearms, radios, and anti-aircraft missiles. Without vast infusions of Soviet materiel, the US would've promptly conquered North Vietnam. (Of course without the Soviet presence there would have been no need to.)
Even with support from the USSR, the US was winning the war at the time of withdrawal. The withdrawal occurred because of the stunning PR incompetence of the US government. They didn't understand the tremendous power of an extended publicity campaign. They could probably have gotten support for a proxy war against the USSR, but they were silent and all that the public saw was an endless parade of body bags, year after year after year. As there was no strong leadership, the American public grew tired and ended the campaign.
An even better example would be the people of Afghanistan, who... even took on the Soviet Army and beat them back, albeit with a good bit of help from the USA. (Emphasis mine)
Yet another major campaign in the Cold War, again a proxy war in fairly worthless territory, territory that neither nation would have bothered with were it not for the other superpower. Again, the Soviets sent vast amounts of materiel into the theatre, and again the US-supported forces destroyed most of what they sent in. Unlike the Vietnam War, the Soviets also sent lots of soldiers into Afghanistan, which was a lethal US-funded meat grinder.
Something you have to understand about the Soviets was that their technology was not efficient. Compare to US factories, it was much more expensive for them to build a tank or fighter. The effectiveness and quality of Soviet war machines also tended to be rather low. The net result is that it cost the Soviets many more man-hours to field a credible military force. So when they sent in a tank that got promptly bombed by US-supported forces, they had to divert a lot more industrial capacity away from luxury goods, research and development, and so forth. At the same time, they spent far to much of the remaining industrial and R&D capacity trying to outdo the Strategic Defense Initiative. It's also worth pointing out the substantial diversion of Soviet R&D during the Vietnam Proxy War as they tried to compete with the US Apollo project.
Put all this together: previous costly war with no obvious victory and simultaneous loss at a technical competition, currently costly war with no obvious victory and heavy personnel losses and an even bigger unwinnable technological competition. It broke the will of the Soviet government and impoverished the people. The loss in Afghanistan was the straw that broke their back.
40,000 guerrillas in a war torn nation full of refugees are worse than millions of troops fighting with conventional styles of
warfare.
Only with extensive support from a superpower, and that ain't gonna happen for Al Quaida or the Taliban. Especially since the US-aligned Special Operations groups will be using what are, frankly, guerrilla tactics. It's going to be guerrilla versus guerrilla, only the US guerrillas will have C-130s full of materiel arriving as needed, good air support, night-vision scopes, satellite reconnaissance, encrypted spread-spectrum radios, and so forth.
The US also has a major advantage: they are not trying to conquer and hold Afghanistan like the Soviets were. They are simply trying to kill and disrupt a certain few thousand people. Also, unlike Israel or Iran, the only US criterion for an Afghan govt is peacefulness, stability, and cooperation with US intelligence. They won't be trying to prop up a violent government to fight a proxy war against a major power (in fact, they'll be specifically avoiding such a govt).
--
-- Kuro5hin.org: where the good times never end.;-)
Slashdot Mirror
The BBC report is here. Includes comment from a Whitehouse spokesman.
Get a map of possible targets here.
--jon
Cleanstick.org: Dumb weblog about nothing
There's probably lots of people here too young to recall what a great orator Reagan was. He was routinely on primetime television, and people placed incredible value on what he said.
A topical and interesting example Statement on the Fourth Anniversary of the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan I had vauge memories of this speech, so I looked it up. Somehow I doubt I'll recall anything GW Bush said 20 years after the fact.
Afghanistan's freedom fighters -- the resistance or mujahidin -- represent an indigenous movement that swept through their mountainous land to challenge a foreign military power threatening their religion and their very way of life. With little in the way of arms or organization, the vast majority of the Afghan people have demonstrated that they will not be dominated and that they are prepared to give their lives for independence and freedom. The price they have so willingly paid is incalculable.
Let all of us who live in lands of freedom, along with those who dream of doing so, take inspiration from the spirit and courage of the Afghan patriots. Let us resolve that their quest for freedom will prevail, and that Afghanistan will become, once again, an independent member of the family of nations. -- Ronald Reagan
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
More to come..
9) Repeat steps 5 through 8 until they understand that sometimes it is necessary to punch back.
You set up a very artificial scenario. The military person is almost certainly much better at hand-to-hand combat than the student. Even if the student punches back, he probably won't be able to incapacitate the military person. So why would the student think that punching back would stop further attacks, rather than escalating the intensity of those further attacks???
The only reason that "punching back" stops the violence is that the attacker's only goal is to incite the student to punch back. With more likely attack goals (trying to get your lunch money, doesn't like the color of your skin, etc) punching back will only stop the violence if you are strong enough to significantly hurt your attacker.
A student who is being attacked and knows he is outclassed can try to punch back and hope for the best. Or he can give in to the attacker's demands. Or he can run away.
Or he can run away, then find a way to "hit back" at his attacker in a different manner than hand-to-hand combat. A student, tired of being bullied at school every day, might decide to bring in a handgun. A terrorist organization with no chance of defeating the US military might decide to attack soft civilian US targets.
Sometimes it is necessary to punch back. However if you are one of the "good guys" who goes around punching people in the face in order to make this point, don't be surprised when they eventually change the rules and "punch back" in a way that really hurts you!
Disclaimer: Don't support the terrorists or their actions; agree that they must be hunted down. Just don't think that Bush's "Good vs. Evil" attitude is doing anything to reduce the chance of future terrorism.
Please look beyond what you are being told. This is not an adult video game.
I'd like to express a minority view: If you have been reading the news since the Vietnam war, this present "war" was entirely predictable in 1980. The U.S. government began its involvement in Afghanistan 21 years ago. (See the ABC News timeline link in the article referenced below.)
The CIA brought Arabs to the U.S. and trained them in terrorist techniques. Here is a quote from an ABC News article:
"Abu Sayyaf
For links to stories about this from MSNBC, ABC News, The Atlantic Monthly magazine, and other respected sources, see the article: What should be the Response to Violence?
Afghanistan is the 15th country the U.S. government has bombed in 30 years, an average of 5 countries bombed every 10 years. Will there be 5 more countries in the next 10 years?
It was entirely predictable that someone would try to bring the violence to the United States, given the violence the U.S. government has done for more than 30 years. The U.S. government has killed more than 3,000,000 people in that time. To quote the biblical saying, "You reap what you sow."
If you really, really love the U.S. like I do, you will think carefully about the problems of the U.S. government.
Weapons making is EXTREMELY profitable. There are people who do hidden things to push the U.S. government into conflict because they want the money. The U.S. is the world's largest weapons manufacturer. The World Policy Institute, in a May 1995 article, "Weapons at War" said, "In the past ten years, parties to 45 current conflicts have taken delivery of over $42 billion worth of U.S. weaponry." (The links for these statements are in the article referenced above.)
Bush's education improvements were
For anyone that wants better intel than cnn.com on what is going on, a site called stratfor.com exists. It's setup by x-military intel people who know this stuff, they have good info and a daily newsletter that is free and worth singing up for. They also provide their intel services to companys and media, but that cost a bit.
h tm
Some links
http://www.stratfor.com/home/sitreps.htm
http://www.stratfor.com/preview/specialproject.
(And no I do not get a commotion for this ad)
hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
Even with support from the USSR, the US was winning the war at the time of withdrawal. The withdrawal occurred because of the stunning PR incompetence of the US government. They didn't understand the tremendous power of an extended publicity campaign. They could probably have gotten support for a proxy war against the USSR, but they were silent and all that the public saw was an endless parade of body bags, year after year after year. As there was no strong leadership, the American public grew tired and ended the campaign.
Yet another major campaign in the Cold War, again a proxy war in fairly worthless territory, territory that neither nation would have bothered with were it not for the other superpower. Again, the Soviets sent vast amounts of materiel into the theatre, and again the US-supported forces destroyed most of what they sent in. Unlike the Vietnam War, the Soviets also sent lots of soldiers into Afghanistan, which was a lethal US-funded meat grinder.Something you have to understand about the Soviets was that their technology was not efficient. Compare to US factories, it was much more expensive for them to build a tank or fighter. The effectiveness and quality of Soviet war machines also tended to be rather low. The net result is that it cost the Soviets many more man-hours to field a credible military force. So when they sent in a tank that got promptly bombed by US-supported forces, they had to divert a lot more industrial capacity away from luxury goods, research and development, and so forth. At the same time, they spent far to much of the remaining industrial and R&D capacity trying to outdo the Strategic Defense Initiative. It's also worth pointing out the substantial diversion of Soviet R&D during the Vietnam Proxy War as they tried to compete with the US Apollo project.
Put all this together: previous costly war with no obvious victory and simultaneous loss at a technical competition, currently costly war with no obvious victory and heavy personnel losses and an even bigger unwinnable technological competition. It broke the will of the Soviet government and impoverished the people. The loss in Afghanistan was the straw that broke their back.
Only with extensive support from a superpower, and that ain't gonna happen for Al Quaida or the Taliban. Especially since the US-aligned Special Operations groups will be using what are, frankly, guerrilla tactics. It's going to be guerrilla versus guerrilla, only the US guerrillas will have C-130s full of materiel arriving as needed, good air support, night-vision scopes, satellite reconnaissance, encrypted spread-spectrum radios, and so forth.The US also has a major advantage: they are not trying to conquer and hold Afghanistan like the Soviets were. They are simply trying to kill and disrupt a certain few thousand people. Also, unlike Israel or Iran, the only US criterion for an Afghan govt is peacefulness, stability, and cooperation with US intelligence. They won't be trying to prop up a violent government to fight a proxy war against a major power (in fact, they'll be specifically avoiding such a govt).
-- ;-)
Kuro5hin.org: where the good times never end.