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alp227

(32,006 posts)
Mon Feb 27, 2012, 03:49 AM Feb 2012

Violent Uproar in Afghanistan Casts Shadow on U.S. Pullout

American officials sought to reassure both Afghanistan’s government and a domestic audience on Sunday that the United States remained committed to the war after the weekend killing of two American military officers inside the Afghan Interior Ministry and days of deadly anti-American protests.

But behind the public pronouncements, American officials described a growing concern, even at the highest levels of the Obama administration and Pentagon, about the challenges of pulling off a troop withdrawal in Afghanistan that hinges on the close mentoring and training of army and police forces.

Despite an American-led training effort that has spanned years and cost tens of billions of dollars, the Afghan security forces are still widely seen as riddled with dangerously unreliable soldiers and police officers. The distrust has only deepened as a pattern of attacks by Afghan security forces on American and NATO service members, beginning years ago, has drastically worsened over the past few days. A grenade attack on Sunday, apparently by a protester, wounded at least six American soldiers.

Nearly a week of violent unrest after American personnel threw Korans into a pit of burning trash has brought into sharp relief the growing American and Afghan frustration — and, at times, open hostility — and the risks of a strategy that calls for American soldiers and civilians to work closely with Afghans.

full: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/27/world/asia/burning-of-korans-complicates-us-pullout-plan-in-afghanistan.html?pagewanted=all

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boppers

(16,588 posts)
1. After ten years of telling them not to rape and mutilate people, they still don't get it.
Mon Feb 27, 2012, 04:07 AM
Feb 2012

Time to leave them. Maybe in another ten years they might get the "civilization" thing again. Sad, really, as before they became a ball in the cold war, they were a huge, amazing, historic place.

Jackpine Radical

(45,274 posts)
7. They've been doing that for centuries.
Mon Feb 27, 2012, 11:43 AM
Feb 2012

In his novel Caravans, Michener basically said that their whole tribal culture was built on warfare; when they run out of external enemies, they just fight each other.

boppers

(16,588 posts)
14. They already have that.
Mon Feb 27, 2012, 06:16 PM
Feb 2012

They were at peace. Then:
The anti-communist whackos got funded.
The pro-communist whackos got funded.
The religious whackos got funded.
Then they got invaded by the USSR, and later, the USA.

Guns and ammo is not a problem.

 

rusty fender

(3,428 posts)
9. Yeah, how dare they not like being bombed and
Mon Feb 27, 2012, 12:19 PM
Feb 2012

and occupied by the U.S.! How uncouth! Weren't they taught any manners?

You act like it is their fault: hello, we invaded them.

boppers

(16,588 posts)
13. They had manners. We are just another player in a long, long, line of bullies.
Mon Feb 27, 2012, 06:05 PM
Feb 2012


This is an image from the 1950's in Afghanistan. No stone-age dress customs, it's people buying music in a music store (both outlawed by later religious governments).

They've now suffered 50 years of continuous war, and their society and culture has regressed at least 1000 years as a result.

liberalmike27

(2,479 posts)
11. I got it
Mon Feb 27, 2012, 12:54 PM
Feb 2012

So we can make money for the MIC, and perhaps to get those minerals to be mined, maybe an eventual pipeline was in the cards, a dream perhaps too far. Then there is the fact it's the Eastern border of Iran.

Any other reason? Made-up BS.

dixiegrrrrl

(60,010 posts)
4. Anyone get deja vu reading this?
Mon Feb 27, 2012, 10:03 AM
Feb 2012

Substitute the word "Afghan" for " Iraq"
and it is exactly the same line that was used as we delayed leaving Iraq.

patrice

(47,992 posts)
5. Yeah, but it was contractors who came back from Iraq to later marvel how their
Mon Feb 27, 2012, 10:39 AM
Feb 2012

entire class of police-trainees were subsequently blown-up, all dead, and how clearly that proved God's interest in (them)him, as he had left them only just a few days before.

True. Story.

Vincardog

(20,234 posts)
6. No substitute Afghan for Viet Nam and you have exactly the same situation.
Mon Feb 27, 2012, 11:04 AM
Feb 2012

Right down to the part where we are arming and training the people who attack us.
Have any of the powers that be determined that they are attacking us because we are there?

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