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sabang

Little prospect of the much vaunted oil pipeline too, at this stage.

Norton

"Defense Secretary Des Browne announced Monday that 230 more British troops are going to Afghanistan, bringing the country's troop strength there to more than 8,000".

Britain sending more troops to Afghanistan - International Herald Tribune


Norton: Afghanistan will be a much more difficult task than Iraq. Bringing a stable central government to the country has historically proven to be an exercise in futility. A country/region of numerous conquests, rulers and governments, Afghanistan has always returned to a group of warring tribal factions each succeeding in overthrowing the ruling government. The current attempt in taming Afghanistan and installing a "democratically" elected government may succeed in the short term but will come apart as all previous attempts have done.

Let's not forget the reason for invading Afghanistan was not to overthrow the Taliban but rather to eliminate AQ training camps in the country. Had the Taliban threw out AQ, there would have been no invasion leaving the Taliban to continue its "human rights" atrocities. Once the Taliban and AQ presence has been completely removed from Afghanistan there will be another faction appear on the scene to overthrow the central government. And so it will continue to be repeated for another 2,000 years.

__________________
There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right.

Woodrow Wilson

sabang

It didn't take the jailbreak boys long to get back on the job:-

"KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) — Hundreds of Taliban fighters invaded villages just outside Afghanistan's second-largest city Monday, forcing NATO and Afghan troops to rush in while frightened residents fled.
The Taliban assault on the outskirts of Kandahar is the latest display of prowess by the militants despite a record number of U.S. and NATO troops in the country.
The push into the Arghandab district — a lush region filled with grape and pomegranate groves that the Soviet army could never conquer — comes three days after a Taliban attack on Kandahar's prison that freed 400 insurgent fighters.
Those fighters, NATO conceded Monday, appear to be massing on the doorstep of the Taliban's former power base. The city of Kandahar lies only 10 miles to the southeast.
The sophisticated and successful jailbreak, followed by the movement into Arghandab, is the latest evidence of the Taliban's growing strength. The U.S. and NATO have pleaded for more troops in the last year and now have 65,000 in the country. But the militants are still finding successes the international alliance can't counter.
"Three days ago, inside of a 30-minute operation, the Taliban freed hundreds of prisoners, and NATO, the Canadians, the Americans, didn't do anything," said Mohammad Asif, 30, of Kandahar. "Now more than 500 Taliban are living in Arghandab. They are occupying the region.""

Full Article- The Associated Press: Taliban take over villages near Kandahar

Gordon Brown also said the the Taliban are losing the fight in southern Afghanistan, and of course you can always trust Gordon.

__________________
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

Boon Mee

Heh...good riddance Adam!

Adam Gedahn is dead supposedly...

Al-Qa'eda's American-born propaganda chief may have died in predator attack.

Al-Qa'eda's American-born propaganda chief may have died in predator attack - Telegraph

machangezi

I thought they don't negotiate with terrorists??

Texpat

keyword: reconcilable

If they renounce violence and sever their ties to Al Qaeda -- they'd not be terrorists, would they?

spiff

You mean, some of these terrorist extremists could be convinced to stop killing?

Are you volunteering to go and speak nicely to the murderous fanatics who are told by Allah to kill all infidels, Mr. Chamberlain? LOL

Appeasement only works in your pinko libbie utopian fantasy. Real men serve and die facing the gravest danger to the existence of mankind since history began, to protect your family and your freedom, while you and your spineless PC leftist friends line up to bend over to the "religion of peace".

machangezi

Oh, So all that crap about them being oppressors of women and extremists and violators of human rights and not tolerant of other beliefs doesn't bother the U.S anymore, eh??

Anything for victory??

Texpat

Yeah, there's that, which isn't good, but nothing to fight over. They can do what they like in that regard.

It's the flying planes full if innocent people into buildings and blowing up hotels, busses, trains and embassies full of similarly innocent, unsuspecting people that there's a glitch with.

Yeah. That's problematic.

AntRobertson

To be fair it didn't bother the US before either, when they were giving money and aid to the Taliban.

And how many planes flown into buildings,blown up hotels, buses, trains and embassis have the Taleban been involved with? Seems that the US is ready to pin events like 9/11 on anyone in anyway they can, all except for the actual perpetrators - bunch of Saudis fly an airplannce into a building... Go and invade Iraq.

Brilliant!

__________________
The Revolution will be televised... Eleven o'clock... Channel 10.

machangezi

So, anything for victory eh??


As far as I know all of them were arabs........Talebs are Afghans......."Taleb" is a word in Pashtu meaning......."Seeker".

Texpat

We're not talking about nationalities here. That is not an issue. Get over it.

You like to play the shell game -- changing the subject time after time.

It's about AQ training and financing terrorists (of whatever nationality). And they're currently camping out in Pakistan.

I'm happy to read the Paki government is taking a stronger lead in finding and fixing them.

I hope its true.

Texpat

libbie?
leftist?

You're on the hard stuff tonight, aren't you?

Panda

That was "pinko libbie" Tex.

attaboy

Didn't Rob post a report that the Taliban have become more tolerant in order to gain support? Nowadays, they allow music and drinking and some other natural behaviors. It was probably propaganda meant for the western media. Nothing changed. People still die for defying their wishes.

sabang

US: Airstrike killed 33 Afghan civilians in August

WASHINGTON (AP) — The military said Wednesday that U.S. airstrikes in Afghanistan on Aug. 22 killed 33 civilians, far more than previously acknowledged. While expressing regret, it blamed the Taliban, the targets, for taking up fighting positions near civilians.
The civilian toll of 33 compares with an original U.S. estimate of five to seven. The Afghan government and U.N. investigators claimed there were 90 civilian deaths.

The Associated Press: US: Airstrike killed 33 Afghan civilians in August

French army chief rules out military victory in Afghanistan

The head of the French military General Jean-Louis Georgelin on Wednesday backed comments by a senior British military officer's view that the war in Afghanistan was unwinnable.
A British officer "was saying that one cannot win this war militarily, that there is no military solution to the Afghan crisis and I totally share this feeling," Georglin told French television channel Public Senat.

AFP: French army chief rules out military victory in Afghanistan


And I reckon this will get the usual suspects up in arms-

They came, they saw, then left the Afghan war without a single mission

GERMANY has admitted its Special Forces have spent three years in Afghanistan without doing a single mission, and are now going to be withdrawn.

More than 100 soldiers from the elite Kommando Spezialkrafte regiment, or KSK, are set to leave the war-torn country after their foreign minister revealed they had never left their bases on an operation.

But Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the foreign minister, admitted they had not been deployed "a single time" in the last three years, despite a desperate shortage of Special Forces units in the country.

Troops from Britain's Special Boat Service and the SAS work round the clock, across Afghanistan, alongside US navy Seals and Delta Force, to target terrorists, arrest drug lords and rescue hostages.....

BACKGROUND

SOME 40 countries contribute troops to the 47,600-strong Nato mission in Afghanistan, led by the United States with some 18,000 troops and Britain with more than 8,000. Germany is the third largest contributor. The US is set to send an extra 14,000 troops to Afghanistan next year, and it has been rumoured there are British plans to send 4,000 more.

It is still British, American, Canadian, Dutch, Australian and Danish soldiers who bear much of the combat weight in the country, alongside the soldiers of the Afghan national army. A recent French deployment led to the death of ten soldiers in a Taleban ambush, leading to widespread calls to withdraw the troops.

They came, they saw, then left the Afghan war without a single mission - Scotsman.com News

So nothing much new in Afghanistan.

Texpat

Seems you've forgotten where the Al Quaeda camps training these terrorists were located.

You have the same conceptual problem as Macha.
Nationalities of these terrorists are of little or no consequence.
Because they happen to be in Pakistan doesn't infer all of them are Pakistani.

Think of it like a rugby team. Not all the players are from the city that hosts the team. That's why they call it trans-national terrorism. To suggest it's an Afghani problem with the Taleban only is more than a bit naive.

AntRobertson

Tell that to the people of Iraq.

Panda

So the US put 20,000 troops into Afghanistan to go after Al Qaeda and 150,000 into Iraq to save the world from WMDs. And even after it was shown that there were no WMDs in Iraq nothing much changed in the US military priorities.

And after the false WMD excuse for war against Iraq without UN sanction, Bush and his Neocon mates then sold the idea of liberating the people of Iraq from a tyrannical leader to the US public as an excuse to keep the Iraqi occupation going at the expense of going after Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. And with the help of the US media, the dumb fuck US voters swallowed it all in the name of "freedom and democracy" (not that most of them would know what it means). Now after 5 years of US occupation most people in Iraq are much worse off and want the US invaders to piss off somewhere else. Meanwhile, Osama Bin Laden remains alive and active some place in Afghanistan or Pakistan thanks to inaction by the US government.

Texpat

Ahh, the tried and true shell-game. Rather than concede the point, shift the topic.

You have serious difficulty making distinctions, don't you?