Now is the time for the US and it's coalition forces leave this place permanently. If Al Quada, ISIS, or any other terrorists group attempts to establish itself again we have the intelligence capabilities and substantial standoff weapons to take care of that nonsense.
If aspiring world and regional powers want to step into the vacuum it's their funeral. China, Iran, India and Pakistan immediately come to mind. Oh, I forgot. The latter two are already there.
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What purpose can a killing like this achieve? There is no strategic benefit, no easing of grief from past conflicts, nothing beyond the increased degradation of the human into the animal.
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"Pashtunwali, the code of conduct practiced by ethnic Pashtuns and other Afghans in Pashtun areas, like Paktia, obligates hosts"
This hypocrisy gags me. That is exactly what the Taliban government of Afghanistan said that caused Dubya to invade Afghanistan 18 years ago.
They did not refuse to turn over the al Qaeda guests, but they did say certain things must be done by the US to comply with custom, such as presenting evidence as part of a formal request.
"With us or against us" required instant compliance without all that cultural stuff.
So now the US has lost, it is pleading the Taliban isn't honoring Pashtunwali in favor of the puppet government's forces? That's disgusting.
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There was a justifiable reason for our going into Afghanistan. Lest we forget, the Taliban provided aid and comfort to bin Laden. But I understand that after all these years there is little point in remaining. But let us not kid ourselves about this "negotiating" with these people. I am sure our government will be "shocked" and "horrified" when the Taliban fail to live up to its promises it will have made to get us out of Afghanistan.
I pity the poor people of Afghanistan, especially its women, who will once again be living in the dark ages.
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@Ronald Aaronson You are almost right. Taliban actually agreed to have BinLaden tried by judges from various Muslim countries - but Bush/Chaney had other plans
As for their agreements: You are 100% right. A peace accord was agreed in Makkah-Haram, they went to Afghanistan and reneged. More than a few were awe struck
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These people will never change. Declare victory and bring the troops home.
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@Truth Teller: Who are these people, Americans who are trying to conquer the world?
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Pope John Paul who became a saint recently said it takes countries THOUSANDS of years to realize they a country wants to be free. Lock up all our politician who continue to want our military to be in wars over in that chaotic quagmire.
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These people deserve each other.
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These are unfortunate incidents in an unfortunate war. The United States is now in the same position as the Soviet Union once was. Unable to pacify the countryside the US has withdrawn to defending cities and main roads. Eventually, after a face saving agreement for a ceasefire to allow a US withdrawal, the fighting will restart and the Taliban will overthrow the corrupt government in Kabul. The Taliban, whose rank and file are rustics and boy lovers, will then found an Islamic Emirate ruled by stinkers. So much for the Afghan adventure.
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Nothing is shocking in war. Doesn’t Israel do the same, bulldozing houses, etc.?
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@HistoryRhymes No. Israel does not kill the families of terrorists. Property damage occurs rarely, and if it does, it is the result of a family member engaging in terrorist acts, not just because he/she is a member of the local police force.
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Nothing shocking in war? Remember WWII and slaughter of civils , jews, soldiers by nazis?
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For those of us old enough to remember, these tactics remind us some events during the Tet Offensive of the Vietnam War.
For Tet, the North Vietnam government sent down 8-man teams known as atrocity squads. They targeted civilians who worked for the government of South Vietnam (doctors, lawyers, teachers, etc) and their family members. Pure terrorism.
From the Tet Offensive, people remember that awful photo of a S. Vietnam general putting a gun to the head of a Viet Cong guy and pulling the trigger. What most people don't know is that the Viet Cong guy had just murdered a doctor, his wife, his six kids and the doctor's mother in an atrocity squad incident.
The N. Vietnamese wanted to show the population of S. Vietnam what would happen to them if they chose to help the government of S. Vietnam. The people of S. Vietnam saw these atrocities on their nightly TV news, were appalled, and stopped supporting the Viet Cong and the goals of Ho Chi Minh. The terror tactic failed.
Here we are, 50 years later; the Taliban is desperate and resorting to terror tactics to scare people out of helping the government of Afghanistan. It will fail to turn public opinion to their side. It will fail, but I'm afraid the message will be mis-interpreted again by the western media who will want to cut and run from the horrors.
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@Mike
And of course the news media never bothered to give us that fact which would definitely have changed the context of the action.
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@Mike I never knew that about VC guy. I wonder why our media always leaves out details like that. I did some research and apparently the VC's name was Nguyen Van Lem.
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This is total misreading of Afghanistan. Before Bin Laden, the Taliban were well in charge for some years after they manage to quiet most of the the various warlords. Only the post 9/11 attack by US forces and allies disrupted their hold.
Now that the US and its allies are leaving and Afghanistan itself has no really effective native opposition:ability to counter the Taliban, you can bet the Taliban will again hold control. It’s an inevitability. You can bet Pakistan/Saudi Arabia will make sure the Taliban are well funded to secure their hold in the aftermath.
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Anyone who thinks that the Taliban should be talked to/negotiated with should read this article.
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But unfortunately the reality of the war is that the Afghan government needs to negotiate. The US lost the war back in 2004 or 2005 when we installed the same pre-Taliban warlords to administer Afghan provinces that made the land hospitable to Taliban in the first place. Civil wars of this kind never end without negotiating with the other side (perhaps the single line example being Sri Lanka—and this situation is far, far from Sri Lanka’s).
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@A
The Tamil Tigers were defeated because the Sri Lankan government cornered them in the north of the country and systematically exterminated those terrorists. The Tigers are the ones who deployed countless suicide bombers and even assassinated an Indian prime minister. You can’t negotiate with these people. You can’t worry about the Western human rights critics who lecture you from places of safety. This is war. More will die in the long term if you don’t act decisively.
The US lost the Vietnam War because it was too restrained. The North had no qualms about sending agents to kill the families of South Vietnamese soldiers. China won its later border conflict with Vietnam because they knew better. Strike first, strike hard, no mercy.
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@James
There is no better proof in the world that negotiating with the Taliban must be an essential part of any lasting peace. The people of Afghanistan will never fold to the whims of a foreign power. This guerilla war is completely unwinnable for the US and will never stop until peace talks happen.
Are you going to head over there and defeat them all on your own, Mr. Rambo?
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in the past 15 years, no one has provided a cogent explanation at to why we are still in afghanistan.
yes, i am aware of our concerns about the pakistani's nuclear capability and their government, but we are not "prevailing" in afghanistan... period!
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