Prison Breakout in Afghanistan

[Betty Boop]

1000 prisoners break out of prison in Afghanistan. I thought the Coalition were kicking the Taliban's erse? http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1319046,00.html?f=rss

[Future17]

1000 prisoners break out of prison in Afghanistan. I thought the Coalition were kicking the Taliban's erse? http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1319046,00.html?f=rss

Nightmare. :brickwall

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Afghanistan is a disaster in the making.

Britain tried to muscle in on Afghanistan three times in the last 2 centuries. In the 1830's we put a force of around 15,000 military and politicals into Kabul - the survivors (seriously) could be counted on one man's fingers and toes. We tried again in the 1880's and the only reason that wasn't a total disaster was that the commander had enough sense to get out before the Afghans got him. We had another go in 1912-13, and had to get out in a hurry again. After WW1 we tended to 'police' the area from the air, dropping bombs and poison gas on the villages rather than sending in troops.

Alexander the Great tried to conquer Afghanistan (or whatever it was called in his day) and failed.

The Moghul Emperors in the 16th century conquered the whole of what's now India and Pakistan - but not Afghanistan.

The Russians tried a few years back - and failed.

Guess what's going to happen to the present NATO effort?

NOBODY kicks Afghan ass. It may take them a few years, but they'll see us off yet again. Blair and Bush were morons to get involved, but they won't be the ones to get tgheir heads blown off.

[MSK]

Afghanistan is a disaster in the making.

Britain tried to muscle in on Afghanistan three times in the last century. In the 1830's we put a force of around 15,000 military and politicals into Kabul - the survivors (seriously) could be counted on one man's fingers and toes. We tried again in the 1880's and the only reason that wasn't a total disaster was that the commander had enough sense to get out before the Afghans got him. We had another go in 1912-13, and had to get out in a hurry again. After WW1 we tended to 'police' the area from the air, dropping bombs and poison gas on the villages rather than sending in troops.

Alexander the Great tried to conquer Afghanistan (or whatever it was called in his day) and failed.

The Moghul Emperors in the 16th century conquered the whole of what's now India and Pakistan - but not Afghanistan.

The Russians tried a few years back - and failed.

Guess what's going to happen to the present NATO effort?

NOBODY kicks Afghan ass. It may take them a few years, but they'll see us off yet again. Blair and Bush were morons to get involved, but they won't be the ones to get tgheir heads blown off.Cannae argue wi a word o that Doddie ...what surprises me is for such a rag tag army with limited "outdated" weaponry they are fekkin fighters to the last ...that is scary ..they dont waste rounds of bullets ..one bullet one kill...

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Cannae argue wi a word o that Doddie ...what surprises me is for such a rag tag army with limited "outdated" weaponry they are fekkin fighters to the last ...that is scary ..they dont waste rounds of bullets ..one bullet one kill...


An ex-soldier buddy of mine once told me that one of the most accurate sniper's rifles in the world is the old British Army Mark 4 Lee-Enfield dating from the Second World War. There are still a few kicking around Helmand even now.

The thing is, though, that the Taliban were given lots of modern weaponry by the US when they were fighting the Soviets, and they captured a lot of good stuff from the Soviets as well. So they've plenty hardware. And I'm sure they're getting more from Russia, and Iran, and maybe one or two other sources.

And the very first thing an Afghan laddie learns is to shoot straight with the AK-47 his dad gives him for his birthday (his fourth or fifth birthday, that is). Shooting people comes naturally to many of them, I'd say.

BTW - here's a contemporary print of the British-Indian Army arriving back at the fort at Jellalabad at the end of the First Afghan War....

http://www.britishbattles.com/first-afghan-war/kabul-gandamak/dr-brydon.jpg

(They sent the one man back so that he could tell his friends what the Afghans had done to the rest of the Army.)


And on the subject of what Afghans are likely to do to their enemies.... Rudyard Kipling had some good advice for the squaddies in Helmand in his own day, too.

"When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldier...."

[Pretty Boy]

Afghanistan is a disaster in the making.

Britain tried to muscle in on Afghanistan three times in the last 2 centuries. In the 1830's we put a force of around 15,000 military and politicals into Kabul - the survivors (seriously) could be counted on one man's fingers and toes. We tried again in the 1880's and the only reason that wasn't a total disaster was that the commander had enough sense to get out before the Afghans got him. We had another go in 1912-13, and had to get out in a hurry again. After WW1 we tended to 'police' the area from the air, dropping bombs and poison gas on the villages rather than sending in troops.

Alexander the Great tried to conquer Afghanistan (or whatever it was called in his day) and failed.

The Moghul Emperors in the 16th century conquered the whole of what's now India and Pakistan - but not Afghanistan.

The Russians tried a few years back - and failed.

Guess what's going to happen to the present NATO effort?

NOBODY kicks Afghan ass. It may take them a few years, but they'll see us off yet again. Blair and Bush were morons to get involved, but they won't be the ones to get tgheir heads blown off.

Afghanistan is unwinnable, the sooner we realise that the better. However the Americans don't want another Vietnamesque failure and the British seem to do what their told these days.

My personal feeling is we are in too deep now to simply withdraw, we cannot leave a country lawless and with no basic infastructure, however quite how we acheive even those modest goals is a mystery to me.

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Afghanistan is unwinnable, the sooner we realise that the better. However the Americans don't want another Vietnamesque failure and the British seem to do what their told these days.

My personal feeling is we are in too deep now to simply withdraw, we cannot leave a country lawless and with no basic infastructure, however quite how we acheive even those modest goals is a mystery to me.


5 dead back today ("heroes who died for Queen and country" according to ITN) and 230 more to go out.

Gordie appears to have received his orders from Dubya.

When will we ever learn?

[Hibrandenburg]

Might be a lost cause but lets try to remember that the country was being used as a training camp to train assassins, who would just love to pull a knife across your, my and everyone of our throats. Indeed they'd already killed a few thousand in New York.

A lost cause maybe, but certainly not worthless.

[--------]

Might be a lost cause but lets try to remember that the country was being used as a training camp to train assassins, who would just love to pull a knife across your, my and everyone of our throats. Indeed they'd already killed a few thousand in New York.

A lost cause maybe, but certainly not worthless.


We were in Afghanistan, and making some headway, when Bush and his Poodle took us into Iraq.

Result was that we took our eye off Afghanistan, allowed the Taliban to regroup and come back at us, and now it's a much worse mess than before.

We MIGHT get on a bit better if we had the sense to cnstruct a rational and even-handed policy regarding Israel and the Palestinians.

Conniving at ethnic cleansing, oppression, and genocide isn't exactly the way to win the hearts and minds of the wider islamic world, IMO.

[steakbake]

Cannae argue wi a word o that Doddie ...what surprises me is for such a rag tag army with limited "outdated" weaponry they are fekkin fighters to the last ...that is scary ..they dont waste rounds of bullets ..one bullet one kill...

The same, unfortunately, could be said of our shamefully ill-equipped troops.

It's no accident that the American's call UK forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, "the borrowers"

[JimBHibees]

We were in Afghanistan, and making some headway, when Bush and his Poodle took us into Iraq.

Result was that we took our eye off Afghanistan, allowed the Taliban to regroup and come back at us, and now it's a much worse mess than before.

We MIGHT get on a bit better if we had the sense to cnstruct a rational and even-handed policy regarding Israel and the Palestinians.

Conniving at ethnic cleansing, oppression, and genocide isn't exactly the way to win the hearts and minds of the wider islamic world, IMO.

Couldnt agree more the Israel Palestinian situation and the way the West have acted has been shameful and IMO given the extreme Islamists a cause to influence more moderate people. Never mind the illegal Iraq war.

[steakbake]

Couldnt agree more the Israel Palestinian situation and the way the West have acted has been shameful and IMO given the extreme Islamists a cause to influence more moderate people. Never mind the illegal Iraq war.

http://www.theherald.co.uk/politics/news/display.var.2348125.0.60_servicemen_have_died_beca use_of_inadequate_equipment.php

[Hibrandenburg]

We were in Afghanistan, and making some headway, when Bush and his Poodle took us into Iraq.

Result was that we took our eye off Afghanistan, allowed the Taliban to regroup and come back at us, and now it's a much worse mess than before.

We MIGHT get on a bit better if we had the sense to cnstruct a rational and even-handed policy regarding Israel and the Palestinians.

Conniving at ethnic cleansing, oppression, and genocide isn't exactly the way to win the hearts and minds of the wider islamic world, IMO.

:agree:We'll probably never achieve that no matter what we do. 1000 years of crusades, onerous colonial governments/puppet regimes and exploitation tends to leave a lasting bad taste in the mouth.

IMHO the hate is too deep rooted and can easily be frothed up by any war mongerer that a world wide culture war is inevitable. History has shown that when two cultures grow up next to oneanother, eventually one will swallow the other.

[steakbake]

:agree:We'll probably never achieve that no matter what we do. 1000 years of crusades, onerous colonial governments/puppet regimes and exploitation tends to leave a lasting bad taste in the mouth.

IMHO the hate is too deep rooted and can easily be frothed up by any war mongerer that a world wide culture war is inevitable. History has shown that when two cultures grow up next to oneanother, eventually one will swallow the other.

I was in Bosnia last week and was chatting to a couple of people about how things have changed since the war.

One guy - a great fella who knew of the mighty Hibees and indeed, Alen Orman - said that when he was growing up, it wasn't really an issue. He was saying that his family were very intermarried with Croats and Serbs. He said that the worst thing about the war was that it tore the society apart and while efforts are ongoing to heal some of the wounds, people now know and make judgements about who is what whereas before it didn't matter.

Seems with Islam, and just an opinion of mine, is that it appears to be or have become very politicised.

I think that solving the Palestinian/Israeli conundrum as well as trying to make some kind of amends for a disasterous invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan would go a long way to depoliticising it. It might pull the rug from under the feet of some of the politicised elements but whatever happens, I am sure the hardliners will remain but their political raison d'etre might be somewhat diminished.

[Betty Boop]

The situation in the Middle East will never be eased as long as this crap continues to be allowed to go on! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7451668.stm :bitchy:

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I was in Bosnia last week and was chatting to a couple of people about how things have changed since the war.

One guy - a great fella who knew of the mighty Hibees and indeed, Alen Orman - said that when he was growing up, it wasn't really an issue. He was saying that his family were very intermarried with Croats and Serbs. He said that the worst thing about the war was that it tore the society apart and while efforts are ongoing to heal some of the wounds, people now know and make judgements about who is what whereas before it didn't matter.

Seems with Islam, and just an opinion of mine, is that it appears to be or have become very politicised.

I think that solving the Palestinian/Israeli conundrum as well as trying to make some kind of amends for a disasterous invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan would go a long way to depoliticising it. It might pull the rug from under the feet of some of the politicised elements but whatever happens, I am sure the hardliners will remain but their political raison d'etre might be somewhat diminished.

That's true, I think. I came across a very interesting wee book by Joe Sacco - listed as a 'graphic novel' but it's factual - called "Safe Area Gorazde" about just that. Sacco was a reporter in Gorazde during the Bosnia crisis and made a lot of contacts and friends in the town. He comes to the same conclusions your guy did.

As for your point about Islam becoming politicised, a lot of Muslim commentators are now making a clear distinction between Islam (the religion) and Islamism (the ideology).

Our ineptitude and dishonesty in approaching the Israeli/Palestinian conflict IMO has hardened a lot of Muslims' attitudes - which in turn leads to harder attitudes among Western politicians as well.