First of all, I think it's only fair to point out that anyone who thought the US would turn Iraq or Afghanistan into a stable, peaceful, Western country because of the invasion was either crazy or extremely ignorant.
Having said that.
Relatively speaking, I think Iraq is going pretty well. The occupiers are leaving, the Iraq government is trying to control its country, its not too bad. Obviously there is till some violence, but how could we expect otherwise after such a long and bloody conflict? All things considered, though, it's going in the right direction, which is to say, its being controlled by elected Iraqis. That on its own it pretty good.
I'm pretty sure everyone here knows that Afghanistan is an unsolveable mess. The elections were clearly rigged, Karzai is highly dubious, opium production is going strong, the Talibans are doing rpetty well... It's not stable, but when has Afghanistan been stable in the last century?
There is nothing to "win" there. We won't transorm it into a democratic state, we wont beat the warlords, nor will we destory the extremely rigid form of Islam they have over there.
I think the best we can hope from Afghanistan is that the Talibans will be sufficiently weak militarily so that they cant control the whole country again. That's the best we can realistically hope for. It doesnt mean they will be gone, or that Afghanistan will be safe, secure, stable, or peaceful. Its really about "who's the least evil guy we can put in power and fund?". And by "evil", I mean "opposed to our interests", of course.
There is one thing about Afghanistan which I dont get though, and I'd be grateful if some of the more knowledgeable members of our board could enlighten me. Basically, we all know that the Talibans get lots of money to buy arms from the opium/heroin trade. It's ironic because while we fight the opium trade, they help to cultivate it, package it, and sell it to Europe and the US. So basically, it's Western drug addicts which are funding the Talibans. Which is fine, it was the same in Columbia with FARC.
What I dont get is that some countries (Turkey being one of them, I think), are legally entitled to grow and sell opium for pharmaceutical purposes. Wouldnt it make a lot of sense to allow Afghan farmers to produce opium for pharma purposes? Then they would have a good livelihood, we would stop turning thema gainst us by destroying their crops, and we would deprive the Talibans of money. Why on Earth don't we do that?
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I see Israel has just given permission to build hundreds of new homes in the West Bank, which when completed will pretty much split the Occupied territories in half from east to west. This is in direct opposition to requests from Obama/Clinton, and against all international laws.
Thats really going to help.
Yeah, that is f
ucked-up. But what did we expect? Netanyahu is a c
unt, his foreign minister is Lieberman, and there is no way that administration will ever do anything which would favour peace.
Most ridiculous of all is the fact that when the Gaza war was happening, people were saying "Well thats what you get for electing Hamas!!!!". And yet, in the West Bank, you have a perfectly legitimate, peaceful, non-violent and stable administration. They have done everything asked of them. For years now. And how does Israel treat them? By building more illegal settlements on their land. How is that justifiable? How is that not an act of war? How can Israel whine about "peace partners" when they've had one in front of them for years and reward them by first ignoring them, and then building settlements on their land? And then they'll act all surprised when there is a violent reaction to this later on. Disgraceful...