The War in AfghanistanFollow

I've just come back from lunch and I was listening to Prime Ministers questions on the radio. Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, posed the question "what is our purpose of our troops being in Afghanistan, given the elections were heavily fraudulent". The Prime Minister responded that the streets of the United Kingdom are now safer for our involvement in the war.

Do you guys agree with the Prime Ministers assessment?

Do you feel safer on the streets of your home nation for the war in Afghanistan?

37 British soldiers died in the 3 months that Parliament was in recess. MP's were falling over themselves to offer condolences to the families. Do you think these soldiers, and all the others who have been killed in Afghanistan, have died in vain or is the war effort worth the lives of our men and women?

I'm just interested in your opinions as I found Gordon's statement a little hard to swallow. If there were a direct threat to the UK then, by all means, we should take appropriate action. Until that time I'm of the opinion that it is up to the security services and the police to investigate and counter terrorism, not invade far off countries on the manifesto of making the UK safe.

No. The questions in the OP, sock boy.

Move one? Country to the left? Watch out Iran!

If you're asking if Afghanistan the country poses a country-sized threat to the UK's national security, then no, that's not true. The place barely has a government, much less an army, so it's not a tangible threat to anyone but its neighbours.

However, one of Afghanistan's neighbours is Pakistan. Pakistan does have an army, and it also has nukes. If the insecurity in Afghanistan expands and spills over into Pakistan in some kind of broken windows scenario, you end up with what is pretty much America's nightmare - religious militants with nuclear weapons. It's far from likely, but it's close enough that the UK and America want to make sure the Taliban is contained. And that means troops in Afghanistan, on whatever pretense necessary.

The alternative is the chance of nuclear war between India and Pakistan - two countries which, mind you, used to just be India, until Britain decided that the Muslims and Hindus literally could not live together and split them into two states. Do you see how Britain's tied up in all this? Now, the best thing to do would be for Britain to avoid Afghanistan entirely, but that's not doable. It's not a question of "should the West be involved in Afghanistan?" The West is involved. It's been involved since the 19th century, when Britain and Russia used the territory to play political games with each other. The real question is "how the @#%^ do we get out without it biting us in the *** fifteen years down the line," and the answer to that isn't so simple.

You're facing maybe two hundred years of simmering resentment against Western powers, intensified and given shape in the form of the Taliban's particularly infectious brand of religious fanaticism, rooted in a country that has proven time and again to be highly resistant to any kind of large-scale military incursion. Afghanistan is the kind of place that eats armies and vomits up insurgents. So what do you do? If you've got an answer, Gordon Brown would love to hear it. He sure as hell hasn't got one.

I mean, personally I think the UK shouldn't have anything to do with Afghanistan. And ideally, it wouldn't. But you guys are living in the ruins of the world's biggest empire, and you're facing the enemies that it created. You're Rome facing Attila. Attila's pissed.

Edited, Oct 14th 2009 1:45pm by zepoodle

Massive terraforming operations. Flatten the place. Conventional methods or otherwise.

The area would make a lovely galactic day spa.

Really? You guys are there to invade the country and make your country safer?

I always thought Canada went in to support it's ally that was mercilessly attacked with the only intent of harming innocent civilians. Now we're just stuck there because of the massive fuck up we all created.

It's called Dubai.



More like the US is the new Russia.



No, you're supposed to manipulate politics, foster insurgencies and send armaments. It's almost like you've never played balance of power before.

True enough, but they are still missing legs of the pyramid. Conventional warfare is just as ineffective as it was when we used insurgency techniques against conventional military forces.

Too late for that, I'm afraid.

Or did you mean muslim militants with nuclear weapons??

They're not militants, but they are militant.

Would it make you feel any better if I mentioned that the devices used in Hiro/Naga are the equivalent of starter blasting caps in modern nuclear weapons?

No?