US Navy Transport warplane and OMNI Air Troop Carrier at Shannon

by Edward Thu Jul 02, 2009 16:26

Baffled above asks:
"So you would prefer that the Taliban controlled the area unhindered and perhaps used it as a base to extend their control to other areas evicting government official and local police and introducing their sadistic interpretation of Islamic sharia law?

If you are opposed to using military force to crush the Taliban, how do propose to deal with the Taliban and their Al-Qaeda allies?

These barbarian savages tyrannised the people of Afghanistan and if they had their way would introduce Taliban rule to Pakistan.

Who do you support Ed? Do you support the democratically elected Afghan government, do you support the US and Nato mission to defeat the Taliban and Al-Qaeda or would you prefer thje Taliban returned to power, Al-Qaeda operated their training camp unhindered and there were more 9/11 style attacks throughout the world?

Which is it?"

My considered answer is as follows:
I am and always have been against counterproductive violence wherever it occurs and whoever perpetrates it. Hitler, Stalin and Chairman Mao were the worst offenders in reverse order. Also included are the many dictators all over the world, very many of them installed or supported by the US, the UK and France. The Taliban did not attack the USA, and the Taliban support for the Al Qaeda was of a similar scale as the IRA received in the republic of Ireland for their campaign of violence in Northern Ireland, and considerably less that the support given by the USA for murderous regimes in Latin America and elsewhere. Lets not forget that the US and UK, and indeed the UN supported Pol Pot in Cambodia even after he was overthrown by Vietnam.
The conflict in Northern Ireland demonstrates that peaceful solutions are far more productive than violent ones. The conflict in Sri Lanka also demonstrates that intransigence by one or both sides leads to Gandhi's prediction of the whole world being left blind and toothless. I do not claim to be a pacifist, and I justifiable police actions to maintain peace, but not to perpetrate war and violence. East Timor and Liberia are two examples of justified UN policing or peace-enforcing actions, in both cases many years too late.
The Iraq and Afghan wars are very clear examples of unjustified and unlawful wars perpetrated without approval of the UN Security Council. Attempts to "legalise" these wars and the overthrowing of these two goernments after the events, are also contrary to the international law. In effect the UN is in breach of its own charter by backing the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The mistakes and gross breaches of international law by the US in Vietnam were repeated by the USSR in Afghanistan, and repeated again by the US in Afghanistan and Iraq.
If any case can be made for so-called "Just War", and I believe that no just war is possible in the 21 century, then the following criteria must be applied:
1. It must be justifiable and just.
2. It must be proportionate - that is, over one million deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan could not be justified to avenge the deaths of under 3,000 people in the USA - revenge is never a justifiable cause of war.
3. It must have a good chance of success - in the cases of the Iraq and Afghan wars, history shows that neither war had a good chance of success.

Baffled asks
"If you are opposed to using military force to crush the Taliban, how do propose to deal with the Taliban and their Al-Qaeda allies?
These barbarian savages tyrannised the people of Afghanistan and if they had their way would introduce Taliban rule to Pakistan."
The Taliban, while brutal, did bring some element of stability to Afghanistan after decades of war and subsequent civil war, and the abandonment of the Afghan people by the US government after the ousting of the Russians. The Taliban had virtually eliminated poppie and drug production by 2001. Since the US led invasion drug production in Afghanistan has reached record levels. The warlords and drug barons are now the real power in Afghanistan supported by the USA. They are far worse and levels of corruption is worse than in the times of the Taliban government. This is not to excuse the crimes of the taliban, which are many and serious. A more effective International Criminal Court and a more effective system of international is the only way of dealing with crimes against humanity. The trials of Slobodan Milosevic, Karadic, and others are examples of what can be done.
Ireland has joined the international outlaws, instead of supporting the enhancement of international law, by supporting the US and Brittish led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I am not a very religious person, but I do believe that the most basic and most effective set of laws is the old fashioned "Ten Commandments" especially fifth "Thou Shall not Kill", and seventy, thou shall not steal. This code of conduct originated with the Jews even prior to the time of Moses, and is accepted by all the main religions. It is also the basis for most national laws, and is increasingly becomming the basis for international law.
Killing people is the most serious and most basic abuse of human rights, and stealing of one sort or another is the cause of most conflicts, whether that stealing is of slaves and natural resources from Africa, Palestinian land, Iraqi oil, or trying to force an oil pipeline through Afghanistan to exploit (or steal) the central Asian oil.
My solution to the mass murder being committed by US and other western forces in Iraq and Afghanistan is to achieve justice by just and peaceful means. This was done eventually in South Africa, East Timor and Northern Ireland. It is the only way forward. The way of war is the way back into barbarism, and Bush and Blair were worse barbarians than the Taliban, and far worse liars.

by MichaelY - IAWM Thu Jul 02, 2009 14:08

Why has Obama declared Afghanistan “the good war?”
Why are so many Western troops, including Irish military, involved in this war?
Why is the anti-war movement calling for all troops to be withdrawn?

Afghanistan is descending into a hell-hole of chaos, corruption, crime and death. Estimates of civilian deaths caused by the 2001 invasion vary from 6,300 to 23,600. In May this year, U.S. planes dropped 2,000-pound bombs on three mud-brick villages in Western Afghanistan, killing up to 140 people. Over 1100 coalition soldiers have also been killed.

The effects of the occupation have swelled support for the Taliban. The war is escalating and has spilled over into neighbouring Pakistan where attacks by US drone planes and the US-backed Pakistani army assault on villages in the Swat Valley has left hundreds dead. Trócaire estimates that up to two million people have been displaced.

Western forces are rowing ever further in behind the invasion. Some of the additional 30,000 U.S. soldiers are beginning to arrive in southern Afghanistan. added to the 32,000 already there. The White House wants to give Pakistan nearly $1.5 billion development aid and $400 million in fresh military assistance.

Europe is deeply involved. ISAF troops (International Security Assistance Force) working under an expanded NATO command number 61,000 from 42 different countries, including at least seven officers from Ireland. This is truly a war waged by western powers against a small poor country that has the misfortune to have a prized strategic position.

Yet the west’s war is not popular with Afghanis. Opinion polls show Afghan confidence in the U.S. and the Afghan government plummeting, with now only 32% - down from 68% in 2005 – supporting the US performance. Yet this is the war that Obama wants to make his own. The stakes are very high but what is the war all about? Representatives from both the US Embassy and the Irish Dept. of Foreign Affairs have been invited to debate American and Afghani anti war (RAWA) activists. Come along and find out about this horrific situation.

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