many Afghans don't know about 9/11 - how then do they see Americans in Afghanistan?

[Berzerker]

Call me stupid, but couldn't we have negotiated with the Taliban to help us capture the Al Qaeda leadership? Remember, we invaded Afganistan to capture Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri (remember them?), not topple the Taliban. From what I have read, they would have gladly helped us if we dropped some of the sanctions against them, they were working with our oil companies before the sanctions after all. Of course with that solution, the defense companies don't get paid.

And if you were looking to remove a brutal dictator, then why now North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, or Sudan be a target for regime change? Also, why are we trading with China, possibly one of the worst governments on Earth? That is why I find to whole national building rational to be a joke.

about a month into the new Bush adm, Ari Fleischer was taking questions when some guy with a ME accent asked if Bush would continue negotiations with the Taliban. Olbermann played the clip but I never heard another thing on it... Apparently these negotiations began under Clinton and the Taliban, or factions thereof, were willing to help set up OBL - the Taliban guy even joked how they'd pay for the missile fuel since we were so slow to accept a deal.

We never should have invaded, the rabbits ran and we weren't in a position to stop them and now we're stuck nation building in 2 countries. Carter >>>>> Bush

 

[Nuclear Launch]

I already posted this.

 

[FriendlyFire]

 

[generalstaff]

about a month into the new Bush adm, Ari Fleischer was taking questions when some guy with a ME accent asked if Bush would continue negotiations with the Taliban. Olbermann played the clip but I never heard another thing on it... Apparently these negotiations began under Clinton and the Taliban, or factions thereof, were willing to help set up OBL - the Taliban guy even joked how they'd pay for the missile fuel since we were so slow to accept a deal.

That's right, it was an Olbermann clip, but I think it was a different one from the description you provided. A lot of these type of things seem to get buried beneath bigger events of the same time period. I know that there were issues with the Taliban when we were trying to apprehend bin Laden after the embassy bombings, but that was under Clinton and we managed to bomb a few targets without needing to topple the Taliban. Also, one month of Bush negotiations is laughable (see the run up to the Iraq war).

 

[Tee Kay]

Ignorance is mutual.

 

[Bestbank Tiger]

the problem is that people are saying "We should have left Afghanistan under Taliban rule, most Afghans approved of it!"

Of course, most Afghans suffered terribly under the Taliban and its brutality, but since the Taliban is the enemy of America some people will bend over backwards to make excuses for them.

If the Afghan people like the Taliban so much why don't they vote for Islamofascist parties?

 

[Formaldehyde]

Call me stupid, but couldn't we have negotiated with the Taliban to help us capture the Al Qaeda leadership?

Yes, we could have. After all, the Taliban leaders merely wanted to see whatever evidence the US had that the al-Qaida actually did it. I think they would have responded to international pressure given half a chance to do so.

And regading the OP, the report only mentions two southern provinces. I wonder how many others don't know to show proper respect for what a handful of non-Afghans did 9 years ago in a land far away. Perhaps the Americans should build schools as the Russians did and educate the Afghans why the US invaded and occupied their country while killing thousands of completely innocent Afghans in the process. Perhaps they would then eventually learn to love their new overlords and their corrupt puppet regime.

 

[NYHunter]

More the reason to just leave. There is nothing to gain in Afghanistan worth our effort.

 

[civver_764]

I'm inclined to agree, but then again it does seem kind of dickish to bomb the hell out of a country for 9 years and then leave them with a huge power vacuum.

 

[Tee Kay]

I'm inclined to agree, but then again it does seem kind of dickish to bomb the hell out of a country for 9 years and then leave them with a huge power vacuum.

It's 1989 all over again.

 

[Skwink]

Lets just leave for a while, let them work themselves out, and see how it turns out.

 

[Arakhor]

Sometimes you need to temporarily force freedom on people so they can see its benefits. If everyone wants a dictatorship, fine but since someone is certainly being oppressed, that argument doesn't work.

Wow. Your consistent libertarian views never fail to convince me, Domination.

 

[Dachs]

It's 1989 all over again.

Nah, 1989 is more like what's happening in Iraq. Still not that comparable

 

[Tee Kay]

Nah, 1989 is more like what's happening in Iraq. Still not that comparable

Beleaguered national government on the verge of being/was driven out of power. An enemy gives support to the rebels/new government. Foreign power backing the troubled/ousted national government invades to combat rebels/overthrow new government. Interventionist foreign force quickly seizes control of the capital and major towns and cities and appears to be in control of the country, and installs a friendly government. Interventionist foreign force aids and tries to build support for the troubled new government, widely seen as incompetent/corrupt/Un-Islamic, while combating rebels, who have left the cities and main roads to the occupiers and largely withdrew to fight a guerrila war in the countryside. Foreign occupiers unable to achieve victory or establish a stable friendly government. Rebels supported by a network of like-minded fighters from abroad.

All that's left is: foreign occupiers withdraw in disgrace after nine years, leaving the country to a civil war.

 

[bathsheba666]

So the average Afghani has as little knowledge about the world outside Afghanistan,
as the average American has knowledge of the world outside the US.

No wonder then that, when outside forces intrude, they are ill-equipped to understand the significance and motivations.

I guess we need evidence....

Oh I feel so awful for the Taliban...

Sometimes you need to temporarily force freedom on people so they can see its benefits. If everyone wants a dictatorship, fine but since someone is certainly being oppressed, that argument doesn't work.

 

[Dachs]

Beleaguered national government on the verge of being/was driven out of power. An enemy gives support to the rebels/new government. Foreign power backing the troubled/ousted national government invades to combat rebels/overthrow new government. Interventionist foreign force quickly seizes control of the capital and major towns and cities and appears to be in control of the country, and installs a friendly government. Interventionist foreign force aids and tries to build support for the troubled new government, widely seen as incompetent/corrupt/Un-Islamic, while combating rebels, who have left the cities and main roads to the occupiers and largely withdrew to fight a guerrila war in the countryside. Foreign occupiers unable to achieve victory or establish a stable friendly government. Rebels supported by a network of like-minded fighters from abroad.

All that's left is: foreign occupiers withdraw in disgrace after nine years, leaving the country to a civil war.

Nah, see, I was commenting on the "foreign occupiers withdraw in disgrace" bit, not the buildup. And that's reductionist. The USSR withdrew in 1989, yes, but under "mission accomplished" banners, leaving a socialist government in nominal control of the country, and having recently completed a two-part offensive comprised of attempting to win the support of many of the mujahidiin and military suasion (sound familiar?). They continued to provide the Afghan socialists with economic and advisory support for another two years until the collapse, when Yeltsin basically decided "yeah screw that". Najibullah and his buddies had a stalemate in 1990, but without Soviet aid, they ran out of cash and weren't able to buy enough food to keep Kabul from rioting, much less to supply armed forces. Hence the collapse in 1992. The regime was predicated on outside aid, and the original withdrawal was made on conditions that included the outside aid and allowed it to survive; exogenous shock, in the form of the outside aid stopping, killed the DRA. That reads an awful lot like 1972 or 2007-09. It's not what's happening in Afghanistan (yet?).

 

[Formaldehyde]

Now they can see us as the people who claim to be eventually leaving their country by 2014:

Lisbon: Nato leaders endorse Afghanistan 2014 withdrawal date

Where have we heard this promise before?

'Fraction' of forces in Afghanistan to stay past 2014: Gates

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Send Rudy Giuliani over there and every man, woman and child will know about 9/11 by Thanksgiving.

And knowing him, they'll all think he held the towers up himself so that more people could escape.

I'm inclined to agree, but then again it does seem kind of dickish to bomb the hell out of a country for 9 years and then leave them with a huge power vacuum.

What you need to understand is that the entire history of Afghanistan is written in power vacuums. If invading forces didn't leave one, the warlords would make one. While they unite to best foreign invaders, they just as willingly go back to dueling amongst one another as soon as they leave. Turkish, Persian, Indian, British, Russian, all post-Mongol invasions followed this pattern.

 

[DinoDoc]

about a month into the new Bush adm, Ari Fleischer was taking questions when some guy with a ME accent asked if Bush would continue negotiations with the Taliban. Olbermann played the clip but I never heard another thing on it... Apparently these negotiations began under Clinton and the Taliban, or factions thereof, were willing to help set up OBL - the Taliban guy even joked how they'd pay for the missile fuel since we were so slow to accept a deal.

Stop lying Berz. he historical record is that the Taliban refused to hand OBL over to the US at anytime during the Clinton and Bush admin. So sell your BS elsewhere we're all full up here.

The United States requested the Taliban to shut down all al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, open them to inspection and turn over Osama bin Laden. The Taliban refused all these requests. Instead they offered to extradite Osama bin Laden to an Islamic country, for trial under Islamic law, if the United States presented evidence of his guilt. The Taliban had previously refused to extradite bin Laden to the United States, or prosecute him, after he was indicted by the US federal courts for involvement in the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. The Taliban deemed eyewitness testimony and satellite phone call recordings entered in the public record in February 2001 during a trial as insufficient grounds to extradite bin Laden for his involvement in the bombings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_for_the_September_11_attacks

 

[Tee Kay]

What you need to understand is that the entire history of Afghanistan is written in power vacuums. If invading forces didn't leave one, the warlords would make one. While they unite to best foreign invaders, they just as willingly go back to dueling amongst one another as soon as they leave. Turkish, Persian, Indian, British, Russian, all post-Mongol invasions followed this pattern.

The Kingdom of Afghanistan was relatively stable.