Would you join your nation's armed forces if it faced a serious threat?

[Flying Pig]

"Join the army or go to Jail" is as much of a choice as "Join a Criminal Gang or we'll kidnap you."

Only if by living where you do you enjoy serious benefits from having the criminal gang in control, there is no higher law, and you have freedom to move to another country. By the same implication, taxation is theft, and all imprisonment is kidnap

A better option for defense is to permit bearing of all kinds of arms. That way, it will be even harder for an invasion to happen.

I know of a country rather like that... we call it Afghanistan. Remember where it has got them?

 

[*****]

I know of a country rather like that... we call it Afghanistan. Remember where it has got them?

Afghanistan seems to be doing a pretty good job of frustrating the most powerful military alliance in human history. Do you honestly believe that NATO will succeed? It's been nearly ten years and progress has been scanty.

 

[Flying Pig]

Afghanistan seems to be doing a pretty good job of frustrating the most powerful military alliance in human history. Do you honestly believe that NATO will succeed? It's been nearly ten years and progress has been scanty.

Are we talking about the same country? The one I'm thinking of was invaded by said military alliance, and apart from certain small parts is now completely controlled by it. Those parts which are not under government control are now bitterly contested between the government and a radical insurgent group, neither of which can really claim to speak for the will of the local people. I wouldn't like that to happen in my own country.

And deviation, but yes. In fact, I think we very nearly have.

 

[*****]

Yeah, we're totally winning.

 

[Flying Pig]

Yeah, we're totally winning.

That shows we're winning. We knew from the start that even if we could wipe out the Taliban and everything they stood for, to do so while any fraction of the Afghan people still support them would be a betrayal of both them and the ideals of democracy - the reason that the allies feel able to talk to them now is that we're in such a position of strenght that the final settlement will be one that fits our own aims and those of the Afghans, not just the Taliban and their own few supporters - and then we can bring all the lads out there home. The same thing happened in Northern Ireland, which is now apart from a very few blips a stable, prosperous region of the UK.

we cant win. we tried for 10 years. if ti coudl be demolished, i am sure that the USA would have done it, regardless of morality.

That would not only be a complete failiure of all mission objectives (therefore: the officer ordering or permitting such actions would be guilty of treason) but would give the Taliban the biggest propaganda victory possible - not to mention causing international outcry which would lead to the collapse of many of the NATO countries as economic and political sanctions sank in. The US' role as 'leader of the free world' and a moral spokesman would be in ruins, all British diplomatic capital would be gone (assuming that Britain had not become a third-world nation by that point) - and all to get rid of what is, in global terms, a tiny insurgency in a tiny corner of the world. Not a good idea.

As for 'we tried it for ten years'... we British ran Operation BANNER in Ulster for over forty, and we 'won' as far as one can 'win' such things.

we will never be able to destroy it... unless we invade Pakistan too.

Whereupon it would just move... you can't destroy an idea by force. Education, which is making huge headway in Afghanistan, can go so far, but there will always be militant Islamic elements of the society and as a democratic agent of the Afghan people the allies need to allow that element to be represented, proportionally, in Afghanistan's government. What we cannot allow is for the Taliban to impose their views - held by a tiny minority - over the entire country.

And I'm not normally one to do this, but try typing a bit more accurately. Put it through Word or something.

 

[Mathalamus]

we cant win. we tried for 10 years. if ti coudl be demolished, i am sure that the USA would have done it, regardless of morality.

we will never be able to destroy it... unless we invade Pakistan too.

 

[*****]

Feel free to go on believing that. Frankly it seems like any military success is immediately lost in the political sphere. The Afghan people are still not supportive of NATO efforts, and the government is perceived as corrupt and ineffective. So it doesn't matter if the good guys clear the Taliban out of a valley, since there's no structure there to fill in the void.

X-post

 

[Flying Pig]

Feel free to go on believing that. Frankly it seems like any military success is immediately lost in the political sphere. The Afghan people are still not supportive of NATO efforts, and the government is perceived as corrupt and ineffective. So it doesn't matter if the good guys clear the Taliban out of a valley, since there's no structure there to fill in the void.

That's the problem. What's happening is that for the most part, the allies and the government are seen as better than the Taliban (note: not as a good system, but better than the enemy), but in their old heartlands persuading people over has been slow at best. It's literally been a case of clearing them out, and then trying to keep order and bring in some level of development to win people round and convince them that living under the government can bring them benefits - of course, all the while the enemy are shooting at the troops there and bombing them with IEDs, but they have to keep patrolling otherwise the Taliban would come back and they'd never get anywhere. Progress is distinctly slow, very frustrating, and bloody - but slowly the Taliban are being pushed back and hopefully before long they'll be in a position by which they'll decide to give up on violence and try to influence Afghanistan by peaceful means.

 

[sophie]

So tell us about your military service owen.

The extent of my military service was me registering for the draft 2 weeks after my 18th birthday (I couldn't do it sooner because I was out of the country). I'm not saying I'd love to be in the army (quite the contrary), what I'm saying is that if the draft is called, it is my duty as a US citizen to respond to the call.

 

[SG-17]

The extent of my military service was me registering for the draft 2 weeks after my 18th birthday (I couldn't do it sooner because I was out of the country). I'm not saying I'd love to be in the army (quite the contrary), what I'm saying is that if the draft is called, it is my duty as a US citizen to respond to the call.

I actually registered with the SSS a few months before my 18th birthday so I could get my federal loan approved.

 

[*****]

That's the problem. What's happening is that for the most part, the allies and the government are seen as better than the Taliban (note: not as a good system, but better than the enemy), but in their old heartlands persuading people over has been slow at best. It's literally been a case of clearing them out, and then trying to keep order and bring in some level of development to win people round and convince them that living under the government can bring them benefits - of course, all the while the enemy are shooting at the troops there and bombing them with IEDs, but they have to keep patrolling otherwise the Taliban would come back and they'd never get anywhere. Progress is distinctly slow, very frustrating, and bloody - but slowly the Taliban are being pushed back and hopefully before long they'll be in a position by which they'll decide to give up on violence and try to influence Afghanistan by peaceful means.

Given the political winds and budget crises in Europe and America, do you seriously think we'll outlast them?

 

[Flying Pig]

Given the political winds and budget crises in Europe and America, do you seriously think we'll outlast them?

I think to withdraw having failed would be seen as such a betrayal of the men who've laid down their lives and limbs there that it would be a political disaster for the government who ordered it. As such I think we're in it unless it ever becomes apparent that we're not wanted, in which case the government - and therefore we - has hopefully won anyway.

 

[Mathalamus]

nobody had an issue when the USA withdrew from Iraq.

 

[Flying Pig]

nobody had an issue when the USA withdrew from Iraq.

...having established a reasonably stable, reasonably democratic, and generally reasonably functioning state. Afghanistan is not yet any of these, at least not in the south.

 

[Mathalamus]

i always thought that Iraq was the worse of the pair. now it seems like Iraq is better than afganistan...

 

[Flying Pig]

i always thought that Iraq was the worse of the pair. now it seems like Iraq is better than afganistan...

Infinitely. Combat missions in Iraq are over and their local forces are dealing with what's left of the insurgency there; all foreign troops are in backroom, training roles only and some are even training themselves (the Royal Marines recently sent a few men down to Umm Quasir for amphibious drills I think). In Afghanistan, the foreign troops have to go out and work alongside the ANA, because the locals simply don't have the skills and manpower to shoulder the entire burden yet.

 

[Maniacal]

I would probably make a pretty bad soldier, so I would probably just try to help as a civilian.

Same, or I'd get the hell out of there to a better place. Maybe Norway.

 

[raketooy]

Well I'm gonna join the armed forces in July when my military service begins. If we didn't have the service I wouldn't join; imminent wartime is a completely different question, though. Without conscription, I wouldn't likely join, even in case of a serious threat. Just help as a civilian.

 

[Rashiminos]

nobody had an issue when the USA withdrew from Iraq.

Wha??

...having established a reasonably stable, reasonably democratic, and generally reasonably functioning state. Afghanistan is not yet any of these, at least not in the south.

It seems sunshine is made of stars and stripes today.

 

[innonimatu]

I think to withdraw having failed would be seen as such a betrayal of the men who've laid down their lives and limbs there that it would be a political disaster for the government who ordered it. As such I think we're in it unless it ever becomes apparent that we're not wanted, in which case the government - and therefore we - has hopefully won anyway.

So, after all those years, you never wondered whether the whole point of having soldiers fighting wars was that the soldiers were expendable? More expendable than the war goals?

It seems to me that betraying soldiers is not regarded as a problem when a war becomes inconvenient - more-so dead soldiers!