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Al-Qaeda are foreigners, yes, but that was because of their very founding as a force of volunteers to help the Afghans during their war with the Soviets. They w

Al-Qaeda are foreigners, yes, but that was because of their very founding as a force of volunteers to help the Afghans during their war with the Soviets. They were trained by the Americans as part of the cold war, but their real friends were the Taliban and everybody knew it. You can say "they weren't going to be arsed to[...]" but the reality is that they were close friends. If they weren't, the Taliban could have easily retained power by inviting the Americans in to aid their capture. As for why Nato stayed so long in Afghanistan, it is difficult to imagine now, but 20 years ago we had just won a giant string of wars and in most of them democracy was installed and life got better for everyone. We tried to make it work in Afghanistan too, but it didn't work for a multitude of reasons. Anyway, with respect, I was talking about Article 5 and the defensive alliance that is Nato. Countries within Nato can choose to go to war outside of A5, but they are only compelled to help under it.

jessaustin 5y ago
Sure, USA created these groups in order to undermine Afghanistan's existing government that was sympathetic to Moscow. Astute observers note the similarity to USA creation of e.g. "Right Sector" in Ukraine. Taliban did offer to turn over ObL, and this was known by the public at the time. [0] This may not have been such a realistic offer, given the hiding-in-caves-with-lots-of-guns aspect mentioned above, but they tried to do exactly what you advise and it didn't work. Maybe they learned a lesson about how USA policy is entirely controlled by the military-industrial complex through the sockpuppet war media? Let's ignore mistakes made over twenty years ago. We could have withdrawn at any time over that twenty years, so I'm more complaining about the mistake made every minute since then. The point of the thread is that NATO is not "defensive". You offered as a counterexample, NATO's war in Afghanistan. If that's all you've got, we can conclude that NATO is indeed not defensive in nature. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.terrorism5 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.te...
- 3pt14159 5y ago
  Last comment because, well, I've learned to limit how much I go back and forth on these types of things. First, even the article you liked didn't offer to turn over Bin Laden. It offered a discussion, asked for proof, etc. This isn't how international relations with a super power that's just had it's financial sector gutted in a once-in-a-decade event go. There is this retreat to minutiae that often happens in political debates. Sometimes it helps, but it usually does. 1. USA was attacked (for the second time) by a religious extremist. 2. They invoked Article 5, the only time in the history of the alliance that countries involved had a pre-commitment to jointly aid in defence. This isn't to say that individual Nato countries can't join together in other military exercises, like, say the invasion of Iraq. But that isn't Nato. That's UK + USA, it doesn't include Canada. 3. Every major ally of the USA responded by deploying troops to Afganistan. Even France. You can talk about the "industrial complex through the sockpuppet war media" and yes we have to be careful about how much we trust reporters because black propaganda is sadly a real thing, but the constant denial of ground realities and suspicion of Nato is clearly false on the merits. People are not lining up to immigrate to Russia or China or Afghanistan. Everyday people know that you have to try pretty hard to piss off Canada and if Canada is part of Nato maybe it isn't because of a giant world sized conspiracy theory. Maybe, just maybe it's because (mostly) peaceful democracies naturally want collective defence.

jessaustin 5y ago

Sure, USA created these groups in order to undermine Afghanistan's existing government that was sympathetic to Moscow. Astute observers note the similarity to USA creation of e.g. "Right Sector" in Ukraine. Taliban did offer to turn over ObL, and this was known by the public at the time. [0] This may not have been such a realistic offer, given the hiding-in-caves-with-lots-of-guns aspect mentioned above, but they tried to do exactly what you advise and it didn't work. Maybe they learned a lesson about how USA policy is entirely controlled by the military-industrial complex through the sockpuppet war media? Let's ignore mistakes made over twenty years ago. We could have withdrawn at any time over that twenty years, so I'm more complaining about the mistake made every minute since then. The point of the thread is that NATO is not "defensive". You offered as a counterexample, NATO's war in Afghanistan. If that's all you've got, we can conclude that NATO is indeed not defensive in nature. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.terrorism5 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.te...

3pt14159 5y ago
Last comment because, well, I've learned to limit how much I go back and forth on these types of things. First, even the article you liked didn't offer to turn over Bin Laden. It offered a discussion, asked for proof, etc. This isn't how international relations with a super power that's just had it's financial sector gutted in a once-in-a-decade event go. There is this retreat to minutiae that often happens in political debates. Sometimes it helps, but it usually does. 1. USA was attacked (for the second time) by a religious extremist. 2. They invoked Article 5, the only time in the history of the alliance that countries involved had a pre-commitment to jointly aid in defence. This isn't to say that individual Nato countries can't join together in other military exercises, like, say the invasion of Iraq. But that isn't Nato. That's UK + USA, it doesn't include Canada. 3. Every major ally of the USA responded by deploying troops to Afganistan. Even France. You can talk about the "industrial complex through the sockpuppet war media" and yes we have to be careful about how much we trust reporters because black propaganda is sadly a real thing, but the constant denial of ground realities and suspicion of Nato is clearly false on the merits. People are not lining up to immigrate to Russia or China or Afghanistan. Everyday people know that you have to try pretty hard to piss off Canada and if Canada is part of Nato maybe it isn't because of a giant world sized conspiracy theory. Maybe, just maybe it's because (mostly) peaceful democracies naturally want collective defence.