10 ms·

I always feel like no matter how well a journalist covers Afghanistan, its only a small slice of the pie, for everything that is going on over there. And that i

I always feel like no matter how well a journalist covers Afghanistan, its only a small slice of the pie, for everything that is going on over there. And that is not to discredit the journalists, they do a great job, there is just so much going on over there, you gotta pick and choose your stories. For me, one of the greatest tragedies in Afghanistan as a result from the US war is the drug addict problem over ther. I haven't studied the issue in a couple of years, but I remember looking at pictures and statistics of heroin addicts in Afghanistan. As the war destroyed their country citizens turned to drugs and so did leaders, but the latter did so for money. The citizens literally have nothing better to do. And thats not to say they weren't poppy farmers before the war, they were, the majority were just not heroin abusers. In 2008 I took a seminar about the Afghanistan War, premised on the question, is Afghanistan a failed state? In a room with 12 reasonably bright American students we all were able to point out terrific errors that were causing some big issues. I remember reading that 70-80 percent of the trained Afghani police force was just signed up to get a paycheck. They never showed up for duty or anything. I do a lot of thinking about Afghanistan, because the situation is unique, yet historically predictable. In my opinion, its hard for me and Americans maybe all westerners, to understand Afghanistan and the people there; and its just as difficult for the people in Afghanistan to understand our way of life, and how to assimilate to what we were setting up. At present count, 3 people from my high school class have died fighting in Afghanistan, and 5 counting the year ahead of me (0 of my college mates, point for another story..). And this is what counts for me. I like to think that because the situation is complex and can get confusing, the best way to gain an understanding is to study individual stories, stuff that usually gets hidden behind the larger scene. From the research I have done, the majority of Afghans want peace to the point where they would accept a Taliban strict rule of law over the continued war. Its confusing, but it just shows the war really needs to end.

rdl 13y ago
How did anyone argue "Afghanistan is not a failed state", other than the "it was never a state, so it didn't fail, it just never won" (although in the monarchy it was OK in certain parts, for about a decade).
- LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
  Afghanistan was a modern state (and do research instead of simple downvote) as recently as 1960s. They had women studying at Universities, they had modern hospitals, you name it. War radicalized the society. Put them back in stoneage. They have had wars for the past 30-40 years. USSR death started with Afghanistan. USA death will start with it too. The place is a graveyard of Empires.
  - rdl 13y ago
    I knew it was fine from early 1900s until around 1971-1973. I guess it was ok for 30-40'years before that, not just the 1960s (which is what I thought)
    - LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
      I agree with you. However, the 1960s were the peak. I don't like (ideologically) that guy: Slavoj Zizek. He did however travel to Afghanistan before all the wars started. I believe as a student. He said that at that time, Afganistan was quite often portait by the press as an example of a country in which modernization and social progress that went good. I believe he mentions this in that debate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhAMgVFKokk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhAMgVFKokk
      - rdl 13y ago
        That seems to be a long discussion about polyamory and how it applies to religion (???)
        LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
        and bunch of other things. Not worth watching 1 hour worth of video just to see one guy saying something. Try this: http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-politics-religion/592591-once-upon-time-afghanistan.html http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-politics-religion/5... https://www.google.pl/search?q=afghanistan+in+1970+for+women&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=_WOjUfzrIIK-OeePgJAH&ved=0CDAQsAQ&biw=1669&bih=1001 https://www.google.pl/search?q=afghanistan+in+1970+for+women... Or just google for "Afghanistan in 1970". The wars caused regular people to support Islam Radicals as they were the ones defending country from outside agression. Also Iran was a country where girls in 1970s wore mini skirts and had equal rights in access to education. Exactly like in the West. The revolution there changed it all. The more we try influence them the more it is recognized as a foreign occupational forces killing your compatriots. Obviously during the war/occupation people flock to their natives even when they don't agree with them. Example: Let's say the US was attacked by China and Ku Klux Klan would be defending the country. Taking care of the weak, running hospitals. Organizing attacks on foreign military forces. Would you be surprised if they gained more influence? And the more foreign occupation forces would try to destroy them, the more support they would have got. Extremism grows and feeds on war. Another example (this time a historical one, not a fictional): underground Polish army officers were involved in terrorist attacks on Berlin subway system during the WW2. German could have been calling them 'terrorists' (as they did!) all day and night long. Polish citizenry supported them anyway. That's a war. For a war you want the most crazy, delusional, brutal elements to fight it for you - not a liberal democrat concerned about sexual minority rights. I'm talking about occupation here.
panacea 13y ago
I honestly don't desire to belittle or discount your anecdotes, but equating failed state = drug abusing population seems problematic when you look around in the West.
- smackay 13y ago
  You have to think of it in terms of the nightmare that is unfolding in Mexico rather than recreational use of drugs by people who are otherwise able to support themselves with jobs.
  - rdl 13y ago
    In both Mexico and Afghanistan, it's not so much local consumption of drugs which is the problem, but production/distribution/etc. of drugs for export or transshipment. Yemen has a drug use problem (with Khat), leading to a lack of water, etc., but that's nowhere near as serious as narco-insurgency.
guard-of-terra 13y ago
There is this recurring rumour that USA helps to deliver heroin from Afghanistan (and whereever) to Europe via their military bases. Particularly in Albania. I don't know where it is coming from, but little doubt that USA intervention in Afghanistan leads to an increase of Heroin production there which then gets smuggled out. Taliban needs to wage war and guns don't buy themselves.
- ardit33 13y ago
  If you believe that I have a bridge to sell to you.
kinkora 13y ago
Good story. I've always thought that the situation in Afghanistan can be pretty much summarised in these pictures: http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5112c4a969beddd072000000-1280-448-940-/afghanistanimage.jpg http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5112c4a969beddd0720... p/s: it shows the stark differences in Aghanistan from 1967 to 2007
- rdl 13y ago
  I thought the Kandahar green belt stuff was "help this third-world country develop with the promise of the green revolution" showplace stuff from the west, not the organic state of Afghanistan overall in the 1960s, though. It was certainly otherwise far better back then, but my perception from people from Kandahar (who admittedly weren't really experts; expats who had left in the 1980s) was that it was sort of like Epcot Center or something which had fallen into disrepair.)
sultezdukes 13y ago
From the research I have done, the majority of Afghans want peace to the point where they would accept a Taliban strict rule of law over the continued war. Its confusing, but it just shows the war really needs to end. And so would have the majority of Americans back in 2001, but they wouldn't give up Bin Laden, so they paid the price.
- drumdance 13y ago
  And so did we.
graycat 13y ago
> From the research I have done, the majority of Afghans want peace to the point where they would accept a Taliban strict rule of law over the continued war. Its confusing, but it just shows the war really needs to end. As I looked at US efforts at essentially 'nation building', often on the other side of the world, to try to contribute to US national security, I came up with a simple observation: In a country with a government and economy that function at all, there has to be and is a 'culture' with social structures, education, economic activity, leadership, laws, government, usually religion, etc. While such a culture has to exist, it may be very different from that in the US. In Afghanistan and much of the Muslim world, the 'culture' is heavily just Islam: Islam controls social structures, e.g., sex, marriage, child rearing, the role of family, etc. Islam also controls most of education, much of the economic activity, essentially all the laws, the police, the justice system, the government, the foreign policy, and, of course, religion. We can toss in architecture, what people eat, and what they wear. Basically from how people dress, eat, work, etc., its all Islam. So, in an Islamic country, take away Islam, and there's no culture at all and, then, just chaos, e.g., criminals, gangs, civil war, etc. Net, in an Islamic country, for a government leader can have an Islamic king (e.g., Kuwait), Islamic strong man dictator (Saddam, Assad), or Islamic cleric (Iran). That's about it. One can try to set up a Western, secular government in an Islamic country, but the leader will have no cultural foundation to stand on and, thus, will be trying to sell pie in the sky. Meanwhile the clerics will be working 24 x 7 to get their people up on their hind legs against the guy, and too soon he will lose, maybe his head. For anything like US democracy, laws, police, secular government, freedom of religion, etc., just f'get about it. We need to understand: In the US, our 'culture' of democracy is much more than just our Constitution and elections. Instead, in addition, nearly all of us have 'bought into' a 'social contract' where we believe in, invest in, and trust in our democracy. So for most significant transgressions against the 'culture', the voters get indignant, outraged, incensed, infuriated, and up on their hind legs and vote! E.g., each member of the House has to stand for election each two years, which is darned short, and keeps him on a very short leash, and if he messes up then likely he's out'a there. To borrow from a Bond movie, getting caught in a motel room with a cheerleader does nicely. Really the Islamic countries are about 500 years behind the history of Western Europe, e.g., when Western Europe was fighting wars of religion and starting to develop respect for humanism, individual freedom, secular government, and democracy. Moving ahead 500 years is not easy. The rivers of Europe ran red with blood for hundreds of years before we got to 'Western Civilization'. Europe has been the most effectively bloody place on the planet until finally it started to learn to live in peace, recently, hopefully. Net, Afghanistan is going to be an Islamic country, some version of an Islamic country, but still an Islamic country, likely run by a king, strong man, or cleric. Sorry 'bout that. We won't like such a 'culture': Some of the men use boys for sex. They marry off their daughters at age 7 or 13 or some such. They refuse to educate females. They use Islamic laws and justice. Islam runs essentially everything. That's just the way it is. That's the reality. We need to face the reality. We don't like it. We see it as a 500 year out of date sh!tpit, and we are correct. Right, it sucks. We know that. Then, facing that reality, we can look for how to get what we need, e.g., US national security, that is, to keep Afghanistan from being the base of operations of another 9/11 attack on the US. Okay, then, that's what we really need, our real 'bottom line': Keep Afghanistan from being the base of operations of another 9/11 attack on the US. We need little or nothing more than that from Afghanistan. Can we get that? Sure. How? Two steps. Step 1. Put in place a bunch of INTEL. Step 2. Leave. [It took the US 12 years to figure this out?] If our INTEL tells us that they are starting to attack the US again, then level them, appropriate places plus some for good measure, from the air. Done. What will happen after we leave? Mostly we don't give a sh!t. But I'd put my money on a government run by an Islamic cleric, e.g., the Taliban. Now, US military, welcome home. Well done. Yes, we can be sure that the Muslim clerics will get their people up on their hind legs shouting "Death to America". Sounds like a declaration of war to me for which some USAF guy in a container room in Nevada should push a button on a drone control and stop that stuff. But if all they do is shout, then we don't always have to push the button. England was long smart enough to work effectively in that part of the world, in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Iran, Pakistan, India, Burma, Singapore, etc., without getting all bent out of shape trying to bring English culture to those places. The US needs to quit being so darned simplistic, wise up, learn from the English 150 years ago, update the lessons a little, use our drones, INTEL, etc., do the smart things, and quit bleeding the US white on absurd foreign adventures from just totally unrealistic, head in the sand, simplistic foreign policy nonsense. We will not get what we have wanted in Afghanistan. Instead we will wise up and get what we can and need or just go broke on nonsense. What's it going to be US, wise up or go broke?
ryanmarsh 13y ago
tl;dr The ground truth is NOTHING like what you see in the MSM. I fought in Iraq as a paratrooper mostly in Baghdad from '04 to '05. While there I was really surprised by the reporting I saw. We had CNN in our hooch (paid Hadji to hook it up). We had satellite Internet (again paid Hadji for it) and I read the NY Times. The reporting there could not have been further from reality. We used to scratch our heads at the reporting each morning on the day prior in Baghdad. It was like they were reporting from a different planet. You should not be surprised that the ground truth is wildly different from what is being reported. My first briefing when I got on the ground in 2004 was that we were past a simple insurgency and now in a small scale civil war that we were trying to stop from becoming a full scale humanitarian crisis. I recall a lot of reporting and very brainy discussion about the insurgency at that time but I don't recall the civil war entering that discussion until late 2005 when I got back to the states. Keep in mind that in Afghanistan most of reporters don't go out without ISAF patrols because that would not be very safe, it was the same in Iraq. This drastically alters the story you get. On the flip side, I'm pleasantly surprised by the courage displayed by some of the PBS Frontline reporters and the places they've gone. I love Frontline. As they say, America isn't at war America is at the shopping mall. The US Army is at war.
- graycat 13y ago
  > My first briefing when I got on the ground in 2004 was that we were past a simple insurgency and now in a small scale civil war that we were trying to stop from becoming a full scale humanitarian crisis. That's what I thought, and I was always in the US and getting only US news. Moreover, earlier still, I believed the remarks reported from Saddam that the US occupation would have one heck of a time keeping the Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds from having a civil war. W claimed that, of course, the Iraqis could "govern themselves". Where'd George get that really strong funny stuff he was smoking? Net, W failed to see what large fractions of common street thugs, one step higher lone criminals, low level gang leaders, various mid level opportunists, government officials, religious leaders, tribal leaders, the Iranians, and international trouble makers saw: W's defeat of Saddam without a serious effort at occupation had left Iraq plowed fertile ground for chaos.
znowi 13y ago
> its hard for me and Americans maybe all westerners, to understand Afghanistan and the people there It's not hard at all. Country A invades country B. Wreaks havoc and assigns a puppet government. Army is in disarray, civilian life is disrupted. It doesn't take a "reasonably bright American student" to guess the conditions and sentiments of the local populace.

rdl 13y ago

How did anyone argue "Afghanistan is not a failed state", other than the "it was never a state, so it didn't fail, it just never won" (although in the monarchy it was OK in certain parts, for about a decade).

LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
Afghanistan was a modern state (and do research instead of simple downvote) as recently as 1960s. They had women studying at Universities, they had modern hospitals, you name it. War radicalized the society. Put them back in stoneage. They have had wars for the past 30-40 years. USSR death started with Afghanistan. USA death will start with it too. The place is a graveyard of Empires.
- rdl 13y ago
  I knew it was fine from early 1900s until around 1971-1973. I guess it was ok for 30-40'years before that, not just the 1960s (which is what I thought)
  - LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
    I agree with you. However, the 1960s were the peak. I don't like (ideologically) that guy: Slavoj Zizek. He did however travel to Afghanistan before all the wars started. I believe as a student. He said that at that time, Afganistan was quite often portait by the press as an example of a country in which modernization and social progress that went good. I believe he mentions this in that debate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhAMgVFKokk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhAMgVFKokk
    - rdl 13y ago
      That seems to be a long discussion about polyamory and how it applies to religion (???)
      - LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
        and bunch of other things. Not worth watching 1 hour worth of video just to see one guy saying something. Try this: http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-politics-religion/592591-once-upon-time-afghanistan.html http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-politics-religion/5... https://www.google.pl/search?q=afghanistan+in+1970+for+women&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=_WOjUfzrIIK-OeePgJAH&ved=0CDAQsAQ&biw=1669&bih=1001 https://www.google.pl/search?q=afghanistan+in+1970+for+women... Or just google for "Afghanistan in 1970". The wars caused regular people to support Islam Radicals as they were the ones defending country from outside agression. Also Iran was a country where girls in 1970s wore mini skirts and had equal rights in access to education. Exactly like in the West. The revolution there changed it all. The more we try influence them the more it is recognized as a foreign occupational forces killing your compatriots. Obviously during the war/occupation people flock to their natives even when they don't agree with them. Example: Let's say the US was attacked by China and Ku Klux Klan would be defending the country. Taking care of the weak, running hospitals. Organizing attacks on foreign military forces. Would you be surprised if they gained more influence? And the more foreign occupation forces would try to destroy them, the more support they would have got. Extremism grows and feeds on war. Another example (this time a historical one, not a fictional): underground Polish army officers were involved in terrorist attacks on Berlin subway system during the WW2. German could have been calling them 'terrorists' (as they did!) all day and night long. Polish citizenry supported them anyway. That's a war. For a war you want the most crazy, delusional, brutal elements to fight it for you - not a liberal democrat concerned about sexual minority rights. I'm talking about occupation here.

panacea 13y ago

I honestly don't desire to belittle or discount your anecdotes, but equating failed state = drug abusing population seems problematic when you look around in the West.

smackay 13y ago
You have to think of it in terms of the nightmare that is unfolding in Mexico rather than recreational use of drugs by people who are otherwise able to support themselves with jobs.
- rdl 13y ago
  In both Mexico and Afghanistan, it's not so much local consumption of drugs which is the problem, but production/distribution/etc. of drugs for export or transshipment. Yemen has a drug use problem (with Khat), leading to a lack of water, etc., but that's nowhere near as serious as narco-insurgency.

guard-of-terra 13y ago

There is this recurring rumour that USA helps to deliver heroin from Afghanistan (and whereever) to Europe via their military bases. Particularly in Albania. I don't know where it is coming from, but little doubt that USA intervention in Afghanistan leads to an increase of Heroin production there which then gets smuggled out. Taliban needs to wage war and guns don't buy themselves.

ardit33 13y ago
If you believe that I have a bridge to sell to you.

kinkora 13y ago

Good story. I've always thought that the situation in Afghanistan can be pretty much summarised in these pictures: http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5112c4a969beddd072000000-1280-448-940-/afghanistanimage.jpg http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5112c4a969beddd0720... p/s: it shows the stark differences in Aghanistan from 1967 to 2007

rdl 13y ago
I thought the Kandahar green belt stuff was "help this third-world country develop with the promise of the green revolution" showplace stuff from the west, not the organic state of Afghanistan overall in the 1960s, though. It was certainly otherwise far better back then, but my perception from people from Kandahar (who admittedly weren't really experts; expats who had left in the 1980s) was that it was sort of like Epcot Center or something which had fallen into disrepair.)

sultezdukes 13y ago

From the research I have done, the majority of Afghans want peace to the point where they would accept a Taliban strict rule of law over the continued war. Its confusing, but it just shows the war really needs to end. And so would have the majority of Americans back in 2001, but they wouldn't give up Bin Laden, so they paid the price.

drumdance 13y ago
And so did we.

graycat 13y ago

> From the research I have done, the majority of Afghans want peace to the point where they would accept a Taliban strict rule of law over the continued war. Its confusing, but it just shows the war really needs to end. As I looked at US efforts at essentially 'nation building', often on the other side of the world, to try to contribute to US national security, I came up with a simple observation: In a country with a government and economy that function at all, there has to be and is a 'culture' with social structures, education, economic activity, leadership, laws, government, usually religion, etc. While such a culture has to exist, it may be very different from that in the US. In Afghanistan and much of the Muslim world, the 'culture' is heavily just Islam: Islam controls social structures, e.g., sex, marriage, child rearing, the role of family, etc. Islam also controls most of education, much of the economic activity, essentially all the laws, the police, the justice system, the government, the foreign policy, and, of course, religion. We can toss in architecture, what people eat, and what they wear. Basically from how people dress, eat, work, etc., its all Islam. So, in an Islamic country, take away Islam, and there's no culture at all and, then, just chaos, e.g., criminals, gangs, civil war, etc. Net, in an Islamic country, for a government leader can have an Islamic king (e.g., Kuwait), Islamic strong man dictator (Saddam, Assad), or Islamic cleric (Iran). That's about it. One can try to set up a Western, secular government in an Islamic country, but the leader will have no cultural foundation to stand on and, thus, will be trying to sell pie in the sky. Meanwhile the clerics will be working 24 x 7 to get their people up on their hind legs against the guy, and too soon he will lose, maybe his head. For anything like US democracy, laws, police, secular government, freedom of religion, etc., just f'get about it. We need to understand: In the US, our 'culture' of democracy is much more than just our Constitution and elections. Instead, in addition, nearly all of us have 'bought into' a 'social contract' where we believe in, invest in, and trust in our democracy. So for most significant transgressions against the 'culture', the voters get indignant, outraged, incensed, infuriated, and up on their hind legs and vote! E.g., each member of the House has to stand for election each two years, which is darned short, and keeps him on a very short leash, and if he messes up then likely he's out'a there. To borrow from a Bond movie, getting caught in a motel room with a cheerleader does nicely. Really the Islamic countries are about 500 years behind the history of Western Europe, e.g., when Western Europe was fighting wars of religion and starting to develop respect for humanism, individual freedom, secular government, and democracy. Moving ahead 500 years is not easy. The rivers of Europe ran red with blood for hundreds of years before we got to 'Western Civilization'. Europe has been the most effectively bloody place on the planet until finally it started to learn to live in peace, recently, hopefully. Net, Afghanistan is going to be an Islamic country, some version of an Islamic country, but still an Islamic country, likely run by a king, strong man, or cleric. Sorry 'bout that. We won't like such a 'culture': Some of the men use boys for sex. They marry off their daughters at age 7 or 13 or some such. They refuse to educate females. They use Islamic laws and justice. Islam runs essentially everything. That's just the way it is. That's the reality. We need to face the reality. We don't like it. We see it as a 500 year out of date sh!tpit, and we are correct. Right, it sucks. We know that. Then, facing that reality, we can look for how to get what we need, e.g., US national security, that is, to keep Afghanistan from being the base of operations of another 9/11 attack on the US. Okay, then, that's what we really need, our real 'bottom line': Keep Afghanistan from being the base of operations of another 9/11 attack on the US. We need little or nothing more than that from Afghanistan. Can we get that? Sure. How? Two steps. Step 1. Put in place a bunch of INTEL. Step 2. Leave. [It took the US 12 years to figure this out?] If our INTEL tells us that they are starting to attack the US again, then level them, appropriate places plus some for good measure, from the air. Done. What will happen after we leave? Mostly we don't give a sh!t. But I'd put my money on a government run by an Islamic cleric, e.g., the Taliban. Now, US military, welcome home. Well done. Yes, we can be sure that the Muslim clerics will get their people up on their hind legs shouting "Death to America". Sounds like a declaration of war to me for which some USAF guy in a container room in Nevada should push a button on a drone control and stop that stuff. But if all they do is shout, then we don't always have to push the button. England was long smart enough to work effectively in that part of the world, in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Iran, Pakistan, India, Burma, Singapore, etc., without getting all bent out of shape trying to bring English culture to those places. The US needs to quit being so darned simplistic, wise up, learn from the English 150 years ago, update the lessons a little, use our drones, INTEL, etc., do the smart things, and quit bleeding the US white on absurd foreign adventures from just totally unrealistic, head in the sand, simplistic foreign policy nonsense. We will not get what we have wanted in Afghanistan. Instead we will wise up and get what we can and need or just go broke on nonsense. What's it going to be US, wise up or go broke?

ryanmarsh 13y ago

tl;dr The ground truth is NOTHING like what you see in the MSM. I fought in Iraq as a paratrooper mostly in Baghdad from '04 to '05. While there I was really surprised by the reporting I saw. We had CNN in our hooch (paid Hadji to hook it up). We had satellite Internet (again paid Hadji for it) and I read the NY Times. The reporting there could not have been further from reality. We used to scratch our heads at the reporting each morning on the day prior in Baghdad. It was like they were reporting from a different planet. You should not be surprised that the ground truth is wildly different from what is being reported. My first briefing when I got on the ground in 2004 was that we were past a simple insurgency and now in a small scale civil war that we were trying to stop from becoming a full scale humanitarian crisis. I recall a lot of reporting and very brainy discussion about the insurgency at that time but I don't recall the civil war entering that discussion until late 2005 when I got back to the states. Keep in mind that in Afghanistan most of reporters don't go out without ISAF patrols because that would not be very safe, it was the same in Iraq. This drastically alters the story you get. On the flip side, I'm pleasantly surprised by the courage displayed by some of the PBS Frontline reporters and the places they've gone. I love Frontline. As they say, America isn't at war America is at the shopping mall. The US Army is at war.

graycat 13y ago
> My first briefing when I got on the ground in 2004 was that we were past a simple insurgency and now in a small scale civil war that we were trying to stop from becoming a full scale humanitarian crisis. That's what I thought, and I was always in the US and getting only US news. Moreover, earlier still, I believed the remarks reported from Saddam that the US occupation would have one heck of a time keeping the Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds from having a civil war. W claimed that, of course, the Iraqis could "govern themselves". Where'd George get that really strong funny stuff he was smoking? Net, W failed to see what large fractions of common street thugs, one step higher lone criminals, low level gang leaders, various mid level opportunists, government officials, religious leaders, tribal leaders, the Iranians, and international trouble makers saw: W's defeat of Saddam without a serious effort at occupation had left Iraq plowed fertile ground for chaos.

znowi 13y ago

> its hard for me and Americans maybe all westerners, to understand Afghanistan and the people there It's not hard at all. Country A invades country B. Wreaks havoc and assigns a puppet government. Army is in disarray, civilian life is disrupted. It doesn't take a "reasonably bright American student" to guess the conditions and sentiments of the local populace.