BLOODBATH in Afghanistan.

We have reached that stage in Afghanistan when we have to start thinking the unthinkable!! . Enough is enough. 15 soldiers perished in the space of ten days, 3 of them only 18yr old rookies!!!. . Another 170 perished since the start of the campaign all those years ago. If things do not improve sharply, should we cut our losses and get our lads and lasses back home?




http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/5816376/War-in-Afghanistan-timeline-of-British-deaths.html

My cousin is in Afghanistan at the moment, and was caught up in the trouble last week, his tank was targetted, and one of his troop lost both his legs. He is currently in hospital after being deafened by the blasts, although Im told its not a permanent problem.

He is due to fly back this week some time

Dean wrote:My cousin is in Afghanistan at the moment, and was caught up in the trouble last week, his tank was targetted, and one of his troop lost both his legs. He is currently in hospital after being deafened by the blasts, although Im told its not a permanent problem.

He is due to fly back this week some time

Im sure all our thoughts are with your cousin Dean, and i hope he has a safe return home, he's done his country proud mate.

Cheers Micky, we are all very proud of him too!!

Afghanistan has been invaded over and over again in the last three thousand years ...no one ever came away victorious.
No one ever invaded the place and won.
Why are we there?
What will be deemed a victory?

Dean I feel for you mate my eldest was over there last year and I was shitting bricks(he was a 1st reservist but he went came back and then said he was going to go back full time(thankfully his wife and I persauded him not to) now my second youngest wants to join my regiment and funny enough I am not so worried about him going as he is so with it I ant say no

Dean wrote:My cousin is in Afghanistan at the moment, and was caught up in the trouble last week, his tank was targetted, and one of his troop lost both his legs. He is currently in hospital after being deafened by the blasts, although Im told its not a permanent problem.
He is due to fly back this week some time

aaaaw, his parents would be so relieved to see him back in one piece!!


when gordon brown said last week, before all these deaths "there will be more fatalities" my heart sank, cos obviously he knew something!! politicians often try to soften the blow in advance when they know something big is about to happen!.
there will be elections soon in kabul soon, so western leaders wanted one last 'push/assault' on the enemy to purge the place of the talebans, before the elections take place.

It is only the begiinning.
Sorry to hear about your cousin Dean.

it's anyone's guess whether or not the allied forces will ever achieve lasting success in afghanistan. everyone is suddenly screaming for more helicopters, but war experts have said that they wouldn't make a big impact on the casualty statistics b/c at some stage the soldiers have to fight at ground level. sadly, the enemy is also becoming more sophisticated, they are now using explosive material with very low metallic content (so it's harder to detect) in their I.E.D's.!!

if we leave now it will look as if all the blood, sweat and tears plus casualties we have suffered have been for nothing. then again if we carry on fighting until the kabul elections put a new regime in place, we will incur more loss of life, the enemey's dander is up for sure! and then, the minute we finally leave they would start to murder the elected politicians, one by one.

what are we going to do??

Agree that the Stop The War coalition were right all along

jack wrote:Afghanistan has been invaded over and over again in the last three thousand years ...no one ever came away victorious.
No one ever invaded the place and won. Why are we there?What will be deemed a victory?

too true. hiya to ((((((jack and vili)))))). that is a good question. what are we doing there? i have lost sight of why we went there. i'm sure there was a good reason, but i cannot remember it. how naive we were.we will never be able to eliminate all their opium crops, there is not enough herbicide in the world to acheive that! neither will we be able to eliminate the taleban, they are intimately embedded within the general (peaceful) population.


at least we are more realistic now. cos 8 years ago, at the start of our war campaignwe went there with all manner of grandiose aims and objectives, including trying to promote sexual parity between muslim men and women!!! in afghanistan??? no way. that will not happen in this millenium!! how naive we were in those days .

CannyG wrote:

jack wrote:Afghanistan has been invaded over and over again in the last three thousand years ...no one ever came away victorious.
No one ever invaded the place and won. Why are we there?What will be deemed a victory?

too true. hiya to ((((((jack and vili)))))). that is a good question. what are we doing there? i have lost sight of why we went there. i'm sure there was a good reason, but i cannot remember it. how naive we were.we will never be able to eliminate all their opium crops, there is not enough herbicide in the world to acheive that! neither will we be able to eliminate the taleban, they are intimately embedded within the general (peaceful) population.


at least we are more realistic now, 8 years ago, at the start of our war campaignwe went there with all manner of grandiose aims and objectives, including trying to promote sexual parity between muslim men and women!!! in afghanistan??? no way. that will not happen in this millenium!! how naive we were in those days .

Well apart from Stop The War who told it like jack, if the Soviets couldn't win then what chance do we have = none

Dean wrote:Cheers Micky, we are all very proud of him too!!

Im sure you are mate, and at least he's still alive unlike many others unfortunately mate.

We didn't go there for womens rights thats for sure.
We didn't go there to set up a democracy thats for sure.
We went there because of lies told by the American and British governments ...thats pretty clear by now I would have thought,.
Don't tell me we went there cos nineteen suadis blew new york up ...cos I'll ask ...why didn't we attack them then.
It was handy that we had some footage of terrorist training camps wasn't it ...or do I remember rightly that we had some footage of some rusty monkey bars and barbed wire?
It was just coincidence that the Taliban had refused an offer of billions of dollars from the Yanks for Unacol to build pipelines across Afghanistan from the Caspian sea of course that we decided to invade ...just coincidence ...lot of coincidences with the whole sorry story of American politics this last few years.

exactly. the soviets could not triumph over the afghans, and that was before the afghans became more sophisticated and wily!!! do we stay and fight, risking another "vietnam situation," or do we cut our losses and leave them to it??

CannyG wrote:exactly. the soviets could not triumph over the afghans, and that was before the afghans became more sophisticated and wily!!! do we stay and fight, risking another "vietnam situation," or do we cut our losses and leave them to it??

If you go back to the sixties it was a holiday destination with fine hotels.
Then reports started coming out that the CIA were messing about on the Russian border there.
The Russians complained and threatened and it was just more cold war crap.
The Russinas were as good as given no choice but to invade in the end.
It's almost as if we got the Russians to soften the place up as well as highten the anti western attitude ...all with the help of CIA man Osama bin laden of course.

jack wrote:We didn't go there for womens rights thats for sure.
We didn't go there to set up a democracy thats for sure.
We went there because of lies told by the American and British governments ...thats pretty clear by now I would have thought,.
Don't tell me we went there cos nineteen suadis blew new york up ...cos I'll ask ...why didn't we attack them then.
It was handy that we had some footage of terrorist training camps wasn't it ...or do I remember rightly that we had some footage of some rusty monkey bars and barbed wire?
It was just coincidence that the Taliban had refused an offer of billions of dollars from the Yanks for Unacol to build pipelines across Afghanistan from the Caspian sea of course that we decided to invade ...just coincidence ...lot of coincidences with the whole sorry story of American politics this last few years.

promoting women's rights was one of our many grandiose aspirations though. the treatment of women in that benighted country is nothing short of stone-age. we also wanted to eliminate their entire opium crop, to cut off the funding of arms, another tall order jack.

america has poured untold BILLIONs into that country to build up the infrastucture, quite apart from the amounts they have spent on the war effort itself. (though i daresay they will "recoup" the money . ).

Even Stop The War Coalition knew that was a pathetic smokescreen by nL

Old_Punk wrote:Even Stop The War Coalition knew that was a pathetic smokescreen by nL

yes. but STWC were a (ignored) 'voice in the wilderness', sadly.

It is a bit Ironic that the Americans Paid and trained Bin Laden to fight the Russians and then he turned on them as he wanted a free Afghanistan, rightly or wrongly the US government fucked up basically

CannyG wrote:

jack wrote:We didn't go there for womens rights thats for sure.
We didn't go there to set up a democracy thats for sure.
We went there because of lies told by the American and British governments ...thats pretty clear by now I would have thought,.
Don't tell me we went there cos nineteen suadis blew new york up ...cos I'll ask ...why didn't we attack them then.
It was handy that we had some footage of terrorist training camps wasn't it ...or do I remember rightly that we had some footage of some rusty monkey bars and barbed wire?
It was just coincidence that the Taliban had refused an offer of billions of dollars from the Yanks for Unacol to build pipelines across Afghanistan from the Caspian sea of course that we decided to invade ...just coincidence ...lot of coincidences with the whole sorry story of American politics this last few years.

promoting women's rights was one of our many grandiose aspirations though. the treatment of women in that benighted country is nothing short of stone-age. we also wanted to eliminate their entire opium crop, to cut off the funding of arms, another tall order jack.

america has poured untold BILLIONs into that country to build up the infrastucture, quite apart from the amounts they have spent on the war effort itself. (though i daresay they will "recoup" the money . ).

Canny ...all wars are fought on bullshit.
That was bullshit for public consumption.
The opium story is laughable.
They know where every one of the 800 heroin labs are ...they have machines men and intelligence along with satellites ...the opium couild have been destroyed in week one butb ...it's a market that is worth a trillion dollars a year.
Governments throughout history have been involved in shipping drugs about ...especially opium and especially England ...opium is how we got Honk Kong ...it's no different today.
Stop feeding on the bullshit and look at the facts.
Facts ...the taliban reduced the opium crop from four thousand tons a year to a hundred and fifty tons a year.
The only sucsess in the so called war on drugs any where in the world.
We went there and upped the production to five thousand tons a year ...these are the facts.

thedelboy wrote:It is a bit Ironic that the Americans Paid and trained Bin Laden to fight the Russians and then he turned on them as he wanted a free Afghanistan, rightly or


wrongly the US government fucked up basically

yep, the US got it wrong big-time, sadly. they meant well.

i heard someone's opinion on radio today that the only real reason for all these war campaigns all over the place is simply to find and kill the elusive bin-laden. it would bring the proceedings to a face-saving conclusion!! .

jack wrote:

CannyG wrote:

jack wrote:We didn't go there for womens rights thats for sure.
We didn't go there to set up a democracy thats for sure.
We went there because of lies told by the American and British governments ...thats pretty clear by now I would have thought,.
Don't tell me we went there cos nineteen suadis blew new york up ...cos I'll ask ...why didn't we attack them then.
It was handy that we had some footage of terrorist training camps wasn't it ...or do I remember rightly that we had some footage of some rusty monkey bars and barbed wire?
It was just coincidence that the Taliban had refused an offer of billions of dollars from the Yanks for Unacol to build pipelines across Afghanistan from the Caspian sea of course that we decided to invade ...just coincidence ...lot of coincidences with the whole sorry story of American politics this last few years.

promoting women's rights was one of our many grandiose aspirations though. the treatment of women in that benighted country is nothing short of stone-age. we also wanted to eliminate their entire opium crop, to cut off the funding of arms, another tall order jack.

america has poured untold BILLIONs into that country to build up the infrastucture, quite apart from the amounts they have spent on the war effort itself. (though i daresay they will "recoup" the money . ).

Canny ...all wars are fought on bullshit.
That was bullshit for public consumption.
The opium story is laughable.
They know where every one of the 800 heroin labs are ...they have machines men and intelligence along with satellites ...the opium couild have been destroyed in week one butb ...it's a market that is worth a trillion dollars a year.
Governments throughout history have been involved in shipping drugs about ...especially opium and especially England ...opium is how we got Honk Kong ...it's no different today.
Stop feeding on the bullshit and look at the facts.
Facts ...the taliban reduced the opium crop from four thousand tons a year to a hundred and fifty tons a year.
The only sucsess in the so called war on drugs any where in the world.
We went there and upped the production to five thousand tons a year ...these are the facts.

amen brother, food for thought! !

jack wrote:

CannyG wrote:

jack wrote:We didn't go there for womens rights thats for sure.
We didn't go there to set up a democracy thats for sure.
We went there because of lies told by the American and British governments ...thats pretty clear by now I would have thought,.
Don't tell me we went there cos nineteen suadis blew new york up ...cos I'll ask ...why didn't we attack them then.
It was handy that we had some footage of terrorist training camps wasn't it ...or do I remember rightly that we had some footage of some rusty monkey bars and barbed wire?
It was just coincidence that the Taliban had refused an offer of billions of dollars from the Yanks for Unacol to build pipelines across Afghanistan from the Caspian sea of course that we decided to invade ...just coincidence ...lot of coincidences with the whole sorry story of American politics this last few years.

promoting women's rights was one of our many grandiose aspirations though. the treatment of women in that benighted country is nothing short of stone-age. we also wanted to eliminate their entire opium crop, to cut off the funding of arms, another tall order jack.

america has poured untold BILLIONs into that country to build up the infrastucture, quite apart from the amounts they have spent on the war effort itself. (though i daresay they will "recoup" the money . ).

Canny ...all wars are fought on bullshit.
That was bullshit for public consumption.
The opium story is laughable.
They know where every one of the 800 heroin labs are ...they have machines men and intelligence along with satellites ...the opium couild have been destroyed in week one butb ...it's a market that is worth a trillion dollars a year.
Governments throughout history have been involved in shipping drugs about ...especially opium and especially England ...opium is how we got Honk Kong ...it's no different today.
Stop feeding on the bullshit and look at the facts.
Facts ...the taliban reduced the opium crop from four thousand tons a year to a hundred and fifty tons a year.
The only sucsess in the so called war on drugs any where in the world.
We went there and upped the production to five thousand tons a year ...these are the facts.

Poles attacking Germans in late August 1939 was one howler

CannyG wrote:

Old_Punk wrote:Even Stop The War Coalition knew that was a pathetic smokescreen by nL

yes. but STWC were a (ignored) 'voice in the wilderness', sadly.

and all the millions who marched