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Parwiz / Reuters
Farmers work at a poppy field in Afghanistan's Jalalabad province on May 4.
News analysis
Updated at 9:50 a.m. ET: KABUL, Afghanistan - Many Afghans see dark clouds of uncertainty looming over the calendar as the 2014 deadline approaches for most foreign troops to withdraw, and worry that after that the international community will abandon them.
Over the last decade, billions of aid dollars have flowed into Afghanistan, and thousands of foreign soldiers and tens of thousands of civilians have died during the effort to bring peace and a modicum of prosperity to the country. Meanwhile, the government of President Hamid Karzai has passed laws meant to improve the lives of his citizens. Nevertheless, Afghanistan still faces huge problems, such as widespread violence, official corruption, grinding poverty and a booming narcotics trade.
EXCLUSIVE: US, NATO behind 'insecurity' in Afghanistan, Karzai says
“Plagued by factionalism and corruption, Afghanistan is far from ready to assume responsibility for security when U.S. and NATO forces withdraw in 2014,” think tank International Crisis Group said in a recent report.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai highlighted that his country "paid a heavy price" during the war on terror when he sat down with NBC News' Atia Abawi in Kabul on Thursday. "I don't even know if al-Qaida exists as an organization as it is being spoken about," added Karzai, who expressed great frustration with the U.S. Watch some highlights of the exclusive interview.
Security
The Taliban are regaining land and power lost after they were toppled by U.S.-backed forces in 2001. While there have been more than 2,000 American military casualties during this time, civilians have borne the brunt of the violence. In the first six months of 2012 alone, more than 3,000 civilians were killed or injured, according the United Nations. This number was down 15 percent from a year earlier. Anti-government and coalition insurgents were responsible for 80 percent of the civilian casualties, the U.N. says.
Jose Cabezas / AFP - Getty Images
Members of the Afghan Border Patrol are assisted by a member of the Afghan National Army (ANA) (2R) during a training session at the Narizah base in Narizah, Khost Province on August 13, 2012. Some 130,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan are preparing to withdraw in 2014 and are training and working alongside Afghan soldiers as they take increasing responsibility for the anti-insurgency campaign.
More than 300,000 Afghan National Army soldiers and Afghan National Police members have been trained to replace foreign soldiers. Afghan security forces face big challenges, such as attrition, illiteracy and insurgent infiltration.
Panetta: US foresees 'enduring presence' to fight al-Qaida in Afghanistan
Poverty and corruption
Most Afghans are not just living in fear of an insurgent attack or NATO airstrike. They fear hunger and worry that they and their families won’t survive another winter.
Afghans are among the poorest people on earth. According to the World Bank, per capita GDP was around $576 in 2011, up from $158 in 2002.
More than half of children under the age of five are malnourished, according to the World Food Program.
Jawad Jalali / AFP - Getty Images file
A young garbage collector carries recyclable material from a landfill in the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, on Oct. 17.
Afghanistan remains largely dependent on foreign aid – the World Bank says that 90 percent of the country’s national budget is still financed by governments and other foreign organizations.
Along with the huge inflows of foreign aid and poverty is corruption: the country is tied with Somalia and North Korea at the bottom of Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index 2012.
A 2012 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report estimated that Afghans paid $2.5 billion in bribes over 12 months, which is equivalent to almost a quarter of the country’s GDP.
Women
In 2001, Afghan women were the poster children for the invasion. Promises poured in to help half of the society that was brutalized and banished during the Taliban. Despite the pledges, Afghanistan remains one of the most difficult places in the world to be a woman: it has one of the highest levels of maternal mortality and, according to U.N. estimates, around 90 percent of women suffer from some sort of domestic abuse.
Ahmad Masood / Reuters
Women clad in burqas walk in Bagram, Afghanistan, on January 3.
Nevertheless, there has been some progress. In 2004, President Karzai signed into law a new constitution granting equality among all its citizens and ensuring women’s rights. And in 2009 the country passed the Elimination of Violence Against Women Law, intended to protect women from abuse, rape, and forced marriages. While the laws were all positive steps such legislation is rarely enforced.
More Afghanistan coverage from NBC News
The ministry of women’s affairs in Kabul says that from April through July of this year at least 3,600 cases of violence against women were recorded. However, this grim number may be seen as a sign of progress because it means more families and women are learning about their rights and reporting their grievances.
Soosan Firooz rhymes about Afghanistan and the many crises its people have faced. In a country where public performance by women is frowned upon, this is no easy feat. NBC News' Tazeen Ahmad reports.
Drugs
Afghanistan has long-produced about 90 percent of the world's opium, a paste from the poppy plant that is mad into make heroin. At the end of the Taliban’s rule, the government worked with the U.N. to cut production by around 90 percent.
In the last decade, opium production increased again. It is now the largest source of export earnings and accounts for half of Afghanistan's GDP, according to humanitarian news site AlertNet.
All hope is not lost in Afghanistan, progress has been made in small steps rather than the giant leaps expected when United States-backed forces toppled the Taliban.
Daniel Berehulak / Getty Images
An Afghan Pashtun boy, who said he was forced from troubled Baglan province due to threats from the Taliban, looks on after a day after scavenging at a garbage dump in Kabul on November 14, 2012
In 2001, girls were denied an education under the Taliban regime and only 900,000 children were enrolled in school throughout Afghanistan. Today, at least 7 million children are attending classes and 2.5-million are estimated to be girls, according to Amnesty International. In the cities, you see women in the workforce again, doctors, politicians and even business owners.
Still, many fear that these delicate gains will disappear as the last foreign combat troops leave Afghanistan on Dec. 31, 2014.
In an exclusive interview with NBC's Atia Abawi, Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai says that the U.S. is not sticking to a signed agreement between their two countries.
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This article is a joke just like on how Afghan war was conducted.
Everyone knows that even after 11 years of wars costing huge tax payers' money and losses of many NATO forces' soldiers, things are in a bigger mess now.
After 2014, it is only matter of time before Paki sponsored Taliban takes over; Karzai and his top members run away to Britain or some western nations; and factional wars start!
Of course, our tax monies will be still pumped into Pakistan and Afghanistan!
In Afghanistan, Pakis have backstabbed the US and NATO forces big time. Half of NATO forces deaths are due to ungrateful and backstabbing Pakis.
When the NATO forces were entering Kandahar in 2001, Pakis airlifted key al-Qaida, Taliban, ISI and others militants by back door from Kandahar.
This includes Mullah Omar, Osama and many including Paki Haqqani militant network leaders.
Hope people remember about Pakis sheltering Osama.
These Paki Islamic religious Nazis don't bother about their people and they are into reckless killing games in the name of jihad.
Drone attacks are not enough. To reduce NATO forces losses, carpet bomb Paki militant areas just like 1991 Iraqi war.
Or else just get out right now and bid bye, bye to Afghanistan and Pakistan once for all in all respects.
Within a few decades Hamid Karzai will enter the history books alongside Idi Amin and Pol Pot as a totally corrupt POS that siphoned of millions in foreign aid to enrich himself and perhaps another one hundred and twenty of his cronies. When he escapes to the West in 2013, I hope that his assets are frozen and that some Afghan patriot cuts his throat and the throats of his equally corrupt cronies.
When the Taliban take back the country, they'll have Karzai hanging from a telephone pole. We should stop wasting our money and our troops lives where we are not wanted.
Ten minutes after we leave, Karzai will be renamed "President of the Green Zone."
YOU'RE AN ASS. you never mentioned the Afghani civilians, children and women who were slaughthered by US and NATO terrorists. we need drones over israel.
ok so: You are a barbaric and beastly seventh century ungrateful and backstabbing one.
Since the birth of Islamic cult, followers have been doing only stealing, telling lies, hurling abuses, stealing, looting, kidnapping, raping, killing and doing genocides of others.
But for Iraqi wars, Saddam would have wiped most of the fountainheads of Islamic extremism like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar and many other Sunni rulers and nations out of the map.
You could have counted the civilians, children and women killed by Saddam's actions.
Did you count them during Iraqi vs Iran decades of wars?
If we had given back to what followers of Islamic cult have done, Islam and its followers would have been wiped out of the map once for all!
Lets see now,,,,,,,
,,,, over ten years now of wasted blood, broken families, thousands injured, wasted money, mounting suicides, mounting debt,,,,,, for nothing !
Thanks Obama,,,, this is blood on your hands now.
_________________________________________________________________
Barack Obama Promise to End War
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the
time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home.
We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank. "
- Barack Obama Campaign Promise - October 27, 2007
____________________________________________________________
This disaster of a war, longest in U.S. history , should have ended 9 years ago.
.
Women in Islamic societies have the value of a dog under the Sharia Law. In other countries like Saudi Arab is about the same, they cut their clitoris so only men can enjoy sex. Where is the UN , where are the human right defenders , the fact of the matter is that UN is taking over by countries where human right doesn't exist. Mahmud Ajmadenijhad is better welcome than the President of the US.
True stories Only
Last night I had a dream of a friendly gathering within a retreat and suddenly saw a young female who I was interested in over 20 years ago, her name was Libya. I completely forgot about this young lady until seeing her in my dream.
Then all of a sudden I see Hilary Clinton who arrived and enjoyed herself along with the rest of us.
I couldn't figure out after not dreaming for years why did I have this dream and why was it sooo vivid???
Today, I went to look for wood for the fireplace with dad and found an odd piece of wood.
It was also, odd how it all came about, because we were looking for wood on an isolated street where hardly any cars were coming. Out of the blue a man who looked as though he was able but homeless told us to go to the curve up the street where we could find oak instead of the slow burning pine that we first gathered.
When we used the chain saw to cut the wood, dead in the center there was a red marking that looked as if the tree was bleeding from the inside.
When we looked at it more in detail, more and more it began appearing to look like a Phoenix "Fire Bird" to us.
To me it was symbolic!!!
Because also today, I talked to my mother about what I thought man's purpose in life really is and how we all have been side tracked by various distractions. Taking us away from our true purpose.
I explained to her how from paying attention all of my life and trying to reveal the true meaning of life where I currently was in my beliefs.
I explained to her that the universe/s were composed within a vast body similar to how are cells are within our body. Same principle but we are smaller.
Within the universe and all it's composed of, acts similar to how our bodies work cells and all.
Then I mentioned the ways viruses tried to enter our cells by fooling the things that fed good proteins to the cells within us. I told her that a virus has entered into our world and is corrupting us similar to how a virus mutate the cells within us.
I then began seeing many viruses out here and how they have changed our thought process which is turning the entire planet sick.
Next thing you know, during the same day we found what we have never found ever in many lives....
"THE PHOENIX"
Does this represent a higher level of thought and is this a true sign.......
I really think soooooo.....
PEEL LAYER.....
The headline reads:
"Analysis: How Afghanistan has changed under Karzai"
It should read:
"Analysis: See How Little Afghanistan has changed under Karzai"
Hummmmmmmmmmmm "........10 years of Karzai's rule .....?"
.................................................... Interesting .... RULE? .......................................................
I thought that we went to Afghanistan" to promote "democracy" not install a "Ruler" ...
In democratic societies leaders "govern" not rule!
@ Close the Fed
You seem to conveniently forget that BUSH got us into that war and then instead of finishing it when the Taliban could have been destroyed, BUSH went and started a second war in Iraq over non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Of course what can we expect from some one foolish enough to pick that user name and believe in it.
Hey, "ok so", don't call people names and get your facts straight. It appears that you are poorly educated and it shows in your comment.
Peel -- please quit spamming with that off-topic drivel. This is like the 3rd or 4th place you've posted this nonsense.
Peel - there are medications for your condition. I suggest you get some.
The child like and simple minded thinking of Bush got us into a mess that was doomed from the start. Now the same minded idiot Republicans in Congress want to take us over the cliff to protect the rich who controlled the strings of Bush.
Deb Pee Pee...
&
BETH 69
That is the problem with the world everyone is trying to tell everyone what to do with there rights.
But, being lady's sometimes you need to understand when to speak.
Not very lady like to question what occurred to others that they felt was meaningful.
Now when you purchase this site you can have a say but, until then.
SHUT YOUR TRAPS.....
I hate when BAT like women start talking....
BLAH.... BLAH.... BLAH.....
Peeled Both of Your Layers at the same time!!!!
PLAYA....
Peel --
What rights? If you're trying to pull off the "free speech" thing, you obviously haven't figured out that free speech does not equal speech without consequences.
The consequence of you posting off-topic drivel, and spamming multiple threads with it, is that others are going to call you on it.
Howy61
Yes Bush invaded Afghanistan after giving the Taliban rulers several opportunities to hand over Bin Laden. Once he did commit troops, the Taliban was forced out and left the country, at least those that were not killed in the battles. He then decided to follow a course very similar to what Joe Biden wanted and still wants, small spec ops groups pursuing Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders. It is important to remember that the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks did much of their initial training and planning sheltered by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Bush saw his mission in Afghanistan as punitive towards the Taliban and largely wanted the Afghan people to recover and rebuild their government and lifestyle the way they wished. He did turn to Iraq next, and you, like so many others who conveniently forget the build up to that invasion forget. He gave Saddam several chances to step down and leave before committing troops. Also, there were 11 years of UN sanctions, resolutions, inspections (with mixed findings) and diplomacy that took place prior to Saddam's removal, during which Saddam could have easily avoided any hostility by simply being open and forth-rite with UN inspection teams and diplomats. In both cases, Bush had overwhelming approval for the invasions from not only congress, but from the American people as well. The WMD angle was only part of the reason to remove him and even though it took longer to accomplish than originally thought, the war in Iraq provided 3 things that have benefited the region and the world. We got rid of a dictator who was brutally treating his own people, we helped to establish a fledgling freely elected government in Iraq, and touched off Arab Spring in the region which is still in progress and helped reduce terrorism by keeping the Jihadists busy fighting among themselves. It will be another generation before we can truly measure the gains or losses of his actions, but that is often how history works. Yes Americans died fighting in these conflicts, and most soldiers that served want to see both Iraq and Afghanistan be able to stand on their own as freely elected societies. We as a nation so often forget that democracy is not easy. It took ten years of peaceful efforts after the revolutionary war was won, for the thirteen colonies to come up with a constitution that everyone would agree to and sign. It was then many years where we struggled to make our principles and ideas take root. We even fought a bloody civil war over those same principles nearly 80 years after they were adopted. The new governments and constitutions in Afghanistan and Iraq have only just begun their journeys and as they continue we should remember that even today we are still discovering the pros and cons of democracy every day!
what a surprise
Might have been different if they were not a muslim country...?
Their religious choices are the base of their problems...
You bet!
The Islamic extremist Frankenstein monsters have started backstabbing big time the inventers of Pakistan, British, and the masters (US and allies) who kept them alive.
In most of the Islamic terrorism and plots in the US, Britain, Europe and other places, Pakis have a hand.
Half of NATO forces deaths in Afghanistan are due to Pakis.
Before followers of Islamic cult set their feet on Afghan and Paki regions, these regions were quite peaceful and prosperous.
Once the cancer of Islam gradually got control of the region, those regions have become raping, stealing, looting and killing fields.
In Afghanistan, Paki proxies Taliban did not even tolerate Buddha’s statue in Bamiyan.
Many Paki areas and some Afghan areas have become breeding and exporting centers for illegal activities including drugs growing and trading and export of Islamic radicals and terrorists all over the world.
British invented Pakistan in 47 and Pakistan is supposed to be a pure Islamic nation. In Pakistan, it was massive genocides of minorities in between 48-50.
Percentages of Hindus and Sikhs were reduced from about 24 percent less than three years by rapings, stealing, lootings, terrorizing and killing on a massive scale.
Paki Islamic religious madness did not end there.
Sunni Pakis are after Ahmedias, Sufis (fake love and dance Islamic soap opera people), Shiites (20 percent), Hazaras, and Baloochs and other minority sects/tribes.
Shiites, Sufis, Ahmedias and other minority sects/tribes people are blown up while they pray in their mosques on Fridays. Ad even hospitals are bombed to kill those injured.
A Washington, DC based think tank Middle East Media Research Institute (www.memri.org) provides good details on what is going in Pakistan.
Nice try Jonathan, you sound like a Hindutva Modhi supporter, referencing the Zionist Mossad MEMRI spin factory and calling Islam a cancer, calling for carpet bombing, etc. As far as AF/PAK is concerned, you are only telling part of the story, thus you are fooling the public by stating some facts yes, but they are obfuscated by your hatred of Muslims and your Hindu nationalism. The taliban are zealots supported by the ISI and Saudi salafis but the Northern Alliance and Karzi are heroin traffickers and engage in bacha bazi and beat their wives. The people of Afghanistan support the taliban now due to the drone strikes and corruption of the Northern Alliance. The students (taliban) halted opium production when they were in power and initially championed for women's rights. The problem per se isn't the taliban or the indigenous mujahideen fighters, but the monocrop of herion coupled with invasion and war for the past 30 or so odd years and the subsequent influx and influence of saudi "Afghan Arabs" and their backwards version of Islam, not Islam it's self. Pakistan ISI only got into the region to offset hindu occupation of Kashmir and protect themselves from russian greed. The situation is far more complex than you let on, yet you have simplified and obfuscated the issues at hand with your misplaced hatred of Muslims
al-Haqq: You appear to be one of those David Headleys and Ranas responsible for the 11/26 Mumbai attacks.
Even many US citizens and Jews were killed in the Mumbai terror attacks.
Likes of you have made lives of people like I miserable. In the US, Britain, and many western nations, you Paki mindset Muslims are always trying one or the other terror attacks.
In 9/11, one of the worst terrorist attacks, Saudis and Pakis had hands. UAE gave funding.
Most of you in non-Muslim nations including the US are traitors or Trojan horses, who want ultimately Islamic rules.
For you people, Islam is first and society and nation are some where last.
Why don't Pakis/Muslims make a beginning by going back to Pakistan or some Muslim nation, where there are Sharia Laws?
We had enough from you people in non-Muslim nations!
Jonathan-1982062
LOL- grow some balls and have every single Muslim leave the US. no businesses or Muslim embassies allowed in the US. You will never see or meet a Muslim anymore (though im sure you never met one). Similarly, No US companies or emabassies are allowed in any Muslim country. LEAVE THEM ALONE. Would you be ok with that?. I would.
Helas, the US gov and miliatry would never do that. they would sink like a stone.
BS Al-Hag, you are in denial of what Islam has done world wide for centuries, but I'll just stick to this century. Every time immigrant's Muslim's reach a certain level in population count in another country, you want to change it to your way. Your male dominated world of crap. You treat females as second class citizens, with one third the value of a male. You tent your females, hide them, keep them uneducated and dependant. Just travel the western world and see the destruction done by non-assimilation by Muslims in countries. Boy, Toronto sure is a Pakistani pit of hell. Paris, in the outer arrondisments they are a war zone of Islamic extremism. In Oslo they are beginning to despise your culture of control, add Stockholm to that list also. You Muslims like to talk peace, but your actions are more about your self centered need for control, and your selfish desire to change others to fit your mold of garbage. Any religion that can put people on their knees 5 times a day, 7 days a week is a religion based on indoctrination, and is way way more than a religion. Sell stupid elsewhere pal, we know all we need to know about Islam. We will not make the same mistakes again. Your religion and belief systems are the problem, because what those beliefs are is unacceptable in modern culture, and brother your culture sure isn't that. Keep living in the third world, you belong there.
al-Haqq: Thanks for supplying some perspective regarding the problems in Afghanistan instead of using this forum to spew rubbish. More information and less religious bigotry around here would go a long way towards actually understanding the problem, but it's much easier to paint a broad-brush picture of hatred than examine the details.
Muslims as a group, however, have set themselves up for this. What is your suggestion regarding Afghanistan? Is there anything positive the rest of the world can do or do we simply abandon them as a lost cause and hope their society can stabilize and move forward on its own? Very few people have much hope of that. Even if the West leaves, it sounds like they're still going to be manipulated by local foreign interests.
I don't believe their religion is their problem, but rather several things... the lack of real education and critical thinking about their religion... I don't think the issue is Islam, but the radicals who have "captive audiences" who have no other reason not to believe what they say... then we come along and confirm everything they've been told...
of how the rest of the world has or has not evolved regarding religion
Please disregard that last line... Thanks
82AllAmericans: Even liberal western education for many Muslims has not helped them to think straight.
Look at that Morsi. Has education changed him?
Morsi can lie in English and try to fool better.
82All, your quote " I don't think the issue is Islam"
Oh yeah, is that so? It IS Islam, the whole idea of submission to that level IS the damn problem. Go to a Mosque and spend a day outside one. These people are friggin drones. Having to show up 5 times a day, no wonder why the live in filth, in repression, in third world status. When you allow old men, aka Clerics, to control your thinking your nothing more than a brainwashed fool, and don't even get me started on their relationship to females within that religion, it is beyond sick.
JCB-1236504... apparently you have not researched some of the "religions" we have here in this country as deeply as you have Islam...
82alls quote "apparently you have not researched some of the "religions" we have here in this country as deeply as you have Islam..."
Being an agnostic it does not interest me all that much, considering America only has 330 million in population. Muslim's total well over 2.2 billion my friend, and the majority are illiterate drones, and the vast majority of them are under 30 years old. That is a blueprint for serious trouble. Your comparison is like comparing a mole hill to the Matterhorn.
Jonathan - we've all been reading your copy and paste posts all day, every day, on every story that remotely relates to the ME or Islam in general.
Tell us: where are you from? Where do you live? What religion do you practice? Is this your full-time occupation?
ok: How do you propose deporting a RELIGIOUS GROUP? Sure, you could expel foreigners from countries that you deem to be Islamic, but how are you going to legally kick out American citizens that happen to be Muslims? And where would you send them? What other religions are on your list of "undesirables"?
Mifo: If Jonathan isn't a paid anti-Muslim poster, I don't know who is. His dedication certainly suggests monetary compensation. He's probably an Israeli or at the very least severely indoctrinated.
Mifo and AG99: You can post/write/assume whatever you want.
When some gets badly hurt due to one-way traffic Islamic madness, one can't but comment like I do!
I have travelled a long way in one-way Islamic Nazi religious traffic road!
Once again the polititians won't let us finish the job.We knew even before we pulled out of Kuwait after the 1st gulf war that we(the military)would be back in the area within 10 years.Once again we are going to be pulled out before the job is done.Someday our forces will be back in the area once again to do the job that remains unfinished.The military is not to blame.If anyone is to blame it would be the lack of will to win in our political leadership as well as the numerous ARMCHAIR GENERALS that seem plentiful in the U.S.I would'nt blame any of our aliies if they don't participate in the next American military adventure because the U.S has a bad track record of not having the will to finish what we start.We could have done so much better if we had set aside our monetary worries and just opened a can of whoop azz on our enemies.Now our enemies will have no fear of us as we are turning tail and running once again.
I don't think (or at least I hope) anyone blames the military itself.
The problem is what does "finish the job" even mean in Afghanistan? Does anyone even know anymore?
Well, we won the war in Afghanistan and then we stayed using our military to impose our culture on this backward country. We lost that battle. They don't want it. We criticize them for corruption, yet our state department is the biggest bag man in the world. The isn't a country that isn't on our payroll.
We need to mind our own business.
We need to pull our forces out and let Afghanistan work their sovereign issues. Its leader really has pounced negative comments lately indicating he is not a formidable ally and I think the US can live with that. We have nothing further to gain nor a mission. Moving the time line up to pullout is correct and we can utilize our resources elsewhere. Basically common sense for those in command. The job is done. Of course those of you who disagree must be REPUBLICAN - Retarded. Anything contrary stated by non-obstructionist - you must be a REPUBLICAN. If there is an argument and I know I correct either by fact or first hand knowledge, you must be a REPUBLICAN. Bla Bla Bla and recent note to the antics of REPUBLICANS was the recent house vote regarding handicaps/invalids -the no vote on the TREATY. Shame on REPUBLICANS! Total Asinines.
We've gone way past the time to leave.
Time to say good-bye Karzai.
Why is Afganistan even in the LOOP?
Oh! That's right THE TERRORIST.
Then let's focas on the Terrorist and nothing else. Get the Terrorist and get the hell out.
Make Boehmer Ambassidor to Afganistan.
Stop sending MY TAX dollars to support their POPPY Fields.
On the Statue of Liberty it says ( GIVE ME YOUR POOR-YOUR TIRED ) . Not I'm the richest bitch in the world and what is mine is yours too.
I've seen signs while driving by road construction sites ( YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK ).
The only thing I see about Afganistan is ( OUR TAX DOLLARS DO NOT WORK ).
Time to change course and move FORWARD. Sometimes people are just left behind. There will be another day and another way to address Afganistan. How do they like us NOW. They don't.
Drop these people like a hot potatoe. It is what it is. WE can not save everybody in the world. MOVE FORWARD.
I can't help but point out... potatoe? In case, you ever run for office...
Fran went to the Dan Quayle School of Spelling.
And just exactly what do you consider to be "finishing the job"? And what military commander recommends staying? And how is it you compare it to Iraq? What's finished there? The turmoil is endless. Our troops are and were completely inside Afghanistan and Iraq. The Taliban and al-Qaeda and Hussein were pushed back and put out of power. Billions were poured into the rebuilding and securing of the countries. Thousand of our soldiers have died in the process. It's been over 10 years. At some point it's up to Afghans and Iraqis. Otherwise they're just "welfare" puppets.
Afghanistan is probably a failure as far as democracy. More money and more time and more troop lives won't change that. You can't force them to shed their primitive morals and ethics. There's nothing to finish other than to get out. Will we have to go back? Maybe. Does it make sense to stay? Not at all.
SprDg
In the 1860's we fought a deviating civil war to keep our union together over the principles established in our constitution. Do you think the French might have been saying many of the same comments you just made? In the years following the revolutionary war, we fought several small wars and battles with those that were trying to infringe on our new found nation from the inside and the out. We have become an impatient society that is too self indulgent in our expectations. Generations of behavior, beliefs, and customs will not be changed over night, nor in a short period of time even with the rapid expansion of the net and social media. Remember that The original founding fathers came from countries that embraced the rule of law and were more or less civilized in nature prior to coming here, which gave them a basis for what to strive for when laying out the blueprint for our country. Afghanistan and Iraq were not so well established and were actually regressed into the states they were in before they were allowed to elect new governments and write new constitutions.
As the longest and most expensive war the US has ever lost, Afghanistan will be remembered for ending the predominance of the USA as a superpower. While that distinction rightly belongs to George Bush, historians tend to be less precise. Karzai has made himself a billionaire with your money, and insults the US at every opportunity, just for good measure. We deserve that much.
Religion is always the domain of men who push their extremist views on others. Jim Jones? David Koresh? The early Jesuits? and now? the eunoch imams who are preaching their sly interpretations of "religion" in their mosques.
Once you are intellectually capable of separating the purpose of religion: faith, hope and charity...from the man made imposition of interpretations of dogma, you see how easy it is to mass the most impressionable followers to your side of the aisle.
Afghans are no different than any other culture that realizes they are behind the times. Does anyone actually believe ordinary working class Afghans want to remain in a backward world where women are punished far more severely for crimes against religion than men? These people want what we all have...freedom...to make our own decisions about our lives without intereference from men who overrule our rights to our opinions and decisions.
More and more dominance is becoming the rule of the day and not just in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, China and on the African continent. Changes to cultures that are thousands of years old don't happen in a single day. The first ripples of change to an inbred culture results in massive fears of those changes...We have that happening right now in the US. Americans know that some of the policies of the past are obsolete...but yet, some in the US will fight to their deaths to avoid changes that will occur whether they fight them or not.
Our American military in foreign countries do more than just fight wars....they leave behind a whole new world of exposure to human freedom from interference and imposition of antiquated attitudes and religious pressures. This is what your tax dollars pay for.
What's the alternative? Live in a world where some people have the freedom to speak their minds and half of the rest of the world doesn't? Live in a world where you have access to opportunities to develop personal prosperity while half the world lives in abject poverty and ignorance?
ewent - you are an idealist. We can't fix Afghanistan's problems. The people of Afghanistan need to do that for themselves. The only nation building we should be doing is here at home.
Kick out all trouble making muslims from non-muslim nations. they are liabilities and curses on societies and nations.
They have to kill some body: non-muslims first or else between themselves!
We had enough of them.
I agree. but also Americans should be kicked out of every Muslim country. no muslims in America and no Americans in Muslim countries. no businesses or embassies are allowed. sounds like a great idea.
if Muslims are the problem, then, its the only viable solution for the US.
ok so: Not only in US, but in all non-Muslim nations, trouble making Muslims should be kicked back to their Muslim nations.
They are the same every where depending upon the percentages.
We see Muslims inventing problems in most of the non-Muslim nations and many Muslim nations.
Even in the US, we can notice these actions!
In the US, one Muslim from Bangladesh wanted to blow up Fed Reserve. He had come for studies and was hardly twenty! As per his family: "he is pious and he wanted to study."
When Muslims form more than five percent, downhill march starts.
Muslims are inventing problems in Myanmar, Thailand, Philippines, India and other places.
When they form more than 30 percent then it is Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, Lebanon (few decades back)
In Muslim majority nations, they are doing genocides of minority Islamic sects like Shiites, Sufis, Ahmedias and other minority tribes.
Similar things are going on in UK, France and many European nations.
If Saudi Arabia and many Muslim nations do not permit non-Islamic religious places and scriptures, Muslims have no right to have their mosques, hate preaching and killer training centers, in non-Muslim nations.
If non-Muslims can’t live in peace in Muslim nations, Muslims don’t have any right to live in our nations.
Jonathan -
I don't always agree with your views, but I have enjoyed reading your posts today. Sensible, factual and level headed.
Not to mention xenophobic.
farideh kashanian: Thanks.
We have agreed long time back on genocides of Armenians by Turks.
We differed on some times on planned wars in Syria and Iran.
On wars, we have to take long term outlooks and have patience.
I am generally against getting into all sorts of wars, especially for seventh century bigoted and highly corrupt rulers of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Kuwait and others. They are most ungrateful and big backstabbers.
I want all non-Muslims to keep away from battles between enemies like seventh century bigoted Sunnis (enemy No. 1) and tenth century less bigoted Shiites (enemy No. 2).
We should permit enemies to battle as much as they like on whose Allah is greater.
If they don't battle between them, they will be on us.
We have seen them joining hands against us during cartoons and the recent video on Mohammad.
I do not understand why the United States is still in Afghanistan. Obama gave the order to get Bin Laden and that was accomplished. We should pack up and leave. Let these fine upstanding people kill themselves. Our mission is over. Leave Now.
Our involvement in Afghanistan after 9-11 should have been constrained to a relative few special forces and missiles... taking out Al Qaeda camps and operatives... the rest has been one big monumental waste.
Fo all those who hate islam and Muslims
Grow some balls and have every single Muslim leave the US. no businesses or Muslim embassies allowed in the US. You will never see or meet a Muslim anymore (though im sure you never met one). Similarly, No US companies or emabassies are allowed in any Muslim country.
LEAVE THEM ALONE and you would be left alone. Would you be ok with that?. I would.
Why dont you petition the US gov to do that ?!!
Washington won't listen to those that desire to do that, that is why. They advertise in your countries for you to apply for visa's and American citizenship and then force communities to accept you.
ok so - there is a one-word answer as to why the US government will never do that. OIL.
What a joke....Hamid Karzai, pal of Dick Cheney, ex-employee of Unacol, profiteer...shall we continue?
Go to hell Karzi. We the U.S. have kept you in power. If you didn't get rid of the Taliban it's been years of taking our aid troops,training and money. Your country still oppresses women. Would you like the name of my neighbor here in Florida that is a U.S. Marine and got his legs blown off for your cause?
Life in Afghanistan is no better now than it was a dozen years ago. The drug trade is an all consuming effort for Al-Qaida and Hamid Karzai. Hamid even had his own brother killed so he could take over the profits from selling opium and heroin to the world via Al-Qaida. Al-Qaida itself takes more than $400 million per year in 'taxes' paid by local growers for protection from US forces. Karzai turns a blind eye to drug shipments headed for Iran and Pakistan on the same routes used to supply US forces across the Pakistan border. Afganistan is a sleazy, flea ridden hotbed of Islam radicalism that does not deserve US help to rid itself of Al-Qaida, primarily because the Afghan government uses Al-Qaida to support their financial goals.
One sad part is that Washington is moving on to the Pacific ocean countries, speedily throwing out millions and billions to buy friendships from the same type of governments which will ultimately again put Americans at risk for so called patriotic duty. History may call the projects in the middle east the largest US Public Works programs since the building of the Panama Canal. Thousands died there too. There will always be flag wavers ready to support those causes.
They are all @!$%# and not worth our blood or treasure....Forget about it.
Get out of Afghanistan now !! This place is the graveyard of empires. If you don't believe me, ask the Russians (twice), the British and us. The Afghani's national past time is war, when they can't find an outsider to fight, they fight among themselves. There is no one who can beat the Afghani's on their home turf. They have been doing guerrilla warfare in their country for centuries. Hell, Alexander the Great bypassed Afghanistan to avoid the headaches.
Actually, Ed, you are only partially correct. He had to go over the Khyber Pass in order to reach India. He had a tough time getting through Afghanistan, so he determined to get back to Greece by sea rather than trying to go back through Afghanistan.
When we leave, the Taliban will be back. It would take a tyrant to keep order there.
The Taliban has never left. They will simply resume their previous position of power. If we stay there 100 years, that fact will not change.
I just wonder who the hell is financing Taliban?
Control the source of cash flow to Taliban and whoever, providing financial support to Taliban needs to be neutralize. I suspect part of the problem is the USA cash flow being provided to Countries and people that USA think could improve and stabilize condition in areas like Afghanistan and Pakistan.......reality in the back door is being channeled back to support the Taliban or other forces fighting USA/NATO forces.
The bottom line we could not trust this people.........even Afghan forces is killing USA/NATO forces not from the outside but from within.
The US and NATO gave the Taliban financing in order that they would be able to kick the Russians out of Afghanistan. Then we were stuck with them. If that sounds familiar, think about the Shah of Iran. Sooner or later we need to figure out that it is not profitable over the long term to finance dictators and theocrats.
And now it is Karzai. He is financing the Taliban with their share of our money.
Where's all the fkg billions in aid that's supposed to have helped the Afghan people? Into Karzai's and his fkg cronies' pockets. And why don't they try growing FOOD instead of fkg opium poppies? Bunch of fkg stupid backward bastards.
After 10 years of Karzai's rule, has life improved in Afghanistan?
The quick answer: No, it's a worse sh!thole than it was 10 years ago! What a complete waste of lives and resources. Worse, we still don't have any definitive date for pulling out. No solid reason given, we just 'need' to be there.
We actually do have a definitive date for pulling out - by December 31, 2014. Congress would like that time table accelerated. I agree with them.