U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan: Vietnam Redux [Quagmire Flashback]

Cursor.org ^ | OCTOBER 31, 2002 | by Marc W. Herold

[montag813]

When Dostum's luxurious indoor swimming pool was recently completed, he took his first swim in it with a few U.S. Special Forces according to CNN.

SWIMMING? That is outrageous! Court martials for all those men....thank you CNN for your intrepid reportage!

[Amerigomag]

I don't think anything in this article is a surprise.

The US has elected, for good reason, to take control of a 13th century culture and force it into the 21st century.

This daunting task is acheivable but it will take time. To date a western society exists in only one city, Kabul, and the balance of the country is going through the tedious process of pacification and reeducation.

There will be a period of time, working up to the federalization of the entire country, that the tribal culture will reimerge and attempt to reestablish itself. Hopefully the American electorate will be sophisticated enough to recognize that these phases will come and go but in within this century Afghanistan will find it's way into the modern world.

[AgThorn]

..... In late November, they participated in the slaughter of prisoners in the Qala-i-Janghi prison fort

You know, I was reading this kinda naivily ok up till this point and then it hit me ... this is NOT a very pro-American piece ... could there be an agenda here? ;-)

[TADSLOS]

What is happening in Afghanistan is essentially a replay of the Soviet experience of the 1980s

The Soviets didn't airdrop food packets, they dropped mines. The Soviets didn't build schools, they destroyed them at random and without remorse. The Soviets didn't bring hope and promise of a free and peaceful existence to Afghanis. They brought death and destruction on a scale only recently rivaled by the Taliban. The only similarity between our involvement in Afghanistan and the Soviet invasion there is the brutality that was imposed on its people. In the Soviet's case it was a means to and end. In our case it's the beginning of the end to those means in order for freedom and stability to flourish.

[m1911]

An excellent question and when, not if, it happens it'll be hard to tell. Russian equipment is sold and resold so much that it will be very hard to track.

[Shermy]

I'm surprised "Professor" Herrold hasn't jump-started his random-number generator to give us some civilian death counts.

Well, he did try something like this before. You may remember him. He was the one in late 2001 who "determined" at least 3,000 to 10,000 civilians died from American bombing in Afghanistan. Like here, he obsessively referenced his sources, but the sources were mostly propaganda and media mistakes. He determined that a Taliban news service body count would be reliable if it was repeated in the Irish Times, etc. etc.

It was the shoddiest piece of academic drivel I've seen in a while. Yet it was quoted often as authoritative.

[ThomasMore]

There's a lot of freeze dried hippies up there in New Hampshire.

[TomB]

The Soviets didn't airdrop food packets, they dropped mines. The Soviets didn't build schools, they destroyed them at random and without remorse. The Soviets didn't bring hope and promise of a free and peaceful existence to Afghanis. They brought death and destruction on a scale only recently rivaled by the Taliban. The only similarity between our involvement in Afghanistan and the Soviet invasion there is the brutality that was imposed on its people. In the Soviet's case it was a means to and end. In our case it's the beginning of the end to those means in order for freedom and stability to flourish.

You see, that's the beauty of moral equivalence. It eliminates the need for all that nasty, laborious thinking.

[general_re]

You may remember him.

I didn't until my memory was jogged. But I do believe the poor fellow is positively obsessed...