Forums Forums National News Lets hope this is stopped

Dont shout at me... mine was just a funny!!

It wasnt at you mate, I just needed to re-iterate that I never said kill all fat people lol. What I said, could be interpreted as that, but we all know it wasnt the case, and the point I was making was not that at all.

A major part of British budget is taken up dealing with drug related crime and drug related health problems. Afghanistan is a baddy in that it is still a major exporter of drugs. So who is the good guy and who is the bad guy?

But the government have cited so many different "sole" reasons for being in Afghanistan, it is getting beyond a joke. They don't even know why they are there themselves, a fact illustrated on Question Time back in November, when the Labour representative could not give a difinitive answer as to why, and kept changing the reason etc. The rest of the panel were struggling to pinpoint an exact reason to be there, and quite amusingly, listed the various reasons that have been stated by Labour over the years.

As for what we can achieve... well the Russians spent 10 years trying to sort out Afghanistan, with over half a million soldiers, and all they had to show for it was ~15,000 soldiers killed, a massive blackhole in their military budget and left the place in ruins, but pretty much having achieved nothing. What makes people believe that the UK and US can do any better?

True Matt, just saying IMHO the drugs export justifies some of our involvement.

Just trying to remember the Olympics fracas when Russians were sorting out Afghanistan. I know the BBC made a broadcast saying and showing the Afghans weren't in (front of) the opening parade at mid-day news, but by the evening news they corrected it.

Its Nato forces deployed in Afghanistan under a mandate, though the brunt of it is taken by US and the British, the difference between our and US forces is that they are professional service people unlike the conscripted Russian forces, it was well documented at the time the Russian conscripted army wasn't up for it. Also the majority of people in Afghan were against Russian occupation, Also the Russians had to take on most tribes and warlords who were backed by the west. The main difference between Nato and the Russians is we in the west want them to have free and democratic elections and the Russian wanted to keep the communist regime in place. Once the Taliban took over and their brand of religion and government was set in place, and the atrocities that was going on, the free nations of this world could not sit back and do nothing. It was only a matter of time until the UN and Nato got involved.

I thought once the 2 giant Buddha carvings were blown up that the West would get involved. At the same time they were executing people in market places for minor law infringements (Sharia law that is.) As for the Russians being defeated....it goes back a lot further than that. The Pashtun are a warrior caste and they have a fierce pride,but basically they follow whichever warlord is offering the best deal and swap sides in an instant for purely mercenary reasons, always have done, always will do. To try and foist a democratic system on them is a total waste of time because they will always revert to historical type. It's tough on those who want to change but really it is not our business. The drug war is but that can only be won with the co-operation of the Afghans and the pouring of millions of pounds or whatever to buy them off (that's their idea of democracy). As for me being BNP, do me a favour. I've lived in too many foreign lands, amongst too many foreign people for that crap but I wasn't trying to subvert their way of life I joined in with their way of life and enjoyed it.