Quote:
Originally Posted by Badbru
I must admit I was pretty sadened by this when I heard about it. My initial reaction was oh christ what next, why don't we just start air striking mosques. Burning Korans, now shooting up the civvies, it seems to me the hearts and minds campaign has just been set back to zero.
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I don't think it has gone to zero. It has gone beyond that on to the negative side and rather far at that.
Airstriking mosques wouldn't really be much of an upgrade from some earlier FUBARs, there has been like airstriking a wedding and so on. The problem is, there is more harm than good that the U.S. troops can do in the country. I'd rather compare the situation to that at Vietnam - young men under pressure but still with enough time on their hands to get bored occasionally and with both booze and narcotic substances available to them if they really want them. Add automatic weapons and we have a pickle you don't want to swallow. Nationality of the troops doesn't matter, nor the 'main religion' of the troops as long as it is different from the local 'main religion' or the troops and locals don't have a mutual political agenda.
The problem is, ISAF is trying to change things that have been there for centuries already, bringing modern age to a place that feels it has no use for it. I am not saying the Talibans are right, not even from this/my point of view, but you can not force a society with completely different norms to adopt your own just by saying they should. There is no changing a person who doesn't want to change - even the Finnish history proves that as most Finns baptised during the Northern Crusade took the baptism at swordpoint, then washed it off at the nearby pond. And as with the Finns by that time, the people were baptised more than once, as the first ones to baptise them moved on, then next lot baptised them again or killed them as heathens even if they had accepted Christian religion.
If nothing else, this whole thing combined with the other recent happenings is more than enough evidence, the ISAF troops are really coming to the end of the road and though there could be a lot of things to do to stabilize the country, the possibilities to do so are slipping between the fingers.
And before someone comes to shoot me down, no, I have not served in Afghanistan but I come from a nation that has a force in there - I happen to know a number of those who have actually served there (and some are serving there at the moment). I am not a professional soldier, but I have served in the military and still continue to serve as an active reservist. Do I fully understand the things that are happening to the servicemen and women in Afghanistan? No, I can not claim that. Can I say, I understand the psychological intricacies that affect the troops there and that affect the local population in relation to the ISAF troops? I think, I have the general idea.
And no, this is not an anti-U.S. rant. The thing is, U.S. is the largest single participant in the operation, so most of this has to do with them. The psychological problems of the servicemen, who have served in ISAF or similar operations are nothing new in Finland either and the FDF (Finnish Defence Forces) have stepped up to actually do something about the matter, albeit still rather slowly. Also, if I criticize the U.S. actions, were they the product of one person (in which case I do not actually criticize the nation but the person who committed them), a group of people (servicemen or not) or the general policy, it is only my opinion and deductions from what I have gathered from various sources. And, a recent hot topic in Finland - if a politician is criticized in public, he can not really complain because it was him/herself who took up the public podium in the first place. From there we can deduce that if U.S. takes the podium, then it must also accept the criticism from others. Is the criticism always constructive? No, but you can not expect that - there's too many pinheads running around the internet and in public.
