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Motivation for fighting in Afghanistan?


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Yep, that's where you're getting results. If the law is a rubber stamp for corruption and political murder then you can expect it not to have the support of the populace.

Modern western law, Diesel, isn't about justice (as I've been reminded here before) - it's about winning. When your leadership (corporate, military or political) starts believing this to be the case, the reasons for following the law become less obvious to the general populace and they are less likely to hold it in any respect - because they have to believe they are part of a society that treats them justly before they will willingly contribute to the commonwealth of that society. If they don't then you're on the road to systemic and ingrained corruption, your economy stagnates because very few opportunities for gaining status or wealth exist and there is no reason to strive, no reason to fund investment in education or research. This is where the wealth of western society came from - the Protestant ethic that allowed for the industrial revolution and the continuing advances in technology following on.

Whilst your information and propaganda systems are strong you can fairly easily convince the majority of your populace on any line of reasoning you care to choose. Over time, the costs of maintaining these information systems become more than the state can afford - particularly when previously held lines of reasoning are shown to be spurious, stupid or willfully misleading - as the general economy declines. We're getting to the point where the control of information in modern western society belongs to very few people and they are beginning to believe that there is no harm in their telling the rest of us what to do - what to eat, whether to smoke, who to associate with, what to think and what to believe. quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Little good did removing Ngo Dinh Diem do to the course of the war in Vietnam. In fact, it could make things worse - blatant foreign meddling with a country's internal issues just helps to recruit more fighters for the anti-imperialist guerrillas. Anyone following Karzai would appear as nothing more than a puppet, and they already had enough of those during the Democratic Republic days.

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I wouldn't replace him - I'd just get out & leave him to it.

"We support any genuinely elected govt....so we're out of here .... enjoy your spoils...."

Not a bad idea. And if he wins he won't thank us, but I don't think we were in it for gratitude. And he might just have a nucleus to build on.

I think Islam will have figured out where it's going in the next five years, particularly with the provision of needs to foster a first world economy in say, Iran. Basically it is about freedom of information access and expression. Its populace needs the level of freedoms found in Western societies to have a hope of competing economically. Any military hardware they buy is seconds, any they develop themselves will be narrowly applicable and of doubtful benefit for the cost incurred. The ruling clique has now found itself in the interesting position of having their mobile phone company dividends reduced because they clamped down on the use of mobile phones. Iran is a long way from Afghanistan - just over the border, in fact.

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The real motivation? It is the GREAT GAME for the control of Eurasia. The US cannot allow a strong alliance on the Eurasian continent (that's why the Molotov -Ribbentrop pact was such a red flag for US / UK). Such an alliance would automatically exercise control over Europe, Asia and Africa, marginalizing the US.

For the last 100 years, thus the US/UK strategy was dedicated to the cause of keeping Eurasia fragmented. That was the motivation behind the missile shield as well. Everybody knows it would/does not work, but it successfully antagonized Russia and the EU. (And no, it had absolutely nothing to do with Iran, anyone who claims so, has never seen a map - or lies.)

Look this up:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halford_Mackinder

Also this book by presidential advisor / strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski.

http://www.amazon.com/Grand-Chessboard-American-Geostrategic-Imperatives/dp/0465027261

Afghanistan is in a geostrategically very important place and has been for a long time. Look at a map. The country borders China (!), Kazakhstan (former USSR) and Iran (!).

However, like every empire has fallen before, the US Empire will also fall eventually. Very likely its fall is already in progress. The collapse of empire is NOT AVOIDABLE. Any human empire must grow (or stagnate and die). As it grows, complexity increases. However expansion/complexity costs more and more, while benefits decline. This is inevitable and the trend can only be reversed if a new energy subsidy is found - has to be better than oil for expansion to continue (highly unlikely).

A good book on this subject:

The Collapse of Complex Societies (New Studies in Archaeology) by Joseph Tainter

http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Complex-Societies-Studies-Archaeology/dp/052138673X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1254586384&sr=1-1

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I am reading a book about the formation of the British military intelligence services. From the very beginning 1830-1870 Afghanistan has been considered a critical country to watch and to mess with when other powers might mess with it.

And that was way before anybody really cared about the oil that Russia might threaten in the Middle East by sitting in Afghanistan.

Today, just a map with airplane ranges drawn from the Afghanistan borders, overlapped with important items of all kinds, is sufficient to answer the question. Iraq is even better, though.

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Molotov Ribbentrop:

1. When it was broken, it was already too late, the war was in high gear.

2. The breaking of the pact did not change the strategic situation as the winner of the war would still dominate Eurasia (Russia or Germany).

Thus, US/UK participation was inevitable. The cold war division of Europe served the US/UK just fine. Frankly otherwise WW2 does not make sense. The western allies go to war to protect eastern Europe from German domination, then throw it all away to Russia? (Remember, the war started because of the Polish invasion). Seemingly they did not achieve anything. But in fact they did. Europe remained divided. Mission accomplished.

I do not know if the following made the mainstream news or not, but very interesting (and pretty much confirms my thinking), this is very recent (note the date as well, Russia leaked this info and not by chance):

Margaret Thatcher Told Gorbachev To Stop Reunification Of Germany

http://dekerivers.wordpress.com/2009/09/11/margaret-thatcher-told-gorbachev-to-stop-reunification-of-germany/

The biggest worry of the US/UK is STILL a German-Russian alliance. The US has a good reason to push for NATO expansion, missile shield, etc. To prevent this alliance from happening.

Iraq vs. Afghanistan:

In Iraq there is oil, which requires some kind of stability. A stable Iraq however does not need a large US military presence. Figure out the rest ;).

Just to be clear: I am not taking sides here, just stating the facts as I see it. If not for the meddling of the Great Powers, countries in Central Europe (where I live) would go for each others throat. Very bad, with genocide, etc. See Yugoslavia.

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"Facts as you see them" are better known as "opinions". If your opinion is based on the fact that both London and Washington D.C. were worried of either Stalin or Hitler dominating Europe, well, damn right they were. But keep in mind that this sentiment was shared by everyone else as well, especially those European nations standing between the two dictatorships, so it's quite hard to see it as an exclusive US/UK conspiracy, especially considering how USA for most of the time until 1941 was strictly isolationist and the relationship between US and British governments was not all that fabulous (and it remained a bit half-arsed for the duration of the war). But all of this has been inconsequential since the Roswell incident of 1947 and the subsequent replacement of our leaders with reptilians. I'm prepared.

TinfoilHat.jpg

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"In an extraordinary frank meeting with Mr Gorbachev in Moscow in 1989 — never before fully reported — Mrs Thatcher said the destabilisation of Eastern Europe and the breakdown of the Warsaw Pact were also not in the West’s interests. She noted the huge changes happening across Eastern Europe, but she insisted that the West would not push for its decommunisation. Nor would it do anything to risk the security of the Soviet Union."

Ooopsy.

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Afghanistan is in a geostrategically very important place and has been for a long time. Look at a map. The country borders China (!), Kazakhstan (former USSR) and Iran (!).

For somewhat similar reasons, Tibet could become a bone of contention in the not-incredibly-distant future. If India ever becomes powerful enough to challenge China successfully, it would come as no surprise to see it "assisting the Tibetans in throwing off their oppressors", with or without Western help. I think at the present time the West is in no hurry to join in on such an enterprise, but that could conceivably change.

Michael

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Surely you're not expecting me to defend Thatcher in any sort of way. Likewise, surely you don't expect me to give face value to a conversation supposedly stolen from Soviet Politburo archives? Because she was and is a hypocrite Tory nutter and there is this old German invention called source criticism. I don't believe in Russian conspiracy theories these days, they just don't make them as good as they used to.

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Applying strategy and self-interest is not a conspiracy.

The US/UK strategy is plainly explained in many places, even stated explicitly many times by members of the establishment. If you chose not to see it, that is your decision. Maybe you should read the Brzezinski book before you put on your tinfoil hat.

Many contemporary and past events that seemingly do not make any sense, can be understood and explained if you understand the Great Game.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game

It is still ongoing.

If you think the US is after Osama and the Taliban in Afghanistan it is very hard to explain why it has not managed to make any progress.

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Council on Foreign Relations Foreign Affairs article by Brzezinski from September/October 1997:

‘Eurasia is home to most of the world`s politically assertive and dynamic states. All the historical pretenders to global power originated in Eurasia. The world`s most populous aspirants to regional hegemony, China and India, are in Eurasia, as are all the potential political or economic challengers to American primacy. After the United States, the next six largest economies and military spenders are there, as are all but one of the world`s overt nuclear powers, and all but one of the covert ones. Eurasia accounts for 75 percent of the world`s population, 60 percent of its GNP, and 75 percent of its energy resources. Collectively, Eurasia`s potential power overshadows even America`s.

‘Eurasia is the world`s axial supercontinent. A power that dominated Eurasia would exercise decisive influence over two of the world`s three most economically productive regions, Western Europe and East Asia. A glance at the map also suggests that a country dominant in Eurasia would almost automatically control the Middle East and Africa. With Eurasia now serving as the decisive geopolitical chessboard, it no longer suffices to fashion one policy for Europe and another for Asia. What happens with the distribution of power on the Eurasian landmass will be of decisive importance to America`s global primacy….’

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/53392/zbigniew-brzezinski/a-geostrategy-for-eurasia

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decisive importance to America`s global primacy

Writing for an American audience no doubt. Its this kind of crap that got the US into the Iraq war which has done more to damage the US and UK' stature in the world than anything else one could conceive of.

You cannot buck facts and to even consider that the a population of 300 million was destined to have primacy for more than a limited time is sheer hubris. And for actually thinking that any one Eurasian country is likely to reach that position in the near,medium and possibly distant future is also a rather large jump of the imagination designed to bolster the threat in his message.

It is if anything a shining example of the quality of the ruling class and its unelected advisors.

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As for fighting over Tibet. Why? Short of them finding major oil who would want to fight there.

So how much oil is in Afghanistan? My point simply was that it is far from inconceivable that China and India might collide militarily before the end of this century, and Tibet is one likely place where it could start.

Michael

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Tibet_%281950%E2%80%931951%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibet_during_the_Ming_Dynasty

Those Chinese sure play a long long game then to get the minerals. You have to admire the thousands of years of foresight :)

I had missed out on the mineral discoveries - sadly. I expect the 67$billion is only an approximate figure based on the currentish high mineral prices and I wonder what the transport costs will do to the price.

Incidentally with a population of 1.3m in 1953 and an area of roughly of 1.3M sq km it was hardly a great country to be fighting over in terms of sovereignty - especially as the US record on the same subject would have looked decidely weak.

The chances of India going to war with China even for the minerals in Tibet are extremely unlikely. The Himalayas are a bit of an obstacle : ) I was looking at a list of tibetan towns and the lowest was 1900 metres so that is not far of altitude sickness territory. !!!

I have decided to cross it off my holiday list as altitude sickness is to risky to contemplate : )

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Thatcher was a conservative. Entirely understandable for her to prize stability over "democracy" arriving suddenly acoss the cental European states and potential chaos, corruption, and potential US meddling.

Of course she could have simply been being duplicitous : )

If the report is true.

Not to mention Maggie, as a Euro sceptic, would have been imagining horrors like an expanded EU opening up to loser countries like Poland, Hungary, Romania etc, thus diluting the power of the founder nations, strapping a financial millstone around their necks and inundating London with gypsies, pickpockets and cut price building labourers.

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