How can the Taleban be defeated?

[RSS News]

Barack Obama is due to hold a security summit with the leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan. What will it achieve?

(Feed provided by BBC News | Have your Say (http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/2/hi/talking_point/default.stm))

[PRC-UTE]

Barack Obama is due to hold a security summit with the leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan. What will it achieve?

Probably not much, judging by Obama's lack of success in getting Europe to follow is agenda

[STJ]

I dont think he will get much.He seems to have a tough time selling his agenda to anyone.

[вор в законе]

The only way you fight religious fanatics is due to education and modernization and the imperialist don't give a fuck about such things unless they have something to gain.

To put things into perspective, Afghanistan was invaded because it could be used as a gas route to India - an emerging power - by Turkmenistan's reserves. It would bypass Iran and undermine Russia's role. That's why they want stable Afghanistan.

But Afghanistan's stability is connected to Pakistan, that's where the Taliban core is. And the Talebans of Pakistan are controling 2/3 of the country and the situation seems very unstable. The Pakistani government intially encouraged or at least did not discourage the Talibans because an unstable Afghanistan would mean that Pakistan would be needed to "help" the USA in its stabilization and this would means a greater geopolitical role in the religion. There is also the situation is Kasmir.

The thing is that Pakistan's played with fire and they have lost control. Pakistan has nuclear warheads, the Americans might take the warheads out of the country.

The situation is pretty fucked up.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3562/3292775161_fab90b095b.jpg

[Dimentio]

Barack Obama is due to hold a security summit with the leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan. What will it achieve?

(Feed provided by BBC News | Have your Say (http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/2/hi/talking_point/default.stm))

The key to defeat the Taleban lies in Saudi Arabia. If you cut their supply of funds and support, salafism will go down the drains. Most people in Afghanistan and Pakistan are not so very fond of the Taleban.

[und]

The only way you fight religious fanatics is due to education and modernization and the imperialist don't give a fuck about such things unless they have something to gain.

To put things into perspective, Afghanistan was invaded because it could be used as a gas route to India - an emerging power - by Turkmenistan's reserves. It would bypass Iran and undermine Russia's role. That's why they want stable Afghanistan.

But Afghanistan's stability is connected to Pakistan, that's where the Taliban core is. And the Talebans of Pakistan are controling 2/3 of the country and the situation seems very unstable. The Pakistani government intially encouraged or at least did not discourage the Talibans because an unstable Afghanistan would mean that Pakistan would be needed to "help" the USA in its stabilization and this would means a greater geopolitical role in the religion. There is also the situation is Kasmir.

The thing is that Pakistan's played with fire and they have lost control. Pakistan has nuclear warheads, the Americans might take the warheads out of the country.

The situation is pretty fucked up.


Wasn't it also invaded so that the US could be nearer to Russia during the Cold War?

[Comrade Anarchist]

The only way to defeat the taliban is to undermine them. There must be secularism within the education and governments (which will probaly never happen) so that islamic law does not infringe upon and depress the human mind.

[und]

Also, wasn't the Taliban created by the US government to bring down the former government in Afghanistan? Then it turned against the US and therefore the US has no power over them.

[Comrade Anarchist]

Also, wasn't the Taliban created by the US government to bring down the former government in Afghanistan? Then it turned against the US and therefore the US has no power over them.

ya we used them to fight the soviets in afghanistan then they used the money and training to hijack a couple planes ....

[вор в законе]

Also, wasn't the Taliban created by the US government to bring down the former government in Afghanistan? Then it turned against the US and therefore the US has no power over them.

Yes kind of. USA, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan provided logistic support. USA supported the Islamic movements during the 80's, it was Brzezinski's strategy in order to weaken the socialist orientated people in the middle east.

This is from an interview in January 1998, to a French reporter.

Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic [integrisme], having given arms and advice to future terrorists?

Brzezinski: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Zbigniew_Brzezinski

[khad]

It could have been defeated before it was even created if leftwing traitors around the world hadn't supported the mojahadeen mercenaries of Western imperialism.

FACT: The majority of Soviet-Afghan air losses in the Afghan Civil War were not the result of stinger missiles, but Chinese-made .50 cals.

[khad]

The only way you fight religious fanatics is due to education and modernization and the imperialist don't give a fuck about such things unless they have something to gain.

To put things into perspective, Afghanistan was invaded because it could be used as a gas route to India - an emerging power - by Turkmenistan's reserves. It would bypass Iran and undermine Russia's role. That's why they want stable Afghanistan.

I disagree with the way you phrase that assessment. The USSR had a very good relationship with the Daoud regime and had little incentive to take the country over.

In fact, they advised the Afghan communists to continue working within the nationalist government, but there was a little problem of purges of communists. The communists, for once, successfully fought back and caused a revolution.

The USSR wasn't looking to expand militarily in Afghanistan. They were for the most part reacting to an immediate crisis that was spiraling out of control. The record shows that the Afghan government had to ask eleven times before military assistance was granted.

[KurtFF8]

Also, wasn't the Taliban created by the US government to bring down the former government in Afghanistan? Then it turned against the US and therefore the US has no power over them.

No

[Blackscare]

Wasn't it also invaded so that the US could be nearer to Russia during the Cold War?

During the cold war, it was the USSR that sent troops into Afghanistan. So nope.

[chebol]

A useful post with a good bit of background: http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=3975

[khad]

During the cold war, it was the USSR that sent troops into Afghanistan. So nope.
The facts are complicated and must qualify such a facile assessment.

Since the end of WWII, both the USSR and the USA engaged in programs of generous fiscal and technological aid to Afghanistan in the hopes of winning the heart of Central Asia over to their respective sides. With the immiseration and famine caused by the disastrous Helmand Valley project, the USA pretty much shot all its chances in that country to hell. The nationalist Daoud Administration (which came to power with the help of the Afghan Communists) leaned increasingly towards the USSR.

Even before the Saur Revolution and Soviet military assistance, the USA/Pakistan was already funding and training reactionary forces in Afghanistan, like that warlord Massoud. Even during Daoud's time, these mercenary forces were trying to destabilize the Afghan Republic.

Who struck first? Certainly wasn't the USSR.

[Sendo]

stop the drone bombings for one. If you want rag-tag fanatics to take over a country, just bomb into the dust, worked great for Nixon in Cambodia.

[Revy]

Afghanistan, Pakistan, gateways to Central Asia, and here we come to oil again.
Wars, wars and more wars! That's O-bomb-a's platform.

“I cannot think of a time when we have had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian" - Dick Cheney, in a speech to oil industrialists in Washington D.C. in 1998.

Central Asia stands between the other superpowers, Russia and China, how convenient!

[Andropov]

How do you stop the Taleban?
You remove their main source of growth which is the occupation of Afghanistan.
An occupation is a fertile breeding ground for the Taleban.

[Pogue]

You can't beat the Taleban. Just like how you couldn't bea tthe IRA. Firstly, they are an idea as much as anything, but secondly, they are too covert, too decntralised, you can't just hope if you shoot enough of them they will disappear.

Only a worker run society could get rid of the taleban.

[Das war einmal]

How to destroy that which you helped to create? Well if we all stopped using petroleum from Saudi-Arabia, will cut the funding to the Taliban

[Uppercut]

How do we destroy the taliban? use the CIA. we used our spy agency to create and fund terrorism. We can use it to disband them. But then again, we can't do that in America because war solves everything!:thumbup1:

[вор в законе]

I disagree with the way you phrase that assessment. The USSR had a very good relationship with the Daoud regime and had little incentive to take the country over.

In fact, they advised the Afghan communists to continue working within the nationalist government, but there was a little problem of purges of communists. The communists, for once, successfully fought back and caused a revolution.

The USSR wasn't looking to expand militarily in Afghanistan. They were for the most part reacting to an immediate crisis that was spiraling out of control. The record shows that the Afghan government had to ask eleven times before military assistance was granted.

I don't understand how your post is related to what I wrote. I never mentioned anything about USSR.

[Y Chwyldro Comiwnyddol Cymraeg]

Well...first pull the troops out of Afghanistan; they are only driving more and more people towards the Taliban. Invasion allways increases support for rebel groups (as Vietnam showed America)

Cut their funding from the Saudis. Support secularism within Afghanistan and Pakistan. But the main point is remove the catalyst that has increased Taliban support tebfold: the occupation.

[The Author]

Barack Obama is due to hold a security summit with the leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan. What will it achieve?

Absolutely nothing. There will be talks, handshakes, and then discussion over what locations the U.S. or NATO will bomb through airstrikes, where to concentrate troops, where to occupy areas where supposedly the Taliban reside. In truth, it's nothing more than continued occupation of Afghanistan and Pakistan. And in truth, the only people who will defeat the Taliban are the Afghan and Pakistani working class (or oppressed classes residing in either country). NATO most certainly is not the answer, and as others have said, the imperialists are more interested in oil and gas pipelines and other resource interests as opposed to actually "liberating" the peoples of Afghanistan or Pakistan.