Has the Afghan war made a difference?

[RSS News]

President Barack Obama will not pull out or cut troop levels in Afghanistan. Should troops be increased?

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

[Q]

Has the Afghan war made a difference?
Why yes, it has made things much, much worse. Increasing the troops will ensure things will get even more dismal for the common Afghan people.

[FSL]

Then again learning about the losses suffered by the imperialist army always cheers me up. In that retrospect, war should continue.

[Q]

Then again learning about the losses suffered by the imperialist army always cheers me up. In that retrospect, war should continue.
1,412 losses for all coalition forces versus 31000 Afghan civilian deaths according to one estimate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_of_the_War_in_Afghanistan_%282 001%E2%80%93present%29).

Yes, this war must continue :rolleyes:

[the last donut of the night]

Then again learning about the losses suffered by the imperialist army always cheers me up. In that retrospect, war should continue.


Remember that it is our brothers, working class men and women, who have to fight imperialist wars.

[KarlMarx1989]

Over 20,000 Afghani citizens of a difference. They're all dead.

[Stranger Than Paradise]

President Barack Obama will not pull out or cut troop levels in Afghanistan. Should troops be increased?

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

What sort of question is that? Newsbot asks silly things boy.

[khad]

Remember that it is our brothers, working class men and women, who have to fight imperialist wars.
They are working class in the same way that cops are working class.

[Andropov]

Remember that it is our brothers, working class men and women, who have to fight imperialist wars.
Their class background is largely irrelevant if they refuse to accept class consciousness and act in a wholely reactionary way.
As I and countless other have said many times over that until they do accept their class consciousness and refuse to export Yankee Imperialism at the barrel of a gun then they should be treated as the reactionary element they are.
My sympathies lie with the Afghan people not paid imperial mercenaries.

[KarlMarx1989]

President Barack Obama will not pull out or cut troop levels in Afghanistan. Should troops be increased?
All you need to know about this is that

1) Pulling troops out will have short-term effects
2) Increasing troops will have more long-term effects
3) Staying there with the amount we have now will have the same result as the war in Viet Nam, but without the mass protesting within the country.

[NecroCommie]

Should troops be increased?

(Feed provided by BBC News | Have your Say (http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/2/hi/talking_point/default.stm))
Well gee, that's a tough one. Perhaps we should increase the output of blood on our newsbot!


Has the Afghan war made a difference?
Yeah, In hell!

[punisa]

1,412 losses for all coalition forces versus 31000 Afghan civilian deaths according to one estimate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_of_the_War_in_Afghanistan_%282 001%E2%80%93present%29).

Yes, this war must continue :rolleyes:

If these numbers are correct, and I believe they are very close - from the imperialist point of view there is certainly no point in abandoning such a "successful" war.

Their military advisers can only brag on this as a big success.
Something very different from 60.000 dead in Vietnam.

They can do to Afghanistan whatever they wish now. That is the sad true.
The ONLY thing they can not do now is pull out.
I wonder what the average US Obama voter will say on this? As far as I know, many people voted the guy in because he said he was gonna end the war, not because of his ridicules-all-happy-smiling-family.

Afghan war made a difference alright - it showed the world that US can now invade any country it pleases and nobody can stop it.
What if they invade N.Korea? Iran? Chile? Panama? Cuba? Mexico? Sudan? Papua?
Who can prevent them in doing this?
That is what Afghan war showed.

Just take a look at the numbers, see that huge gap between US and other top military states?
List of countries by military expenditures 2008 (USD billion)

1 http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a4/Flag_of_the_United_States.svg/22px-Flag_of_the_United_States.svg.png (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States) United States (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_the_United_States) 607.0
2 http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fa/Flag_of_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China.svg/22px-Flag_of_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China.svg.png (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Republic_of_China) China (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Liberation_Army) 84.9
3 http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c3/Flag_of_France.svg/22px-Flag_of_France.svg.png (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France) France (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_France) 65.7
4 http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ae/Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom.svg/22px-Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom.svg.png (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom) United Kingdom (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Armed_Forces) 65.3
5 http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f3/Flag_of_Russia.svg/22px-Flag_of_Russia.svg.png (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia) Russian Federation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_Russia) 58.6
6 http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/ba/Flag_of_Germany.svg/22px-Flag_of_Germany.svg.png (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germany) Germany (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundeswehr) 46.8
7 http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9e/Flag_of_Japan.svg/22px-Flag_of_Japan.svg.png (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan) Japan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Self-Defense_Forces) 46.3
8 http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/03/Flag_of_Italy.svg/22px-Flag_of_Italy.svg.png (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italy) Italy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_Italy) 40.6
9 http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0d/Flag_of_Saudi_Arabia.svg/22px-Flag_of_Saudi_Arabia.svg.png (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia) Saudi Arabia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_Saudi_Arabia) 38.2
10 http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/41/Flag_of_India.svg/22px-Flag_of_India.svg.png (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India) India (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Armed_Forces) 30.0

[NecroCommie]

And that is why US hegemony will not survive the next hundred years. No country can upkeep such ridiculous expenses without constant expanding.

[Q]

If these numbers are correct, and I believe they are very close - from the imperialist point of view there is certainly no point in abandoning such a "successful" war.

Their military advisers can only brag on this as a big success.
Something very different from 60.000 dead in Vietnam.
Well, you have to take into account that Vietnam was a much larger and prolonged war. While the Americans had only have 842 casualties versus 31 000 death Afghan civilians; In Vietnam this was much larger on both sides: 58,159 dead; 2,000 missing; 303,635 wounded on the side of the USA versus around 5 million deaths in total on the Vietnamese side (2 million civilians on both sides plus 1.1 million guerrilla fighters and soldiers), let alone those missing or wounded...

[JimmyJazz]

Then again learning about the losses suffered by the imperialist army always cheers me up. In that retrospect, war should continue.

yo, shut up

[FSL]

yo, shut up


Constructive.

And also nice job on getting the point

[khad]

Well, you have to take into account that Vietnam was a much larger and prolonged war. While the Americans had only have 842 casualties versus 31 000 death Afghan civilians; In Vietnam this was much larger on both sides: 58,159 dead; 2,000 missing; 303,635 wounded on the side of the USA versus around 5 million deaths in total on the Vietnamese side (2 million civilians on both sides plus 1.1 million guerrilla fighters and soldiers), let alone those missing or wounded...
Actually, that number of military dead is closer to 450,000.

Vietnamese death claims are like Stalin's kill claims--unsupported by all demographic facts. It is a fact that every year there were more men of military age coming to maturity in North Vietnam. Overall death rates in the population actually dropped significantly during the course of the war. There does not seem to be evidence of a collapse in public health infrastructure which would have resulted massive mortality among the displaced.

I hate bourgeois myths, but I also hate leftwing myths. The total mortality in Vietnam from that war, both North and South, going by the demographic survey method, could not have exceeded 1.2-1.5 million. This does not include deaths in Cambodia and Laos, however.

[Psy]

If these numbers are correct, and I believe they are very close - from the imperialist point of view there is certainly no point in abandoning such a "successful" war.

It is not a successful war, equipment is still being destroyed at a faster then they are being built and the US doesn't have control of the means of production in Afghanistan as Russian crime families snatched them up before the US could, they then allied themselves with feudal lords and heavily armed them and to this day the US has yet to win any decisive victory against the feudal lords or Russian crime families in Afghanistan. Meaning from a stand-point of the US ruling class the Afghanistan war is a total failure as for all the capital they spend in getting the means of Afghanistan production it went to competing Russian lumpen-capitalists that took the means of production of Afghanistan and are holding their ground against US forces and their allies. You can't call a war successful when a competing power snatches the means of production and you fail to cause the competing army to surrender the means of production to you.

Basically the US finds itself in the same position the USSR did, except now the feudal lords are armed and backed by powerful crime families instead of by the CIA (of course it is not like there is much difference between crime families and the CIA), the feudal lords of Afghanistan are still hanging onto their mode of production that requires workers to be bound to the land.



They can do to Afghanistan whatever they wish now. That is the sad true.

I don't think the feudal lords of Afghanistan and Russian crime families are going to let the US do what they want as they have yet to yield to the power of the US military might and they control the means of production om Afghanistan. Every time the US tried to seize the means of production in Afghanistan they were driven back to the cities (have to remember the cities of Afghanistan have no significant means of production they are all in the country side held by feudal lords).

[Jethro Tull]

What is the point of these newsbot posts? Having a thread entitled "Has the Afghan war made a difference?" is sort of embarassing.

[JimmyJazz]

Constructive.

If only I could make constructive, quality posts like this:


Then again learning about the losses suffered by the imperialist army always cheers me up. In that retrospect, war should continue.

[Glenn Beck]

Remember that it is our brothers, working class men and women, who have to fight imperialist wars.

Not really. They don't have to. We have a professional army. If they quite literally had to we might be seeing genuine war resistance as opposed to the miserable shadow of an anti-war movement we've had for the past several years.

[Lyev]

I hate this war, and what I hate most about it is the way the troops coming back from Afghanistan are labeled 'heroes'. It makes me fucking sick. Some people in Britain are so blind. I appreciate the hardships and suffering in war is a lot for soldiers to bear; and I think that should be acknowledged. But, bearing in mind that about 300,000 civilians have died in Afghanistan and Iraq combined as a result of Western occupation, how the fuck can these soldiers be called 'heroes'?

[Tifosi]

This war has done nothing to stop "terrorism" from that part of the world. Just that plot a few backs about blowing up planes going from England to America has shown that not that much has changed. This war can't and won't be won, the the people of Afghanistan have never gave into an outside force coming into their country and using them for what ever means they see fit(sure Rambo), history proves this.

But surely the Taliban must have huge support if they are still fight NATO to a stand still after so many years, do they not:confused:

[Psy]

But surely the Taliban must have huge support if they are still fight NATO to a stand still after so many years, do they not:confused:

Most of the resistance is from the landed aristocracy (the media calls them war lords) that made deals with large criminal organizations rather then the ruling class of the US and its allies. The landed aristocracy of Afghanistan are pretty much the last hold out of feudalism on the planet thus why they are putting up such a vicious fight, the landed aristocracy of Afghanistan understands at least the mob bosses will just exploit them while the capitalists will destroy them as a class by proletarianizing their peasants which is the base of their power, the mob bosses also don't want wage slaves but peasants bound to the land, as it means they can force peasants to grow poppies just for rent via the landed aristocracy thus why the landed aristoracy have been heavily armed by criminal organizations to defend defend the lords rule over their estate so their estates can countinue to produce drugs for criminal organizations on the cheap.

[the last donut of the night]

They are working class in the same way that cops are working class.


I was merely pointing out that they are still proletariat, and thus have enormous revolutionary potential. However, they are lied to by the bourgeois state. I still feel for them. The saddest thing is to see a worker fighting against a worker and having him believe his actions are in the name of freedom.

[ls]

Newsbot needs to be restricted/purged. :cool:

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

In a thread about whether the war has been successful, it's ironic that only one or two posts have raised the question of why the war is being fought in the first place. And if I may, I disagree with psy's conclusions. This was has not been a failure for the international capitalist class waging it. Let's be clear: NATO is not only the United States. Of course the US government is instrumental in this war. Particularly the arms lobby that exerts enormous influence over the American gov't. For the arms industry this war has obviously not been a failure. It has also succeeded in preventing a government that is unfavorable to the imperialist West from being established and exerting national and regional power in the Mid East/central Asia. The war has been a resounding success, as I see it. Ergo, it will continue indefinitely.

Whether human lives have been lost or saved by this war is a non-issue when discussing the success of the NATO attack. Human life is not their concern.

[Psy]

In a thread about whether the war has been successful, it's ironic that only one or two posts have raised the question of why the war is being fought in the first place. And if I may, I disagree with psy's conclusions. This was has not been a failure for the international capitalist class waging it.

They failed to seize the means of production, every attempt to seize the means of production in Afghanistan failed.



Let's be clear: NATO is not only the United States. Of course the US government is instrumental in this war.

Yes but Russia is not part of NATO and they are currently the ones profiting from the means of production in Afghanistan.




Particularly the arms lobby that exerts enormous influence over the American gov't. For the arms industry this war has obviously not been a failure. It has also succeeded in preventing a government that is unfavorable to the imperialist West from being established and exerting national and regional power in the Mid East/central Asia. The war has been a resounding success, as I see it. Ergo, it will continue indefinitely.

The Taliban was a puppet of the CIA so it was favorable to the imperialist west, they just thought they could install a even more favorable puppet. Instead they pushed Afghanistan to the Russian spear of influence and making it easier for Russia to install a puppet in Afghanistan that is favorable to them and not the west. It is continuing because the US is trying to prevent Afghanistan from drifting into the Russian spear of influence.



Whether human lives have been lost or saved by this war is a non-issue when discussing the success of the NATO attack. Human life is not their concern.
But the Russian spear of influence expanding is and that is just what is happening in Afghanistan, right now Moscow has far more influence over the means of production in Afghanistan then Washington, if Moscow wants to make a deal with the feudal lords in Afghanistan they just have to call the KGB to arrange a meeting with the Russian mob bosses, while the CIA doesn't have that kind of connections in Afghanistan any more as their contacts were mostly Taliban that the coalition troops usurped from power.

[Dimentio]

Does Afghanistan even have any means of production?

[Psy]

Does Afghanistan even have any means of production?
Yes but ones grounded in feudalism where feudal lords owning large tracks of rural land and peasants bound to it that the lords charge rent in exchange for wage less labor. The feudal lords order their peasants to grow poppies in exchange for the right to live on the land, the lords then take the poppies and sell them to the Russian criminal organizations in exchange for weapons, ammo and equipment stolen from the Russian Army along with a sizable amount of drug money so the landed aristocracy can live a life of luxury within Afghanistan. During the rule of Taliban drugs were banned for religious reasons but now the landed aristocracy living standards have sky rocketed thanks to drug production which is now the largest means of production in Afghanistan.

[Irish commie]

The war was illegal and unjustified, a brutal attempt to impose US imperialism and stepping stone the the iraq war. the only way to stop the violence is to pull out of afghanistan.

And though the soldiers dying there are fellow workers they are also an occupying force and therefore the people of afghanistan have the right to resist even if this means killing US soldierss.