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 dogma wrote:

Simply blaming America in this situation is just lazy.

The hell it is. It took a lot of god damn work to take what used to a bunch of mountain tribes descended from leftovers of Alexander's Army and turn them into a real pain in the ass for everyone. Too bad that included it biting the US on the ass eventually.

A now deceased former associate of mine sold them five freighter-loads of Chinese made AKs alone at the time (400 tons of guns actually got there). Let me give you an idea of scale here: if the Russians gave them a pistol, the US gave them a crate of SAWs. Do you know what the number one most popular pistol is for insurgents? The Colt 1911. Do you know why the Pakistani's still produce ammunition for the British 25 pounder??? THAT'S why.

When the US and England disposed of some of the finest armaments in the world to conform to NATO requirements, where do you think they ended up? Granted, some of it went to every Edit for language -Mannahnin hole from Rhodesia to the Peru/Columbia boarder, but a whole epic Edit for language -Mannahnin ton of it went to places like Afghanistan. Back then, the US was allies with guys like Osama Bin Laden, and more or less invented something called the Golden Triangle, which the CIA controlled (and used to finance other operations) up until the Taliban took control.

Now, granted, I've never been to Afghanistan, I've drawn the line at high deserts and mountains for a few decades now, my own experience in green leafy places is that the US tends to destabilize anyone they don't like, and make damn sure they stay destabilized for some time. You will find leaders are mysteriously broken out of prison, other people just happen to be sniped on their way to work or given a Youngstown Tune-up. The fact the CIA is slipping is why Hugo Chavez, as an example, is still alive, and there isn't a war going on between Columbia and Venezuela at the moment.

Don't look now, but there is a black helicopter hovering over your house.

djones520 wrote:
Don't look now, but there is a black helicopter hovering over your house.

Well, I wish them luck with that, I'm not in the US atm, but the VPN is near Buffalo. In response to your accusation of paranoia, I might point out there is a big difference between believing people who don't know giving paranoid rants over shortwave radios from thier 'bunkers' in Montana, and believing people who do know in a bar after you both cash checks drawn from the Nugan Hand Bank for 'consulting'. Surprisingly, he lived to die of cancer, despite the sizable bounty ($50k) several former US Navy officers put on him.

Daaaamn... this is quite epic...



Two things... First: what CNN did was kinda dastardly... in one way, I'm glad they wanted to... you know be journalist, but they should've respected the Ambassador's family wishes. If they really wanted to use it, they should've worked with the family.

Second: It is interesting that there wasn't plans in place (or formulated from get-go) to secure the location, such that a CNN reporter was able to get their hands on his journal.

BaronIveagh wrote:

djones520 wrote:
Don't look now, but there is a black helicopter hovering over your house.

Well, I wish them luck with that, I'm not in the US atm, but the VPN is near Buffalo. In response to your accusation of paranoia, I might point out there is a big difference between believing people who don't know giving paranoid rants over shortwave radios from thier 'bunkers' in Montana, and believing people who do know in a bar after you both cash checks drawn from the Nugan Hand Bank for 'consulting'. Surprisingly, he lived to die of cancer, despite the sizable bounty ($50k) several former US Navy officers put on him.

It's not "bunkers" it's bunkers. The CUT bunkers are very real.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

The hell it is. It took a lot of god damn work to take what used to a bunch of mountain tribes descended from leftovers of Alexander's Army and turn them into a real pain in the ass for everyone.

Like most places in central Asia tribalism is a major political issue and has been forever. The tribes have always been a pain in the ass from the perspective of anyone trying to create a coherent nation-state because they directly impede the relevance of the "nation" part.

I feel like you don't really understand how tribalism works in Central Asia. The tribes in Afghanistan are no laughing matter, they are generally the first group people will say they're a part of after "family".

 whembly wrote:
Daaaamn... this is quite epic...
Two things... First: what CNN did was kinda dastardly... in one way, I'm glad they wanted to... you know be journalist, but they should've respected the Ambassador's family wishes. If they really wanted to use it, they should've worked with the family.

Second: It is interesting that there wasn't plans in place (or formulated from get-go) to secure the location, such that a CNN reporter was able to get their hands on his journal.

I admit I'm rather surprised by that as well.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

A now deceased former associate of mine sold them five freighter-loads of Chinese made AKs alone at the time (400 tons of guns actually got there).

I don't doubt you. All I'm saying is that blaming the US alone for the state of the country is lazy as it discounts British influence, Soviet influence, and the country itself. Afghanistan was not some idyllic paradise before the West showed up, and it certainly wasn't one before the US showed up.

 dogma wrote:

I don't doubt you. All I'm saying is that blaming the US alone for the state of the country is lazy as it discounts British influence, Soviet influence, and the country itself. Afghanistan was not some idyllic paradise before the West showed up, and it certainly wasn't one before the US showed up.

Wait, so you're saying those patchouli-smelling blokes from the Peace Corps lied to me?

 dogma wrote:

I don't doubt you. All I'm saying is that blaming the US alone for the state of the country is lazy as it discounts British influence, Soviet influence, and the country itself. Afghanistan was not some idyllic paradise before the West showed up, and it certainly wasn't one before the US showed up.

No, I'm not saying they aren't to blame as well, I'm just saying that they made it measurably worse, which was something of an achievement considering how bad it was.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

No, I'm not saying they aren't to blame as well, I'm just saying that they made it measurably worse, which was something of an achievement considering how bad it was.

I don't think that's true either. If people want to kill each other they will find a way to do so, so internal violence is not really a consideration*. And Al-Qaeda would have likely been welcomed regardless of the presence of guns.

*Particularly given the significance of Islamic conservatism throughout Afghan history.

There's practically no way we could make it worse than it was before we got there. The Taliban massacring civilians beheading people in public arenas, trafficking in women , blowing up millenia-old historic monuments, hosting Al Qaeda camps, and even relatively tame things like banning music was no joke.

High chance its going back to that when we pull out.

Which is the real tragedy. Our two real options were:

A) Go in surgically just after Al Qaeda and Bin Laden specifically.
B) Go in big, take out the Taliban and try to stop the place being a host for Al Qaeda and its ilk.

The former would almost certainly have been the smarter move, but the Bush admin had a very firm ideological belief in trying to spread American influence in the ME through regime change.

Yeah... it is a shame...

I think the ONLY way it improves is if we followed the same plan after WW2 that we did for Germany/Japan (and maybe S. Korea).

In that staying in the country and pour money / manpower in rebuilding that country.

That plan may never really have been possible with Afghanistan, though, due to the terrain and the tribalism. With the European countries we weren't up against logistical and cultural barriers as high.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/sep/24/muslim-led-nations-seek-ban-on-insult/?page=all#pagebreak

Bringing us back on the subject of the riots I think this has got to be one of the most disturbing things I've ever read on the subject of free speech.

Pass it. Who cares, it would not apply to the US. treaties don't trump the US Constitution. Founding Fathers HURR!!!

 Mannahnin wrote:
There's practically no way we could make it worse than it was before we got there. The Taliban massacring civilians beheading people in public arenas, trafficking in women , blowing up millenia-old historic monuments, hosting Al Qaeda camps, and even relatively tame things like banning music was no joke.

No, I'm talking worse than the first time the US got involved there, in the 80's. Remember when the CIA started wholesale arming a whole slew of religious nutjobs with the idea of them causing the Russians as much pain as they caused us supporting NV without any real regard to how that was going to turn out?


Point of fact, the Taliban actually dialed it BACK a bit from what we had turned it into, when they made opium illegal and ran the CIA out of town on a rail.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

No, I'm talking worse than the first time the US got involved there, in the 80's. Remember when the CIA started wholesale arming a whole slew of religious nutjobs with the idea of them causing the Russians as much pain as they caused us supporting NV without any real regard to how that was going to turn out?

You think the Taliban are sufficiently out of touch with religion in Afghanistan that they can be called "nutjobs"?

 BaronIveagh wrote:

Point of fact, the Taliban actually dialed it BACK a bit from what we had turned it into, when they made opium illegal and ran the CIA out of town on a rail.

Opium production has a long history in Afghanistan, it wasn't US influence that created the market for opium poppy, or even the necessity for it; the Russians did that (and the whole communist party of Afghanistan thing). And the ban on poppy cultivation was the result of UN influence, and possibly price fixing, not some attempt at "dialing back" whatever it is you think could be "dialed back".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frazzled wrote:
Pass it. Who cares, it would not apply to the US. treaties don't trump the US Constitution. Founding Fathers HURR!!!

I disagree with the "Founding Fathers HURR!!!", but agree with everything else.

 dogma wrote:

You think the Taliban are sufficiently out of touch with religion in Afghanistan that they can be called "nutjobs"?

Compared to the majority of native afghanis? Yes, in the same sense that preachers demanding book burnings and human bonfires in the US are 'nutjobs'.

 dogma wrote:

Opium production has a long history in Afghanistan, it wasn't US influence that created the market for opium poppy, or even the necessity for it; the Russians did that (and the whole communist party of Afghanistan thing). And the ban on poppy cultivation was the result of UN influence, and possibly price fixing, not some attempt at "dialing back" whatever it is you think could be "dialed back".

A little history then:

The ISI brokered a deal which brought about an alliance between the CIA and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of a small guerrilla unit in Afghanistan with close ties to the Pakistani government. In the next ten years half of American aid to Afghanistan went to this group. Hekmatyar eventually proved himself brutal and corrupt, becoming one of the premier drug dealers in that region.

Islamabad CIA station chief John Reagan met with Hekmatyar in May 1979, seven months before the Soviets moved into Kabul, and agreed to make the first of many shipments of arms to the rebel army. Over the next two years, CIA covert aid increased tremendously. Islamabad soon became the largest foreign CIA station to run a covert war. Within ten years the United States had funneled in $3 billion in aid to the Mujaheddin, and the CIA had provided the rebels with $2 billion in covert aid. Sixty percent of those funds were given directly to Hekmatyar who purchased weapons in order to protect his opium fields. Pakistani General Fazle Huq was assigned to overlook military operations near the Afghan border. Huq ensured that Hekmatyar received the bulk of CIA arms shipments, and he also protected his 200 heroin laboratories. In 1982 Interpol identified Huq as a principal catalyst in Afghan-Pakistani opium trade.

Very little heroin was refined in Pakistan before the rise of the Mujaheddin emerged in 1979. Then the guerrillas began to expand their opium production and shipped the raw drug to Pakistan border refineries for processing into heroin. They sold it to Pakistani refiners who operated under the protection of General Fazle Hug, the governor of the province near the Khyber Pass and adjacent to Afghanistan. Trucks from the Pakistan arm’s National Logistics Cell (NLC) arrived with CIA arms from Karachi and returned loaded with heroin. They were protected by the ISI and therefore protected from vehicle searches.

The Reagan and Bush administrations frequently placed the blame for opium trade on the Soviets. However, it was the Mujaheddin and Pakistanis who were directly involved in trafficking drugs. Zia’s personal physician, Dr. Hisayoshi Maruyama, was arrested in Holland with 17.5 kilos of high grade heroin. Haji Ayub Afridi, one of Zia’s associates who had served in the Pakistani General Assembly, purchased large quantities of opium from the Mujaheddin. Another Zia ally, Hamid Hasnain, vice president of one of Pakistan’s largest banks, also ran a drug ring.

By the 1980s, American aid to Afghan rebels declined, so their leaders expanded opium production in order to maintain their armies. In southern Afghanistan, Nasim Akhundzada controlled the most fertile and irrigated areas. He became known as the “King of Heroin” and controlled most of the 250 tons of opium in his province. Meanwhile, Pakistan became one of the world’s largest addict populations in the 1980s.

When the Mujaheddin first emerged in Afghanistan in 1979, there were about 200,000 drug addicts in the United States. As poppy fields quickly expanded in the areas which they controlled, that number had jumped to 450,000 by 1981. In 1989 Afghanistan and Pakistan produced and shipped 50 percent of all the heroin in the world. Between one-third and one-half of the heroin used by addicts in the United States was imported from heroin growers in Mujaheddin controlled areas. The annual consumption of these Afghan narcotics amounted to roughly three tons, and it was valued in the billions of dollars.

In 1990 Time magazine ran a story claiming that the United States “was embarrassed by the widely bruited connections between the drug trade and the elements of the insurgents, including such fundamentalist Islamic groups as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar Hezbi-I Islami.” Then the Washington Post printed a story charging that American officials had refused to investigate charges against Hekmatyar and Pakistan’s ISI. Yet the CIA ignored the allegations since it would have diminished their effectiveness in running covert operations in the region.

Civil war has raged since the 1989 withdrawal of Soviet forces. Although the United States government withdrew military support for the Mujaheddin, various Afghan ethnic and political factions have competed for power. In 1994 the extreme fundamentalist Sunni sect known as Taliban emigrated from Pakistan and settled in Afghanistan’s outlying mountains around Kabul.

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was breifly instated in office and insituted many of the things that the Taliban were subsiquently blamed for, including the treatment of women, etc. The Taliban simply didn't remove it when, supported by the United States, rhey captured the capitol and declared Afghanistan an Islamic state in September 1996.

As far as poppy production: On the price fixing item, I believe you're referring to the report by Byrd and Jonglez, which by the own admission, involved a significant amount of supposition and best guess, as there was no hard data on prices at the time. On the rest of it, yes, they did work with the UN. It does, occasionally, happen. Particularly when it deprives competing factions of funding for their private armies.

Since the US invasion, opium production has increased significantly, making up 53% of Afghanistan's GDP in 2007.



TLDR version: While the CIA did not creat the market demand for opium, they certainly paved the way for it's supply, in the case of Afghanistan. Before the Soviet Invasion, Pakistan produced ten times Afghanistan's opium output. This was inverted as warlords and mujahadeen fighters converted almost 75% of controlled farm land to poppy production to help underwrite their war with the Soviets, a conversion which was funded, in part, by the CIA.

You know, the more information that comes out about Benghazi, the more incredible it is. It was a four-hour firefight; I'm more than a little shocked the about five guys we had there didn't get any support during that time frame. The fact that it was clearly a planned al Qaeda attack - and the fact that the administration lied about it - is also pretty disturbing; turns out there probably wasn't even a protest at all, and the whole thing had nothing to do with that dumb flick.

 Seaward wrote:
You know, the more information that comes out about Benghazi, the more incredible it is. It was a four-hour firefight; I'm more than a little shocked the about five guys we had there didn't get any support during that time frame. The fact that it was clearly a planned al Qaeda attack - and the fact that the administration lied about it - is also pretty disturbing; turns out there probably wasn't even a protest at all, and the whole thing had nothing to do with that dumb flick.

Actually several Libyan security officers were also killed and wounded in the fiasco. There was, according to most sources I've heard, a protest at the time, which most likely served as cover for the attack and to slow any Libyan response (getting through an angry mob, even a small one, can be be hard. I hate to say it, but the authorities most likely assumed they would all be dead by the time they could get there [the building clearly burning], and simply waited for the crowd to disperse.)

I cannot say certain things here to fully expound on my opinion of the matter or I will get permabanned.

I wil also add that it's odd that anyone in the US Embassy survived at all. 20 men with guns and RPGs against 5 is usually a write off.

Not sure where to stick this, but its sorta on topic:
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/americas-dumbest-war-ever.htm


This is fustrating... when are we going to do the right thing instead of what "politically right"?

 BaronIveagh wrote:

Compared to the majority of native afghanis? Yes, in the same sense that preachers demanding book burnings and human bonfires in the US are 'nutjobs'.

So you're saying you don't know anything about Afghanistan?

There have been religious killings there for decades, the killings related to the rise of the Taliban were factional, not religious. They deliberately targeted groups that were not affiliated with them in an attempt to bring them into fealty.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

TLDR version: While the CIA did not creat the market demand for opium, they certainly paved the way for it's supply, in the case of Afghanistan. Before the Soviet Invasion, Pakistan produced ten times Afghanistan's opium output. This was inverted as warlords and mujahadeen fighters converted almost 75% of controlled farm land to poppy production to help underwrite their war with the Soviets, a conversion which was funded, in part, by the CIA.

Do you not read what you write?

Anyway, the real TLDR is that you decided it would be a good idea to copy and paste something from a wordpress blog assuming I wouldn't know where it came from (Darkpolitics, really?), and that I couldn't discover anything about the authors. I imagine that you're one of them.

The blog post itself blatantly conflates opium production with the production of refined heroin, which is incredibly sloppy. It reads as more of a rant than a reasoned argument.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

Actually several Libyan security officers were also killed and wounded in the fiasco. There was, according to most sources I've heard, a protest at the time, which most likely served as cover for the attack and to slow any Libyan response (getting through an angry mob, even a small one, can be be hard. I hate to say it, but the authorities most likely assumed they would all be dead by the time they could get there [the building clearly burning], and simply waited for the crowd to disperse.)

I cannot say certain things here to fully expound on my opinion of the matter or I will get permabanned.

I wil also add that it's odd that anyone in the US Embassy survived at all. 20 men with guns and RPGs against 5 is usually a write off.

The Libyan president said there was no protest at all; some American intelligence sources have confirmed this.

Also, the fight started at the consulate, but the Americans moved to an adjacent building shortly after it began, and engaged in a four and a half hour firefight. This is looking more and more like a massive dropping of the ball. I don't normally buy into the "liberal media" meme, but the fact that this stuff isn't being reported in more widespread fashion is pretty astonishing.

 dogma wrote:

Do you not read what you write?

Anyway, the real TLDR is that you decided it would be a good idea to copy and paste something from a wordpress blog assuming I wouldn't know where it came from (Darkpolitics, really?), and that I couldn't discover anything about the authors. I imagine that you're one of them.

The blog post itself blatantly conflates opium production with the production of refined heroin, which is incredibly sloppy. It reads as more of a rant than a reasoned argument.

Yeah, I did. Dog wanted out and I didn't feel you warranted any actual effort. I did fact check it, and it is, for the most part, substantially accurate, though, as you point out, it goes off on a Heroin tangent. However, compare the late 1960's numbers with post soviet invasion numbers.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
However, compare the late 1960's numbers with post soviet invasion numbers.

Yes, after the Soviet invasion many factions began dedicating the land they controlled to a cash crop. They also got money from the CIA, which means the CIA helped fund the conversion and arms accumulation. This happened because the Soviets invaded, many Afghani factions were displeased by this, and the US had its nominal policy of containment.

I reiterate, claiming that the US was the only party to blame, or even the prime party, is absurd.

 dogma wrote:

I reiterate, claiming that the US was the only party to blame, or even the prime party, is absurd.

"I wrote a note to the President in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention" - Zbigniew Brzezinski

"We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam War" - Zbigniew Brzezinski

While I've never claimed the US was the only party responsible, I think the above quotes from Carter's National Security Advisor pretty well sums up what they were up to. You keep trying to frame this discussion as that I'm alleging that the US was solely responsible, and it wasn't. Primarily responsible is arguable, if only because they deliberately manipulated the situation to make things worse.

Dang... Kirsten Powers' smack down:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/28/write-about-terrorism-nah-let-s-all-bash-mitt-romney-instead.html
snippet:

There are so many unanswered questions, not just about Libya but also about Cairo. Who is it that Rice thinks “widely disseminated” this “movie”? Surely she can’t believe that the Egyptian Coptic Christian who made the video had the capacity or even desire to put it in the hands of the people who did the inciting. Also, has the administration noticed that the mob in Cairo, so spontaneously upset about the video, just happened to be carrying an Islamist flag to hoist over our embassy? On 9/11. What a massive coincidence.