Anthony Small status on facebook ...

I didn't say it was a clever publicity stunt.

In fact, as you point out, he's failed miserably. He's just hated now, but that hate wont translate into any sort of financial reward for him. He went too far.

I find it quite amusing.

 

Who even cares what this idiot's status is. Let him spout all the **** he wants, personally, I couldn't care. He has nothing for anyone in the ring and his opinion outside the ring doesn't count for anything.

 

Most people who aren't trigger happy and had some knowledge of Afghanistan history knew that we could never win. History has proven this.

When do you suggest we pull out? We should have pulled out a long time ago. We have already set a date of 2015 to pull out which shows we've admitted defeat, when ever we pull out the facts are the country will go into civil war and the american backed government will be overthrown by the taliban like they have done before. Maybe than questions will be asked, what did these people die for? Arms manufacturers and International Banks?

 

It clearly isn't anything of the sort...its an unholy mess but illegal is open to interpretation.

I would agree with most of what you have said but whatever we think the war in Afghanistan is very clearly legal on all levels and for various reasons.

 

Rules and laws pertaining to the conduct of wars are contained within the UN charter. Various unformalised rules and laws regarding conduct in war have been around for centuries.

 

Nonsense. Nobody "knew" we could never win. Who says we are not winning or will not win? History in warfare is largely irrelevant.

We should never have gone in. But we are in. We pull out when it is stable enough to do so.

No it doesn't. It means there is an exit plan. We did the same in Iraq.

 

I would disagree with this....everyone I spoke to from senior NCOs all the way up to Brigadier level had serious doubts about whether we could win a decisive victory in Afghanistan and their views were based largely on history. This is the 4th Afghan war that the British have been involved in and thus far we have only won one (1919) and that took the mobilisation of the entire Indian army to crush one warlord on the North West Frontier. We can win this but it won't be decisive and we will have to revert back to old tried and tested methods, methods that actually allowed us to run an empire i.e. pay the ****ers off. The Taliban are not a popular organisation with a large standing militia, they rely solely on paid levys. We pay these warlords more and we will have their allegiance, its simple and effective but it will require a long term financial commitment from this country.

 

My only point is that nobody "knew" we could never win a war in this region. People had opinions, some informed, some not so informed, but still just opinions none the less.

I'm willing to concede that even a lot of junior ranks at the time thought it was going to be a very difficult and hard fought victory. Fortunately for me I got out just as we started to commit in larger numbers.

 

I could probably have predicted prior to the event that the War in Afghanistan wasn't winnable and I wasn't in possession of the 'facts' that Bush and Blair were.

No, now we're in the country we've got to stop there until the job is done, the problem is that we're not going to be able to bring the job to a satisfactory conclusion without spending decades and Billions in the country. As soon as we leave the country the Taliban will rise from their caves and cause havoc.......... but none of this is related to the point I was making which is we shouldn't have been in the country in the first place

 

What are the valid reasons that we went to war with (invaded) Iraq then? At the time we were told we had proof that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, which has turned out to be a lie

It maybe legal by International law (not sure if it is), but the fact remains that our goals in Afghanistan are unachievable and our presence over there is doing more damage than good. Afghanistan is a vile country and the way women are treated is prehistoric, but as much as the civilised world dislikes the way the country is (and other countries) there's no way we can alter this on a permanent basis IMO. If we manage to remove Al-Qaeda from Afghanistan they just move to another country, such as Yemen

The troops that we've had stationed in Iraq could have been put to much better use in various other crisis's (crisi?) that have happened around the world. Zimbabwe was in a far worse state than Iraq was, there were millions dying in agony from basic diseases because Mugabi was a proper horrible **** who couldn't run a corner shop let alone country. Why wasn't the self-appointed World law keepers (the UK and the US) so keen to help in this situation which was far worse than Iraq? Zimbabwe is one example, but there are numerous others in Africa (Darfur being another example)

 

Well, you're a wiser man than me.

I couldn't agree more. But I say this with hindsight. I've only really started to change my opinion on this. When we invaded and ousted the Taliban in October 2001 I was all for it. I think the whole world was stunned by the September 11 attacks and it seemed like chasing Bin Laden through Afghanistan was the right thing to do.

 

I dont know what information you have that makes you so sure that it was not an illegal war.Most information I have read certainly suggests that it was.

[ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_the_Iraq_War[/ame]

The [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations"]United Nations[/ame] Secretary-General [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kofi_Annan"]Kofi Annan[/ame] said in September 2004 that: "From our point of view and the [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Charter"]UN Charter[/ame] point of view, it [the war] was illegal.

Bush obviously felt that he might be in trouble, and decided it would be a good idea to introduce new laws so that he could not be tried for any war crimes. How mad is that? Try to create a law to make yourself immune from any sort of prossecution:twisted:

http://www.cuttingedge.org/news/n1933.cfm
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_1085.shtml

 

That's a given :yep

(joke)

I, like yourself, at the time of invasion wasn't as anti-war as I am now, but our thoughts were pretty much irrelevent as we wasn't privy to the info and expertise that the US and UK governments were. We can't be blamed when

After 9/11 Bush had to give someone a kicking (because he's a ****ing hill-billy who didn't want to be percieved as a weak leader) irrespective of who it was, Saddam drew the short straw because he had previous (with Bush Sr). Unfortunately Blair trotted along behind Bush and followed the ***** into these unwinnable wars. The right course of action for the US to take IMO, would've been to take the 9/11 attack on the chin and spend the war money on internal security, whilst attacking known Al-Qaeda bases covertly with the likes of the Navy Seals and the SAS (just my opinion)

 

The struggle for control of Afghanistan has been going on since the mid 1800s.
And it's always proven an unconquerable land.

Does anyone know how many times Britain tried to conquer that place in the 19th and early 20th centuries ? I think it was at least 4 times.

Russia tried several times too, the last time being as the USSR in 1980 - 1989.

The historians and political scientists called it "The Great Game", a geopolitical chess match between Russian empire and the British (now the US-anglo alliance).

The region is important from a strategic, geographical standpoint. And it contains rich natural resources. Minerals, Gas, Oil. And heroin !
Nowadays China is a major power who are in the game too.

Does anyone really think it's just a COINCIDENCE that we've spent the last TEN YEARS in the same place we've been vying for control over for the last 150 YEARS ?

 

The argument may be dancing on the head of a pin but we didn't go to war because Sadam had weapons of mass destruction, we went to war because he wouldn't allow inspectors proper access.