Afghan villages ask for more than U.S. troops can deliver

[lebkuchen]

The village still won’t have a well, and the soldiers leave feeling as though their efforts aren’t appreciated

“Sometimes, the villagers think that we are not helping, because we aren’t building anything,” Vestal says. “What they don’t realize is that the military is helping, because there are no Taliban here.”

http://estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=17550

The lame excuse above is also being used in Iraq: "You don't have an infrastructure because we bombed it, but we helped you get rid of Saddam, didn't we?"

[bif]

1. Like we give a shit about Afghanistan anymore.

"Move on," this administration will tell them.

[JohnyCanuck]

2. What are they complaining about now

The poppy crops were doing fine last I heard. The drug money should be flooding into the local drug lords as soon as the opium gets to market and then when the drug lords have finished buying fancy SUVs, arms and ammunition, satellite TV systems, added extensions to their luxurious mansions, and paid off their hired guns there should be lots of money for digging wells in the local villages.

[ieoeja]

3. What Infrastructure?

After twenty years of war with the Soviets, the Soviet installed puppet was replaced in democratic elections. Then the Iranian funded Taliban initiated a ten year long civil war.

And you say WE destroyed the infrastructure?



In the region controlled by the Taliban, they forced westernized, educated, professional women into burqas and complete dependence and subservience to Afghan men. Those who disagreed or even innocently failed in their attempts to adjust to this new society were tortured or killed. Womens groups around the world were begging for international intervention ... even military if necessary. But nothing was done.

And you say we should NOT have done anything?


Of course, we didn't. No, we wouldn't go in and save a million women just like the women you see walking down the streets of New York every day from a horrendous existence into which they had not been raised. We had to wait until AMERICANS got hurt before we were willing to do anything.