We're losing in Afghanistan, too (Just ask the girls)

[katinmn]

http://www.feminist.org/news/newsbyte/uswirestory.asp?id=9118

Feminist Daily News Wire
June 24, 2005

Girls School Attacked in Afghanistan
An Afghan girls school was attacked yesterday in the Logar province, the most recent in a series of attacks on girls' education in Afghanistan. Armed men tied up two school guards and set the Padkhwai Raghani School building and two tents on fire. Local men are being questioned, but authorities do not yet know who is responsible for the attack, according to BBC.

Girls were prohibited from attending school under the Taliban and were permitted to return to school when the Taliban were ousted in 2001. However, over 40 girls schools have been bombed, set on fire, or violently attacked in Afghanistan since 2001, causing some families to keep their daughters at home out of fear. Currently, the resurgence of the Taliban, the continuing influence of extremist warlords, and lack of security are placing women and girls at extreme risk of violence and intimidation.

School Principal Zaher Din plans to resume classes on Saturday for the 665 girls aged seven to 15. One 12-year-old student, Farida, grieved, “Why did they only burn the girls school? Why not the boys’ school next door? The police must protect us. We want to be able to study,” reports The Times.

The continued intimidation of girls returning to school demonstrates the need for the expansion of peacekeeping and security forces in Afghanistan.

[justinsb]

1. Like Iraq

The US (and UN in this case) is winning the war inside a tightly controlled 'Green Zone' and losing it everywhere else.

[katinmn]

26. Soon we'll be saying "like Iraq" only with an "n"

Our warlords are already beeating the drums saying Iranian women have no rights, just like they said about Afghani women before we began our long-term commitment there.

They keep repeating the same mistakes over and over.

[justinsb]

30. Iraqis and Iranians

Yes they do. One advantage of living in Toronto is that I had many conversations with Iraqis before that war started and the general response was that they didn't like Hussein but they liked Bush less and the invasion would just get alot of innocent people killed and turn alot of decent people into 'terrorists' - they actually laid out for me exactly what would happen and they have, so far, nailed it in Nostradomus like fashion.

I've also had talks with alot of Iranians and should the US act against Iran, the current worldwide 'resistance' to the Iranian government (including exiled disidents, disidents in country etc) will immediately align with the government to repel the invaders - then go back to trying to build the country they want.

[SteppingRazor]

2. Ah, good to see freedom on the march n/t

[katinmn]

3. yes, isn't it though?

x(

[va_dem]

4. I'm not sure that a bunch of thugs scaring school girls

is indicative of "us" losing a war. Quite frankly Afganistan was won a long time ago, using their own people for the most part, a much smarter way to do this if you're going to do it. Don't confuse Afganistan and Iraq. Alot of us supported taking out the Taliban, they had no redeaming qualities what so ever.

[Kraklen]

6. And what was it that we won exactly?

We didn't get Osama bin Laden.

Afghanistan is still ruled by fundamentalist nutjobs.

A bunch of dead American troops.

Thousands of dead Afghani civilians.

The war was lost before it was ever started.

[va_dem]

9. We shutdown the training camps and

at least setup the beginings of a democratic country. We lost alot fewer than if we had just used our own people. Should have learned that lesson, but didn't.

[Kraklen]

11. Are you joking?

Al Qaeda membership and general hatred of the United States has skyrocketed all over the world.

[va_dem]

13. That is a result of Iraq, not Afganistan. We

should have stayed focused on Bin Laden.

[Kraklen]

14. That's a result of the whole thing.

Gitmo was around way before Iraq. Plenty of human rights abuses in Afghanistan to get upset about.

[RaleighNCDUer]

23. I will agree with you on that.

We had our chance, and blew it.

[Maple]

8. If you google

Afghanistan, you'll see the place is a bloody mess.

The Taliban is back in force, and the warlords are fighting each other.

Huge numbers of UK troops and others are about to go in there.

Afghanistan was never won.

[Ripley]

10. Yeah, you're right..just like Dick said...Afghanisan IS A SUCCESS

Success smells like Chinooks full of Americans dying today.

Success smells like the country being exactly the way it was prior to our invasion, except for that house Karzi lives in.

Success smells like epidemic disease, poppy production and American troop deaths.

Uhmhuh. Someone here is confused and it's not me.

[katinmn]

12. Huh? The Taliban are back, man. We didn't take them out.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/ISL103169.htm
Afghans say Taliban won't stop vote despite violence
28 Jun 2005 13:47:36 GMT
Source: Reuters

Background CRISIS PROFILE: Afghanistan still the ‘sick man’ of Asia

By David Brunnstrom

KABUL, June 28 (Reuters) - Attacks in the Afghan provinces have killed another five policemen, officials said on Tuesday, even as the government said a bloody defeat for the Taliban last week showed their inability to disrupt September elections.

Two police officers were killed and two wounded when a roadside bomb blasted their convoy in Naish district of Kandahar province, the police chief of neighbouring Uruzgan province said.

And in the eastern province of Laghman, three officers were killed and a district police chief and one of his men hurt when gunmen shot up their vehicle on Monday night, police there said.

Uruzgan police chief Rozi Khan blamed the Kandahar blast on "Afghanistan's enemies" -- a term officials usually use to describe the Taliban and their militant allies. Laghman police said it was too early to say if the attack there was the work of militants or the result of a local rivalry.
-more-

More than 200 insurgents have been killed this month and around 400 since March, according to government and U.S. figures. At least 14 U.S. troops have died in attacks along with dozens of Afghan police officers and troops.

The Taliban said it lost only 7-8 men in the fighting last week, and despite the government's euphoria, it remains to be seen how much damage has been done to an insurgency that has picked up with a vengeance and which analysts say has been attracting hundreds of new recruits from Pakistan and elsewhere.

[Old and In the Way]

15. Sure, marginalizing the moderates is a great way to win the war.

We've done that in Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Iran. We can't afford much more of this winning without turning the entire Mid-East into a Fundie Pan-Islamic Caliphate.

[va_dem]

17. Isn't it the moderates that were helping "elect" into power.

I kinda missed where we were installing fanatics.

[RaleighNCDUer]

25. We are installing oil company toadies

who have no real power.

The fanatics are waiting in the wings.

[anarch]

16. pretty much the only people who have "won" are the poppy growers

and, I suppose, whoever orchestrated the media blackout/snowjob that allows people to believe this part of the War on Terra was any less of a trainwreck than the other parts of it.

[Kraklen]

20. I'm sure there's a number of contractors that got rich of the war.

[anarch]

27. ah yes...the war profiteers too n/t

[SteppingRazor]

22. Well, at least there's good opium to be had. ;)

[RaleighNCDUer]

21. How do you figure we won?

The president we installed is little more than the mayor of Kabul. OBL is still on the loose, as is the former president and head of the Taliban. Karzai has to be protected by US soldiers and mercenaries because he can't trust his own people. The country is run by the warlords, just as it was before the Taliban took over.

What is your rationale?

[Bouncy Ball]

32. I guess you didn't hear about the Taliban shooting down a

Chinook today with 15-20 US personnel on board.

Hmmmm. Sounds like we did a rather shitty job of making sure the Taliban didn't come back!

[Ripley]

5. But Laura said it was vacation land over there...safe to travel!

Just don't go to school you females.

Haven't seen Laura since her ME tour. Wonder if she saw first hand how fucked up it is and how much hatred there is towards her husband and had a nervous breakdown. Or od'd.

[katinmn]

7. This just in. US helicopter crashes in Afghanistan

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=8918734

U.S. military helicopter crashes in Afghanistan
Tue Jun 28, 2005 03:10 PM ET
By David Brunnstrom
KABUL (Reuters) - A U.S. military Chinook helicopter capable of carrying more than 30 people crashed on an anti-guerrilla mission in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday but the numbers and fate of those on board were not immediately known.

The cause of the crash was also unknown and a Pentagon official, who asked not to be identified, said: "I wouldn't rule out anything."

The crash occurred west of the city of Asadabad, not far from the border with Pakistan, and the twin-rotor CH-47 was transporting troops into an area in support of U.S. forces, the U.S. military said in a statement.

"The cause of the crash and status of survivors is unknown at this time," the statement said. "U.S. fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters are currently providing close air support to the forces on the ground."

-more-

[Disturbed]

18. Another lie from the Bush Regime.

Liars and crooks have taken over Amerika with the aid of most of the RW Corp. Media.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

19. If Bush had gone to Congress and said,

"I want $87 billion to rebuild the suffering nation of Afhganistan, the one where our government was supporting anti-Communist guerillas before the Russians invaded, the one where we waged a proxy war with the Soviet Union for 12 years, the one where our C.I.A. supported the Taliban in the civil war that broke out after the Russians left because they were the most organized of the mujahedeen," I would have been all for it.

$87 billion could have bought an initial shipment of food and clothing followed by putting the Afghan people back to work rebuilding their country. The farmers could have been provided with livestock and free seed for food crops appropriate to the climate. The men in the towns could have built roads, schools, and clinics and put in electricity and running water. The women, especially the numerous war widows, could have gotten microcredit loans to start home businesses. People would have had cash in their pockets, which would have allowed their neighbors to sell them things.

That's what I would have done in Afghanistan.

The good will and sympathy toward the United States that poured out around the world after 9/11 would only have grown, and the restoration of Afghanistan would have been considered one of the great humanitarian projects of modern times.

But unfortunately, that can happen only in an alternative universe.

[katinmn]

24. It would have been money well spent

But in his infinite simplicity Bush chose to take on the whole world. He has dug a big hole for us and I wonder if we will ever dig our way out of it. x(

[katinmn]

28. kick!

[AliceWonderland]

29. This is what war breeds:

Structural violence. Take a fragile and broken political-social-economic-ecological situation, drop some daisy cutters, topple one set of despots and install another set, and this is what you get. And structural violence always hits women and children hardest.

[justinsb]

31. recommended by the way n/t