The Hashish Army- Afghanistan. Is this what we are fighting for?????

[tekisui]

Run time: 06:28 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGBmr1Z0F9o   Posted on YouTube: December 13, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: December 13, 2009 By DU Member: tekisui Views on DU: 4217

 

[unhappycamper]

1. It appears to be exactly what we are fighting for. n/t

[libodem]

2. Who is un-recommending this?

Dumb asses. Fuck you.

[Enthusiast]

3. A complete waste of tax payer money.

And we have to be in Afghanistan to keep our country safe? I call BULLSHIT.

[Turborama]

4. I posted this in April

Where was the outrage then? http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x292907

I remember that there were only about 2 recs and it rapidly plummeted to page 2, as did all the Afghanistan vids I posted at the time.

[tekisui]

6. I hear ya.

I missed it then. I don't see a lot of the videos.

I know my posts on Afghanistan never went anywhere this past year until just recently.

[Taverner]

27. And keep in mind the YouTube poster of this story is a Ron Paul-bot

[greiner3]

5. The Hashish Army;

So how do you get into 'This man's army?'

Besides, the Afgani's were laughing at that loud mouthed sarge. That's the dude that needs to mellow out.

[boomerbust]

7. No brainer

Honestly, what would you rather do, sit around and smoke hash paid for by the US Pentagon or go on patrol and get killed by your fellow countrymen?:smoke:

[MineralMan]

8. Fighting or not, the supply of Afghan Blonde hash

has been pretty constant for at least 40 years. It was readily available in the late 60s, as I remember. Afghanistan's main agricultural products have been opium and hash for a very long time. I doubt that will change, whether we are there or not.

Incidentally, that hash from Afghanistan was available in Turkish pharmacies in the 1960s when I was stationed in Turkey in the USAF. No prescription, and it was a legal product there if purchased at the pharmacy.

[MineralMan]

9. The Vietnam war was full of American soldiers who were stoned

most of the time. For a lot of people, being stoned kept the fear down. For people who were there as draftees, it was a way to forget that they were doing something they did not want to do, did not volunteer to do, and wanted not to do.

Many of them were smoking Afghani hash, since it was easy to conceal and of high potency. In the Middle East, hash has been used by local soldiers for centuries. Assassin comes from the word.

We will not be able to eliminate this from the Afghani troops.

[tekisui]

10. What I took from the video was less about drug use,

which I really could care less about. It was the unwillingness or inability of the Afghans to take is seriously, and the futility of the training mission. It really doesn't seem possible that anyone would be able to build a couple hundred thousand force with what they have to pool from. The incentive to fight in the Afghan Army isn't strong enough.

[MineralMan]

12. I don't know that I'd make such a broad statement, based on

a YouTube video, frankly. The Afghanis seemed quite capable of causing the Russians no end of problems for years. I imagine they can be fierce fighters when there's something to fight. They may just object to training exercises. I don't know, but one YouTube video isn't necessarily the entire story.

Indeed, this video may actually not represent the situation accurately, if its maker had a particular motive in making it. Life's complicated. More data points are needed, I think.

[bertman]

17. More data points are needed??!! Did you watch the video?? The American trainers are the

ones who are totally pissed about what a bunch of dipshits those guys are. It's not the "motive" of the film maker, MineralMan.

What does not seem to occur to the American trainers or the Afghani officer is that those "recruits" DO NOT WANT to become soldiers. They know that when they become competent and trained they will have to go on patrol and risk getting ambushed. They are now being paid to stay in base camp and get stoned.

They don't give a fuck about the "nationalism" that the American wants them to adopt so they'll become good soldiers. I thought it was very telling that the American is telling them that if they become a strong nation, they will be able to protect themselves from the PAKISTANIS and the IRANIANS. He is blissfully ignorant that HE is the one who is invading their country.

Yesterday I read that we have just now discovered that the Taliban pays about double the wages for soldiering that the "coalition" pays. So, now they're going to raise the wages of the coalition soldiers. I guess that means they'll be able to buy a better grade of hash.

[JohnyCanuck]

19. "He is blissfully ignorant that HE is the one who is invading their country."

Yup.

[Bobbieo]

11. It's gonna be great when they come home and we think we have a drug war. now!!!

[JDPriestly]

13. The Afgahanis in those film clips are just playing a game.

The Americans are authoritarian in a society that works in a tribal, cooperative fashion. Of course our troops can't get anywhere. They need to train the troops they send to Afghanistan in how to build consensus, support and loyalty without authoritarian methods. Our troops need to learn how to listen to the men they are trying to lead. Learning the language spoken in the region of Afghanistan in which they are stationed would help. They don't have to speak the language fluently, but they should understand more than they seemed to understand in this clip.

Our soldiers seem to communicate only via orders and insults. That does not motivate much of anyone.

[zeemike]

14. Aw gee....the Afghanis don't want to play army with us.

Frankly from what I saw on that clip I think that they will grow to hate us even more because of the authoritarian nature of our military people.
It is Viet Nam all over again.

[2Liberal]

15. I thought this was hilarious...

..the war is over man. The only ones who don't know it is us.

[JohnyCanuck]

16. Meet the Afghan Army

Is It a Figment of Washington's Imagination?

By Ann Jones

The big Afghanistan debate in Washington is not over whether more troops are needed, but just who they should be: Americans or Afghans -- Us or Them. Having just spent time in Afghanistan seeing how things stand, I wouldn't bet on Them.

Frankly, I wouldn't bet on Us either. In eight years, American troops have worn out their welcome. Their very presence now incites opposition, but that's another story. It's Them -- the Afghans -- I want to talk about.

Afghans are Afghans. They have their own history, their own culture, their own habitual ways of thinking and behaving, all complicated by a modern experience of decades of war, displacement, abject poverty, and incessant meddling by foreign governments near and far -- of which the United States has been the most powerful and persistent. Afghans do not think or act like Americans. Yet Americans in power refuse to grasp that inconvenient point.

snip

American military planners and policymakers already proceed as if, with sufficient training, Afghans can be transformed into scale-model, wind-up American Marines. That is not going to happen. Not now. Not ever. No matter how many of our leaders concur that it must happen -- and ever faster.

snip

My educated guess is that such an army simply does not exist. It may well be true that Afghan men have gone through some version of "Basic Warrior Training" 90,000 times or more. When I was teaching in Afghanistan from 2002 to 2006, I knew men who repeatedly went through ANA training to get the promised Kalashnikov and the pay. Then they went home for a while and often returned some weeks later to enlist again under a different name.

http://tomdispatch.com/post/175128/will_today_s_u_s_armed_ally_be_tomorrow_s_enemy_

[davidhilton]

18. what a joke... and not a funny one either n/t

[EmeraldCityGrl]

20. Good luck Obama, try to sell this as your righteous war.

All the pretty words in the world won't camouflage this stinking pile of bullshit for what it is.

Given the drug culture in this country, it's going to be interesting to see how many of the American
troops pouring in there resort to the same drug dependent behaviour to cope with the boredom and
stress related problems.

[era veteran]

21. There are some American Units with a proud history of smoking hash

and soldiering well. I thought the post was about V Corps in the 70's. These Afghani dudes come from a different culture and are pretty much unbeaten in warfare on their home turf. When you are doing the "wait" part of the "hurry up and wait" American way you might as well toke some Afghan black. The daily boredom is the fucking mind killer in the Army. What I hear is that there are a lot of G.I.'s smoking hash and opium. The unfortunate ones will migrate from smoking opium to shooting smack. The Army will cast them off as soon as they are not necessary. They will be like the crazies put on the streets during the Viet Nam War years. This war should have been over after the loser Rumy failed at Tora Bora. Peace, Richard

[EmeraldCityGrl]

23. +1

[Botany]

22. This war is lost even if we win every battle.

This war is pointless ..... The Afghanis want no part of
the mission and do not give a crap what the American
trainers say. I would guarantee that at least 25% of the
Afghanistan Army go back and forth between the Taliban/
war lords/drug lords ..... The smiling stoned Afghani ....
"no hashish no hashish" as the has has loaded cigarette is
put under his nose.

Good luck President Obama having a strong central government and a military
that we can turn power over to.

http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,692722,00.jpg



this is Vietnam all over again

[midnight]

24. O man, these folks are not fighters, they are stoners. O man, these Marines

will be there for a very long time.

[doc03]

25. Oh come on you tell me those Americans aren't doing

a little themselves. We certainly did plenty in Germany back in the 60's and from what I have heard way more in Vietnam.

[Botany]

26. Unlike earlier times all military personal are tested for drugs

n/t

[doc03]

28. Can't get away with nothin anymore n/t

[JohnyCanuck]

29. kick n/t