This is what winning looks like

[Ryoki]

Watched the fist half hour of this thoroughly depressing yet excellent Vice documentary this morning, thought it was rather good so i share. It's about how Western troops are now in the process of leaving Afganistan and (according to the official line) handing over control to the national army and police forces. Except noone on the ground believes that, the ANA and the police are bastions of corruption, high powered crime and pedophilia.

Just how bad is it? Pretty bad, watch this:

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/vice-news/thi ... ike-part-1

[feedback]

Don't worry, Karzai will "allow" the US to leave 9 bases there after the withdrawal. Just flood the county with boiling water.

[obsidian]

It's all quite pathetic isn't it? Both in terms of the U.S. forces who have no idea how to build a nation and train a local security force, and the local Afghans who are stoned out of their minds and unable to stand up for anything.

Wouldn't it make more sense to start with some kind of Afghan army boot camp to teach the local soldiers discipline, command, use of weapons and tactics? At the same time you would restrict their access to heroine. I think that makes more sense than showing up once a month to say, "hey guys, here's how you fill a sand bag even though you're stoned out of your mind and here's how you shit in a hole away from your dinner."

[losCHUNK]

From what I can gather that would be up to the Afghan forces and their leaders appear to be corrupt as fuck along with the fighting men. I'm about half way through and all I'm seeing is the old saying 'the fish rots from the head down'. More involvement from the US (or UK maybe) would just cause further grief with locals and more questions than answers back home. It truely is a shocking state of affairs, you can see how someone like bin laden gathered a following when their own government has so little control over what the country does, even when using the US as a crutch.

I find it a little commendable that the US have managed to maintain a pro active role in the face of all this, pushing rocks up mountains so they roll back down. That one poor sod looked as if he'd been doing it for a lifetime.

[feedback]

I guess when you have to choose between people who kill women for being raped, or men who kidnap boys, rape them and kill them, the Taliban starts looking more viable.

[GONNAFISTYA]

Let the Chinese run it.

[scared?]

What's the current pretend reason why foreign forces are there ATM?...

[obsidian]

If there was an actual reason to stay, like oil or strategic importance in the area, you could sure bet that they would stay. But at the moment since it is strictly humanitarian reasons for staying they are pulling the shit out of there.

[seremtan]

afghanistan isn't even a real country

[feedback]

Let the Chinese run it.

They do know how to handle muslims, see Xin Jiang. Uyghur Muslims kill Han Chinese for erasing their culture = government sends in military + swat, rounds up everyone they know and shoots them, increases flow of Han Chinese more so there will be less Uyghur Muslims. Internet disconnected, even text messages not allowed, phone calls allowed sometimes, and all are screened, so they can't spread the word.

[losCHUNK]

I think we should just threaten the Muslims with the Chinks.

[seremtan]

let Marx 'n Engels sort 'em out!

[Transient]

Well, that was a thoroughly depressing documentary...

[losCHUNK]

I had seen this one a while back, same dude and gets a brief mention at the beginning of the video. Follows UK troops through a province in Afghanistan with the ANA in 2007 when they were getting trained up and how both were pretty useless in a fight or running a country.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_yOI_WVGdY

It was never really a serious option.

[feedback]

Well, that was a thoroughly depressing documentary...

But the Marine adviser there was pretty dreamy...