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OfflinePhred
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Afghanistan update
    #2929527 - 07/26/04 05:39 PM (19 years, 8 months ago)

Here's a pretty good update on the progress Afghanistan has made since the Taliban got the boot, and some interesting polling numbers on how the Afghanis perceive things.

We don't see a whole heck of a lot of news about Afghanistan anymore in the mainstream press (I wonder why that is?) so it's nice to see a whole bunch of it all gathered in one place.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110005398

pinky


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Invisibledownforpot
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Re: Afghanistan update [Re: Phred]
    #2929543 - 07/26/04 05:45 PM (19 years, 8 months ago)

If you compare Iraq and Afghanistan, Afghanistan sounds like it's starting to flourish even with the taliban still pissy.


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All I know is dead bodies
Can't fuck with me again"

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Invisibleluvdemshrooms
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Re: Afghanistan update [Re: Phred]
    #2929575 - 07/26/04 05:52 PM (19 years, 8 months ago)

Propoganda. Propoganda I say.

We all know nothing the US is involved in can come to any good.

:smirk:


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You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for that my dear friend is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it. ~ Adrian Rogers

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Invisibledownforpot
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Re: Afghanistan update [Re: luvdemshrooms]
    #2929587 - 07/26/04 05:55 PM (19 years, 8 months ago)

If it's good news, it must be false. Hail bad news


--------------------



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"And I don't care if he was handcuffed
Then shot in his head
All I know is dead bodies
Can't fuck with me again"

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OfflineAncalagon
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Re: Afghanistan update [Re: Phred]
    #2929602 - 07/26/04 05:58 PM (19 years, 8 months ago)

Quote:

You know the old saying: No news is good news. But in the news business, it is just the opposite: Good news is no news--which is why you have been hearing so little from Afghanistan recently.



Too true...too true.

Excellent article and great news. Sounds like the people of Afghanistan are really seizing the moment(carpe diem is the latin for that I believe).  :thumbup:


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?When Alexander the Great visted the philosopher Diogenes and asked whether he could do anything for him, Diogenes is said to have replied: 'Yes, stand a little less between me and the sun.' It is what every citizen is entitled to ask of his government.?
-Henry Hazlitt in 'Economics in One Lesson'

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Invisibleluvdemshrooms
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Re: Afghanistan update [Re: downforpot]
    #2929604 - 07/26/04 05:58 PM (19 years, 8 months ago)

As they say in the article..... good news = no news.


--------------------
You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for that my dear friend is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it. ~ Adrian Rogers

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Invisiblevampirism
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Re: Afghanistan update [Re: luvdemshrooms]
    #2942142 - 07/29/04 08:28 PM (19 years, 7 months ago)


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InvisibleXlea321
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Re: Afghanistan update [Re: Phred]
    #2942740 - 07/29/04 11:41 PM (19 years, 7 months ago)

We don't see a whole heck of a lot of news about Afghanistan anymore in the mainstream press (I wonder why that is?)

Because it's been a total and utter disaster? Certainly the withdrawal of M?decins Sans Fronti?res (an agency who stayed there through the Soviet occupation and the civil war finally driven out by the US military) should have been front page news.

Afghanistan could implode, MPs warn

Ewen MacAskill, diplomatic editor
Friday July 30, 2004

Afghanistan will fall apart unless Nato countries urgently fulfil promises to send troops, the Commons foreign affairs select committee warned yesterday.

With violence rising ahead of an election scheduled for October, the MPs concluded: "There is a real danger that if these resources are not provided soon Afghanistan - a fragile state in one of the most sensitive and volatile regions of the world - could implode, with terrible consequences."

The prediction came 24 hours after M?decins sans Fronti?res announced it is to end its operations in the country after 23 years because of the deterioration in security.

They added: "We recommend that the government impresses upon its Nato allies the need to deliver on their promises to help Afghanistan before it is too late, both for the credibility of the alliance and, more importantly, for the people of Afghanistan."

The MPs identified the continued power of Afghan warlords as part of the problem. Sir John Stanley, a member of the committee and a former Conservative defence minister, said: "Afghanistan is on a knife-edge."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1272202,00.html

Victim of a forgotten war

Leader
Thursday July 29, 2004
The Guardian

M?decins Sans Fronti?res doesn't scare easily. Its members first went into Afghanistan on donkeys under the Soviet occupation and have been there ever since through thick and thin - civil war, Taliban and Operation Enduring Freedom. So we should take notice when MSF announces that it is pulling out of a country it has been in for 24 years. The primary cause is an attack seven weeks ago on an MSF car in which five of its staff were killed. It took place in Badghis, a province in north-west Afghanistan that was considered safer than many others and where the Taliban does not usually operate. Although the attack was claimed by the Taliban, suspicions soon settled on a local warlord against whom Kabul has been reluctant to act. The MSF statement was unusually pointed for an organisation that cherishes its neutrality. It accused the US of blurring the boundaries between aid work and combat by co-opting humanitarian aid for political and military purposes.

Aid workers have become increasingly concerned at the work of the coalition's benignly named provincial reconstruction teams, deployed across the country to build roads, dig wells and gather intelligence. Is this hearts and minds or the militarisation of humanitarian relief? Another example, uncovered by MSF, was the dropping of leaflets in Zabul province, which borders Pakistan. One leaflet showing a bag of provisions read: "In order to continue the humanitarian aid, pass over any information related to Taliban, al-Qaida or Gulbuddin (the renegade warlord) to the coalition forces." The Pentagon apologised and said it would not happen again.

The US robustly denies that its policies are endangering the lives of aid workers, 32 of whom have been killed in the past year. But security in Afghanistan is a coalition responsibility and one that seems at odds with having a policy of leaving a "light footprint" of troops on the ground. When independent organisations such as the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit warn of an increasing loss of control over the warlords, narcotics and security in general, the conclusion one is forced to draw is that one intervention in Iraq has sucked the life out of the other intervention in Afghanistan. There are many mitigating factors - warlords, opium, the weakness of Kabul, the reluctance of Nato countries to provide more troops, the failure to disarm militias or to train a credible national army - but none can disguise the fact that an insurgency is continuing in Afghanistan, just as persistently as it is in Iraq.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,,1271337,00.html


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OfflineZahid
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Re: Afghanistan update [Re: Phred]
    #2942866 - 07/30/04 12:11 AM (19 years, 7 months ago)

There isn't much happening in Afghanistan because Al-Qaeda has constantly been cutting expenses for fighters in Afghanistan in order to fund terrorist activity in Iraq.


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InvisibleCJay
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Re: Afghanistan update [Re: Zahid]
    #2943556 - 07/30/04 04:51 AM (19 years, 7 months ago)

""No one can pretend that everything in the country is going well," he said.

Asked whether the Iraq war had increased the threat of terrorism, Anderson replied: "Clearly there are elements of al Qaeda that are there that were not there before" (British parliamentary committee)

see the CNN link above

Warlords abound, fresh ones and the familiar old faces, many controlling militias of around 10,000 men. Now it is Western capitalist interest that gains from the poppy fields rather than the Soviets or the previously overt control the Taliban held. That is why the fields are becoming more successful - the production thrives under the drive of Western capitalist interest.

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InvisibleCJay
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Re: Afghanistan update [Re: Phred]
    #2943612 - 07/30/04 05:37 AM (19 years, 7 months ago)

Well i really do hope u r right pinkshark. I would love that. But there are too many tell-tale signs that the examples given in your article are much more isolated and within the sphere of the elite than is made out.

"Sir John Stanley, the former Conservative defence minister, said: "In security terms, Afghanistan is absolutely on a knife edge."

Check out the John Pilger documentary 'Breaking The Silence' if you want a first hand look at the new Afganistan. Amongst other things the first woman politician (I can't remember her name) who was trumpetted and trounced about by Bush as a PR tool is interviewed. She and her feminist cause has been quickly relegated to the gutter, but of course plenty of lipservice is still paid to it.

Warlords and the opium trade abound and are more successful then ever. In fact a whole new band of entrepeneur warlords has risen to the call of the capitalist marketplace.

Anyway just look at what they are called - warlords. That means there is war and they are the bosses of it. In the article you link to it says at the end:

"Let's never forget that none of this would have been possible without the U.S. and allies who 2 1/2 years ago helped to bring peace and freedom to the long-suffering people of Afghanistan."

So 'peace and feedom' have been brought to 'the long-suffering people of Afghanistan'. Doesn't the fact that warlords abound kind of negate that statement, to put it mildly.

The MSF is pulling out, the duplicitous methods of the US military endangering them and all genuine aid attempts. Aid for info is the US policy - There is an obvious dubiousness to this method. But besides that, what if u are a poor, nobody, 'long-suffering' Afgani who knows nothing - you get nothing - tough shit. Innocent people get no aid.....

"Good news is no news" - What utter crap. The US government is constantly trying to twist good news out of bad news. ie - 'mission accomplished' - 'peace and freedom in Afganistan' - 'bin Laden almost caught - he's within this 10 mile radius' - etc etc - all those attempts at good news were certainly made a meal out of, followed by song and dance. Yet all prove to be false

If there was real and credible good news it would be being trumpetted and exemplified by the US and UK governments - that would help their election campaigns, credibility, improve national morale, increase international backing and expand the coalition etc. But no, at best we get clutching at straws, and an article on the 'opinions' page of the Wall St Journal, not the news pages, but the 'opinion' page. Opinion...This would be plastered all over the front page if it could be. You don't think everyone is desperate for that to make them feel better and more like there has been some widescale real justice, peace and freedom.

However the best the British all-party parlimentary committee could manage just the other day was:

"Afghanistan is on a knife-edge and may implode without more troops"

"Members of the foreign affairs committee, who visited Afghanistan earlier this year, returned branding the country a "basket case"."

"There is little, if any, sign of the war on drugs being won, and every indication that the situation is likely to deteriorate"

"Fine communiques and ringing declarations are no substitute for delivery of the forces and equipment which Afghanistan needs on the ground."

"Afghanistan, a fragile state in one of the most sensitive and volatile regions of the world, could implode with terrible consequences."

The USA and UK cannot cope with what they have started, they are still desperately trying to convince the rest of the (unbelieving and unwilling) world to send their armies in. At this rate they will have to bring back conscription.

Sounds like a really peaceful place to be. I'll be booking a holiday there soon.


Afganistan is an occupied territory under military and warlord rule in alternate districts - not a free and peaceful place.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=546133

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InvisibleXlea321
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Re: Afghanistan update [Re: CJay]
    #2946877 - 07/30/04 11:44 PM (19 years, 7 months ago)

I think the "things are rosy in Afghanistan" theory has been comprehensively demolished CJay. Good work  :laugh:


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InvisibleFloydian
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Re: Afghanistan update [Re: Phred]
    #2947102 - 07/31/04 12:44 AM (19 years, 7 months ago)

once again with all political debates it all comes down to which pile of bullshit you think smells better. ever get frustrated that you'll never know the truth and it all comes down to who you want to believe?

sucks dont it?

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InvisibleCJay
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Re: Afghanistan update [Re: Phred]
    #2955299 - 08/02/04 06:53 AM (19 years, 7 months ago)

Examples of good news no-one ever publiscised because 'good news is no news':

- Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin land on the moon (was it real - it was certainly good news)

- The discovery of penicillin (no one knows about that well kept secret they call antibiotics)

- Oh and vacination...

- The Berlin Wall comes down

- The USSR falls and a 'free market' economy prevails

- Saddam is caught (yes despite my misgivings about this whole thing I do know he was an arsehole, and in realative terms this was huge and good news, bolstering the coalition)

- D-Day is a success (despite the fact I believe WW2 needent have happened, it was obviously meant to, and strangely this most crucial day in overcoming Hitler's fascist Empire was never brought to the public's attention because as we know good news is no news)

- In Brazil 2 years ago no-one spread the news they had won the (Football) World Cup. no one held a stret party or anything.

- And I bet no one from the town/city that wins the Superbowl ever gets to hear about it.

Good news boosts the economy amongst other things, people feel better, spend money more freely, stocks and shares increase in value. The Wall St Journal would surely love to put Good news on their front page if they could, rather then relegate it to the Opinion pages, because there is not enough certitude.

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InvisibleCJay
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Re: Afghanistan update [Re: Floydian]
    #2955305 - 08/02/04 07:01 AM (19 years, 7 months ago)

I do agree that the true picture of things eludes us all, however I'm more inclined to place high value an official investigative all-parlimentary committee (that you can bet would love to say everything smells of roses, making their nation's efforts look good, but can't), over the writings of a columnist in the 'Opinion' pages.

Sure there is some truth to what ARTHUR CHRENKOFF says on the Opinion Journal. Some people must be doing ok, I'm sure his examples might well be real, but I am sure the detailed and thorough inspection of the country by an official all-party parliamentry committee shows that what he says is in no way the baseline he makes out.

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OfflineBaby_Hitler
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Re: Afghanistan update [Re: Xlea321]
    #2958983 - 08/03/04 03:02 AM (19 years, 7 months ago)

How about the "things are much better in Afghanistan now than they were before anybody did anything to get rid of the Taliban".

We never promised you a rose garden.


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"America: Fuck yeah!" -- Alexthegreat

“Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day.”  -- Thomas Jefferson

The greatest sin of mankind is ignorance.

The press takes [Trump] literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally. --Salena Zeto (9/23/16)

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Invisibleluvdemshrooms
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Re: Afghanistan update [Re: Baby_Hitler]
    #2959014 - 08/03/04 03:34 AM (19 years, 7 months ago)

I beg your pardon?


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You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for that my dear friend is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it. ~ Adrian Rogers

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InvisibleStein
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Re: Afghanistan update [Re: Floydian]
    #2959058 - 08/03/04 04:06 AM (19 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Floydian said:
it all comes down to which pile of bullshit you think smells better.

sucks dont it?





Best quote ever.

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InvisibleCJay
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Re: Afghanistan update [Re: Stein]
    #2959139 - 08/03/04 06:01 AM (19 years, 7 months ago)

Yes it was a very kool thing to say.

Maybe if we defocalise a bit, and don't rigidly attach ourselves to a mono-version of 'reality', we can absorb the smells from all the piles of bullshit and find ourselves somewhere closer to an appreciation of actuality.

Happy as a pig in shit! oink oink!!!!

:poop:

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InvisibleStein
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Re: Afghanistan update [Re: CJay]
    #2959560 - 08/03/04 09:02 AM (19 years, 7 months ago)

I don't know about that. I'd rather see it and believe it than read it and believe it. Shit smells like news and news smells like shit and I know what shit smells like, it smells like shit.

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