LIGHT AT THE END OF THE AFGHAN TUNNEL? by GinoBiffaroni

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

LIGHT AT THE END OF THE AFGHAN TUNNEL?

POSTED BY: GINOBIFFARONI
UPDATED: Saturday, February 13, 2010 12:02
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Wednesday, February 10, 2010 8:13 AM

FREMDFIRMA

*snort*

If so, then they've done half the work for me, haven't they ?

bye bye Burqa, and good fekkin riddance.

-F

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Wednesday, February 10, 2010 1:30 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Bloody hell, and NOW they tell me ?

It's worse than they're makin it out to be, and while the Tali-tubbies are taking the blame currently, they're not the only involved party, not by far - I have a confirmed report of this tactic being used by Sunni muslims against Shai muslims, (via suicide bomb) in the latter part of last week, near as I can understand what the hell they're telling me - from which retaliation can be expected in the other direction, sure as day follows dawn, dammit.

Ok first thing, martyrdom in that fashion is idiotic, secondly it's seriously halfass and kills many innocents, for which your ass is goin straight to hell, on the 6:66 nonstop express!

I was...uhh, abundantly clear on that last point.

You wanna do someone, and you don't care if you walk away, ask a friggin Hashshashin what "The Surest Route to Target" is, then - and use a KNIFE, dammit, kill them and ONLY them, not a buncha innocent folk with naught to do with the matter just as oppressed as you are!

*shakes head*
This just bollixes the works just freakin GREAT, grrrr...

Still, those fundie bastards have indeed done some part of the work for me, and now they ARE truly fucked, cause it's either give up on the Burqa or never feel safe again, cause women can be DAMNED dangerous when they start plotting together, hell, the french revolution started in the old ladies knitting circles, and there's no guarantee any or all of those female cops (and might I suggest a few potentials, sir ?) won't be ringers or plants for the very folks handing out the bombs, eh ?

Damn fools also don't realize that by enlisting women to do their dirty work, they are unknowingly pounding cracks in the mental barriers that prevent them from seeing women as people, and boy howdy are we going to exploit the ever living crap out of that...

Along with a nice helping helping of something I been waitin for a chance to use, now that the prybar is under that corner good and solid...

The thought that if seeing a woman encourages impure thought and action so easily then you're a damned pansy and a wimp, unworthy of the manhood you claim, and mistreating a woman for YOUR shame is sinful, hypocritical, and an offense against Allah - so ditch the burqa (and look, now you even have a good excuse without losing face!), tie a friggin knot in it and man up about it, before some angry girl playing on her own factions sympathies wheedles a bomb out of them and gives you a nice big hug while wearing it, asshat!

Oh yes, indeedy, not happy about the bloodshed, not happy at all, but having naught else to do and a damned lot of people willing to help, the power of the fundamentalists can be finally broken without ever confronting them directly, but rather playing at their weaknesses and driving them to destroy each other and themselves...
(Not that I don't find the practice distasteful, but you ever watched a bullfight, you get the idea.)

Really, how long is it before one of those girls talks the talk well enough... and then pulls the ripcord while they're fitting the bomb, eh ?

Hell hath NO fury, seriously.

And of course while the left hand strikes, the right hand soothes, but that's gonna have to wait till monday cause we don't want another repeat of the Ann Arbor mess where actual charitable aid gets someone in trouble for naught more than who they're giving it to.

I fail to see how solar panels could harm anyone, but as dickheaded as the various alphabet goons can be, best to have that all aboveboard with someone in authority ready to pull their damned leash up short when they start slavering and drooling like the rabid dogs they are - and it would be a damn waste to have taken up such a collection and made such a purchase only for the folks that did it, with great grand hopes of peace, to wind up arrested like that professor from Ann Arbor did...

Measure twice, cut only once.

*sigh*
I was sore, sore tempted not to say a goddamned thing, honestly, but in the end decided to spill, at least some of it, cause the more people introducing these ideas to others, the more points of entry that don't obviously connect to each other, the better.

Were it not for the possibility of running into and afoul of american involvement in the region, I might stick my hands directly into the matter, but I don't dare do that and risk years of work going down the tubes.

-F

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Thursday, February 11, 2010 12:44 PM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Just FYI Frem,

Quote:
The thought that if seeing a woman encourages impure thought and action so easily

isn't actually the reason for the chadri. It's the one USED by the Mullahs to keep it going, but its origins are different:

Quote:
The chadri was first instigated by an Afghan ruler so his wives couldn't be seen, a practice then adopted by the upper classes.

http://www.bookbrowse.com/mag/nm_reviews/?detail=123006kd ''chadri'' was created by one of Afghanistan's rulers trying to stop anyone from seeing his wives' faces. He came up with the ''chadri'', which became a sign of an upper class citizen

http://tripatlas.com/Burqa
I see even Wikipedia has gotten it wrong, saying it originated as both a sand mask and a way of keeping women safe during tribal raids. It at least has the decency to say "citation needed", because it's not true. The kuchis, the nomadic people, were one group who NEVER accepted the chadri, and were proud of it, looking down on city folk and proud their women walked free.

The Mullahs latched onto it as a way to keep women under their thumb and lessen their humanity, and it's worked ever since. The idea of using it for covert purposes is, in my opinion, a magnificent irony.

Have to admit, I experienced a great BIG smile when I read in one of the articles: "The chadri was banned in 1959 as Afghanistan modernized." YES! That was us!

Oh, and tho' your suggestion was solar, here's something I ran across with regard to wind power:

Quote:
The great winds of the western border area between Afghanistan and Iraq, however, provide some value. Using ancient technology unique to the region, windmills grind the wheat harvested in June through September, the windy period during which wind speeds can get as high as 100 mph.

Just FYI.

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Friday, February 12, 2010 9:34 PM

GINOBIFFARONI

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/02/20102895347413333.html

Afghanistan's influential tribal elders are key to the government's plan to bring Taliban leaders into the mainstream political process.

But, alienated from the government, many elders are refusing to have anything to do with the either the officials or the Taliban.

Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr reports from Kandahar, where tribal leaders exercise a great deal of influence.

The time to do this as I said was 2002...

Now, it may well be too late

Either you Are with the terrorists, or ... you Are with the terrorists

Life is like a jar of Jalapeño peppers.
What you do today, might Burn Your Ass Tomorrow"

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Saturday, February 13, 2010 3:58 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Big time offensive going on over there during the night.

Sounds like it may have caught a lot of them off guard.

Let's hope so.

Quote:
Roughly 15,000 American, Afghan and NATO forces began an assault late Friday on the Taliban in the central Helmand town of Marjah in what senior military commanders are calling the largest operation since the start of the Afghanistan war

Punching their way through a line of insurgent defenses that included mines and homemade bombs, ground forces crossed a major canal Saturday into the town's northern entrance.

Maj. Gen. Nick Carter, NATO commander of forces in southern Afghanistan, said Afghan and coalition troops, aided by 60 helicopters, made a "successful insertion" into Marjah without incurring any casualties.

"The operation went without a single hitch," Carter said at a briefing in the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah.

Carter said the strike force quickly gained ground as it moved into Marjah and overran disorganized insurgents. "We've caught the insurgents on the hoof, and they're completely dislocated," he said.

At least 20 insurgents have been killed and 11 arrested so far in the offensive, said Gen. Sher Mohammad Zazai, the commander of Afghan forces in the region. Troops have recovered Kalashnikov rifles, heavy machine guns and grenades from those captured, he said.

Director: Bureau of Bigfoot Affairs

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Saturday, February 13, 2010 7:56 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Thanx, Gino, that's a great video! It both heartend me and saddened me. "Respect"--that IS the key; our attitude of going into places and just thinking we know best and treating the inhabitants like "ignorant natives" is something I've railed about and which loses us any credibility.

It was that way when we were there. Sorry to ramble, but here it comes again: When foreigners visited Kabul, they all wanted to go to the bazaars and buy stuff. They'd walk into a store, see how cheap the prices were by US standards, and buy things like crazy.

My mom (for all the things I hated about her), was at least a savvy and brave person. She'd go to the bazaars, see something she liked, and ask the price. She'd laugh disparagingly, offer a price way too low, and they'd haggle. When they got close to what was reasonable, she'd buy. By doing so she showed RESPECT for the shop owner, and it got her a loong ways.

When she'd spot a real treasure, which both she and the merchant knew was one that she really wanted, the price was always really exhorbidant. After some haggling, the merchant would invite her into the back, where the REAL deals were made. Sitting on cushions, they'd each ask after the other's family over "choi" (their form of tea), yak a bit, then get down to serious discussions.

THAT's respect. Knowing a country's customs, it's language (which she was one of the few Americans who bothered to learn), and respecting the people is what Afghanistan is all about. It made it so that the bazaar merchants actually kept some of their real finds in the back for her, sometimes would wink and say "mem'sahb, come sit and have some choi and we will talk", take her in back where said treasure was well within view. They'd sit, as above, and eventually mom would ask casually about the item. The merchant would wave his hand disdainfully, saying "Ah, that? It's nothing, not worth bothering about", and mom would offer a price. His eyes would widen and he'd say something like "You'd pay that much? For THAT silly thing?" That was mom's cue to up the price just a bit, and she usually had a good grasp of what something was worth, and he'd agree to the price.

That's how we got the gorgeous gun we had to smuggle out of the country (the government made it illegal to take their engraved, mother-of-pearl facsimilies of the English rifles out of the country, but alas, most of them are gone now), and the huge brass samovar from Russia dated 1861 (stolen from a dig in the Helmand Valley--such treasures are scattered all over the world since then, but at the time it was a find).

We were invited into their homes, dined with them, and I could say a lot about that. When our bacha's wife had twins, one died and Mehdi came running to MOM for help. She went to their home, saw the filth of the remaining child and how it was swathed tightly, and helped the wife unswath it, wash it, and taught her basic cleanliness. She did it with RESPECT, not looking down on them. It earned her the trust that let Mehdi come to her in a time of crisis.

If ONLY we could learn that one simple (or maybe not so simple) lesson, we'd go far.

I don't know what to hope for in this instance. I'd like our men to "grok" the concept of respect and work with them, but Kandahar is really tough. The mullahs have always controlled Southern Afghanistan and Kandahar strongly, so one would have to work with them as well as the elders, and they're very conservative. I'm not sure one could attain anything without them; but seeing the video, I wonder if the tribal elders have had enough of their strict conservative stance to be open to standing up to them. Without more information, I can't even guess.

I can say this: They wouldn't mind the presence of foreign troops nearly as much, if at all, if they were shown respect and recognition of their culture and traditions. I saw far too many instances of foreigners, especially Americans, doing things that offended the hell out of Afghans, thereby losing THEIR respect. In Afghanistan, without respect, you are nothing.

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Saturday, February 13, 2010 9:31 AM

GINOBIFFARONI

The thing that struck me from the video Niki,

the elders and the other fellow they interviewed do not view the Taliban as an obstacle. They feel they can reintegrate all the mujahideen ( it is not just the Taliban resisting the west anyone )

I see they view the Karzai government, and the Western soldiers there with more disdain.

As I have maintained from the beginning, the system and structure of government being forced on these people will last maybe six months without NATO holding things together...

Maybe the thing to do is pull out, let that mistake of a government fall, and deal with what comes next. I am really dubious that the Western Forces will accomplish anything in the near future other than antagonize the locals... and that will be the deciding factor in the long run.

Either you Are with the terrorists, or ... you Are with the terrorists

Life is like a jar of Jalapeño peppers.
What you do today, might Burn Your Ass Tomorrow"

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Saturday, February 13, 2010 10:24 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Quote:
As I have maintained from the beginning, the system and structure of government being forced on these people will last maybe six months without NATO holding things together...

Unfortunately, you may well be right...also about the last part. Makes me sad on so many levels; the waste of money/lives, our guys having to deal with that climate and the shit caused by Blackwater et al, and the waste of it all if nothing good comes from it.

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Saturday, February 13, 2010 12:02 PM

OLDENGLANDDRY

bump

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