Canadians in Afghanistan

[xoxoxoBruce]

The Canadians in Afghanistan, are there for humanitarian aid.....medical teams.
Of course the Taliban only sees they are infidels, wants to kill them and the people they are trying to help.
Apparently the Taliban isn't concerned with winning the hearts and minds of the natives, just keeping them too scared to object is enough.

[footfootfoot]

I'm really beginning to think that fundamentalism is a mental illness.

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

I'm really beginning to think that fundamentalism is a mental illness.

Delusional paranoia, perhaps? I would say this is true of fundies of all flavors.

Not to condone in the least what the Tali-ban is doing, but I imagine with all the warring factions and intrigues and counter intrigues, probably everyone in Iraq has decided everyone else is the enemy. Sad.

[fargon]

The Taliban, or whatever you may call them are shooting themselves in the foot. We ( the Coalition ) are fighting an evil group of criminals, who are mad because we have taken away there power and instead of acting like conquers are allowing the people of Afghanistan to govern themselves. Fundamentalist Islam in it self does not condone such acts. The people served by these clinics are usually women and children, those who are the future, and those who carry and nurture the future.

[richlevy]

Unfortunately, the battle lines have been drawn here and will not disappear anytime soon. Part of this is the fact that we have a President who is openly devout and who has pledged to wage a crusade against terrorism. While we have forgotten those words, the Middle East is no more likely to forget them than we are Ahmadinejad's use of the word jihad.

Of course, in this kind of war there are fewer and fewer bystanders. The clinic was part of a 'hearts and mind' effort, so it was in part a military operation. A NGO clinic run by missionaries would also be seen as a threat considering that part of their goal would be proselytization.

This leaves the only non-threatening presence a secular NGO clinic, and they would just be threatened because they didn't have military or church backing.

BTW, if Hamas wanted to open a clinic in the USA in a poor Muslim neighborhood, it would be shut down within a few hours. The only difference is that the ambush would be by goverment lawyers. Who you are connected to does make a difference on both sides of the Atlantic.

Remember that these people do not watch Fox News and understand that all soldiers are apple pie loving kids from Wisconsin (or Toronto) who just want to help. Many of them listen to Al-Jazeera and consider anyone with a uniform an unlawful occupier at best.

[Undertoad]

(Impolite version of UT begins)

Oh for fuck's sake, that's such a load of crap I don't even know where to begin. How far do you have to go to justify the bombing of clinics? How fucking far do you have to go to figure it's W's fault? How far do you have to go to even consider an argument taking the side of Hamas?

I just can't wait for a Democratic President and Democratic congress so people like you learn what fucking side you're on in this war.

(Impolite version of UT ends)

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by richlevy

snip~
The clinic was part of a 'hearts and mind' effort, so it was in part a military operation.

Aren't the Canadians there under the auspices of the UN as peace keepers/humanitarian aid? Nothing to do with the US plan (more likely non-plan) for Afghani hearts and minds.

I have to agree with UT, these thugs are only interested in killing anyone they don't control and don't mind taking out some of the ones they do control, as collateral damage.

[Undertoad]

They are pissed off at the nuance of particular words in the President's speech days after 9/11, but can't tell the difference between a US Military effort and Canadians there to set up a medical clinic.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

They are pissed off at the nuance of particular words in the President's speech days after 9/11, but can't tell the difference between a US Military effort and Canadians there to set up a medical clinic.

Uniformed military are targets. Is this a surprise? This is not a defense of their behavior, but someone had better start looking into the motivations of these bastards if we even want to have a chance of getting out of there.

And yes, the leader of the most powerful nation in the world should not be so monumentally stupid as to describe a war in the middle east as a crusade. Crusade is as bad a trigger as jihad.

You don't have to like it, but it's time we started to understand it. We screwed up the first 8-12 months of the occupation because people not only didn't understand what was going on, but did not feel the need to even try to understand. A few hundred billion dollars and 10-12 thousand lives later, everyone is starting to wake up.

[AlternateGray]

The motivations? Afghanis understand perfectly the motivations behind the Taliban effort. When the Taliban first came into power in the mid-late 90's they enjoyed the popular support of the Afghani people, who were sick of the corruption and lawlessness of the local warlords, not to mention the endless fighting. The Taliban were mostly locals, and they brought about organization, law and order, especially moral order. Most importantly, they brought peace through unification. As time wore on and the Taliban gained almost complete control over the country, the movement grew in size very quickly. Most of the new members weren't locals. They were foreigners, mostly Pakistanis and Arabs, who saw their chance to jump on the bandwagon to power. The movement changed: while the original Taliban were local Islamic scholars offended by the actions of the warlords, they weren't necessarily extremists. The new Taliban was most definitely a hard-core fundamentalist group with a heavily foreign, specifically Arabic, influence, and they actually began to lose some of the support of the people. The Taliban started out as heroes (and they were); they ended up being seen as a power hungry, uncaring group corrupted by foreigners, trying to shove revamped Saudi wahabism down the Afghani people's throats. It's a power thing, now. Not too dissimilar to the Sunni Baath-related insurgent group in Iraq. For them, it's not about religion, or nationalism, or freedom, or the People. It's a group of people who want to be on top of the pile when the dust settles, and that's it.

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by richlevy

You don't have to like it, but it's time we started to understand it.

You think you understand it, and as proof you play the moral equivalency card.

I don't think I understand it. But I know for certain it's unacceptable to claim that the reason these misunderstood men kill Canadian aid workers is because the leader of the country next door used the wrong word on 9/14/2001.

I don't understand it, but I am really, really certain that the clash of civilizations between radical Islamists and the West did not start on 9/14/2001.

This seems so very obvious to me, that I'm gonna say right out, that anyone who makes such a claim, and then claims to "understand" it, is just speaking out of their ass.

Understanding why a group might act as they do is not the same as condoning their actions. I think Rich has a point. Certain words are a trigger to either side. A Muslim leader can make a two hour speech and use the word "Jihad" exactly once, and the Western press will fall all over themselves reporting this "new Islamic threat." The same thing is true in reverse of a word like "crusade." Certainly, the animosity between Muslim and Christian has deep roots, but leaders on both sides do the cause of peace no favors by throwing out incenduary words. Its a bit like a white person driving down to the nearest black ghetto and screaming "Nigger!" out his car window and then wondering why the people on the street who hear him don't seem to like him too much.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by marichiko

Its a bit like a white person driving down to the nearest black ghetto and screaming "Nigger!" out his car window and then wondering why the people on the street who hear him don't seem to like him too much.

All right, fine. And if those black people on the street then go and kill some Mexicans 4.5 years later, will you believe that it was all because of the white person in the car?

Well, a better analogy would be if they went and killed some Canadians a few years later.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

will you believe that it was all because of the white person in the car?

Who said all?

There are a million contributing reasons, and if you look at them one at a time you're not going to see much, like the blind men describing the elephant.