Royal Marine caught smuggling for Taliban

[Walsingham]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-13545621

 

Mind blowing. Can't get my head around turning on your own like this.

[Lexx]

So, when do we send freedom fighters to the Iran?

[Raithe]

Well it does list him as a "former marine" doesn't it.. so we have no idea if he was some prat who got thrown out or what...

 

And to be well.. kind of fair.. he was selling them to Iran, who were then selling things on to the Taliban..

But yeah, it's not that big a logical leap to see where that sort of weapons smuggling could end up.

 

 

... and I just can't read the name "Taliban" these days without hearing that Weird Al song in my head.

[Humodour]

The Taliban are the guys who torture than murder Afghani educators who are willing to teach girls.

 

Just wanted to point that out to remind people why we're over there ****ing these **** up, and why we need to remain there and continue ****ing these **** up.

[Walsingham]

The Taliban are the guys who torture than murder Afghani educators who are willing to teach girls.

 

Just wanted to point that out to remind people why we're over there ****ing these **** up, and why we need to remain there and continue ****ing these **** up.

 

And that is why in spite of our arguments I still rate Krez

[Drowsy Emperor]

Every army has some opportunists, criminals and borderline psychotics in its ranks. Its in the nature of the job to attract such types and no amount of screening is going to weed all of them out.

[Malcador]

The Taliban are the guys who torture than murder Afghani educators who are willing to teach girls.

 

Just wanted to point that out to remind people why we're over there ****ing these **** up, and why we need to remain there and continue ****ing these **** up.

 

We're over there to avenge teachers ? Hm, different propaganda here.

[GreasyDogMeat]

It never ceases to amaze me how dense people can be here. Unable to grasp a simple concept unless it is phrased in a perfect and literal sentence.

 

I could say the sun will rise tomorrow and someone will come along to spend a page or two arguing about the poles.

 

Then again maybe people do it just for the sake of arguing.

[Gfted1]

Welcome to the internet.

[Walsingham]

Welcome to the internet.

 

And boy are you welcome to it. *bdum tish*

[Junai]

The Taliban are the guys who torture than murder Afghani educators who are willing to teach girls.

 

Just wanted to point that out to remind people why we're over there ****ing these **** up, and why we need to remain there and continue ****ing these **** up.

 

We're over there to avenge teachers ? Hm, different propaganda here.

 

Yups.. US spent 1,5 trill to teach those guys a lesson. Gotto show'em how to raise their teenage girls.

In the US teenage girls star in spring break college-f**-fest movies.

That's how you raise'em. Ye?

 

 

 

J.

[Walsingham]

Sure, Junai. It's just like in the pr0n sites.

[Monte Carlo]

The Taliban are the guys who torture than murder Afghani educators who are willing to teach girls.

 

Just wanted to point that out to remind people why we're over there ****ing these **** up, and why we need to remain there and continue ****ing these **** up.

 

No. The reason the government gave was that we were directly frustrating terrorist infrastructure that might threaten our national security. Nation-building was explicitly not part of the deal and I am mad as hell about every penny spent on the place, which will descend back into chaos the moment we leave.

 

Your reasoning is false. We should presumably be invading the rest of the medieval third world hell-holes that litter the globe.

[Walsingham]

The Taliban are the guys who torture than murder Afghani educators who are willing to teach girls.

 

Just wanted to point that out to remind people why we're over there ****ing these **** up, and why we need to remain there and continue ****ing these **** up.

 

No. The reason the government gave was that we were directly frustrating terrorist infrastructure that might threaten our national security. Nation-building was explicitly not part of the deal and I am mad as hell about every penny spent on the place, which will descend back into chaos the moment we leave.

 

Your reasoning is false. We should presumably be invading the rest of the medieval third world hell-holes that litter the globe.

 

You assume that it is possible to frustrate the terrorist infrastructure without making a go of nation building? I don't just mean in a neo-con way. Although I agree with much of their view. I mean setting ourselves down and letting them have a go and beating them. Once we put boots down we had to prove we weren't the feckless wasters they said we were.

 

It's not a popular view, but leaving aside the political scene we've been kicking seven bells out of them the last few years. You look at recent statements by Al Qaeda and they've gone to a kind of entirely distributed lone wolf model because they can't organise, train, and maintain on a grander scale.

 

And your reasoning is false. Not having the resources to drop kick every child torturing scum sack on the planet is no an excuse for not doing sometimes.

[Monte Carlo]

Keyboard warriors want boots on the ground, wasting lives for what?

 

Presumably to still their bleeding hearts.

[Zoraptor]

Ultimately you can't stop terrorism without 'nation building', practically you can't do nation building without the approval of the large majority of the people living in that nation. I tend to think that Germany and Japan have given a false impression of what can be done because, ultimately, there was almost no resistance to occupation in either of those cases and the occupiers were there, effectively, at the people's invitation. Neither of those things are present in Afghanistan though.

[Orogun01]

Not to mention that Germany and Japan were already developed nations at the time of their occupations.

[Zoraptor]

Yeah, there are a bunch of other factors at work as well- the staggering level of corruption being perhaps the biggest unmentioned one (another thing Germany and Japan were largely free of). I'd say that the first two are biggest though because they're self perpetuating- militants make attack, NATO makes strike, strike kills people, people's death inflames other people; some people become militants others get less and less accepting of intervention, and back to the beginning just with even those who aren't militants getting a bit more cynical every time.

[Walsingham]

Keyboard warriors want boots on the ground, wasting lives for what?

 

Presumably to still their bleeding hearts.

 

Keyboard warriors reckon that national security won't arrive just because we dig some slit trenches around Portsmouth.

 

The biggest problem with Afghan isn't Afghan, it's our public insistence that we cannot possibly do anything to win in Afghan. That and the Labour government's refusal to properly fund or lead the effort.

[Monte Carlo]

We can't 'win' it's binary thinking.

 

You can't have it both ways, the 'kill 'em with kindness' doctrine requires 'winning' to involve the imposition of democracy on the place, which is by all accounts a sclerotically corrupt, terminally doomed failed state. But we were told we weren't there to 'win' in that context, we were to dampen down the extremists in the field whilst administering first aid to the fledgling regime so it could stand on it's own two feet.

 

This quagmire of hypocrisy has resulted in nothing but death and the scandalous waste of billions of dollars. Much of which I suspect is in Karzai's Swiss bank account.

 

Basics: Can we sort out Pakistan (no) can we stop an international brigade of young Muslims making their way to Afghanistan (no) can we stabilize the region to allow civil operations to take root (no) can we do anything about Karzai's kleptocracy (no).

 

Get out and police the region with drones. I couldn't care less how Afghanistan is run. If they forment terror against us drop some instant sunshine on them.

[Morgoth]

If they forment terror against us drop some instant sunshine on them.

 

The US/UK way of dealing with problems.

[Drowsy Emperor]

You can't win in Afghan because there is nothing to be won excepts goats, rocks and heroin.

[Drowsy Emperor]

If they forment terror against us drop some instant sunshine on them.

 

The US/UK way of dealing with problems.

 

And they scratch their heads asking why it ain't working.

[Monte Carlo]

If they forment terror against us drop some instant sunshine on them.

 

The US/UK way of dealing with problems.

 

And they scratch their heads asking why it ain't working.

 

Because the current situation is working a treat, ain't it? We could go the European way, which is set up an embassy, fly around in Learjets, refuse to deploy militarily, waste billions of Euros in aid and deny basic free trade to third world countries to satisfy a bunch of French farmers. Then wonder why that ain't working.

[Morgoth]

We could go the European way

So, you Brits don't consider yourself European? What then?

 

Sorry to disappoint you, but you're not special.