Who said that?

Joe

It will all be over in a couple of years when the western forces leave Afghanistan with their tails between their legs. History just repeats itself.

The US only had between 10,000-20,000 troops there up until 2006-07 when they remembered they were involved in more than one war. They then started building up troops but were talking about time tables at the same time. If/when the troops fully pullout it will be down to politicians, public opinon, and US debt because troops have not been defeated on the battlefield and could carry on this mission for as long as it is funded. The Soviet invasion was much different and they went right in there with 80,000-120,000 troops compared to the US basically sending a small force and then forgetting about it for the next 5 years.

Probably a lot less than the 120,000 Afghans that have joined the Afghan National Army in the past 3 years.

excellent job they are doing too. more effective than the Taliban

Doubt it Xadovan

a terrorists body? who is the one killing innocent people there.think you have the whole terrorist thing mixed up.

Hundreds of thousands? It is not even the US that is purposely targeting civilians.

“The 2012 Midyear Report on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict states that during the first half of the year, conflict-related violence led to 1,145 civilian deaths and 1,954 injuries. While these figures represent a 15 per cent decrease compared to last year, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) stressed that more needs to be done protect civilians.

“The 3,099 civilian casualties documented in this report were ordinary Afghans struggling to go about their daily lives in the midst of an armed conflict,” said Mr. Haysom, adding that out of the 3,099 casualties, 925 were women and children. “I call on all parties to the conflict to increase their efforts to protect civilians from harm and to respect the sanctity of human life.”

The report notes that anti-Government elements were responsible for 80 per cent of civilian casualties, down 15 per cent from the same time period in 2011. UNAMA documented that Pro-Government forces were responsible for 10 per cent of the civilian casualties, down 25 per cent on the previous year, while the remaining 10 per cent of the casualty total could not be attributed to any party in the conflict.

The report also notes that while overall casualties have decreased, attacks against schools have increased and the Taliban’s interference in the running of schools has impact on children’s access to education, especially girls.

During the first six months of the year, UNAMA verified 34 attacks, including cases of burnings of school buildings, targeted killings and intimidation of teachers and school officials, armed attacks against and occupation of schools and closures, particularly of girls’ schools.”

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=42646&Cr=afghan&Cr1=#.UGC3TrJlQpA

This was in Afghanistan not Iraq as you are getting the death toll wrong in the wrong country.

I don’t agree with Creamy Hamstrings or Alistair McCleod.

@ Creamy Hamstrings – The US is not killing thousands of innocent women and children. (Yes there are scenarios where civlians have been killed accidently). Most of the killings in Afghanistan are a result of the Taliban (who kill civilians on purpose). The US Army does not put bombs under cars or in buildings; or try to kill as many people as they can.

@Alistair McCleod – Let’s not go overboard with Fox News propganda “liberal agenda”. Those who serve in the US Army should not be urinating on corpses (regardless of who they are or what they have done). Their job is not to urinate on corpses. The US Army/America is suppose to have standards and is a world leader. Urinating on corpses gives a very bad impression of the US Army, which is not fair to the rest who serve their country for the right reasons. These so-called “Marines” are a disgrace to the Marines and should be charged. This is the US Army not the Iranian Army.

Hi creamy
I totally totally agree, but somehow they seem (the innocent men women and children), to be worthless!

Joan, have you any idea what the americans have done for civilians over there? I had a neighbor in the vermont national guard who while over there helped build a school for children. Your completely ignorant. U.S. army personnel have gone out of their way to help the civilian population over there.

Let’s remember the US ambassador to Libya whose semi naked corpse was dragged around by a mob. Lets remember the countless innocent people who were desecrated and beheaded on camera. Lets remember the soldiers whose bodies were burnt and hung from poles in Mogadishu. Yes US soldiers should aspire to a higher standard than the savage hordes of Islamic nuts out there. Remember what the Taliban do to their own women and men that don’t conform to their perverted notion of social order. Try exercising this level of free speech under Taliban rule.

@creamy hamstrings. If the us military are to be a moral authority in the fight against extremism, they must hold themselves to higher standards than this.

Go on then, what is your experience of war?? Don’t give me the usual crap of our grandfathers fighting the Brits or in the either world war. I don’t need to be told to read a book by a simpleton such as yourself, I am more than adequately educated, both academically and in life. So tell me, what is YOUR own personal experience of war? I don’t expect a well thought out answer, but go on surprise me….

utterly daft series of posts. you have no direct experience of war, therefore you are in no position to comment on it?

btw since when has pissing on corpses become part of the ‘fight for democracy’?

Alan, comment as you wish on the concept of war and the horrors of it. I draw the line at someone comparing the Taliban to the average US soldier.

Also saying that no soldier who have fought over there deserve their medals? Yes in order to genuinely criticise medals being awarded for combat or service, you should have some direct experience of war or at least with the military.

Pissing on corpses is not a part of fighting for democracy. Most likely it some the actions of some guys who are pissed off their buddy was shot or blown up. War screws with your mind and the judgments you make.

By your logic all soldier who are fighting over there now piss on corpse’s. Just like all Irish people are members of the IRA. Or all Muslims on top of being terrorists, are now mindless rioting animals because of the images we have seen of protests around the world.

Get a grip and stop generalising.

Well said grainne . Unfortunately the world has bought into this endless war on terror

the war on terror is designed to be endless. its function is to allow measures to be taken on an ad hoc basis., what USA governemnt is going to pass up on that chance

How wrong you are. You live on your little island of neutrality, with absolutely zero knowledge of war, and you spout off your fuzzy liberal nonsense. Do you even understand what the Taliban stand for? If you lived under their regime you would not be talking to me now. Firstly because you are female, secondly because you wouldn’t have been educated enough to read, and lastly because media such as the internet would be banned.

There are many soldiers who have fought and died for the NATO forces in Afghan, and deserved the medals they earned. The soldiers themselves are doing the job they signed up for, they believe they are fighting for democracy, freedom and all the other BS. Some died believing they were protecting the freedoms we enjoy in the west on a day to day basis. Don’t even try compare them to the Taliban.

I don’t like Laura’s comments, but really. The US is the same as the Taliban? Get a grip on reality.

Perhaps you should try living as a woman under the taliban before making such a ridiculously naive statement

Grainne, I wonder how you would fare up against the Taliban. You are a woman and the talibans track record with women is not very good is it?

They’re Taliban. Guilty as charged.

Agreeed, John.

So US soldiers should behave like the Taliban? FFS!!!

No. FFS!!!!

Wow, you sure didn’t make a mistake with my name. You must posses the vast ,awe inspiring intellect and wit of a three year old to have come up with that one. If you even looked it up on somewhere online, I won’t tax your brain too much by suggesting you read a book, you would see that the Army and most of the worlds military are based around the principle of using deadly force to defend against, attack and/or subjugate an enemy. So yes, even with your crude definition, the military is a “killing machine”…well done….gold star for you.

I never said war or anything associated with it is nice. If you don’t like it, and no one should, that is fair enough. Water-boarding, other means of torture, Guantanamo….like it or not, that is war and that is raw human nature.

Now I am sure you have plenty to do with setting up an Occupy camp somewhere, so you smoke some more of my tax money while you recover from sticky mattress syndrome and I’ll expect a more coherent response from you around mid afternoon when your up in time for your brekkie.

@ Grainne – “brainwashed” “braindead dummy”. Says the religious-fundamentalist-creationalist-homophobe lady.
You are going to judge the whole US Army over the actions of a few? The United States was attacked and they went to Afghanistan; which was by all means justified. There is no oil in Afghanistan.
Oh I forgot how open-minded you are. Judging by your comments on another article, I can see why your “heart” bleeds for the Middle East.

“Well done Australia marriage is for a man and a woman not for same sex couples.”
” I live in the real world not some fairytale land where everybody is happy !!!!!’”
“when you were in your biology class in school did your teacher explain about same sex love making and how it works oh that’s right it’s not in biology books not even in 2012 !!!”
“no Conor your wrong it’s because we have male and female !!!”

That has to be one of the dumbest comments I’ve ever seen on the Journal, and I’ve seen quite a few. However much you disagree with the US and its questionable foreign policy, coming on here and apologising for the taliban, and saying that someone who happens to support the US is worse than the taliban demonstrates an unprecedended level of ignorance. Maybe you should try living under the taliban for a while if you think western values are so abhorrent.

@Mattiod: so the U.S army have not killed innocent woman and children in afghan ffs they burnt them to death in their homes raped women, tortured their husbands, can you remember Abu gharrib!!! The Taliban are savages and everyone knows it however these soldiers are supposed to be intelligent rational people but hey it’s ok because it’s the U.S army they are trigger happy nut jobs !!!

The difference is that the murderers and rapists that lurk within the ranks of the US military (and there’s no doubt there are some) are prosecuted by the authorities when their offences come to light, but perhaps you can’t (or don’t want to) see this as it doesn’t suit your anti-US agenda…

Oh really? So you have np problem with the fact that these Marines KILLED these men but you DO take issue with the fact that they pissed on them? YOU sir have a serious problem! They did absolutely nothing wrong (except for videoing it)…they were DEAD!! What should they have done? Buried them?

Get help, Laura.

Get help for what Kevin? You should be thanking these 4 Marines for defending our country not condeming them…who cares what they did with the dead bodies….the Taliban had NO respect for the victims of 9/11.

How are they defending your country? They’re fighting in a country most US citizens can’t even point out on a map!! As for 9/11, didn’t you get Osama?

Laura my mother worked right next to the towers and came right out of the subway where glass/debris was falling right next to her, people were jumping out of the buildings, and she suffered from anxiety/depression after the attacks causing her sleeping problems, etc. We have family friends and neighbors who worked at the towers. Also friends that lost loved ones at the towers. I don’t need the 9/11 lessons from you. I support the US Army in Afghanistan; however I do not support urinating on corpses (even if they are terrorists). Your right the Taliban has no respect for 9/11 victims, so should we get on the same level as the Taliban? It just shows a lack of respect for human life or any kind of decency/morals. Thankfully this does not represent the overwhelmingly majority of soldiers. I think it is really sick that you cannot not see the wrongness in urinating on a living being regardless of who it is or what is has done.

Laura… “The Taliban had no respect for 9/11 victims”. The Taliban are not Al Queda, take your conservative American ignorance off the Journal and back to Fox News.

@cian: That the best you can do?

I presume you are referring to the several proxy wars the West was involved in against the Soviets? Yes, I can agree somewhat that it wasn’t the right thing to do but again at the time, the West had bigger fish to worry about. Soviet invasion was a real and genuine threat to the West, getting involved in proxy wars delayed , what would have been, inevitable war between the super powers. That would have been disastrous for everyone on the planet.

Are you Joe Higgins??

If your trained to be a good killer one of the primary requisites is to hate your enemy. If you can blow his head off I think it’s a given that respect is not high on the list. This undermines the moral authority of the US but nobody is me ruining how the US ambassadors semi makes body was dragged out of the consulate in Benghazzi. Also the desecration and beheadings of countless other westerners in camera. This is unfortunate but at the end if the day if its a choice between rule under the Taliban or a flawed US … Give me moms apple pie any day

Geez. Some articles really are nutter bait eh?

That’s like saying “I’m not racist but I don’t want those black people in my neighborhood.” ……………lol seriously?

“I don’t condone what the Taliban do but I am not going to have anyone try to tell me that the u.s army, CIA are not capable of equally heinous crimes against humanity.”

Who said the CIA and US Army was perfect?! Don’t compare the US Army with the Taliban. The US Army doesn’t behead/stone women, slit throats, target civilians, hijack planes, or enforce Christian Law? Which country does not have flaws. The original IRA was supported by the Nazi’s and had a number of Nazi sympathizers along with Eamon de Valera. Does that make all the Irish Freedom Fighters/Old IRA members and Irish people Nazi sympathizers or anti-Semitic? Of course not. Your so-called “logic” is absurd. The facts are there is no actual Islamic country that is a Democracy, does that not say anything? The United States has every right to retaliate against attacks on itself. We don’t need to go into the history of everything the US has done; it is irrelevant to 9/11. Radical-Islam is a problem and needs to be dealt with for the security of the West.

Eh no….just refresh my memory…..how exactly am I no better than the Taliban??

He has a ways to go Alan but at least he has an open mind which I commend

“he studied Alegbra.” Yeah Alan, I just studied Alegbra? Which high school did you go to, Alan? I went to Green Hope High School which is ranked #1 in the state of NC. I’m pretty sure to be a soldier you don’t need a high school diploma.

..same thing really

What’s that uniform your wearing there Laura

Dont feed the trolls.

Well at my high school most people’s parents pay for their education. Going to college in America isnt free or cheap like Ireland. As for traveling; I’m Irish born and have been to other European countries. My family resides in America, Ireland, Europe, Asia, Middle East, and Australia. My parents use to live in Australia, England, Massachusetts, New York, and Pakistan. My background is diverse to begin with so I have been exposed to different cultures/people. I’m not rigid/close-minded to think my opinions won’t change; I don’t claim to have infinite wisdom either. Just because someone doesn’t share your opinion doesn’t make them wrong or you wrong. I am still open to the possibility I could be wrong on a number of things.

It’s called high school where I take classes like Psychology, Sociology, AP Government, Alegbra, Geometry, Calculas, etc. Last week I was referring to classes that I am currently taking in college (which I started this year) and I said microeconomics not economics. I am 18, what kind of job are you talking about? I don’t need a job, my parents pay for my college, car, etc. I have schoolwork to do.

Theres no money given back in high school. But I’m sure your homophobic expertise vs. Psychologists and Psychology is more credible.