Who is a terrorist?

Submitted by mmghosh on Wed, 02/20/2013 - 7:49pm

Social Issues

There appear to be the occasional misconception about the degree of US involvement in Afghanistan from 1979 onwards. Let us start in the beginning. Here is the wiki on Operation Cyclone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone

it is undeniable that there was bipartisan US support for the Afghan mujahideen. Mr Carter precipitated the most overt politicisation of sport since 1936 with the 1980 Moscow Olympic boycott. Later, Mr Reagan met the mujahideen in the White House and dedicated a part of the US space program to the mujahideen.

So the narrative is constructed - the Afghan mujahideen in the 1970s and 1980s were not terrorists, but rather freedom fighters. The US abandoned them, post Najibullah, allowing the Taliban to occupy the Islamist space. So let us examine in a little more detail what the involvement was, pre-abandonment. In the 1980's USAID funded the University of Nebraska $50 million to create textbooks for Afghan primary schools. What was in these textbooks?

Consider the following introduction to the Persian alphabet in a first-grade language arts book:

Alif [is for] Allah.
Allah is one.

Bi [is for] Father (baba).
Father goes to the mosque…

Pi [is for] Five (panj).
Islam has five pillars…

Ti [is for] Rifle (tufang).
Javad obtains rifles for the Mujahidin…

Jim [is for] Jihad.
Jihad is an obligation. My mom went to the jihad. Our brother gave water to the Mujahidin…

Dal [is for] Religion (din).
Our religion is Islam. The Russians are the enemies of the religion of Islam…

Let us examine the illustrations in the primer.

This is the wiki on the Haqqani network, supported by the USA since the 1980s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haqqani_network

One could cite numerous examples. Many sites exist, documenting just these facts.

And there is the official 9/11 Report.

Certainly, to us here anyway, it seems the US struck a realpolitik deal with terrorists to defeat the Russians. In terms of that existential conflict, the current situation in Afghanistan can be regarded as an unfortunate blowback - although in real terms, the final effect has been relatively minor. A few thousand US troops have been killed, in return for the complete defeat of the USSR. Historically, for the USA, it seems a pretty small price to pay. We, OTOH, will have to live another generation or more with the instability created in South Asia. But the events that led up to this should at least be acknowledged.

While I Strongly Disagreed With The 1980 Boycott. . .

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Submitted by M Scott Eiland on Wed, 02/20/2013 - 9:39pm.

. . .I'd have to suggest that the the 1976 Olympic boycott--precipitated by the refusal of the IOC to ban New Zealand because *one of their rugby teams had played in South Africa earlier that year*--was orders of magnitude more idiotic although the actual impact was less (except as a precedent for what followed).

The universe may well have been created without a point--that doesn't imply that we can't give it one.

More information on mujahideen terrorism

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Submitted by HankP on Wed, 02/20/2013 - 10:08pm.

The mujahideen favoured sabotage operations. The more common types of sabotage included damaging power lines, knocking out pipelines and radio stations, blowing up government office buildings, air terminals, hotels, cinemas, and so on. From 1985 through 1987, an average of over 600 "terrorist acts" a year were recorded. In the border region with Pakistan, the mujahideen would often launch 800 rockets per day. Between April 1985 and January 1987, they carried out over 23,500 shelling attacks on government targets. The mujahideen surveyed firing positions that they normally located near villages within the range of Soviet artillery posts, putting the villagers in danger of death from Soviet retaliation. The mujahideen used land mines heavily. Often, they would enlist the services of the local inhabitants, even children.

They concentrated on both civilian and military targets, knocking out bridges, closing major roads, attacking convoys, disrupting the electric power system and industrial production, and attacking police stations and Soviet military installations and air bases. They assassinated government officials and PDPA members, and laid siege to small rural outposts. In March 1982, a bomb exploded at the Ministry of Education, damaging several buildings. In the same month, a widespread power failure darkened Kabul when a pylon on the transmission line from the Naghlu power station was blown up. In June 1982 a column of about 1,000 young communist party members sent out to work in the Panjshir valley were ambushed within 30 km of Kabul, with heavy loss of life. On September 4, 1985, insurgents shot down a domestic Bakhtar Airlines plane as it took off from Kandahar airport, killing all 52 people aboard.

Mujahideen groups used for assassination had three to five men in each. After they received their mission to kill certain government officials, they busied themselves with studying his pattern of life and its details and then selecting the method of fulfilling their established mission. They practiced shooting at automobiles, shooting out of automobiles, laying mines in government accommodation or houses, using poison, and rigging explosive charges in transport.

(emphasis mine)

Just more background information to utterly destroy the continuing conservative war on facts. history, and the truth. A war which will never end as long as there are conservatives still around.

The US supports terrorism whenever it's in our national interests to do so. Claiming some mythical higher moral ground is just another lie.

I blame it all on the Internet

The support for the Afghan mujahideen was bipartisan

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Submitted by mmghosh on Thu, 02/21/2013 - 7:44am.

the chief architect of the AfPak policy of the 1980s was Mr Charles Wilson, a Democratic politician - there is even a movie called Charlie Wilson's War about this.

literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it

Yes but the denial of any American mistakes

(#300368)

Submitted by HankP on Thu, 02/21/2013 - 11:23am.

is pure Republican. Because we're the greatest country in the world and we never do anything wrong, and certainly not when a Republican is in power. Look at the latest insane ravings, McCarthyite tactics and pure lies about Chuck Hagel, a Republican, because he was one of the first Republicans to publicly state that the emperor had no clothes.

I blame it all on the Internet

I think Wilson's Impact is Overstated

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Submitted by M Aurelius on Thu, 02/21/2013 - 11:26am.

Carter and his National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinsky started the whole thing far earlier. The Charlie Wilson movie is quite fictional, especially the start of it depicting almost no US involvement before Wilson got into it. He did help ramp up the spending.

I am not a pessimist. I am an incompetent optimist.

And here I was,

(#300376)

Submitted by Bird Dog on Thu, 02/21/2013 - 9:48pm.

expecting you to make the case that the Afghan mujahideen committed terrorist acts during the Soviet occupation, but what I saw was bupkis. The Haqqani network has indeed adopted terrorist tactics, as has HIG to a lesser degree, but that's not news or new.

Government is merely a servant – merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.

The link is above in my comment

(#300379)

Submitted by HankP on Thu, 02/21/2013 - 10:32pm.

The mujahideen favoured sabotage operations. The more common types of sabotage included damaging power lines, knocking out pipelines and radio stations, blowing up government office buildings, air terminals, hotels, cinemas, and so on. From 1985 through 1987, an average of over 600 "terrorist acts" a year were recorded.

Terrorists, just like the terrorists we supported in Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Indonesia, ...

As Professor William Odom, formerly President Reagan's NSA Director wrote:

As many critics have pointed, out, terrorism is not an enemy. It is a tactic. Because the United States itself has a long record of supporting terrorists and using terrorist tactics, the slogans of today's war on terrorism merely makes the United States look hypocritical to the rest of the world.

I blame it all on the Internet

Overly broad

(#300394)

Submitted by Bird Dog on Fri, 02/22/2013 - 10:07am.

Attacking air terminals, hotels and cinemas are terrorist acts as they are, by their nature, civilian locales. The rest? Debatable. Militaries use electricity, roads and other infrastructure, so degrading them is basic guerilla warfare. The wiki link used scare quotes around "terrorist acts" for a reason because most were not acts of terror. And, of course, you're presenting the half-story. From your own link:

To minimize their own losses the Soviets abstained from close-range fight, instead they used long-range artillery, surface-to-surface and air-to-surface missiles. Numerous civilian casualties were reported.

And this.

R.J. Rummel, an analyst of political killings, estimated that Soviet forces were responsible for 250,000 democidal killings during the war and that the government of Afghanistan was responsible for 178,000 democidal killings.

I linked "democidal" for a reason. And this.

A great deal of damage was done to the civilian children population by land mines. A 2005 report estimated 3–4% of the Afghan population were disabled due to Soviet and government land mines.

And let's not forget the millions of civilians killed and displaced as a direct result of the Soviet invasion and occupation. Again, from your own link.

Civilians (Afghan):
850,000–1,500,000 killed
5 million refugees outside of Afghanistan
2 million internally displaced persons
Around 3 million Afghans wounded (mostly civilians)
Civilians (Soviet):
Around 100 dead

So it's basically laughable to say "Ah, hah! The mujahideen were terrorists!" when Soviet communists were directly responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousand of civilians. How many civilians did the mujahideen kill during the Soviet occupation? Neither you nor Manish have said.

The larger point that Manish is making is that we supported Islamic fundamentalists in the 1980s (Soviet communism was the greater evil), we walked away from them in the 1990s, and we're fighting them in the 21st century. I don't disagree with that. I also don't disagree with the notion that, when Islamists take over, conditions typically worsen. The Taliban is Exhibit A, and we're seeing how Egypt is unfolding right now.

Iraq casualty toll on line 1

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Submitted by nyoos junkey on Fri, 02/22/2013 - 10:12am.

Shall I put him through?

Most civilian casualties in OIF

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Submitted by AndrewSshi on Fri, 02/22/2013 - 10:15am.

came from the various paramilitaries or insurgents, not from U.S. forces.

Of course.

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Submitted by nyoos junkey on Fri, 02/22/2013 - 11:08am.

But I remember the vitriol the Lancet report of 100k civilians dead in the early part of the war augered.

And dead is dead and the assignation of responsibility is more complex than figuring out who pulled the trigger.

Terrorism is terrorism

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Submitted by HankP on Fri, 02/22/2013 - 12:18pm.

making excuses for the people we happen to be backing at a certain point in time doesn't help anyone except those trying to obscure history. According to your interpretation they weren't terrorists when we supplied them but the very same groups became murderous terrorists as soon as we stopped. That sounds ridiculous, and is.

I blame it all on the Internet

Nothing is terrorism

(#300407)

Submitted by dionysus on Fri, 02/22/2013 - 3:21pm.

Or everything is, or they're all freedom fighters, whatever.

12 years since 9/11, I just have to roll my eyes and shake my head when I see sophistry about how one thing is terrorism and another wasn't.

We backed the lesser evil,

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Submitted by Bird Dog on Sun, 02/24/2013 - 10:28pm.

and the lesser terrorist. By a long shot. This is not obscuring history. Rather, the opposite. Nor am I excusing any terrorist acts of the 1980s mujahideen. Our options during a Cold War was to do nothing or choose sides against the Soviet communists. I suggest that we made the right choice in supporting the mujahideen. We made the wrong choice in pretty much completely backing out of Afghanistan after the Soviets withdrew.

Of course you denied it

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Submitted by HankP on Sun, 02/24/2013 - 11:53pm.

that's how this whole thread started, here and in the other diary you claimed that the mujahideen weren't terrorists when we supported them. I'm glad you came around on that view, but that's what started it.

I blame it all on the Internet

Nonsense

(#300481)

Submitted by Bird Dog on Mon, 02/25/2013 - 11:12am.

I acknowledged that attacks on hotels, airports and restaurants are terrorist acts, but their primary targets were of the Soviet government and military variety. That is a fact. Again, you're saying "Ah hah!" on the rock while ignoring the mountain.

JFCOAPS

(#300497)

Submitted by HankP on Mon, 02/25/2013 - 3:07pm.

And here I was expecting you to make the case that the Afghan mujahideen committed terrorist acts during the Soviet occupation, but what I saw was bupkis.

Keep arguing against yourself, but the rest of us can read.

I blame it all on the Internet

Eh

(#300503)

Submitted by Bird Dog on Mon, 02/25/2013 - 9:19pm.

You're the one having the problem reading, not me.

Heh. So jihad is justified when Americans want/need it

(#300412)

Submitted by mmghosh on Fri, 02/22/2013 - 7:51pm.

against their enemies? Do you deny the the USA actively supported the mujahideen philosophy of jihad in the 1980s?

Pragmatism is part of the important American contribution to philosophy. But this also includes awareness of what one is being pragmatic about.

What about Mr Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, sponsored by the USA throughout the 1980s? What about Abu Sayyaf? Indeed, what about Mr Osama bin Laden himself? The excuse that there is no evidence that Mr Laden was directly funded by the CIA will not wash. In the first place, plausible and official deniability has always been a watchword of secret operations. And secondly, it is no secret that the climate of Islamism, where global terror was engineered against multiple nations, was actively fostered in Afghanistan for several decades.

The attitude of successive US Administrations of advocating Islamic fundamentalism, jihad and actively aiding terror groups as long as they provide resources for the USA, or are against the enemies of the USA can certainly be justified on the basis of combating larger existential threats. And indeed, this is both reasonable and understandable, and no one should consider that their State would not do the same.

literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it

We Underwrote The "Mission To Moscow" Film Too. . .

(#300413)

Submitted by M Scott Eiland on Fri, 02/22/2013 - 8:02pm.

. . .when it was deemed necessary to justify our alliance with the man who ended up killing more people than Hitler, and our only mistake there was to be insufficiently prepared to turn on them once the Nazis were done. If pragmatism is to be practiced, the performance should be utterly inertialess, and the extent to which it is not is a mortal sin by the government who fails in the effort.

The universe may well have been created without a point--that doesn't imply that we can't give it one.

A great analysis by William Polk on Afghanistan

(#300452)

Submitted by mmghosh on Sun, 02/24/2013 - 8:52am.

here.

The first objective is the creation of a stable, reasonably secure and peaceful state so that withdrawal will not constitute a base for anti- American activities;

The second objective is to end as rapidly as feasible the enormous drain on American resources now being expended in the Afghan conflict; The third objective is to prevent a “blow back” of the Afghan conflict that might constitute or appear to constitute a major failure and so encourage anti-American actions in other, particularly Islamic, areas; and The fourth objective is to prevent contamination of American institutions and laws by activities begun in Afghanistan including the effects of large-scale money laundering and the destabilizing of the American system of law, justice and opposition to torture.

literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it

It's a religious issue

(#300414)

Submitted by HankP on Fri, 02/22/2013 - 11:58pm.

the US is good and their enemies are bad. Any clouding of this simple black/white view will get certain people very angry at you.

I blame it all on the Internet

We actively supported their philosophy?

(#300478)

Submitted by Bird Dog on Mon, 02/25/2013 - 10:26am.

No. We actively opposed the Soviets' philosophy. There's a difference.

How soon we forget that the beginning of the wave of modern-day Islamic terrorism was the Iranian revolution, a Shia-led rebellion that occurred only a few years earlier. It would be nice to have a crystal ball and say that Hekmatyar couldn't get money to fight communists because fifteen years later he would ally with al Qaeda, but we failed to predict that. We also didn't predict the burgeoning militant Islamist movements led by the likes of bin Laden and other extremists.

Oh, and we didn't sponsor bin Laden in Afghanistan. Bin Laden and his comrades had their own sources of support and training, per the 9/11 Report. Please don't revise history.

Heh. "J is for Jihad" is active support of jihadist philosophy.

(#300501)

Submitted by mmghosh on Mon, 02/25/2013 - 7:41pm.

And I agree there is no evidence that the USA did actively aid Mr Laden (although there is also no evidence to suggest that the CIA went out of its way to discourage him and his ideological comrades).

The larger point remains that, in Afghanistan, the US Administration of the day did go out of its way to foster Islamism, legitimisation of violence in the name of Islam and so forth. And this certainly created the climate that fostered Mr Laden. There is no getting away from that.

literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it

Eh

(#300504)

Submitted by Bird Dog on Mon, 02/25/2013 - 9:22pm.

The "jihadist philosophy" we supported was that "Jihad is an obligation. My mom went to the jihad. Our brother gave water to the Mujahidin." I don't see phrases such as "holy war" or "kill infidels".

I see pictures of RPGs and AK-47s nt

(#300510)

Submitted by HankP on Mon, 02/25/2013 - 9:51pm.

I blame it all on the Internet

are you sure about this "reading" thing?

(#300515)

Submitted by nilsey on Tue, 02/26/2013 - 12:06am.

Our religion is Islam. The Russians are the enemies of the religion of Islam…

that's not a holy war?

if you had a quote - and i'm sure one would be easy enough to find - that said "The Americans are the enemies of Islam" and someone told you that was not an expression of holy war, what would you say to them?

i mean, honestly. this is a pretty plain and uncontroversial reading of historical fact that you are rejecting.

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
-George Bernard Shaw

Given that the USSR was an atheist communist...

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Submitted by Bird Dog on Tue, 02/26/2013 - 11:07pm.

authoritarian regime, Russia was an enemy to Islam, and to Christianity, and to Judaism. As a mostly Christian nation, Americans are People of the Book. If al Qaeda wants to say that Americans are enemies of Islam, then that's their opinion. Doesn't mean it's true.

haha, i see....

(#300539)

Submitted by nilsey on Wed, 02/27/2013 - 12:30pm.

so you are deducing from some communist doctrine of atheism and the supposed status of theunited states as a "people of the book" that a jihad against the former must a holy war but a jihad against the latter cannot be.

i guess the crusades never happened, haha....

claiming that we are not positioning ourselves as enemies of islam seems a little strange coming from someone who throws out dumb acronyms like WAMI etc all teh time and writes endless diaries and comments about how awful these islamists are and how its just baked into their religion.

truly weird.

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
-George Bernard Shaw

Some communist doctrine?

(#300569)

Submitted by Bird Dog on Wed, 02/27/2013 - 4:52pm.

C'mon, nils. The Soviets banned religious most religious practices, with the ultimate goal of eliminating religion beliefs, to be replaced with state atheism. As for the rest of your dumbass opinion, not worth commenting on.

i see

(#300577)

Submitted by nilsey on Wed, 02/27/2013 - 5:50pm.

you got nothing but the assertion that calls for jihad mean whatever you want them to, depending on teh situation. thats of a piece with teh rest of your long and storied history of bullsh*t commentary.

my point was that your claim that holy war can't occur between "peoples of teh book" is at odds with history, current events, and (hilariously) much of your own attempts to put forward a "WAMI."

but do carry on.

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
-George Bernard Shaw

It's fascinating how certain scents and aromas evoke...

(#300604)

Submitted by Bird Dog on Thu, 02/28/2013 - 1:36pm.

...memories of events and experiences past. Today I smell troll.

Your reasoning, such as it is, is that because there was a crusade that occurred over a millennia ago, centuries before the founding of the U.S., that we are enemies of Islam. Thank you parroting al Qaeda and Taliban propaganda. The Soviets used to call their western supporters useful idiots.

haha ... oh and posting rules

(#300606)

Submitted by nilsey on Thu, 02/28/2013 - 3:31pm.

firstly posting rules. i'm not sure how you think linking to a previous cpomment that got you bounced is consistent with civil discussion. but you have amply demonstrated that when challenged you will resort to insult and posting rules violations.

the "haha' is because pretty funny that you would willfuly link to a comment that not only got you bounced but exposes a certain mentiality of obssessive grudge holding as well as your lame attempt to somehow publicly shame a fellow forvm commentor for remarks that anyone can read (edit: and actually i encourage anyone to go back and read the comments you link to and see how you mischaracterized them, but then i wouldn't expect anyone with even a modicum of a life to go back and do so). characterizing someone's commentary as trolling when its actually you who are obssessively keeping lists of links and holding yearslong grudges for however many times you have been challenged is a pathetic and feeble comment.

secondly, this:

Your reasoning, such as it is, is that because there was a crusade that occurred over a millennia ago, centuries before the founding of the U.S., that we are enemies of Islam.

is wrong. as anyone who can read my comment without the handicap of being an obssesive crybaby can see, my reasoning is that any crazy jihadi (of which there are many) can claim to be waging a holy war against america and many have been doing so for well over three decades now. do you disagree? that's *their* reasoning, not mine, since i don't believe wars are holy. and incididentally your own WAMI-pushing philiosphy plays right into their line of thought.

thirdly, your "parroting of propaganda" charge is also a lie. unless you simply do not understand the difference between attribution (or repeating what someone might say) and assertion (saying that it is true).

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
-George Bernard Shaw

Posting Rules

(#300609)

Submitted by M Scott Eiland on Thu, 02/28/2013 - 3:50pm.

Best not to elaborate if--as the comment suggests--the violation speaks for itself: suggesting that a fellow Forvmite is obsessive (whether "crybaby" or "grudge holding" is appended to it) is a PRV.

The universe may well have been created without a point--that doesn't imply that we can't give it one.

haha right on cue.

(#300610)

Submitted by nilsey on Thu, 02/28/2013 - 3:55pm.

it is fascinating how a stench can invoke memories of a thousand one-sided calls of "posting rules" past.

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
-George Bernard Shaw

Psting Rules?!? It Seems that Bird Dog Calling Nilsey a Troll..

(#300612)

Submitted by Traveller on Thu, 02/28/2013 - 4:18pm.

...is the clear posting rule violation.

Be that as it may, I do have something to say on The Crusades, so maybe now is the time to creatively note on its effects.

Moving on.

Traveller

To Paraphrase Neil Gaiman

(#300619)

Submitted by M Scott Eiland on Thu, 02/28/2013 - 9:57pm.

I'm not nilsey's echo chamber. He has asserted that BD violated the posting rules--I see no need for stereo.

The universe may well have been created without a point--that doesn't imply that we can't give it one.

I smell Troll

(#300614)

Submitted by HankP on Thu, 02/28/2013 - 4:23pm.

but that can't be a PRV since it's a quote from BD.

I blame it all on the Internet

Posting Rules

(#300618)

Submitted by M Scott Eiland on Thu, 02/28/2013 - 9:56pm.

Since nilsey is asserting that with regard to BD, what's good for the goose. . .

The universe may well have been created without a point--that doesn't imply that we can't give it one.

The funniest part of all this

(#300611)

Submitted by HankP on Thu, 02/28/2013 - 4:14pm.

is that there is a group in the US who is obsessed with religious purity and advocated the use of military force under virtually every situation - and it ain't the liberals. Ironic that they don't see themselves as the mirror image of the Islamic fanatics that they so despise.

I blame it all on the Internet

Misinformation - if you think the West are "People of the Book"

(#300617)

Submitted by mmghosh on Thu, 02/28/2013 - 9:47pm.

or regarded as such by Islamists. The Christian West and Jews are regarded as fundamentally opposed to Islam, as heretics from the Abrahamic tradition. "People of the Book" are not friends of Islam, although they can be allies of convenience.

Heresy is condemned as much as, or even more so than atheist Russian Communists, or polytheist Hindus.

The perception of Russians in Islamic countries is, more than the atheism of modern USSR, that of the Russian Orthodox Church led Russian Empire that brutally overwhelmed the Islamic states of the Caucasus and Central Asia in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Which is why invoking "People of the Book" rhetoric when allying with Islamic fundamentalists and in condemning fundamentalist Islam when in conflict with them is regarded in the ROW as necessary pragmatic realpolitik for the USA.

Quite a few people, even in distant lands, know that the USA has been allies with both the Communist Soviet Union in the past when militarily necessary and with Communist China today when commercially necessary. To suggest that the USA follows some sort of consistently unique ethical policy in foreign affairs in not very convincing.

literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it

My point is that...

(#300621)

Submitted by Bird Dog on Fri, 03/01/2013 - 10:57am.

...militant Islamists can say that we are enemies of Islam, but it is propaganda. And heretical.

Yes, that's correct, Bird Dog. Jihad is not necessarily Holy

(#300516)

Submitted by mmghosh on Tue, 02/26/2013 - 3:08am.

War. There are different interpretations.

Muslims popularly refer to four expressions of jihad:
Jihad of the Tongue: speaking about their faith
Jihad of the Hand: expressing their faith in good works
Jihad of the Heart: making their faith a force for good
Jihad of the Sword: defending their faith when under attack

Both non-Muslims and Muslim writers have used the phrase ''holy war'' with reference to jihad. Muslim scholars, however, write that Islam teaches it is unholy to start war although some wars are inevitable and justifiable.

The word Jihad means striving. In its primary sense it is an inner thing, within self, to rid it from debased actions or inclinations, and exercise constancy and perseverance in achieving a higher moral standard.

Somehow, though, I do not think that successive US Administrations were exhorting the children to Afghanistan to defeat the Russians by pursuing higher moral standards in their inner selves. It is more probable that they were attempting to inculcate the virtues of picking up and firing an RPG. Although YMMV.

literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it

Wrong chronology

(#300502)

Submitted by HankP on Mon, 02/25/2013 - 9:06pm.

the Afghans started fighting the Soviets before the Shah abdicated.

I blame it all on the Internet

From your own link,

(#300505)

Submitted by Bird Dog on Mon, 02/25/2013 - 9:31pm.

the Soviet war in Afghanistan started in December 1979, when the Soviet 40th entered Afghanistan on Christmas Eve. The Shah stepped down in January 1979 (link). Please try to keep up.

That's not when the mujahideen started fighting

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Submitted by HankP on Mon, 02/25/2013 - 9:46pm.

they started fighting the soviet aligned government in 1978, before the Shah abdicated. They were fighting before the Soviets sent in troops, in fact they were the reason why the Afghan government requested troops from the Soviets.

I blame it all on the Internet

And the Iranian revolution didn't start when...

(#300521)

Submitted by Bird Dog on Tue, 02/26/2013 - 11:14pm.

...the Shah stepped down. Please try to keep up.

Oh, and let's recap a little disparity. Over a decade or so, the mujahideen killed around 100 Soviet civilians. In that same decade, Soviets directly murdered hundreds of thousands of Afghan civilians and displaced millions, yet the mujahideen were the terrorists? Your comment is patently unserious.

Once again, Afghans don't count

(#300523)

Submitted by HankP on Wed, 02/27/2013 - 1:58am.

hundreds of thousands of Afghan civilians were killed in the 1970s and 80s, but they don't count. Only the number of Soviets killed. Conservatives really don't consider the untermenschen. They're just little chess pieces you take off the board when your strategies (such as they are) don't work out. How ubelievably immoral.

As to the recap, you said that the Iranian revolution was before the Afghan civil war. That's incorrect, the Afghans were fighting the soviet aligned government at the same time the Iranians were fighting the Shah. In fact the Afghan civil war involved a military insurgency from the beginning in 1978 while the Iranian revolution was almost entirely conducted by peaceful protest. So your attempt to show that the Iranian revolution occurred before the Afghan civil war ands somehow influenced it is incorrect.

On the bigger theme, everyone here can see your pirouettes and other inartful (and frankly ridiculous) attempts to downplay the terrorist acts of groups when they were supported by the US and to emphasize terrorist acts by the very same groups when they weren't supported by the US. The fact is that the US has no problem with terrorism when "our guys" do it, in these cases illustrated by the CIA trained SAVAK and it's habit of "disappearing" suspected opponents, and the mujahideen in their terrorist attacks.

But this is just another attempt to whitewash the US history of terrorism culminating in the blatant terroristic acts of implementing industrial level torture of military and civilians (yes, even US civilians) during the Bush years. All part of the "war on terror" that you've been supporting for over a decade. You and your fellow anti-Islamic armchair warriors have done more to damage this country than any enemy ever could have. The attempts to divert responsibility for terrorism are transparent to everyone here. The US has never had a problem with terrorism when "our' guys have been doing it.

I blame it all on the Internet

Meanwhile in Kabui...(and Kill, Kill, Kill?)

(#300524)

Submitted by Traveller on Wed, 02/27/2013 - 7:30am.

2/26/13

Elsewhere in Afghanistan on Wednesday, a suicide bomber in Kabul blew himself up after crawling under a bus carrying army personnel, injuring six soldiers and four civilians.

It is the second attempted suicide attack in the city in the space of a week.

A week or so ago's Hank's Comment, Kill, Kill, Kill, troubled me. It's just not so.

"The decrease in civilian casualties UNAMA documented in 2012 is very much welcome," said Jan Kubis, a U.N. special representative for Afghanistan. "Yet, the human cost of the conflict remains unacceptable."

Kubis blames the use of roadside bombs by militants as" the single biggest killer of civilians."

Despite the overall decrease in casualties -- deaths plus injuries -- militants increasingly targeted civilians throughout the country and carried out attacks without regard for human life, the report said.

In total, 81% of all civilian casualties in 2012 were attributed to anti-government elements.

From the BBC

In total, 81% of civilian casualties in 2012 were attributed to militants, while 8% resulted from operations by pro-government forces.

It also noted that women and girls "continued to suffer enormously from the effects of armed conflict", with 301 killed and 563 injured - an increase of 20%.

"It is the tragic reality that most Afghan women and girls were killed or injured while engaging in their everyday activities," said Georgette Gagnon, Unama's director of human rights.

The report said improvised explosive devices (IEDs) planted by insurgents were the greatest threat to civilians, causing 868 deaths and 1,663 injuries. Targeted killings by militants also increased by 108%, with 698 people killed and 379 hurt.

"Unama notes numerous Taliban statements in 2012 to protect civilians. Yet, the situation on the ground has not improved. The Taliban increased their direct attacks on civilians through targeted killings and continued to indiscriminately use IEDs," the agency said.

The report said 316 civilians were killed and 271 hurt by pro-government forces, a 46% decrease from 2011. Casualties from aerial operations by international military forces in Afghanistan also decreased by 42%, with 126 deaths and 78 injuries documented.

^^^

It is like we are almost not killing anyone!

Sigh...I see all the video's out of Afghanistan and my heart goes out to our Soldiers. Geeze, the ROE's they are operating under! I know I have my own demons, but causalities would be much higher under any NORMAL scenario or War...we would be talking 4,000 causalities a day, not a year.

The US has gone to extraordinary lengths to avoid unnecessary causalities in Afghanistan.

Which is not to say we should not be out of there today, Today.

But with a willingness to go back in and do some right and proper killing if necessary.

Hank's claim of wanton killing is just not there, imo.

Traveller

Seeing as the USA had no business being in Afghanistan at all

(#300525)

Submitted by mmghosh on Wed, 02/27/2013 - 8:54am.

from 1979 onwards, whatever effect there has been is self-created. There was IIRC no request from a Government in exile for US aid.

If the USA had stayed hands off, as in, say, Hungary in 1956 or Czechoslovakia in 1968, it is highly conceivable that the conflict between the Russians and Afghans, being one-sided, would have hardly been as bloody as it turned out to be when the mujahideen got access to and training in sophisticated weaponry.

Whether the US Administration goes to extraordinary lengths today, or not, is insignificant.

literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it

And Had the Russians Won Afghanistan, On the Doorstep of India

(#300559)

Submitted by Traveller on Wed, 02/27/2013 - 3:51pm.

...and emboldened worldwide?

Where would the world be today?

I don't think your thesis of total American hands off in Afghanistan bears well a hindsight review.

Traveller

Where would it be today

(#300574)

Submitted by eeyn524 on Wed, 02/27/2013 - 5:43pm.

My guess is roughly the same (fall of Iron Curtain and end of communism in eastern Europe and Russia) but maybe 5-15 years later. The first cracks showed up in Poland; that wasn't primarily driven by Afghanistan. The rest of Europe was bound to go the same way eventually.

The Communists "won" in China and Vietnam. So what?

(#300590)

Submitted by mmghosh on Wed, 02/27/2013 - 8:53pm.

Is the world unliveable in?

literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it

The Russian Slaughter of Afghans, Nor The 2M Vietmanese....

(#300592)

Submitted by Traveller on Wed, 02/27/2013 - 9:29pm.

...killed seems to have made much difference, except in the Kingdom of the Dead. (See also all of Central Africa). Who talks about Grozny anymore?

Actually, the effects of these near genocidal kills seem to be nearly....nil.

This is surprising to me.

(yes the Communist won China, but look at the full graveyards thereafter, cf. Cambodia).

The living care little for the dead, they have the busy business of living to tend to.

There are unhappy lessons here to be learned...or ignored.

Traveller

It's not wanton, it's targeted

(#300541)

Submitted by HankP on Wed, 02/27/2013 - 1:32pm.

Karzai orders US special forces out of Wardak province

Death squads, all over again.

I blame it all on the Internet

And if you believe everything the Taliban

(#300552)

Submitted by AndrewSshi on Wed, 02/27/2013 - 2:38pm.

claims about the U.S., I've got a bridge to sell you...

Karzai is in the Taliban?

(#300553)

Submitted by HankP on Wed, 02/27/2013 - 2:39pm.

That's news to me.

I blame it all on the Internet

No, but the entirely unsubstantiated allegations

(#300554)

Submitted by AndrewSshi on Wed, 02/27/2013 - 2:45pm.

against U.S. Special Forces are coming straight out of Quetta.

They seem to be straight from Karzai

(#300587)

Submitted by HankP on Wed, 02/27/2013 - 8:31pm.

since he's the one making them. But what does the President of a country know when it conflicts with what people in the US want to hear?

I blame it all on the Internet

Yes!

(#300573)

Submitted by Bird Dog on Wed, 02/27/2013 - 5:31pm.

Because Karzai is credible. Actually, this is not the first time he's made charges with no evidence.

haha

(#300575)

Submitted by nilsey on Wed, 02/27/2013 - 5:44pm.

is this the same "not credible" karzai that lefties have been calling out for years and you advocated building a counterinsurgency campaign to prop up?

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
-George Bernard Shaw

HA!

(#300588)

Submitted by HankP on Wed, 02/27/2013 - 8:33pm.

yes, I'm sure NATO is the best source of determining whether claims made against NATO troops are true.

Did you know that OJ was innocent too? He said so!

I blame it all on the Internet

A guide to how suicide bombings became a feature of Afghanistan

(#300620)

Submitted by mmghosh on Thu, 02/28/2013 - 10:04pm.

as a result of US patronisation of Islamism in Afghanistan and the consequences of the completely unnecessary war in Iraq..

http://www.brianglynwilliams.com/IAA%20suicide.pdf

To fully appreciate just how alien suicide bombing is to Afghan martial culture, it is necessary to carry out an assessment of this tactic’s role in previous Afghan jihads. Such an assessment makes it glaringly obvious that even the most fundamental- ist of Afghan mujahideen factions led by Rasul Sayyaf and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar did not deploy suicide bombers in the 1980s.

---

In his recent work from 2004, Ghost Wars, Steven Coll supports Grau’s assess- ment and claims: “The Afghans whom Yousaf [a Pakistani Intelligence com- mander] trained, uniformly denounced suicide attack proposals as against their religion. It was only Arab volunteers who later advocated suicide attacks.” Journal- ists who encountered Arab volunteers while traveling with indigenous Afghan mujahideen also noticed this Arab-Af- ghan dichotomy. BBC reporter Saira Shah wrote of the Arab volunteers in Afghani- stan: “They don’t mind strapping explo- sives to themselves to become martyrs, but they are afraid of a bit of shelling.”
While the xenophobic Afghan-mu- jhaideen could be fierce warriors, few subscribed to the Salafist extremism that eventually led Al-Qaeda to embrace ‘mar- tyrdom operations’ as a tactic of choice. Similarly, the Taliban did not use this tactic against their enemies. This is partly explained by the fact that a majority of the mujahideen and Taliban were eth- nic Pashtuns. The Pashtunwali code and Taliban-Deobandi school of Islam con- sidered suicide to be cowardly and those who engaged in it to be cursed.

---

By 2005, the number of attacks began to increase, even if Arabs seem to have car- ried out the initial wave. Most alarmingly, it became clear that indigenous Afghans and Pakistani Pashtuns had finally begun to participate in suicide bombings in real numbers. But few could have foreseen the horrors to come in the following year. From more than 140 bombings for the year 2006, the vast majority of these were carried out by Afghan or Pakistani Pashtuns. As hundreds of Afghans were killed or maimed by Taliban bombers, it became glaringly obvious that Pashtun had come to define istihadiyeen (suicide bombers) as martyrs for the faith. For a culture, even one like that of the Taliban that was not completely based in Pash- tunwali, to embrace a practice that was previously considered a mortal sin was tantamount to devout Catholics suddenly accepting abortion.

---

The local Pashtun insurgents of the 1980s who ‘lived to fight another day’ seem to have embraced a cult of death spawned in Iraq that places greater em- phasis on dying to kill others. Just prior to his recent death Mullah Dadullah let it be known that he was all too aware of the importance of this development when he predicted “The Americans have sown a seed. They will reap the crop for quite a long time.”

And we will continue to see the effects in the future for a while.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/01/world/asia/at-least-30-afghan-police-o...

literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it

Say what?

(#300622)

Submitted by Bird Dog on Fri, 03/01/2013 - 11:04am.

The Taliban have themselves to blame by inviting al Qaeda and its suicide-terrorism doctrine into their fold. They corrupted their own Pashtunwali code by their alliance with whackjob Salafists.

Sow the wind. Reap the whirlwind.

(#300647)

Submitted by mmghosh on Fri, 03/01/2013 - 5:08pm.

Which is why non-interference in other continents is generally regarded as a good idea.

literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it

You Know Mannish, You Cause Me to Research & (Salafists)

(#300650)

Submitted by Traveller on Fri, 03/01/2013 - 5:28pm.

...I looked up the War with the creation of Bangledesh and happened to notice, following link after link, that there are many sects within Islam, and apparently and maybe unfortunately the fastest growing are the Salafists.

BD may call them whack jobs, but they are a force to be reckoned with it seems.

BTW, the Indian Army did a nice job in the severing of East Pakistan in 1971, Yes?

Best Wishes, Traveller

The State of Pakistan created in 1947 was always a problem

(#300651)

Submitted by mmghosh on Fri, 03/01/2013 - 5:40pm.

that said, the hot war in 1971 that led to the dismemberment of Pakistan was triggered by an Israeli Six Day War-style pre-emptive strike by Pakistan. My father served in the Indian Army of the day - I remember air raid shelter stuff as a kid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Chengiz_Khan

The decision to hit India with a pre-emptive air strike was taken on 30 November 1971 during a meeting among the Pakistani President, Gen. Yahya Khan, Chief of Staff Gen. Abdul Hamid Khan, and the Chief of General Staff, Lt. Gen. Gul Hassan Khan.
The objectives of the strike were:
To surprise the IAF by attacking its forward airfields when it was least expected.
To neutralize these in order to obtain at least temporary battlefield air superiority in the West.
To counter-balance the Indian numerical advantage by hitting the forward operating bases of the Indian Air Force as a measure reducing the weight of expected counterattacks on PAF's own bases.
To achieve surprise, the decision was made to strike on a Friday, the day of the jumu'ah (Muslim Sabbath), at 17:45 hrs when shifts in IAF control centers were changing. Emulating its operations' experience in battle against the Indian Air Force during the Indo-Pakistani Conflict of 1965, the decision was made to hit the Indian bases in a two-wave dusk strike followed by a number of night-interdiction missions through the night.[4] The plans for the strike also anticipated the Indians securing their aircraft in blast pens.[citation needed] Also, anticipating difficulty in target acquisition for camouflaged targets such as fuel tanks, ammunition dumps and command centers, the primary objectives set for the operation were the runways and air defense radars.

literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it

Humm, Didn't Know This, Thanks, a Good Read...nt

(#300653)

Submitted by Traveller on Fri, 03/01/2013 - 5:45pm.

Traveller

Ironic

(#300687)

Submitted by Bird Dog on Fri, 03/01/2013 - 11:41pm.

Because our non-interference after the Soviets withdrew helped create a vacuum that helped put the Taliban in power. The Taliban chose to ally with al Qaeda and incorporate its tactics. That is on them.

Eh

(#300571)

Submitted by Bird Dog on Wed, 02/27/2013 - 5:18pm.

The Soviets weren't in Afghanistan until December 1979. Prior to that, the Soviet proxy (PDPA) launched a military coup in August 1978 after Daoud Khan rebuffed the proxy, and that was when the real strife began. Up 'til that point, Afghanistan was reasonable peaceful and stable, even after Daoud Khan took over the county in '73.

The fact remains that the Soviets murdered hundreds of thousands of civilians and displaced millions, but that doesn't seem to matter to you. And you don't know how many Afghan civilians the mujahideen killed. Given that their primary targets were Soviets, I would surmise the toll to be a fraction compared to what the Soviets wrought. But no matter to the left-wing ideologues. After all, there are no enemies on the Left. The mujahideen were the bad guys and, by extension, so is the U.S. That may be your opinion, but it's bulls**t and feeble. The U.S. made the right call in aiding the mujahideen because it drained Soviet resources and hastened the downfall of a despicable regime. Our big mistake was to leave a political vacuum after the Soviets withdrew.

What matters to me are the lies

(#300586)

Submitted by HankP on Wed, 02/27/2013 - 8:30pm.

specifically saying that the mujahideen weren't terrorists. They were, and we knew they were when we supported them. But you are (as usual) trying to pin the anti-American label on anyone who uses facts to shoot down the endless litany of lies that you've posted here over the years. The old anti-communist routine, I'm sure you have a list of dozens of Forvm participants who are communists in your pocket.

The mujahideen were bad guys, and the US was bad for supporting them. Period, end of story. It's not the only time and place that's been true, and it probably won't be the last. You can lie all you want and deny all you want, but the facts are what they are.

BTW, Iraq is still a catastrophe and the biggest foreign policy mistake in decades. Your support for it is a black stain that will never wash off no matter how much you backfill and try to invent justifications for it.

I blame it all on the Internet

Posting Rules

(#300589)

Submitted by M Scott Eiland on Wed, 02/27/2013 - 8:41pm.

For multiple reasons.

The universe may well have been created without a point--that doesn't imply that we can't give it one.

What matters to me are the facts

(#300603)

Submitted by Bird Dog on Thu, 02/28/2013 - 1:31pm.

And the fact is that the Soviets murdered civilians by orders of magnitude more than the mujideen. All you have is an unsourced wiki that claimed they attacked airports, hotels and restaurants. Even if you accept that as true, those incidences are a fraction of what they did to oppose the communist regime. The fact of the matter is that their primary targets were Soviet government and military targets. That is basically undisputed. The mujahideen didn't seriously launch their opposition until after a Soviet proxy launched the military coup in the summer of 1978 that killed Daoud Khan. What you are doing is your typical approach when demagoguing Republicans: Find a few unpleasant incidents or comments and smear it across an entire movement. If there is a lie going on, it's that. It is both false and a distortion of history. We're the mujahideen "bad guys"? Probably so. Were they terrorists? During the Soviet occupation, largely not and "no" in the context of the Soviet occupation and the crimes against humanity they committed.

Oh, and what MSE said.

"Largely not"

(#300607)

Submitted by HankP on Thu, 02/28/2013 - 3:32pm.

ha, I have the new conservative definition of terrorism. What's a few dead Afghans amongst friends? And we can always justify what we do as long as there's someone else who did something worse. Moral relativism of the highest order.

I blame it all on the Internet

So you got nothing

(#300623)

Submitted by Bird Dog on Fri, 03/01/2013 - 11:07am.

Focusing on the sliver of the mujahideen and ignoring the old growth tree of the Soviets. The Soviets phrase "useful idiot" comes to mind.

Actually in this case

(#300629)

Submitted by HankP on Fri, 03/01/2013 - 2:56pm.

"useless idiot", which is the extent of you obfuscation of history and risible attempt to portray yourself as an expert on Islam.

But, I do understand that moral relativism is the basis of your analysis of history. Good to know for the future.

I blame it all on the Internet

Please stop bothering the mods

(#300631)

Submitted by catchy on Fri, 03/01/2013 - 3:11pm.

Hank, BD, and nils, this is petty and rude.

I shouldn't have to put up with it either as a reader of your comments.

mods nowhere to be seen

(#300633)

Submitted by nilsey on Fri, 03/01/2013 - 3:14pm.

so i doubt they are bothered.

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
-George Bernard Shaw

Please remember that insults are also rude

(#300639)

Submitted by catchy on Fri, 03/01/2013 - 3:34pm.

to everyone not in the insult circle. As a reader it's an unwelcome bit of pointless negativity.

From my time as a mod I remember watching PRVs and having to expend energy even making the decision that I did not actually have the time in my day to waste policing grown men, most of whom have been commenting here for years.

Don't you think this insult fest, which has been spread out for hours and days now, should come to an end?

Thanks, catchy. Please, guys.

(#300646)

Submitted by mmghosh on Fri, 03/01/2013 - 5:05pm.

I'm part of the discussion, too, and it doesn't help.

literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it

manish (and any other mod)

(#300663)

Submitted by nilsey on Fri, 03/01/2013 - 6:43pm.

i'm sorry you feel put upon, but i'm going to ask you to consider whether there was a PRV in this comment.

specifically, how does one find it within the rules to simply link to prior PRVs as commentary?

if i get red carded for calling someone a so-and-so, its fine for me to just link to that comment later i lieue of discussing the issues at hand?

secondly, please consider the violation itself. i find a stalkerish listing of a couple dozen conversations spanning years to be a bit creepy. if you were me, how would you feel about interacting someone who is keeping meticulous track of all your disagreements (none of which resulted in any warning to me)?

if you think that this website should stand as an area of civil discussion with room for disagreement, do you think that discussion is helped or harmed by someone who is clealy holding personal grudges, laboriously documenting all their disagreements, and then throwing them in peoples face?

i've never asked for a PRV ruling for a comment directed at me (at least i don't think so - only BD knows for sure), but in this instance i'm going to break my practice.

thanks in advance.

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
-George Bernard Shaw

I agree. Traveller and MSE agree, too, I see.

(#300665)

Submitted by mmghosh on Fri, 03/01/2013 - 6:54pm.

BD, please cease from similar comments. I have written to the other mods about this, nils.

And let's move on.

literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it

I agree, and would add that...

(#300683)

Submitted by Bernard Guerrero on Fri, 03/01/2013 - 10:45pm.

...there appear to be plenty of gratuitous insults being tossed around by all three parties. You're all adults, this is unbecoming, move along.

"Unfortunately the universe doesn't agree with me. We'll see which one of us is still standing when this is over." -- Eliezer Yudkowsky

Sorry Guys,

(#300819)

Submitted by nyoos junkey on Mon, 03/04/2013 - 9:21am.

I was skiing with my family in Crans Montana all week.

My little guy, 3 and a half now, put skis on for the first time and skied his first few meters solo.

There's a fantastic sledge run that goes 6km down from the petit bovin to aminona-sur-sierre and you can stop half way down for fondue if you know just where the refuge Tieche is hidden. We took a pair of big old wooden Davos sledges with a kid on the front of each and I had one of the best days I've had in years.

So I didn't hear the batphone ring on this one, but it looks like it's all calmed down now.

this is the best response

(#300826)

Submitted by nilsey on Mon, 03/04/2013 - 12:15pm.

to this ridiculousness.

i would be jealous of you, ok i am jealous of you, but i *am* going dogsledding this week near lake superior so i got that going for me.

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
-George Bernard Shaw

Dog sledding.

(#300854)

Submitted by nyoos junkey on Tue, 03/05/2013 - 8:13am.

Now I'm jealous. Only tried that once and it was magical (apart from the smell of dog poo - a pack of 8 sure do poop a lot on the run).

"My little guy,3 and a half now, put skis on for the first time"

(#300834)

Submitted by catchy on Mon, 03/04/2013 - 11:45pm.

Fantastic ... however, I do kind of hate being bested by 4 and 5 yr. olds when I'm out on the slopes, so I can't offer my unconditional support.

No fear

(#300853)

Submitted by nyoos junkey on Tue, 03/05/2013 - 8:11am.

and a center of gravity about a foot off of the ground count for a lot.

Kill the Baby in the Cradle? What Cradle and What Baby?

(#300613)

Submitted by Traveller on Thu, 02/28/2013 - 5:50pm.

....some time last week or so, I threw off an off handed comment that re Islam, it would have been nice to Kill the Baby in the Cradle.

Manish objected, noting that Western Christianity almost did accomplish that task during the Crusades and under certain Popes.

Interestingly, (at least to me), the Military Historian, J.F.C. Fuller makes the argument in Volume I of his Military History of the Western World, that when Saladin utterly and terribly destroyed the Crusaders at the battle of Hattin outside of Tiberius on the Sea of Galilee, the Crusaders dying of thirst, desert heat and the constant fires started in their path as they desperately tried to struggle to water at Galilee....

Allah won.

More importantly, the Crusaders rallied to the True Cross that they carried before them, but ultimately fell to Saladin, into the hands of the Infidel.

How could this be?

The survivors brought this terrible knowledge, terrible to the Medieval Mind, like a thunder clap, back to Europe with them. The strength of the Pope and faith itself was never to be blindly the same.

The Crusaders also in the process came to see that at some fundamental level they were all the same....giving a push to the unity of Europe as an entity.

The failure of the Sword....(this is a delicate question, did the West come to depend more on the Word because the Sword had failed? Certainly the Word (not Christian Word, but Word as an intellectual construct), went out now as embassies and not the Sword.

Europe looked inward and developed an actual economy, and resulting prosperity, prosperity leads to leisure, and leisure to an intellectual rebirth of questioning.

The Crusaders also brought back not only knowledge from the East...but more importantly, an idea of adventure that eventually struck out across the Atlantic.

The argument is that the utter catastrophic destruction of the Crusader Army by Saladin was the essential spice that caused Europe to be.

^^^^^

What is interesting in this analysis is that if this is true for "us," then the same processes may be at work in forming a coalescing of Islam. Long term to be sure...if this will be good or bad is to be seen.

Best Wishes, Traveller

Islamic nations are unlikely to advance swiftly

(#300615)

Submitted by mmghosh on Thu, 02/28/2013 - 9:32pm.

primarily because Islam is, as a way of life, and culture, uniquely wedded to a single obscurantist period of history.

Also, it lacks both the irreverence and the downright hostility towards the sacredness of religious texts which is such a enormous feature of Western rationalist thought.

As an example - evolution is not taught at a Master's level cytogenetics course in one of the most liberal Islamic nations. This is an example of a biologist's struggle to teach the course. I know that there are creationists in the West, too, but nothing and nowhere as influential as they are in Islamic countries. Conservatives in the West seem to be, in the main, well able to compartmentalise their brains into what makes business sense and what is required by ideology, even if the two beliefs are incompatible.

Being encouraged by the ideological opponents of evolution at home and abroad, a powerful, anti-evolutionist propaganda has begun to operate in Bangladesh also. Various TV channels and NGO’s are devoted to this task. The academic world in Bangladesh is being influenced by this force. There is a great need for concerted action by the evolutionists to counteract this. They should try to reach the vast majority who do not understand English or has no access to internet. We need to have books in Bangla written in popular style like those of Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, Victor J. Stenger and Mark Parekh. To begin with we could start translating their books, if possible, with exemption from royalty payments. Here I would like to cite one of my experiences.

Some years ago after reading Steve Jones’ The Languages of the Genes, I wanted to make it available to our people in Bangla to give them some idea about heredity. I translated this book into Bangla as Gener Bhasha. I sought permission of the author to publish on gratis. He kindly gave his permission but its publisher asked for a nominal fee of 500 pounds, for the first print. Even this was too much for any publisher here, including Bangla Academy. The rules and regulations of this Academy do not allow any payment to be made for foreign books. Finally, Dhaka University agreed to pay and Gener Bhasha was published.

literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it