Why is the news reader saying the soldiers in Afghanistan are risking their lives for us?

[FabBakerGirlIsBack]

Are the Afghan's a threat to us?

I don't understand at all what is going on or what they mean by the soldiers are risking their lives for us.

[FabBakerGirlIsBack]

scaryteacher - is there a HTH website?

[bloss]

Message withdrawn

[guvk]

Good point about the backwards shift of the position of women in Iraq. The invasion of Afghanistan had some credibility initially because that was where al Qaeda were. The lie-and-illusion-driven diversion to Iraq undermined chances of sucess in Afghanistan and created plenty of problems in Iraq that we claim to be ameliorating in Afghanistan.

There have certainly been improvements in the position of women in Afghanistan. But colonial tinkering by the USSR helped to sustain the power of the Taliban, and it is far from clear that the new colonial tinkering by the West will be able to generate a genuine solution.

[FlappyTheBat]

HelpForHeroes website.

[FabBakerGirlIsBack]

Thank you Flappy.

[policywonk]

I do agree that the situation for many women in Afghanistan is far from perfect, but for some, things are a lot better than they were pre-2001.

Agree also that the Iraq invasion has probably undermined humanitarian objectives in Afghanistan, and that a sustainable solution still seems some way off.

I don't think it's unreasonable, though, for Ainsworth to appeal (as he did today I think) for other NATO countries to pull their weight more in terms of troops in the region. We'll all be in the shit if Afghanistan and Pakistan fall to religious extremists.

[edam]

quite, agree the other Western democracies should be Doing Their Bit in Afghanistan. Not that it will make much difference in the long run - the history of Western intervention in that region is profoundly depressing.

[Maninadirndl]

Tesco is just one of massive corporate business interests who have taken over our lives. Our energy - also owned by large monopolies. The whole lot swallows up small firms and takes away our choices. That's the point I was trying albeit badly, to make.

[bloss]

Message withdrawn

[guvk]

I suppose opium is one of the few consumer staples that Tesco doesn't have a near monopoly on yet. Perhaps they sense a new opportunity.

Seriously, though, Afghanistan has to be one of the areas where the standard Maninadirndl-type explanation of intervention, in terms of support of corporate interests, doesn't apply: Afgh has no resources we want to exploit, no markets we want to exploit does it?. Invasion was simply to control possibilities of terrorism and has motivated a whole new generation of terrorists.

It has the recent benefit incidental I am sure to those who decided on invasion of furthering the civil liberties of women, and other discriminated-against groups. But will that ever be sustainable? And isn't fundamentalism in Afgh a little bit like the hideous Pol Pot regime that developed in Cambodia: a terrifying rejection of modernity/liberty that was itself produced by the traumatizing chaos of military invasion undertaken by a modern colonial power (USSR first, then the West)?

[Maninadirndl]

Okay then I'll withdraw my argument there. I am conflating the invasion of Afgh with Iraq which will be imho, one of the best things to have happened in the Middle East in 20 years time. The biggest problem is that it was carried out by brave people led by the biggest cadre of clowns on both sides of the Atlantic. The idea of attacking both countries was sound, just the means used in the execution by Messrs Blair and Bush were thoroughly incompetent. I lived in the shadow of Saddam's Scuds in Saudi and I can tell you it was no fun. He was a nutter and the world is better off without him. But the post war planning, (if I can call it that) and the way in which they paraded Saddam on screen when they caught him, Abu ghraib, Guantanamo for example, lost the West (UK/US) all the moral high ground with which they might have won far more Eastern hearts and minds had the war been prosecuted by more mature minds than we had.

I picked on Tesco. It was a general quality of life thing I was trying to represent (as a foodie Tesco is one of my pet hates). But reconcile this:

The guys flying out there from some Shropshire barracks for the first time are not going to come back the same people I guarantee that. How is the squaddie who goes out to Afgh and helps to wipe out a drug lord selling heroin to the West to reconcile things in his mind when he gets home and his mates offer him a spliff or even stronger, maybe a line of coke?

I hope I express this okay. I am not perfect at getting my ideas across I must admit.

I'll tell you one thing - the men and women coming back are going to have huge adjustment difficulties when they are home - just ask me I left the Middle East after 5 years in 1999 and I had massive problems.

[scaryteacher]

If he takes said spliff or does a line of coke, he'll screw his career for good.

All service personnel have some degree of difficulty adjusting when they come home - it's par for the course. That's why they do 6 month tours, so that it isn't too traumtic. There is help available - Combat Stress for instance will work with them, as will the doctors in the Forces; and most of all they'll talk to their buddies.

Doesn't matter where they go - Afghanistan, the DRC, Sierra Leone, they all have to adjust when they come back.

[Maninadirndl]

Teacher are you telling me there are no drugs in the military? That's a little unrealistic.

Over on the British Aerospace compounds where I used to drink home brewed beer in Saudi there was everything available.

There's another contingent of people out there who never get any mention, and that's the private sector out there working in equally tough circumstances as the military - the private contractors. I'm not sure how much it is carried out in the British Army but I do know that the US Army has privatised out loads of its essential services. I worked for the US Army on a base here in Germany and was treated by my office mates just as one of the US Government team yet I was a contractor and treated by my host company like muck. Lots of private guys will be coming back from Iraq and Afg with loads of trauma having seen violent things, and they'll be loose on the streets. I worry for those communities.

[scaryteacher]

Sorry - been back to UK for the weekend.

No, I'm not unrealistic, just someone with literally a lifetimes experience of the Services.

If anyone takes drugs in the military and get caught by the random testing, and no-one is exempt, no matter how senior; they will get booted out. My dh was tested, and had to be retested as they didn't like the colour of the urine test; he just drank loads of water as he worked in a v hot office.

The Forces do as much as possible to prevent drug usage, and most are sensible. Would you want someone stoned watching your back in Afghanistan or flying million of pounds worth of fast jet? They all know it is prohibited and what the consequences are.

Last time I looked, British Aerospace were civvies, not military, and so are under different rules.

Can we also get away from it just being the Army there please? There are roughly 450 RN personnel there at any one time, not counting the Royal Marine contingent (they are Navy incidentally, NOT Army), and the RAF have several out there as well. It is a tri-service op. There is some privatisation, but that tends to be in terms of the supply chain more than anything else; and as lots are ex military, they know what they may be getting into.

[clemette]

I don't think any news readers shoulkd be using emotionally loaded phrases such as "risking their lives for us". It is not impartial.
I don't feel it is disrespectful to say that they are risking their lives to help achieve the aims of the government and NATO...

[scaryteacher]

That's what the Armed Forces do Clemette, but they are risking their lives indirectly for us, to stop the spread of terrorism to this country. Do you want to see 7/7 again? I don't.

I am not impartial about this at all - my db goes in November, and I am grateful that he is willing to do it, as I am grateful to all the others that deploy where ever they are sent, especially to places like Afghanistan. I also cry each time another death is announced and you see the coffins unloaded at Lyneham and the hearses roll through Wotton Bassett.

If you want to be more accurate, the troops are dying because they are underfunded, inadequately resourced and sent into the field without the tools to do the job properly. That is the direct fault of Gordon Brown in his role as Chancellor and is current role as PM. Their blood is firmly on his hands, and I hope that he can't sleep at night because of it. Might I suggest that you read the comments section of the Daily Telegraph, where the journal of Mark Evison has been published. It makes sobering reading about what is going on out there.

[littleducks]

But when they use phrases like that dont you think it irritates the public more ad makes them less sympathetic to the services?

I hear stuff like that and think an illegal war, one that i marched alongside so many people to demonstarate my disgust in at the begining of this tragedy NOT IN MY NAME

stop terrorism here? you have to be joking, foreign policy is what has caused the disillusionment and anger in the first place

the photos an evidence of troops abusing and torturing prisioners has really helped

i dont know what you can do as if you are in the services though, i would have to be a conscientous objector in these times, i dont think they can kill you for that anymore, but what do they do, stop paying you the income you feed your family on?

[dilemma456]

Message withdrawn

[monkeytrousers]

Jux, They are risking their lives for us. You might not be aware that we have moral enemies, but we do. I think our who politicians are incredibe. I think history will also be much kinder to George Bush than people might expect.

[monkeytrousers]

"and has motivated a whole new generation of terrorists."

I don't think this is true. Certainly its just a guess anyway.

[clemette]

I simply don't think the "impartial" newsreaders should imply that the whole nation feels the same way about the British armed forces and the reasons for their deployment.

[clemette]

littleducks I marched too against the illegal war in Iraq but the war in Afghanistan is not the same.

[jcscot]

The attitude of " not in my name" something I don't quite understand. I understand it when that feeling is directed at politicians - anything they do should be in our name and they should listen to the voters over important issues.

However, I get a little mifffed when I see the same phrase trotted out in realtion to the Armed Forces. Being in the Services is like being in the police or fire service - they provide a public service for all of us. When a policeman or fireman is killed or injured in the line of duty, all you here is what a marvellous job they did and how wonderful it is that we have such fine institutions in this country.

When a serviceman/woman does their job, you get all this public hand-wringing about whether or not the war is justified.

A soldier/sailor/airman is a public servant in the same way that a policeman or fireman is - they protect us at home and defend our interests overseas. The only difference - and perhaps the real reason people feel uncomfortable about the military - is that they are called upon to take life as well as preserve it.

I think Dr Johnson was right when he said that "Every man thinks meanly of himself for never having been a soldier, or never having been at at sea.".

[scaryteacher]

If you refuse to go Littleducks, then you lose your job and therefore your salary. It is technically mutiny for which I think you can still be executed, though we wouldn't do that now.

I do hope when you say not in your name, that you distinguish between the politicians who send them there under equipped and under-resourced and the troops actually fighting. The troops need and deserve our support whether you agree with the Afghanistan campaign or not.

For those that don't feel the troops deserve support - let's hope you never need them; because you sure as hell don't deserve them.