32 Comments

• Joe Glackin | Dec 26, 2012, 03:18 PM EST

  I believe you answered this whole affair with your own quote "But is this just symptomatic of something far greater than the burnings of a few books". Theres a lot more going on here and we all can have opinions . But we are entitled to know more even as the restricted /blackout are for security purposes ,seemingly .A lot of restricted Media reports given are an insult to our intelligence as it all leaves unanswered obvious questions.The German People were/are a similar cultured , indigenous race to all Europeans ,Americans.A general consensus was that they were going through depression as a result of the Versailles treaty and easily supported that seemingly genius National and Socialist system.Their megalomaniac leader premeditated assassination/ murder etc to gain power and lead the country. The rest we all know of the genocide, Holocaust ,etc. The Germans easily accepted their Country,s wrong and worked with the Allies. Since then, the Nuclear threat changed Political and Military operations. America saved Europe in two World wars but there's more involved now than colonial , ideologies reasoning. The amount of steel exported to the US from China and Chinese policy slipping in aiding US/European enemies doesn't add up Ireland and Afghanistan have one thing in common in that neither were ever conquered.The major threat from the Muslim east, natural resources and Korean, Iranian nuclear policies etc leaves these present unresolved complex times .I believe General Douglas Mc Arthur may have seen this more after Korea, when his reference to fighting a land war in Asia,meant more than jungles mountains etc.

• Curitiba | Mar 04, 2012, 04:03 PM EST

  I read in an English national newspaper that there is a trillon dollars' worth of minerals locked up in Afghanistan's hills. Would this have anything to do with it?

• GeorgeDillon | Mar 04, 2012, 03:01 PM EST

  OK. OLOingsigh has nothing to do with NATO. We copy.

• sirpeter | Mar 03, 2012, 05:49 PM EST

  Springfield9.Anyone who shoots back at American soldiers when fired upon is not civilized.Isn't that right Springfield9? It's nearly time to use the smallpox blanket trick again on these Indians/uncivilized people.

• ciaradexy | Mar 03, 2012, 10:27 AM EST

  Idiots like George give me a good aul laugh. He has been made look like a fool many times and yet he can never just accept the fact that HE CAN ACTUALLY BE WRONG! Irish people are quite humble and we dont sing our own praises. We like debate, discussion and argument but when we are wrong, we admit it so this just proves that george is not Irish! He has no irish traits whatsoever! Well done Dan! Your posts are very interesting. its good to see that some people on this site have travelled the world, experienced other cultures and countries, try to help out when they can and have something to offer and discuss rather than the pseudo intellectuals who p1ss and moan on here and think their ideas of a place and its people are fact! Its nice to read some non arrogant posts when people are talking about their experiences. More of this please!

• Springfield9 | Mar 03, 2012, 09:34 AM EST

  1. Afghanistan is not civilized 2. Remember Number 1.

• sirpeter | Mar 02, 2012, 07:54 PM EST

  @Charlie.Relax there now a second.Don't be to fast to criticize Muslims for their extreme violence over someone burning their holy books.If a Muslim starting burning American flags in America he might also be killed by fanatics if America was in a state of occupation by Muslims.The real crazy part is who thought burning Korans was a good idea.It frightens me that you think these people are backward.No nation on the planet is backward.You should respect people and families who survive in the harshest of environments.They do the best they can to make sense of it all and survive.If I locked your family and your pet dog in a shed for a few weeks.Your pet dog would start looking like a tasty meal as each day went by.I could say it very backward to eat your pet dog.You might even start eating each other as ye howled to Jesus Christ to save ye from the misery of it all.Even make all sorts of crazy promises.You wouldn't be laughing then.

• DanOLoingsigh | Mar 02, 2012, 04:47 PM EST

  Nothing to do with NATO, Nothing to do with NATO,Nothing to do with NATO...DO YOU COPY...Nothing to do with NATO!!!!

• GeorgeDillon | Mar 02, 2012, 03:10 PM EST

  OLOinsigh: So you were opposed to the NATO bombing campaign in Yugoslavia, which included the use of Cruise missiles, and killed many hundreds of civilians? And you supported the right of Serbs to self-determination and freedom? Well why didn't you say so? You really don't express yourself well, that's your misfortune.

• DanOLoingsigh | Mar 02, 2012, 01:53 PM EST

  Di-loon - Who is the biggest jackass, YOU. Only an utter clown such as you would invent my love of Cruise missiles...crawl back into your hole, grab hold of your nuts, and give a big Yank!!!

• GeorgeDillon | Mar 02, 2012, 12:55 PM EST

  OLOingsigh whines regularly on this site about Irish nationalists who wish to preserve an Irish national homeland. Yet it turns out he's a big supporter of violence. He loves bombs, as long as they are dropped from 30000 feet or come on Cruise missiles fired from 200 miles away. I thought the era of apologists for violence was winding down in Ireland, but there's still a few hold-out nuts.

• DanOLoingsigh | Mar 02, 2012, 12:30 PM EST

  Di-loon did not take time to enquire on the chronology of 'conflict resolution' before launching into one of his typical diatribes...1994, Republika Srpska (The Serb enclave in Bosnia) was placed under UN Sanctions, following the Bosnian Serb shelling of many designated safe areas, 70 civilians were killed and over 130 injured. The Bosnian Serbs surrounded UNPROFOR (UN Protection Force) personnel in weapon collection points and detained 199, so they were unable to get out and see what was happening on the ground (despite having agreed to this previously). It was post THIS episode of the Balkan conflict, and at this it was a EU/UN project, nothing to do with NATO, and long before any NATO action. Di-loon doesn't seem to mind the huge number of inter-ethnic killings in former Yugoslavia...only the NATO actions are criticised...I wonder why?

• GeorgeDillon | Mar 02, 2012, 09:42 AM EST

  OLooingsigh was he says involved in "post-conflict Rule of Law projects" in Yugoslavia. Maybe he should have brought some of his pseudo rule of law programs to NATO--they killed hundreds of civilians in their bombing campaign in Yugoslavia. Some rule of law.

• DanOLoingsigh | Mar 01, 2012, 06:43 PM EST

  George - I don't claim to have been in Afghanistan...I say I have been there...just as I was in Iraq (UN Oil for Food Programme), Yugoslavia (UN/EU Sanctions on Republika Srpska), Kosovo (UNMIK). What was I involved in...post-conflict Rule of Law projects, such as training locals in counter-narcotic strategies...these are 'post-conflict' so trying to stabilise the country...I think this is a worthwhile aim...although it's a lot easier staying at home, and safer too!!!!

• sirpeter | Mar 01, 2012, 03:09 PM EST

  Well Dano your comment below sounds plausible.Separating fact from fiction is the name of the game I guess.Cheers man

• GeorgeDillon | Mar 01, 2012, 02:50 PM EST

  So OLoingsigh: interesting that you claim to have been in Afghanistan. What were you up to there? Given your nasty postings on Irish nationality I'm sure you were involved in nothing good or decent. Big fan of NATO civilian bombing, are you? Never seems to have occurred to warmongers such as you that you don't win hearts and minds by blowing them up.

• DanOLoingsigh | Mar 01, 2012, 12:48 PM EST

  Sirpete – I only made the point about the Irish army detachment, one) to demonstrate that it was not simply a NATO taskforce and two) because I saw them with my own eyes. Now to the poppy growing; it is true that the Taliban cracked down on the poppy harvest, but it is also true that they are now involved in controlling the illegal labs where the process of turning opium into diamorphine (aka Heroin) is carried out. It is a valuable ‘cash crop’, and there has was a long-running debate amongst the allies as to how much resource to put into prevention of growing, with the risk of alienating the locals by preventing them from supporting their families…Given the cost in lives and resources, I just don’t buy the theory that NATO was in cahoots with organized crime…that’s not saying that individual soldiers have not got involved. The writ of the Afghan government does not run very far outside Kabul, so if a local warlord or other leader wants to allow production, it will happen…think S Armagh and diesel laundering ;))

• sirpeter | Mar 01, 2012, 09:51 AM EST

  Dano.All information received is open to question.I mean how do you know your father is really your father?Because your mother told you so!!That's why.You believe it to be a fact.But that also might not be a true.I just put down the opinions of Mullah Amir Mohammed Haqqani,the Taliban's top drug official in Nangarhar and a 12-member team from the U.N. Drug Control Program.Your argument back was "The Irish army have a detachment in Kabul, so its not just NATO" along with your own personal opinions.Which is OK.But you did very little to prove their "facts" are untrue.So to me their "facts" stand and your "facts" are brought on-board too.I now have more "facts" and understanding.It's all good isn't it? ;))

• DanOLoingsigh | Mar 01, 2012, 04:13 AM EST

  Sirpete - Some facts aren't really facts...I have worked in Afghanistan since the invasion, Kabul, Jalalabad, Kunduz,Mazar e Sharif etc. and have seen how things are...outside the towns it looks almost biblical...I think the 'nation building' project is beyond anyone's ability...the 'window'of goodwill, and there was a definite window when the memories of the Taliban times were fresh in peoples minds, was wasted by the Iraq campaign...how to exit and leave a degree of stability seems to be the current strategy...if that can be called a strategy?

• DanOLoingsigh | Mar 01, 2012, 04:01 AM EST

  Mangling fact and fiction doesn't help...As Azerbaijan does not share a border with Afghanistan, there is no prospect of any pipeline as stated...there is an existing Azerbaijan pipeline and a proposed one via Turkey to the Black Sea...There is a proposed LNG pipeline through Afghanistan from the north...but no 'build' timeline, due to instability...Has nobody seen the frequent torching of oil tank trucks in Pakistan? That's how NATO supplies most of its own AVTUR etc...time for yet another conspiracy theory???

• merefalow | Feb 29, 2012, 07:17 PM EST

  sounds a right mess doesn't it,well it would be if the purpose of the invasion had not been achieved,the oil pipe line from Azerbaijan to Karachi in Pakistan was under way two days after the British USA multi national oil companies invasion.mission accomplished.sorry i meant British army invasion,not.also how could the USA be so insensitive about disrespect to the Koran,surely their training would emphasize how delicately these things have to be handled,they just played right into their fanatical hands,the codes obviously had to be destroyed(discretely springs to mind}now how many are dead through ignorance and stupidity.

• sirpeter | Feb 29, 2012, 05:04 PM EST

  Dano.I just posts facts to the best of my knowledge.People can make up their own minds.I'm sure every time I buy a gallon of petrol somewhere along the line I'm financing NATO.I'll take my share of the guilt don't worry.

• merefalow | Feb 29, 2012, 04:10 PM EST

  ITS ALMOST UNBELIEVABLE that heroin production is up 93%in a country western nations have invaded,the western world iS awash with mind, body, family destroying drugs,it couldn't exist without the active collusion of the so called enforcement agencies,but then(THIS IS A MULTI BILLION DOLLAR BUSINESS)IT COULD BE DESTROYED OVERNIGHT if they brought in the death penalty for dealing.but when you have our troops protecting the drug crop,it makes you,or it should make you think?shades of Brit Hongcong turning the Chinese on and selling them the stuff,boxer rebellion, opium wars.something really rotten in the state of Denmark.

• DanOLoingsigh | Feb 29, 2012, 01:42 PM EST

  Sirpete - The Irish army have a detachment in Kabul, so its not just NATO...and many millions of Afghans fled the country during the Taliban years...warlords and zealots will bring more misery to that land after the pullout...the most threatened will be the tens of thousands who have 'collaborated' by driving, interpreting etc. for ISAF.

• ceceann | Feb 29, 2012, 11:44 AM EST

  When we see a US President that responds to the killing of US soldiers with an apology to the government that does nothing to stop the madness, is it really any wonder?

• sirpeter | Feb 29, 2012, 10:13 AM EST

  Open your eyes..the USA and its NATO allies are protecting their drug interests in Afghanistan…the web is so tangled and intricate that explaining it here would be a waste of time. Know this, before NATO intervention the Taliban had almost wiped Opium production out.The big economic hit to Organized crime and its western world government ties watched millions of dollars evaporate..thus the war.JALALABAD, Afghanistan (February 15, 2001)U.N. drug control officers said the Taliban religious militia has nearly wiped out opium production in Afghanistan -- once the world's largest producer -- since banning poppy cultivation last summer.The Taliban, which has imposed a strict brand of Islam in the 95 percent of Afghanistan it controls,has set fire to heroin laboratories and jailed farmers until they agreed to destroy their poppy crops.Mullah Amir Mohammed Haqqani,the Taliban's top drug official in Nangarhar, said the ban would remain regardless of whether the Taliban received aid or international recognition.It is our decree that there will be no poppy cultivation.It is banned forever in this country," he said. "Whether we get assistance or not,poppy growing will never be allowed again in our country. A 12-member team from the U.N. Drug Control Program spent two weeks searching most of the nation's largest opium-producing areas and found so few poppies that they do not expect any opium to come out of Afghanistan this year."We are not just guessing.We have seen the proof in the fields," said Bernard Frahi, regional director for the U.N. program in Afghanistan and Pakistan.He laid out photographs of vast tracts of land cultivated with wheat alongside pictures of the same fields taken a year earlier -- a sea of poppies.Now you have US soldiers patrolling the poppy fields to protect them from the Taliban.It's the Chinese opium wars all over again.

• EdinCali | Feb 28, 2012, 06:57 PM EST

  Sir Peter, wasn't aware NATO was taxing anything over there....Iconocles: America suffered more casualties in one day, D-Day, than in the whole ten year "war" in Afghanistan......Joycean, Thank you and I agree, us pulling out of Afghanistan will be brutal on the women....George, agreed 10 years is long enough....Pattbaa, I am not sure the US & it's allies wd settle for an armistice w/ Germany in Europe a 2nd time.

• pattbaa | Feb 28, 2012, 03:20 PM EST

  --The U.S could have liberated Western Europe withot a SINGLE casuality simply by arranging an armistice ( a temporary truce ) with the Germans with this condition---The US would end all hostilities against Germany if Germany would end their occupation of Western Europe. This would allow the Germans to fight only one enemy, Russia , and the Germans would have readily seized the opprotunity.The result would be Germans soldiers killing Russian solders instead of American soldiers , a situation that would have horrified Franklin D . Russianvelt ( read "Roosevelt" ) and his Communist-loving lackeys.--- When Germany attacked Russia, a then obscure , latter-to-be-famous U.S Senator in a Senate speech said this-- " We should help the Russians if the Germans are winning , and help the Germans if the Russians are winning , and thereby let them kill each other"--- And this U S Senator was ----? Proud And Thankfull , Greenwich Connecticut

• GeorgeDillon | Feb 28, 2012, 02:16 PM EST

  Some of the incidents in Afghanistan in which NATO forces killed large numbers of civilians remind me of the old Vietnam dictum of the colonel who was quoted: We had to destroy the village in order to save it. I don't expect much from NATO, in fact could someone tell me why this organization exists 20 years after the Soviet Union fell? We need to make some kind of deal with the Taliban, in which we ensure that they never again allow their country to be used to attack the USA. That shouldn't be too hard, I think they'll have learned their lesson. Once we get a hard deal done, we get out.

• joycean | Feb 28, 2012, 07:42 AM EST

  Good article, Ed. I imagine most Americans are thinking the same thing. Panetta said we would be leaving next year. I think sooner might be better. We were supposed to stay to "train" Afghan forces, but with these murders in the Afghan ministry, that seems pointless. The most serious loss will be to Afghan women.

• iconicles | Feb 28, 2012, 12:43 AM EST

  I've actually had some of these same thoughts on my mind all day today. America, as it has progressed, has become all too conscientious about what it wants "to go to war with", but at the same time, its willingness to commit to the type of mindset necessary to win said wars has actually decreased. No one willing to accept it as a threat wants increased Islamic fanaticism, but many of those same people blanch at the necessary tactics, strategies, and commitments which would bring about victory against the radicals. Likewise, most people want to eliminate heroin, cocaine, et. al. at home and abroad, but where are those people on mandatory minimum sentencing or other "necessary" tactics? In my mind, if the American people had been privy to some of the fratricide and other horrors which took place, especially in the early days of the Normandy Campaign, The Allies might not have won WWII at all or at least as fast as they did.

• sirpeter | Feb 27, 2012, 09:54 PM EST

  NATO forces are taxing the production of opium in the regions under their control and foreign troops are earning money from drug production in Afghanistan.This explains why herion use (world wide) is up 93% since the US took control.(UN stats)The Secretary of Defense has given strict and clear orders.The fields are the only support for the local economy,and are not to be touched.For fear of destabilizing the regions.The powers that be have a much higher calling.Heroin addiction and death is a bit like going to war.You're expendable.