"Occupying Afghanistan and shoving foreign political institutions down their throat is just never going to work." - agreed, basically Iraq has a history of having a functioning government, so it is easier for the people to understand and back the current government.

Afghanistan on the other hand has a history of failed governments, insurrections, war with the Soviets, kings forced to abdicate. Tribal forces pulling and pushing, democracy has very little chance unless the people believe in it, and you can't make people believe in a system by sending in more troops. (though it may help)

It is with despair that I fear that the US government will never realise that just maybe, sometimes, someone may have a valid opinion that is different from theirs.

Also my political development was greatly influenced by an event that happened on 11th September. Just that it was in 1973 when, with the backing and help of the CIA, Pinochet and his friends bombed the presidential palace and then killed the democratically elected (but unfortunately socialist) president Allende of Chile. This ushered in a truly brutal right-wing regime and coined the phrase 'The Disappeared' to describe what happened to many of Pinochet's political opponents. This was in the wake of the debacle of Vietnam.

So my points are:
- do politicians never learn from history? You have to win the hearts and minds not just have overwhelming military might!!!
- America - don't keep trying to impose your view of the world on the rest of us - you won't make friends that way!

But hey - I'm not prejudiced - I'll play Diplomacy with anyone.

@hammac I hope you're not saying the Taliban "have a valid opinion". I think Afghan women and girls will feel differently about that.

[quote]the US will never fall apart the way the USSR did and it will never stop being a very important country in the world.[/quote]

There's a verse from the Qu'ran I'm particularly fond of: "For every nation there is an appointed time". In 1988, the Soviet Union was one of the world's two great superpowers and no one within or without could conceive of a world where it didn't exist (aside from a handful of people who were called nutjobs). Within three years, it completely collapsed.

Around 1200 B.C., every civilization of the Ancient Mediterranean suddenly and mysteriously ceased to exist save one (Egypt). This resulted in the Bronze Dark Age, from which civilization did not re-emerge for another 600 years or so. To this day, no one really knows why - but I'm sure all the citizens of the Mycenaean, Hittite, and Assyrian civilizations in 1201 were all completely certain their cities would still be standing the next year. (the Bronze Age Collapse is without a doubt the most fascinating and important historical mystery out there, IMHO)

Like us humans, the death of states can happen at any time. The end can come swiftly, dealt by foreign invaders. Or a state can succumb to internal factors after a long struggle (as I believe we are starting to see). But death always comes. The United States will fall eventually, the only question is when and how.

"I hope you're not saying the Taliban "have a valid opinion". I think Afghan women and girls will feel differently about that."

Does that justify invading? Actually considering that you think the Taliban was such a terrible afront to human rights and a shining example of sexual discrimination, why was the US happy to support them against the soviets? (actually the Taliban came to power because nobody waspaying any attention and the fueding warlords gave way to the promise of security from the Taliban, some might think this was a better result than continuing civil conflict.

I've never asked an Afghani girl/woman.

weather USA is winning or not in afghan.. I think people are only looking at it the way were were shown to... we wonder about the beginning of the war without a proper investigation to the cause of it.

what we shoudl really see is

the regualr people of the earth - loosing/dieing
banks, and weapons businesses - winning/loaning/profitting

That's a very self-serving and simplistic way of looking at the world. Our current interconnected and globalized civilization is here to stay. The only way to get rid of it is a general world war where nuclear weapons would surely be used, ending humanity altogether. This civilization is a world civilization. It can't fall like Egypt since there's no other things that could fall.

In this world civilization the United States has a powerful position. It has natural resources, a strong government, a society which is really the backbone of the globalization culture, and a robust economic tradition. As long as there's a global order like the one we have now, or even a pretty different one with continental unions and world government you will never have an irrelevant United States of America and you will never have a dissolution of the United States of America. Comparing our world today with that of the Bronze Age is improper.

The United States will never dissolve like the Soviet Union because the United States is made up of states with a true sense of national identity, rather than the USSR made up of totally separate nations. The USSR losing Tajikistan makes sense, the USA losing Iowa doesn't.

people move to their governments
army navy support people move to government

government retreat/disband

army people establish new government

the sad part is people are dieing, and its over things that they really care little about or know little about ... made to care like a football game our team vs their team.. we do after all need the support of the population in order tow age war

The Taliban did not govern Afghanistan. They laid down draconian rules that were strictly enforced. Governance would require some sort of service delivery, or at least an enabling environment for the private sector to provide services. They did none of that. They were never really interested in running the country, just controlling everyone's behavior to fit their religious views. Now they don't even care about that, they just want money from the opium trade.

Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the US all got involved helping the mujahideen against the Soviet occupation for their own reasons. The Taliban did not appear until after the Soviets had left. There should have been a serious international effort to rebuild a peaceful Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal, but the world failed to do enough and the Taliban eventually took power in the civil war that followed, which had its own dire consequences.



So help me if I get dragged into a pointless debate on this...

if you want to wage a proper war with a country that is in poverty starvation and oppression and has different education then our own/parenting, police the nation build schools and goto war with the population using logic... dont kill the bad guys that just sets a bad example ... I dont goto schools and kill bullies of my children GROW UP !!

the USA and RUSSIA foreign relations are not all that much differnet in history except their nationally prideful populations are feed slightly different information .. which is in fact doing the same thing I think of it just liek a ego war of bullies in the school yard.. your pretty accurtate mr light bringer

hmm I think governance really means, you do what I tell you
I like the think despotism a form of government (jsut not a very good one )

I'm fortunate in that my mentor briefs Gen. Petraeus.

gee who briefs Gen. Petraeus (you live a privileged life) lol ...

Im sad about the 30,000 even though it may be necessary, I havent really looked into it that deeply, I fear it maybe pandora's box of information & mis information(especially when there are more root questions about the whole situation.
A proper investigation in 911 should be made after all its the preliminary reason we invaded this nation and others(and why another 30k troops are being sent). Seems there is strong evidence suggesting there is alot of lies floating around about the official story, and if that evidence proves true (there is alot of name calling bullying going on about this issue in the media) in any regard it means TRUST should be out the window especially with what media agencies are telling us and the people in powerful positions.
I find it ironic that the big media is resorting to school yard tactics of emotional slander, and that some of the truth movement (richard gage and jeff king) are very well spoken and act like scholars about the issue. Its also very obvious that if what these men say is in any regards true that their movement will be infiltrated slandered and belittled in any means possible (extrotion blackmail public slander etc), however if they are wrong then, they must listen to sound science and reasoning , why not a proper debate on the subject or proper investigation a very large percentage of people believe them and are only asking for proper well grounded answers like why the investigating of 911 with no conclusive evidence was made before war was waged.. please look into richard gage and jeff kind and objectively
look at their material and if you so choose look at the material that tries to discredit them.

@Invictus, You my good sir are incorrect. Every power since the dawn of time has fallen. The Mongols, Egyptians, Romans, Austrians, Germans, Greek, you name it it's fallen. The United States will one day collapse, It's only human nature we are a very self destructive race of beings. It wont require a "general world war" to collapse it just will either from economic strains or civil strains. Something will cause it to collapse. Your entire notion of it being unable to collapse only proves my other point. Regardless of what we do it will fall, so we cover it up with our illusions and fantasies. Live in the real world for awhile buddy, it will happen.

Tolstoy, that's bullshit. We're talking about nukes, not oil. Human rights, not resources.

I'm sorry for Russia and China if a democracy equals "US-friendly".... speaking of which, maybe Russia and China should shape up their shitty governments too.

Ugh. Sorry. Obstructionists just really bother me.

You obviously didn't understand my point, Iceray0. Just as Russia is still a world player the US will always be a world player. Civilizations can't fall anymore, or if they do then they take the whole of humanity with them since there's still those pesky nuclear weapons. A destruction of the United States is impossible if the rest of the world is to continue. This is not to say the America is inherently special or anything, it's just that you can't have such a preponderantly powerful nation go down without bringing the rest of the international structure with it and that instability all but guarantees a nuclear exchange.

Perhaps my point would be better made by saying that America could possibly fall at some distant date, but that fall would also be the fall of the whole of mankind. Again, it's not because the world can't live without America, but rather that the world can't handle the sort of catastrophe which would lead to a total collapse of the magnitude you people are saying. Afghanistan will never do that. Even the dollar not being the world's reserve currency or probably even the bankruptcy of the Republic won't do that. So long as there are countries the US will remain at the very least a world power on the level it was in the nineteenth century.

It's you who need to live in the real world for a while and think to yourself just what would happen to the planet if the US were to fall. It would be worse than the Fall of Rome and lead to an unprecedented level of instability and destruction, even worse than the already ridiculously high level of instability and destruction which would have caused the collapse to begin with. A world without America wouldn't last, if only because it would destabilize everything everywhere in every way.

Not to mention the fact that a decline to parity with China, Europe, and Russia is far more likely than any sort of Soviet-style dissolution...

the sad fact is if it falls quickly the world would fall too in some regard, just was it would if china or europe fell , there are infinite possibilities still, the US could slowly fall as the world organically establishes itself as it goes down.. hell if properly done maybe that could happen in 50 years or something

but ya if it fell quickly the world would go with it , just like when rome went and slowly at that, the world lost alot of ability

"This civilization is a world civilization. It can't fall like Egypt since there's no other things that could fall. "

Yeah, we live in a globalize community. the US ould easily fall from it's position as the single super-power. Influence in the UN (due to the US paying most of the UN's budget) would be lost, as China grows, the EU becomes more than just a trading block. Russia is in decline, falling population, poor health care, Ukraine is the same. I am sure the US could suffer a similar fate.

A turning point could be reached involving a huge change in public preception. (like the events of 9/11) however given the poverty of Mexico and the rest of south america, I can't see people emigrating from the US any time soon. (in the next two decades at least) In the far east of Russia (siberia) people say the optimists learn english, the realists learn Chinese.

I'm sure Chinese influence in siberia, loans to build hydro-electric dams in neighbouring central asian countries (the stans, tajik, uzbek, turkmen and Kyrgyz) is going to continue increasing, as is EU influence in things like the mediterranian Union, partnership agreements with Russia, eastern neighbours, continue Accession talks with Turkey...

meanwhile the US has huge interest in an oil based economy, OPEC countries support this, however given that peak oil discovery was reached in the 60-70s oil is going to un out sooner or later. (we're now able to pump a lot more oil which was too hard or too expensive to pump in the 60s so production hasn't dropped, but we're not finding that much more oil today) So unless the US can turn around and become the pioneer of a new 'green economy' or something equally radical and difficult to acheive. (like a 2,000 W society) eventually their position as a global leader will be eroded, and the rest of the world will move on without them.

This effectively amounts to a collapse of the USA's global hegemony, it took two world wars to bring about the end of the British Empire. Maybe Aghanistan will not result in a major military defeat, but if at home it become 'another vietnam' and so politically charged that the US never projects it's forces again it could be seen as a last stab from a dying superpower...

An end to a total American hegemony is not necessarily a bad thing and does not equal a collapse. A mulitpolar world would not mean the US becomes a giant Austria. The rise of a united Europe would not be a rival to the US in anything but the Euro being the new reserve currency. A big, big deal but not the end of the world. It would make the US no longer the unquestioned leader in world affairs but rather just a very big player.

You also assume China wants to change the global order the United States has. I would think the Chinese would be perfectly content to keep most things pretty much in place like the World Bank and such while just bcoming a major player in it. I can't imagine China wanting to impose the worldwide military network to enforce its vision of peace like the United States has and certainly not Europe.

The future will have multiple centers of power like it has in the past, but that does not mean the end of America as a relevant player in the world. It does not mean a collapse. It does not mean a decline into a thing dangerously near irrelevance like the UK because while the UK could join with Europe, the US has no one TO join.

Green economy is pointless. Just like farm subsidies all it does is create an industry totally dependent on government funds to survive. Oil didn't get started with government funds. Oil's repelacement will be so obviously better that it won't need the funds either.

I'm much closer to the truth of America's future than any of you people. Just wait till you eat crow in 40 years when the US is still an important county on the world stage, no matter how bad things get screwed up.

You might say Egyptian civilisation never collapsed, but it's time passed, it continued to trade with it's neighbours, but it's power on the world stage was considerably weakened.

The US could very well go that way, but that is a realitive loss of power/control/influence in world affairs. You say the UK is near irrelevant, because even though it has the 4th largest military and the 6th largest economy it is still not the super power it once was.

The US could currently leads Japan as the largest economy by a factor of almost 3.
unless you count the EU as a single economy, however if/when India/China and the EU become larger more important economies, and US militrary no longer has it's way all over the world the US will similarily have moved from it's place in the world. (and will probably get along better with it's competing powers, because it wouldn't offend them as much... or maybe i'm dreaming there.)

Subsidies to kick start an industry makes sense, and if the US doesn't do it those countries who do will gain a huge lead. I don't know that there are any replacements for oil. Nuclear has been around for a while and is also provided with large government grants.

Farm subsudues are used to guarentee food security, which is a national security issue in many countries. The fact that it creates an industry dependant on government funds is a neccesary evil in some people's eyes - though i would rather the EU farm subsidies were replaced with land managment grants, where farmers were paid to keep the land in a useable state (but not neccesarily growing food, or not much food) - whether they instead grew bio-fuel crops, or sustainable tree farms for use as fuel/paper, or simply using the land for tourism...

I don't think you're that far from what i think of America's future, it's just a matter of PR, and international preception. However US citizens have been so uninterested in the rest of the world, they are unlikely to be too care about internaitonal preceptions...

The UK isn't what it once was, but no-one wants to move back to 1910 Britain. If America is no longer completely dominant that doesn't at all mean it'll be worse