chickenfeather wrote:Exactly, this is why they would fight the US tooth and nail for control of the world's largest opium farms.
Without evidentiary support, that's just speculation. I can say though, what all of these countries want from the US is to be treated as equals, or at the very least, accepted as important powers on the world stage. Which we have effectively been denying them since the end of the Cold War. (Read Wilson's Ghost for a discussion of this, great book, very interesting, very poignant.) One of the reasons countries pursue nuclear programs is to gain the advantage of having to be taken seriously by other nuclear powers. Iran, especially, has legitimate grievances against the US for interfering with its sovereignty. We helped overthrow a democratically elected president in Iran and reinstalled a dictator. That kind of disrespect and interference is not something easily forgotten, and they've always wanted that situation atoned for. But I digress. I don't think anyone is really after the opium. Why wouldn't they just grow it in their own country and avoid the hassle of fighting a war for it?
chickenfeather wrote:Pakistan and Afghanistan are already destabilized due to the reasons listed above, namely the generous amounts of terrorist activity in the region. However, I don't see why the US should send ground troops in there. What could possibly be done to take out the terrorist activity when the action of doing so generates greater amounts of terrorist activity(as seen in Iraq)?
Two completely different wars and situations. This could be a truly epic post if I go into everything, so I'll make one point. We had an opportunity in Iraq to prevent a lot of violence, and we missed it. After the invasion, we disbanded Iraq's army and prevented many of the people who were holding positions of power within it from continuing to do so. These are the people who formed the backbone of the insurgency. By removing them from power and replacing with Kurds and Shiites created a huge amount of discontent, and allowed the country to very quickly descend into violence. I'm not saying we shouldn't have had power sharing arrangements, but we could have definitely gone about it in a different way. Also, we completely underestimated the size of the force needed to accomplish our goals in Iraq, and the hostility and violence that would ensue once Saddam was out of the picture. Evil bastard sure, but he was holding the country together and left behind one hell of a vacuum.
chickenfeather wrote:American intelligence seems to indicate otherwise. If we can trust that this information is correct and not a propaganda campaign, Iran is supporting the taliban. *edit* It would also not make sense for Iran to not support the Taliban since they are in agreement policy-wise(see Sharia law). Most countries only fight those who do not agree with them*edit*
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNew ... 5320070612
"Earlier this month, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he could not link Tehran to a flow of weapons into Afghanistan and Afghan President Hamid Karzai hailed his country's relations with Iran as especially good."
This is from that article, which was written in 2007 at the height of the Iranian nuclear program crisis (for lack of a better word). Yes Iran is funding Hezbollah and insurgent groups in Iraq, those are confirmed. Those are also Shiites, and their ideology is much closer to Iran's than the taliban. Anyways, in 2007 they were being beligerant about gaining nuclear weapons, and in order to create more fear about the consequences of a nuclear Iran, we spread rumors that we cannot confirm about how Iran is arming the taliban. Sure there might a rogue general out there passing weapons, or a wealthy investor who agrees with the cause, no country is ever a monolithic entity, but the goal of that information, taken within the context, is fear mongering. They did it with weapons of mass destruction, they did it with connecting Hussein to al-qaeda, why not about Iran? Based on past experience, I would fully expect some of the gulf countries to still be sending in arms because there's a lot of support for talibans ideology there. Who knows, maybe they're smuggling in those weapons through Iran? It's a complicated region, it wouldn't surprise me.
In the LA times article, the policy director from Human Rights Watch says that "under limited circumstances there is a legitimate place for renditions" and that the Obama administration is signalling that they do NOT want to continue sending people to "foreign dungeons to be tortured", but they need time to design such a system. I guess we wait and see how the policy is implemented, but it won't be a continuation of Bush policies.
