Afghanistan 1952: The Future Was So Bright

[Perknose]

Fascinating, mulitmedia, in-depth look @ Afghanistan in the 1950s and 60s through the eyes of an American who lived and worked there.

 

[sandorski]

Rather sad how it turned out. It just takes one schmuck who thinks they can do better, even though things are improving, to fuck everything up.

 

[Kadarin]

Rather sad how it turned out. It just takes one schmuck who thinks they can do better, even though things are improving, to fuck everything up.

Yeah. And now it's an impossible task to unfuck it up.

 

[Craig234]

How much has it hurt Iran - and others - that in 1953 Eisenhower decided to turn the CIA from an information agency into a covert ops agency, and overthrow democracy in Iran at the request of British Petroleum to protect oil price gouging? How much has Guatemala been hurt by similar the next year, Chile similarly by Nixon installing Pinochet at the request of Nixon's previous employer Coca Cola and some other companies, and so on?

I've seen that footage of Afghanistan before, and it's striking the changes.

 

[shortylickens]

I already knew what it was like.

Dad worked in the middle east during the mid 70's and told me all about it.

 

[disappoint]

I'm just going to leave this here. You can come to your own conclusions as to why, but I think it's relevant to point out that:

The official religion in Afghanistan is Islam, which is practiced by over 99% of its citizens. Sunni Islam makes up 69-89% of the total population while the remaining 10-19% are Shi'as and about 1% or less practice other religions.

 

[Whiskey16]

I'm just going to leave this here. You can come to your own conclusions as to why, but I think it's relevant to point out that:

Disappointing, as Your bigoted and supremacist conclusion is a deriding hatred towards Islam.

That is evidently clear.

You neglect to compare and contrast if the religious composition of Afghanistan changed between the period of the OP and today. A answering hint -- it doesn't help your argument for generalised blame upon Islam.

To the discussion of the thread, such a bigoted conclusion is inane as you've disregarded the previous posts outlining decades of external aggression and destabilisation into that and neighbouring states.

Political, rather than religious interference as being the root cause for instability.

 

[disappoint]

Disappointing, as Your bigoted and supremacist conclusion is a deriding hatred towards Islam.

That is evidently clear.

My bigoted and supremacist conclusion? Hatred towards Islam? Where? I think that is your conclusion. You posted it. Own it. It's yours, and yours alone.

You neglect to compare and contrast if the religious composition of Afghanistan changed between the period of the OP and today. A answering hint -- it doesn't help your argument for generalised blame upon Islam.

I didn't compare and contrast if the religious composition changed. I left that to you but it looks like you didn't do a very good job of it. So now, I'll give you a little hint in the form of a question:

Do you think Islam is the same religion today as it was in the past? Or has it changed at all? Because it seems as if you want to hold Islam up on a pedestal of unchanging perfection. I'm just curious how deep your ignorance on the subject goes.

 

[Craig234]

I'm just going to leave this here. You can come to your own conclusions as to why, but I think it's relevant to point out disappoint's religion, race, and family.

 

[disappoint]

I'm just going to leave this here. You can come to your own conclusions as to why, but I think it's relevant to point out disappoint's religion, race, and family.

What I "left here" were facts. What you left here, is crap. This is the discussion club, and thread crapping is not welcome here. I came here to discuss what happened to Afghanistan. If you didn't, you're in the wrong thread.

 

[Craig234]

What I "left here" were facts. What you left here, is crap. This is the discussion club, and thread crapping is not welcome here. I came here to discuss what happened to Afghanistan. If you didn't, you're in the wrong thread.

Thread Crapping? Where? I think that is your conclusion. You posted it. Own it. It's yours, and yours alone.

Now that that exercise in mirroring to showcase the hypocrisy you are guilty of is done, let's review.

Whiskey was right. What you posted was 'crap' and 'thread crapping', in making a blanket insinuation that all of Afghanistan's troubles is because their religion is Islam.

Can you learn from the exercise above? Well, probably not - look at your religion.

 

[disappoint]

Can you learn from the exercise above? Well, probably not - look at your religion.

Look at any religion by comparison. What's the punishment for apostasy in Islam? How about any other religion?

 

[Sonikku]

In a sense it's like we manufacture our own enemies so we continuously have reason to funnel greater amounts of the nations wealth to weapons manufacturers/contractors and the military complex.

 

[Craig234]

Look at any religion by comparison. What's the punishment for apostasy in Islam? How about any other religion?

See, I was right. You go from 'the country's problems are caused by the religion' to 'see, I can find something to criticize about the religion' and think your point is proved.

 

[bononos]

My bigoted and supremacist conclusion? Hatred towards Islam? Where? I think that is your conclusion. You posted it. Own it. It's yours, and yours alone.

I didn't compare and contrast if the religious composition changed. I left that to you but it looks like you didn't do a very good job of it. So now, I'll give you a little hint in the form of a question:

Do you think Islam is the same religion today as it was in the past? Or has it changed at all? Because it seems as if you want to hold Islam up on a pedestal of unchanging perfection. I'm just curious how deep your ignorance on the subject goes.

America funded the jihad and encouraged the most extremist groups with the hope of them taking the war into Soviet republics. Even to the extent of giving madrassas English textbooks with "k is for kalashnikov" "j is for jihad" to build a whole new generation of violent killers.
http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/4877/learn-to-be-taliban-k-is-for-kalashinkov/

 

[bryanl]

Damn secular humanist liberal values.

 

[Sattern]

It's very sad to see this happen, all their hopes and dreams ruined by corrupt people and now their motives have changed and the people torn.

 

[Kadarin]

Yeah, it's not that Islam never left the Dark Ages, but that it's actively moving in that direction. Here's another example: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jamie-glazov/how-the-veil-conquered-cairo-university/

 

[Jaskalas]

Yeah, it's not that Islam never left the Dark Ages, but that it's actively moving in that direction. Here's another example:

Are they living in the past... or the future? Perhaps their societies have devolved and we are soon to follow in their footsteps. With enough pressure, as populations swell and basic necessities cost more, are we not capable of radicalizing ourselves?

Perhaps it has already begun with our partisan divide, and the disease progresses from here?

What we need is intense expert analysis on human social psychology and how this sort of transformation in the Middle East takes place. Our enemy is the human condition, our likelihood to form into tribal gangs and murder each other. Those poor people over there are victims of this condition.

First we must understand our enemy, ourselves, and then work on ways to manipulate and confront it head on.

 

[Ryujin Jakka]

Its only fault of USA that Afghanistan is suffering so much. First they support Taliban and train them to fight against russian and then condemn them as terrorist and on the name on war of terrrorism kill 10s of 1000 of innocent children and people and commit war crimes far brutal one can ever imagine. Double crossers

 

[Perknose]

Its only fault of USA that Afghanistan is suffering so much. First they support Taliban and train them to fight against russian and then condemn them as terrorist and on the name on war of terrrorism kill 10s of 1000 of innocent children and people and commit war crimes far brutal one can ever imagine. Double crossers

My country, the United States of America, made many brutal, short-sighted mistakes, but to say it's ONLY our fault is to be willfully blind to the state of the political and social development of Afghanistan -- the endemic corruption of its leaders, the appalling and brutal social backwardness of its Islamic fundamentalists, and the pervasive win/lose tribal strife and non-cooperation that exists between its different ethnic groups.

 

[Craig234]

Its only fault of USA that Afghanistan is suffering so much. First they support Taliban and train them to fight against russian and then condemn them as terrorist and on the name on war of terrrorism kill 10s of 1000 of innocent children and people and commit war crimes far brutal one can ever imagine. Double crossers

As I said in the other thread, you're a flawed spokesperson for a partly good point.

I think it's true that most Americans don't appreciate the harm of many of our actions - they believe that it's 'for a good cause', that we're 'trying to do the right thing', and they don't appreciate a lot of the harm, they don't appreciate a lot of the selfish motivation for things they're told are for other reasons. That's a good issue to educate people about, and for the 10 or 20 Americans who are interested, there are good books about it.

But it just so happens there's a certain amount of truth to those 'good intentions' as well, that's it's also easy not to appreciate if you just get caught up in the harm. How much of Afghanistan's earlier prosperity was linked to outside nations? Without any involvement from the US, how was it going in Afghanistan when the Soviet Union invaded, executed the leader, and installed their own regime - the one the US was later opposing?

Things aren't all that rosy in a US-free situation for Afghanistan, either.

It's great to support a better situation, to oppose the things the US does that are mistaken or wrong, but not to forget the many other problems and good things the US does also.

Third world, weaker nations have long been oppressed by stronger powers - it used to be by colonization, now that's shifted to things like 'economic colonization' and proxy wars.

A lot of improvements have generally been made on that issue, there's more to be done.

But your simple complaint isn't very accurate in describing the situation.

It is sad that we hear so little first-hand information in the US about the actual situation in a place like Afghanistan, about the terrible things that happen.

I'd like more Americans to understand and appreciate the legitimate complaints about some of what we do (and to get better info myself).

Not many Americans turn in to a source like Al-Jazeera America for even somewhat better info (I catch only a little as well).

But we need to appreciate the threats to the Afghan people we're helping with also.

Unfortunately, I think we get a lot of this wrong. There could have been a lot of benefit to Saddam being overthrown in Iraq. But we did an incredibly poor occupation that created huge problems still hurting the country today, such as paving the way for ISIL. And not that many Americans appreciate that issue. They still want to frame it either as 'the war was good' or 'the war was bad' without any nuance about the occupation. When ISIL grown in power, there's no mention of the history of the bad occupation as a cause - it's only looked at as 'it's Obama's fault for being weak/pulling out'.

The Taliban was a pretty bad group of rules in a lot of ways. But there was very little opium production under them; now, apparently largely with the US allowing it to make their occupation easier, Afghanistan is once again the world's primary exporter of opium for the world's heroin market. Do we know what to do about that? Not that I've seen, whether it's trying to once again prevent the growing of the poppies, or legalizing drugs in the west and destroying the cartels with legal businesses, or whatever other solution might help. But the issues are more complicated than just the US causing problems. There's a lot of reasons many or most Afghans apparently appreciated the US presence.