Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 356 posts

Re: Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure

#331

Post by rbanffy »

dragontamer wrote: post #204
rbanffy wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth noting Trump ordered the release of their leader, Abdul Ghani Baradar, from prison.

More importantly: Trump negotiated that release without consulting the Afghan government last year, while also setting a May deadline for US forces to leave. The Taliban used that as a recruitment call. We're months late on the original timeline, and they knew we were leaving last year. Of course the Taliban would surge in this timeframe. The question now is: is it worth to counter-surge to hold back the tide? It see…

The US failed to create the cultural change that would allow Afghanistan to be a westernised democracy. That’d take decades of building schools and hospitals and teaching every kid those western values until there is nobody who remembers the Taliban.

Sadly, it looks like this was never the plan. At least, some people profited from weapon sales.

Re: Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure

#332

Post by chmod775 »

Manuel_D wrote: post #229
chmod775 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's count them: Monaco, Israel, Singapore, United States of America, also Hong Kong, Macau, Vatican City if you want to count those. Everyone else in red or orange on that map is not considered an industrialized/developed country. 4-7 is plenty now? Especially considering the size and situation of the others?

And Russia, China, Turkey, Vietnam, Thailand, India, Pakistan, and more. Maybe your characterization was correct in 1950, but I have serious doubts if your criteria for "industrialized" fails to include the largest industrial producers by a large margin (China).

You consider countries in which the majority of households lack running water, electricity is available 20 hours a day if you're lucky, or where more than 20-50% of the population work in agriculture (typical for industrialized countries is 1-3%) to be developed?

Clearly they have no major infrastructure left to build and their industrialization is done. Nothing to develop left at all.

Re: Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure

#333

Post by kodah »

croes wrote: post #306
kodah wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US troops are held accountable for "war crimes" if that's what you're wondering. https://www.rt.com/usa/180692-marine-taliban-urinating-video... In that specific incident, such a degree of accountability was desired to be held that the Commandant of the Marine Corps is said to have attempted an influencing campaign around their trial: https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2017... I'm sure there are…

By US justice or international justice?

Geneva convention is internationally set

Re: Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure

#334

Post by kodah »

michael1999 wrote: post #284
kodah wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US troops are held accountable for "war crimes" if that's what you're wondering. https://www.rt.com/usa/180692-marine-taliban-urinating-video... In that specific incident, such a degree of accountability was desired to be held that the Commandant of the Marine Corps is said to have attempted an influencing campaign around their trial: https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2017... I'm sure there are…

The USA ran torture sites around the world, and famously deleted the tapes. That would be a nice start.

I guess I defaulted to understanding this in terms of US troops. What three letter agencies do is beyond me.

Re: Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure

#335

Post by sitkack »

queuebert wrote: post #214
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #194

I'm amazed at how many people still see the Iraq and Afghanistan interventions as correct moves. Just last week I was having a friendly mostly non-political conversation with two of my coworkers and then the topic verged to the military and then to the Iraq wars. (For context, I'm Canadian and they're both US ex-pats in Canada.) Both had the opinion, still, that the Iraq war was the correct move at the time. But coul…

The initial Iraq invasion was to enforce Kuwaiti sovereignty and stop Saddam's unilateral aggression which was destabilizing the region. We tried bribing him with aid, but he still invaded, so the U.S. kept true to their promise to enforce agreements. The U.S. helped a small country and protected its image. The second Iraq war may or may not have been WMD based, but Saddam slaughtered hundreds of thousands of mostly…

You are forgetting the whole part where Saddam asked/told us he was invading, and the US was silent, giving him tacit permission to invade. All to further US aims in the region. Saddam was our patsy.

Re: Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure

#336

Post by fogihujy »

sumedh wrote: post #226
fogihujy wrote: post #82

Holding the U.S. accountable for the war on terror isn't going to happen. The rest of us need to hold our own politicians accountable for collaborating with the U.S. though.

The problem is that US is like a 800 pound gorilla, you cannot afford to piss of the US.

Well, that why U.S. politicians won't be held accountable. That doesn't stop the rest of us from holding our politicians accountable, though.

Re: Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure

#337

Post by mschuster91 »

linuxftw wrote: post #209
mschuster91 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IMO, "nation building" is always an impossible mission. The objective should have been to attack, destroy the enemy, and leave - immediately. Punishing the sponsors of the 9/11 attacks, not entrenching an ideological split. That's bollocks. I'm German, had the Allied Powers followed the Morgenthau plan Germany would be essentially an Afghanistan today - an agro state and nothing more. But you all followed through w…

Germany is still occupied by Americans. We're still defending you from the same foreign adversary, Russia. If the US pulled out of Germany in 1965, what would have become of the place? IMO, it's clear. The communists would have been conscripted into war, West Germany would have surrendered rather than fight their countrymen. This is exactly what happened in Vietnam and it's what is happening in Afghanistan now.

Germany is nowhere near "occupied". The Allied Forces haven't had any say in German politics since the "Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany" (better known as 2+4 Vertrag) in 1990.

Yes, we host a couple of US military bases (Soviets went out after GDR reunification, Brits and French have long left), but these have no occupation purposes and competences at all.

Re: Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure

#338

Post by croes »

kodah wrote: post #333
croes wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By US justice or international justice?

Geneva convention is internationally set

But the trial was a US military one and not an international. So the US military judges decided if US soldiers did something wrong.

Re: Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure

#339

Post by sumedh »

fogihujy wrote: post #336
sumedh wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that US is like a 800 pound gorilla, you cannot afford to piss of the US.

Well, that why U.S. politicians won't be held accountable. That doesn't stop the rest of us from holding our politicians accountable, though.

> That doesn't stop the rest of us from holding our politicians accountable, though.

So your country goes against the US, the US retaliates by stopping trade. People in your country lose jobs, people demand the govt to fix things, what is your govt going to do then?

It easy to say our politicians should be accountable, real life is more complicated though.

Re: Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure

#340

Post by fogihujy »

sumedh wrote: post #339
fogihujy wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that why U.S. politicians won't be held accountable. That doesn't stop the rest of us from holding our politicians accountable, though.

> That doesn't stop the rest of us from holding our politicians accountable, though. So your country goes against the US, the US retaliates by stopping trade. People in your country lose jobs, people demand the govt to fix things, what is your govt going to do then? It easy to say our politicians should be accountable, real life is more complicated though.

I honestly doubt the current U.S. administration would do anything if say, Denmark started internal inquiries about whether their politicians' decision to participate invade Iraq was made on false grounds. If they did, the EU would probably not be happy about trade sanctions.

Denmark was obviously just an example, but there are a lot of U.S. allies, trading partners and so on, that all have assisted or participated in the war on terror.

Besides, the Democrats could probably just blame it on Bush anyway.

Post reply on HN