Irannian arms found in Afghanistan

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2010-03-21 09:44am

Well Iran can provide anti aircraft missiles to taliban. Then the US can retaliate with arming Iranian dissidents with Stingers. Unlike US military in the hostile Afgan enviroment Iranian civilian aircraft and their military ones as well have little preparation. Of course they wont learn that untill a few airliners, helicopters with vips and a jet or two goes down. I imagine losing expensive planes would hurt Irans small economy badly so thats a bonus.

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2010-03-21 10:17am

Why are you supporting hateful unpatriotic anti-Iranian acts of terrorism on civilians? Why do you like murdering innocent men, women and children? You MONSTER!

Siege · Post by **Siege** » 2010-03-21 10:30am

Yeah, I bet a bunch of airliners getting shot down with US weapons will go over real well in the rest of the world.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2010-03-22 06:21pm

Also it seems that now the Iranians are actually training the Taliban now.

link

TALIBAN commanders have revealed that hundreds of insurgents have been trained in Iran to kill Nato forces in Afghanistan.

The commanders said they had learnt to mount complex ambushes and lay improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which have been responsible for most of the deaths of British troops in Helmand province.

The accounts of two commanders, in interviews with The Sunday Times, are the first descriptions of training of the Taliban in Iran.

According to the commanders, Iranian officials paid them to attend three-month courses during the winter.

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They were smuggled across the border to the city of Zahidan, in southeast Iran, an hour’s drive from training camps in the desert.

Instructors in plain clothes provided daily exercises in live firing. The first month was devoted largely to teaching the Taliban how to attack convoys and how to escape before Nato forces could respond.

During their second month they were shown how to plant IEDs in sequence so that the rescuers of soldiers wounded in one blast would be caught in further explosions.

The third month was spent on storming bases and checkpoints. A hilltop fort was among the locations used for practice by a Taliban platoon.

Local mediators persuaded the commanders to travel to Kabul to tell their stories. They were interviewed on separate occasions on the edge of the city.

Western officials troubled by growing Iranian support for the Taliban describe the accounts as credible. A military crackdown in Pakistan is thought to have encouraged Taliban leaders to look to Iran for more help.

One of the commanders said: “The military is pressuring the Taliban in Pakistan. It is certainly harder to reach places that were once easy to get into. I think more of my fighters will travel to Iran for training this year.”

Karl Eikenberry, the American ambassador to Afghanistan, recently described signs of co-operation between Iran and the Taliban as disturbing.

“Iran or elements within Iran have provided training assistance and some weapons to the Taliban,” he said.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran has publicly backed his Afghan counterpart, Hamid Karzai. But American and British officials have accused Iran of playing a double game by giving covert backing to the Taliban.

Shi’ite Iran had long opposed the Sunni-dominated Taliban. The reason for the change was summarised by one Taliban commander who said of the Iranians: “Our religions and our histories are different but our target is the same. We both want to kill Americans.”

One of the best comments I saw on this article was:

"How about an improvised B-52 bombing raid over Tehran?"

stormthebeaches · Post by **stormthebeaches** » 2010-03-25 12:49pm

So there's a fundamental deficiency of empathy in this world. You can dehumanize the death of fathers, husbands, sons, brothers and friends when it's happening to someone else, just because their skin is brown and they make stupid-sounding prayers five times a day while kneeling on rugs in dick-shaped minarets. They don't realize that each death, for these people, is no different from every American joe who comes home in a wooden box draped with the stars and stripes, rolled down from a C-17 transport with a stupid-dressed honor guard blowing dumb trumpet horns and presenting arms. This lack of empathy makes it trivially easy for people to cheer for dead brown people, for "freedom" or "democracy" or American foreign fucking interests, because they never know what it feels like if these actions are done back to them - if they're the ones who are subject to this same treatment that they apply to other people.

So I'm just trying to share. Because I care.

Oh, bullshit. The Taliban are a bunch of brutal thugs who took over the country thanks to Pakistani support and post war anarchy in Afghanistan. They were hated by the average Afghan when they ruled the country and they are still hated today. The average Afghan supports the current government despite its corruption over the brutal theocracy that was the Taliban's rule.

Collateral damage is tragic and should always be avoided but I shed no tears when a Taliban thug gets it.

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2010-03-25 01:12pm

What if it's not a Taliban thug?

My point was that it's just so easy for anyone, American or not, to wave away killing other people who are different. Sure, the Taliban were fucks, but were they the only ones the Americans blew up and/or otherwise killed? It's so easy to cheer for the enemy to get killed, since he's the "bad guy", and the fact that he's different makes it easier for people to rationalize casualties and dehumanize them and devalue their lives. That's how a lot of people can sleep at night, despite knowing what consequences some of their actions have on others.

That's why soldiers can end up singing marching songs about napalm incinerating children, and shooting the sick, the young and the lame.

Ryan Thunder · Post by **Ryan Thunder** » 2010-03-25 01:30pm

Of course it's easy. We don't see it. We aren't confronted with the results of our actions or the actions that we advocate directly.

Sometimes this is a good thing. And I emphasize that weasel word "sometimes".

Other times the results can be spectacularly awful. The holocaust might be a good example.

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2010-03-25 01:59pm

And when people are doing crappy things to you, the thing is, that's how they're thinking too. They've dehumanized you and devalue you, and so to them your life is just that. Collateral.

Which is a pretty sucky state of affairs to have people trading their collaterals with.

stormthebeaches · Post by **stormthebeaches** » 2010-03-25 07:52pm

What if it's not a Taliban thug?

Collateral damage is very tragic and is something that NATO needs to work harder to avoid.

My point was that it's just so easy for anyone, American or not, to wave away killing other people who are different. Sure, the Taliban were fucks, but were they the only ones the Americans blew up and/or otherwise killed? It's so easy to cheer for the enemy to get killed, since he's the "bad guy", and the fact that he's different makes it easier for people to rationalize casualties and dehumanize them and devalue their lives. That's how a lot of people can sleep at night, despite knowing what consequences some of their actions have on others.

I'm not entirely sure what the argument is. Of course, the US has killed more people than just the Taliban in its history.

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2010-03-26 10:53am

stormthebeaches wrote:
What if it's not a Taliban thug?
Collateral damage is very tragic and is something that NATO needs to work harder to avoid.

What if you're fighting wars where the enemy is NOT a clear cut savage barbarian? Certainly, in the case of a hypothetical conflict against the Soviet Union, the Russians are not the subhuman Slavs media likes to depict them as (again, for the purposes of dehumanizing and devaluing them - to make the thought of them as enemies, and killing them, easier to swallow). Yet, despite this, the deaths of Russians were cheered when you've got a sweaty machine-gun totting knife-fighting Italian Stallion who's coming to kill Russkies to help the very same savage barbarian Taliban thugs we now vilify (but back then we didn't vilify them, but instead portrayed them as noble "good" freedom fighters).

My point was that it's just so easy for anyone, American or not, to wave away killing other people who are different. Sure, the Taliban were fucks, but were they the only ones the Americans blew up and/or otherwise killed? It's so easy to cheer for the enemy to get killed, since he's the "bad guy", and the fact that he's different makes it easier for people to rationalize casualties and dehumanize them and devalue their lives. That's how a lot of people can sleep at night, despite knowing what consequences some of their actions have on others.
I'm not entirely sure what the argument is. Of course, the US has killed more people than just the Taliban in its history.

My argument is that efforts to portray killing "the enemy" as more acceptable and even encouraged actions are bad. Because this is what people, from gung-ho Americans to Islamofascists to Nazis, use to make acts of aggression more acceptable. It's stereotyping another group, who are the "enemy", as bad and whose deaths are acceptable, in order to make the idea of fighting/killing/bombing them more acceptable.

That's why you want propagandists to portray the Japanese/Norks/Charlies as short and short-sighted bucktoothed yellow people who should be slapped for war bonds, or why racists like to say shit about black people and other minorities. They don't want you to see these "enemies" as actual human beings with friends and families. They want you to see these "enemies" as disgusting stereotypes whose deaths are cheered!

stormthebeaches · Post by **stormthebeaches** » 2010-03-26 04:31pm

What if you're fighting wars where the enemy is NOT a clear cut savage barbarian? Certainly, in the case of a hypothetical conflict against the Soviet Union, the Russians are not the subhuman Slavs media likes to depict them as (again, for the purposes of dehumanizing and devaluing them - to make the thought of them as enemies, and killing them, easier to swallow).

Well, few wars are black and white. It all depends on the circumstances. Why are you going to war? Can war be avoided? How much damage will this war cause? What are you goals?

I really can't answer this question because it all depends on the circumstances.

Yet, despite this, the deaths of Russians were cheered when you've got a sweaty machine-gun totting knife-fighting Italian Stallion who's coming to kill Russkies to help the very same savage barbarian Taliban thugs we now vilify (but back then we didn't vilify them, but instead portrayed them as noble "good" freedom fighters).

Hate to nit-pick, but the people Rambo was fighting alongside in that movie were stated to be of the Panjshir valley. Those fighters would have been under the command of Mohammad Shah Massoud, who certainly was not part of the Taliban. In fact, he fought the Taliban very hard once the Soviet's left. Not to mention, the Taliban didn't exist until 1994 and they were largely a Pakistani creation. Plus the Soviet's and the Afghan government they were supporting were pretty brutal.

Post subject: Re: Irannian arms found in Afghanistan Reply with quote
stormthebeaches wrote:
Quote:
What if it's not a Taliban thug?

Collateral damage is very tragic and is something that NATO needs to work harder to avoid.

What if you're fighting wars where the enemy is NOT a clear cut savage barbarian? Certainly, in the case of a hypothetical conflict against the Soviet Union, the Russians are not the subhuman Slavs media likes to depict them as (again, for the purposes of dehumanizing and devaluing them - to make the thought of them as enemies, and killing them, easier to swallow). Yet, despite this, the deaths of Russians were cheered when you've got a sweaty machine-gun totting knife-fighting Italian Stallion who's coming to kill Russkies to help the very same savage barbarian Taliban thugs we now vilify (but back then we didn't vilify them, but instead portrayed them as noble "good" freedom fighters).

Quote:
Quote:
My point was that it's just so easy for anyone, American or not, to wave away killing other people who are different. Sure, the Taliban were fucks, but were they the only ones the Americans blew up and/or otherwise killed? It's so easy to cheer for the enemy to get killed, since he's the "bad guy", and the fact that he's different makes it easier for people to rationalize casualties and dehumanize them and devalue their lives. That's how a lot of people can sleep at night, despite knowing what consequences some of their actions have on others.

I'm not entirely sure what the argument is. Of course, the US has killed more people than just the Taliban in its history.

My argument is that efforts to portray killing "the enemy" as more acceptable and even encouraged actions are bad. Because this is what people, from gung-ho Americans to Islamofascists to Nazis, use to make acts of aggression more acceptable. It's stereotyping another group, who are the "enemy", as bad and whose deaths are acceptable, in order to make the idea of fighting/killing/bombing them more acceptable.

That's why you want propagandists to portray the Japanese/Norks/Charlies as short and short-sighted bucktoothed yellow people who should be slapped for war bonds, or why racists like to say shit about black people and other minorities. They don't want you to see these "enemies" as actual human beings with friends and families. They want you to see these "enemies" as disgusting stereotypes whose deaths are cheered!

It's no secret that in war people often seek to demonize and dehumanize the enemy.