• @betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world
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    -4611 months ago

    Should be raining switchblade drones on their leadership until they learn to behave. Let them play 13th century games on a modern battlefield without the courtesy of putting ourselves in AK-47 or exploding vest range.

    • Deceptichum
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      10211 months ago

      Because if it didn’t work the last 20 years the US was doing it, it’ll work the next.

        • @daltotron@lemmy.world
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          111 months ago

          More than that, drones are bad at constructing infrastructure, but they’re really good at destroying it. If you’re tearing through a housing complex to kill a terrorist, you’re going to make a lot more disillusioned people out of those who are now homeless. It’s really epic how people don’t understand this, and don’t understand how people might not look kindly to a military occupation generally, especially one that isn’t helping much to build out their infrastructure, or, maybe more importantly, position them in a way where they’re actually well off in the global market, since that’s something they have to worry about now in a neoliberal, globalized society. And then instead everyone’s just like, yeah, well, they don’t want our help, but they’re still a threat, let’s kill everyone, and then we can save the little girls that are never going into the classroom again after they’re fucking dead.

          I hate this place, bro.

      • @betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world
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        -611 months ago

        If you kill enough of the right ones, it’ll work. When their leader’s first act in office is to hose what’s left of the last guy (and it will have been a guy) off of the floor and walls, I think they’ll gain some perspective and make better choices. Can’t be as polite and delicate as we were over the past couple decades.

      • @betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world
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        -3411 months ago

        You’re right, what I’ve described above is the same as what you’re talking about. Good job not noticing the differences which were clearly meant to mislead.

        • @Squizzy@lemmy.world
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          211 months ago

          The US has caused this shit, why don’t you guys fuck off and stay out of conflict…just for like a week and see how it goes.

          • @kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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            1011 months ago

            The US is merely the latest to try and control the region. And their attempt didn’t end any better than any of the previous attempts.

            • @TheMightyHUG@sh.itjust.works
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              3711 months ago

              During the cold war, the US armed and supported radical islamist factions called mujihadeen because they were opposed to the communists. This didn’t help, but ofc there were other factors. When the US began its wars in the middle east in earnest, they killed a lot of people including civilians. As a consequence, they were probably the most effective recruiters for radical islam (when a foreign government kills your friends or family, you’d feel positively incluned towards fundamentalist groups fighting them too). Throughout the iraq war and the related conflicts analysts warned that us intervention was fuelling islamic terror. I was under the impression that by now this was common knowledge.

              • TheLastOfHisName
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                811 months ago

                I recommend the book “Charlie Wilson’s War” for those who want some insight into the funding of the Mujahideen.

              • @teichflamme@lemm.ee
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                -211 months ago

                What an ignorant take. Radical Islam existed long before the US went there. Salafism and Wahhabism have been around for more then century at this point, to name two of several fundamentalist movements.

                Muslims have been infighting with fundamentalists and more secular members of Islam for centuries.

                The US surely didn’t help, but they are so, so far from being the sole or main cause for the turmoil in Afghanistan and the middle east in general.

            • @Draedron@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              611 months ago

              For a big part, yes. Overthrowing democratic governments, funding radicals and bombing civillians tends to make people join the side that is seen as the enemies of the culprits of these crimes.

          • @teichflamme@lemm.ee
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            111 months ago

            What? This country didn’t allow education for women long before the US ever set foot there

          • Rikudou_SageA
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            -1611 months ago

            That’s some mental gymnastics. I dislike the US going abroad with their military as much as the next non-US person, but if I had to choose one instance where they weren’t the biggest dicks on the battlefield, it would be Afghanistan.

        • @chitak166@lemmy.world
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          -711 months ago

          It’s too late. Americans have adopted the ‘brown people need to solve their own problems’ mantra for this generation.

          Come back in 20 years when things are so shit we can no longer look away.

    • @Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Yes, because achieving lasting positive change by killing people has worked SO well in Afghanistan of all places 🤦

    • @afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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      -411 months ago

      Should have spent 20 years establishing islamic-free zones. You can only enter if you curse the prophet. Build up fortresses of civilization.

      • cannache
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        011 months ago

        Or just the dark mosque where young men pray and literally learn to box with blindfolds in the dark to take out their rage.

        Now imagine the next big movie, the transporter but next level badass, with beards, tattoos, swords, guns and straight up ICI the killer levels blood and Michael bay camera works. All in some middle eastern version of Bruce Lee but where the main character winds up fighting terrorists, Rambo, some random corrupt guy, his friends asshole neighbor and a whole gang of dudes who are all rapists or something strange like that, then there’s some GTA bad guys, some Russian mobster guy, the Wagner guys, then the final boss is like Bin Ladens paedophile friend/cousin whose secretly an o.g traitor, and also an MMA fighter, a kamikaze pilot and a bomb maker guy who has an entire harem of children and even a secret chapel hidden in the mountains where he prays to an evil alternate Allah for more children or something.

        The lore combined with the action would be enough to make a whole trilogy of badass

    • @Haagel
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      -911 months ago

      That’s funny because they think the same thing about the United States, as clearly indicated by bin Laden’s letter to the US.

      • PugJesus
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        811 months ago

        Bin Laden was Saudi. And the 9/11 attackers, well, they very much put themselves in range of an exploding vest, metaphorically.

      • @Haagel
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        111 months ago

        Bin Laden’s letter

        I’m just saying that he speaks in the exact same tone as this commentor and we should take note of the danger of this rhetoric.

    • @mean_bean279@lemmy.world
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      -5011 months ago

      Why should you give a shit what they do? I’ll hunt down anyone who commits acts of terror against the US, but I don’t give a fuck if these people want to repress their own people. It’s their choice how to live, not mine. One man’s repression is another’s freedom since religion makes people do dumbass things. They’re not worth the cost of a switchblade nor any of the other expensive shit we lobbed at that country for 2 decades. Once we had the guy that coordinated 9/11 we should have pulled out. They don’t want western style “civilization” they’re perfect happy (definitely not all of them) with their value and political system.

        • @HappycamperNZ@lemmy.world
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          911 months ago

          Interesting thing about Afghanistan is that according to the UN, each government of a country is well within their rights to how they run their country within their own borders.

          Yes, genocide and loss of freedom are frowned upon and sanctions are called - but as it is the religion and view of the country they are left to it. We can’t push western values on another country.

          • PugJesus
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            811 months ago

            Ah, yes, remember when the Taliban was democratically elected by the people of Afghanistan?

            … oh. It wasn’t?

          • @betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world
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            811 months ago

            The idea that half of the people in a country are still people even if they had the audacity to be born without a penis shouldn’t be a “western value”. Read the article again and find a book or two about what goes on over there before suggesting that we follow the UN version of Starfleet’s Prime Directive.

          • andrew_bidlaw
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            111 months ago

            Interesting thing about Afghanistan is that according to the UN, each government of a country is well within their rights to how they run their country within their own borders.

            The argument for other country to everstretch itself can be that other country’s problems leak over their borders. What is the reasonable limit there? Instead of ‘we want oil’, there can be another case of a biological weapon, or that Afganistan is the source of a world illegal drugs trade etc, or whatever. Even plain cultural or religious antagonism can be faned into a fire, sold to a public as good and just. Now, after what happened to Afghanistan after 20 years is discouraging, but in twenty years? With corrupt guys like Trump, a military lobby and other conflicts in acive phase?

        • @mean_bean279@lemmy.world
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          911 months ago

          You’re literally calling for raining bombs on a country of people who don’t want that… you’re not asking for human rights. You’re pushing your ideas of right on them. Have you learned nothing from what the middle eastern people have been telling western civilization over the last several years? They don’t want our ideas. They have religious texts that they believe sets up how to live and act for them. Just leave them the fuck alone and focus on our own countries.

          • @Jorgelino@lemmy.ml
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            1711 months ago

            Is there really no middle ground between “I don’t give a fuck about them” and “Bomb the country” ?

          • @betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world
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            -411 months ago

            I’m calling for raining bombs on a select group of people who can’t seem to navigate their way out of the dark ages. Advocating for the “sit back and watch” position puts a higher value on the lives of tyrants than the rights of the people they oppress. If we kill the ones in charge who turn out to be assholes, they’ll either run out of assholes or get the message. Both outcomes are fine.

            • @Sheik@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              So if Russia wants to bomb your leaders because your country allows slaves in prison like a middle age shithole, you wouldn’t mind do you? You should actually welcome it.

              And then when your leaders keep ruling as tyrants by refusing to give universal healthcare to your people, the EU should execute your leaders immediately, you agree?

              And when your police keep murdering black people, your leaders should once again get blasted, you’ll get the message eventually, right?

              You wouldn’t disagree with these rightful bombings, would you? It’s all for putting you out of your oppression and the dark ages.

              • @afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                I am fine with that. If all the politicians in the US were put on show trials and hung tomorrow I would go to work same as normal. You can do that for the Wall Street fuckers as well, plus the health insurance people, the lobbyists, anyone who sits on a think tank.

                Pretty much anyone who claims they get to rule over me and not provide people with a service. Go do whatever you want.

                • @daltotron@lemmy.world
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                  111 months ago

                  Pretty much anyone who claims they get to rule over me and not provide people with a service.

                  The problem is that these two things aren’t, you know, unrelated. You say, the health insurance people, right, and I would generally agree they can go fuck themselves, but I think if we kill a bunch of them, the power vacuum will probably just fill itself with the exact same shit, while people slowly get radicalized and possibly become nationalistic because everyone’s getting killed by a foreign government, you know, especially as the government that’s getting bombed to shit starts cutting propaganda about it. You need to actively be providing an alternative that people will flock to, when you go and kill these people, otherwise, you’ll just be eliminating infrastructure in the form of people, and you’ll be turning everything into a dark age political radicalization hellzone.

      • @chitak166@lemmy.world
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        3111 months ago

        their own people

        This might come as a shock to you, but those are people just like you.

        They’re still worth saving even if they aren’t from your country.

        You’ll understand when you’re older, maybe.

        • @mean_bean279@lemmy.world
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          -1811 months ago

          I love when you lemmings end your shit with “maybe when you’re older” like as if you’re some all knowing creature because you’re old as shit (boomer).

          Maybe when you’re older you’ll learn to leave people the fuck alone that want to be left alone. We’ve tried world building enough. The Soviets, the British and the US. How many dead Middle Eastern people will it take before your colonial ass realizes it’s not what they want.

          They’re only worth saving if they want to be saved. Keep worrying about your $1 food, I’ve got bigger things to be worried about that don’t involve making kids terrified of clear blue skies.

          • Mario_Dies.wav
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            2111 months ago

            Gods, I’m probably going to regret this, but…

            I agree with your overall point, but the unempathetic way you’re expressing it is really off-putting to me. For example…

            I’ve got bigger things to be worried about

            People say things like this all the time about problems that don’t affect them and that they can’t control (some other examples are homelessness, addiction, etc.). It always strikes me as being super uncaring and cold. No one’s asking you to help them directly or to let it spoil your day or whatever – but it takes absolutely zero effort to just briefly recognize systemic problems like these. In fact, I think it’s important that we do so. Why? Because that shit could happen here as well. That 6th-grade girl could be me, or my nibling, or my neighbor, and there but for the grace of god go I. (It’s an expression, I’m not being religious here.)

            Yeah, yeah I know “thoughts and prayers” and all that noise, but I think it’s more than that. There are oppressive religious entities here where I live in the US. Seeing what this leads to … nothing we can do to stop it, right. And FFS the US sending our military to try to fix anything is absolutely … “colonial” is a good term for it, as you said. Even non-military intervention, like when we send politicians to Latin American countries to lecture them on instability that we created. So wack.

            But I can at least recognize the humanity here, and what it must feel like to get one of those girls. It doesn’t really constitute “worry” to just care about another person and to express that.

      • @HappycamperNZ@lemmy.world
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        2711 months ago

        While I disagree with your view on “happy” and “choice how to live”, it is a very interesting discussion that a country never successfully developed democracy and equality without their own citizens fighting for it.

        We can push our values all we want, but until people die for how they want to live it won’t stick. Unfortunately America is declining for the same reason.

        • @chitak166@lemmy.world
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          511 months ago

          So I guess we should just take in the citizens who don’t want to live in that environment.

          There’s plenty of room over here in the USA!

        • @mean_bean279@lemmy.world
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          311 months ago

          I’m not saying I’m happy, or that I think they’re objectively happy. They just don’t want anything else or can’t conceptualize anything else. The people of Afghanistan have a way of living that they’re comfortable with since they don’t show much resistance to the status quo. We spent trillions on that country trying to make it “western” and a “democracy” like the US when the reality is that they don’t want that. They also don’t know anything different other than when we brought them “freedom” it meant the sky occasionally rained death and explosions. I don’t have an answer for them, and as history has shown for that region no one has an answer. I just know I don’t want to spend my tax dollars blowing up random people on the other side of the planet because I don’t give a fuck about them and I don’t want them to actively hate me in the future.

          • Zagorath
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            911 months ago

            Dude wtf are you on about. This is literally a thread about 12-year girls crying because they’re not “comfortable with…the status quo”. They clearly do “know anything different”, because that’s what they’re upset about.

            • @mean_bean279@lemmy.world
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              111 months ago

              Ok, we can go back to bombing random civilians then. I guess if we guise it under “human rights” this time it makes all the bad stuff go away. Y’all realize you’re literally asking for people to go in and bomb a sovereign nation solely because you disagree with how they’re living?

              I feel for those girls and the future they want. I hope they can make it to a country that supports them and fosters the same ideals they hold. Sometimes the country or culture we’re born into doesn’t align with us. However those girls aren’t a majority. I can find Americans saying things the majority of us don’t agree with, I can find Iranians saying things the majority of Americans agree with. These don’t make those things true of each others cultures. You’re wanting to change a culture because it doesn’t align with your ideals rather than realizing that sometimes that’s exactly what people want.

              I’ll leave you with this: The monarchy in Britain has centuries of human rights abuses, and is something I think is completely antithetical to Democratic principles. Yet 62% of Briton’s support the monarchy. Should I be able to drone strike them just because I disagree or think it goes against human rights? Where does that line get drawn except in all y’all’s Weird brains of assuming you know what Afghani people want and should get.

              • @betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world
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                311 months ago

                That’s a lot of words which you could have summarized as “I don’t know how to compare things, 10 equals 10,000,000 because they’re both numbers”.

              • Zagorath
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                111 months ago

                To repeat a comment you got 3 hours ago:

                Is there really no middle ground between “I don’t give a fuck about them” and “Bomb the country” ?

                • @mean_bean279@lemmy.world
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                  011 months ago

                  Not when they’re content and approve of the way things are, and spare me the “but here’s a video of a person unhappy about it”. I guess I’ll shift back then so the people of Lemmy can be happy to my true American roots and say we should bomb them again randomly. I mean, it worked for 20 years apparently so why did we stop.

                  The middle ground is to be friends with them. They don’t want that either (can’t blame them on that one), so leaving them alone is our best course of action. Bombing their leaders because of “human rights abuses” is exactly what created Osama Bin Laden, ISIL, and every other terror group in the last 20+ years. I’m sick of fighting and being at war. My country, the US, can build some of the greatest infrastructure on the planet. I’d rather build that and spend money on humanitarian relief to help people after natural disasters.

                  Next go around at trying to colonize Afghanistan can be done by Australia if you want. I’d hope you all would have opened a history book by then, but probably not considering the thirst for blood in this thread.

              • Zagorath
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                111 months ago

                Oh, and P.S., “Afghani” is a currency. Not a people.

          • Flying SquidM
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            111 months ago

            The people of Afghanistan have a way of living that they’re comfortable with

            Do those crying girls sound comfortable with their way of living to you?

        • cannache
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          111 months ago

          People in America are ready to die for almost anything and that’s unironically a bad thing

      • @Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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        111 months ago

        they’re perfect happy (definitely not all of them) with their value and political system.

        The way I see it, there are three groups in Afghanistan worth considering. The first is the group you referred to with that caveat: the people unhappy with their value and political system.

        The second group is those who are “perfect happy” (sic) with systemic oppression. They’ve built an entire religion, an entire way of life predicated on oppressing themselves. Those people, being “perfectly happy” with oppression, will gladly welcome the opportunity to be oppressed themselves.

        There’s a third group of people. A small group. So small you didn’t even see fit to mention them. Like the first group, this small group of people truly despises systemic oppression. They hate it. They know it is wrong, and they never want to be subjected to it. But, like the second group, they deliberately employ it. They actively and systemically oppress not just the “perfectly happy” second group, but also the first group.

        I see no problem whatsoever oppressing people who are “perfectly happy” being oppressed. They will relish the opportunity at being oppressed into a fine pink mist.

        I feel no ethical or moral compulsion to segregate the “perfectly happy” from the “hypocrites”. I think they should be similarly mistified.