'Taliban is ready to talk peace'

[RavenHawk]

Through education. You can't modernise a backward culture through force which is basically what our western policies have been doing in Afghanistan and Iraq in the last dozen years.

There are most likely other interests involved (oil, gas, strategic positioning...) that may have placed our troops there but if you or anyone truly believes we went there to time warp the Afghans into the new millennium then I'm afraid we've been doing it the wrong way.

And you think that education is the magic bullet? I don’t think so. What you need is opportunity for the youth to excel. With opportunity comes education. Education does nothing by itself. But given that, they are still ruled by Islam. There is no guarantee that education replaces ideology.

[Yamato]

Beware anyone who comes to you and says "there is no guarantee" as a rationale for disagreement.

[Black Red Devil]

And you think that education is the magic bullet? I don't think so. What you need is opportunity for the youth to excel. With opportunity comes education. Education does nothing by itself. But given that, they are still ruled by Islam. There is no guarantee that education replaces ideology.

How do they create these opportunities if they're indoctrinated from an early age into believing ONLY the word from the Quran and their Prophet Mohammed's lessons from 1400 years ago? I highly doubt their Islamic clerics are going to or allow them to. And if by chance there was a brilliant mind wanting to start an educational program that didn't include Islam and included women, where do you think he would end up?

These people need to be taught there is more in life than just Islam. Opportunity before education? I don't think so.

Edited June 20, 2013 by Black Red Devil

[Zaphod222]

So Obama capitulates. Fine! The US should never have gotten into this futile nation-building program in Afghanistan in the first place.

It is only a shame for the huge amounts of funds and the thousands of lifes which have been sacrificed for this idiotic project.

For this, Obama owes an apology to the public. And he should stop putting lipstick on this pig by calling the surrender a success. That means adding insult to injury.

A surrender is a surrender, period.

[Clarakore]

A surrender is a surrender in zero-sum games where hard power is appreciated more than the soft power of cooperation.

In compromise and negotiation where everyone gets some of what they want but not everything then terms such as surrender becoming meaningless because it becomes a win-win game where maximizing the well-being of both sides is favored over total domination-destruction paradigms.

Invading another country with such massive force over bombings, creating more casualties there than we ever had here, is asymmetrical warfare. The responsibility of administrating a whole country after a Pyrrhic victory does not really sound like winning to me which is what others probably had in mind when they speak of no surrender.

[Zaphod222]

Through education. You can't modernise a backward culture through force which is basically what our western policies have been doing in Afghanistan and Iraq in the last dozen years.

Oh, they will get their education now alright --- in Madarassas, where the only book ever taught is the Koran.

And every dissenting thought will be punished by death.

Remember, that is where the Taliban came from, they are a product of Pakistani madarassas.

The whole project of wanting to create a modern state on the basis of a 7th century virulent ideology was the very definition of insanity.

Surrender and get out now.

[RavenHawk]

How do they create these opportunities if they're indoctrinated from an early age into believing ONLY the word from the Quran and their Prophet Mohammed's lessons from 1400 years ago?

That’s still education.

I highly doubt their Islamic clerics are going to or allow them to.

It’ll be determined by the clerics.

And if by chance there was a brilliant mind wanting to start an educational program that didn't include Islam and included women, where do you think he would end up?

What a concept, conflicting education. “Sokath, his eyes opened!”

These people need to be taught there is more in life than just Islam.

Actually, there isn’t. For a Muslim, Islam is everything. It’s politics, it’s religion, it’s culture, it’s a way of life. There is nothing more. For that, I admire it very greatly. But for that same reason, it is very dangerous as it is not tolerant of any other way. The Ottoman Empire took the faith to its highest point, but the dogma prevented it from going beyond the knowledge of the ancients that they became custodians of. Today’s world has left Islam in the dust bin of history. And we are all feeling its death pangs. Even the Catholic Church modernizes by accepting the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe. It still has a long way to go with many social issues, but in the realm of science, it is on the path of enlightenment. You can’t say that with Islam. But without opportunity for the youth of Muslim nations and a national goal, other than killing the non believer, education isn’t what you think it is and it will not accomplish anything.

Opportunity before education? I don't think so.

Absolutely. Education for education’s sake only creates the highest educated morons. Kind of like what we have in this nation today. Without a national goal (i.e. NASA and the space program of the 60s) you end up wasting potential. All you have are people that have a piece of paper saying they have a Masters of Underwater Basket Weaving. Then they go to work stocking shelves for the rest of their lives.

[Black Red Devil]

Actually, there isn't. For a Muslim, Islam is everything. It's politics, it's religion, it's culture, it's a way of life. There is nothing more. For that, I admire it very greatly. But for that same reason, it is very dangerous as it is not tolerant of any other way. The Ottoman Empire took the faith to its highest point, but the dogma prevented it from going beyond the knowledge of the ancients that they became custodians of. Today's world has left Islam in the dust bin of history. And we are all feeling its death pangs. Even the Catholic Church modernizes by accepting the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe. It still has a long way to go with many social issues, but in the realm of science, it is on the path of enlightenment. You can't say that with Islam. But without opportunity for the youth of Muslim nations and a national goal, other than killing the non believer, education isn't what you think it is and it will not accomplish anything.

So in your opinion the way to address the ideology of Islam (the strict adherence to the ideology of Islam, considering we are talking about ultra extremists such as the Taliban), is through opportunities? I'm not sure you understand the forceful nature of religious extremists such as the Taliban but anyway, any suggestions?

Also, you might want to read up on the spread of Islam by the Arabs (from the Arabian Peninsula) and the Golden Era of Islam during the Abbasid Caliphate (also Arabs). The Ottomans were a great empire who unsuccessfully tried to spread Islam into Europe (except for current Turkey and pockets of land in the Balkans) but it was the Arabs who spread the faith.

Absolutely. Education for education's sake only creates the highest educated morons. Kind of like what we have in this nation today. Without a national goal (i.e. NASA and the space program of the 60s) you end up wasting potential. All you have are people that have a piece of paper saying they have a Masters of Underwater Basket Weaving. Then they go to work stocking shelves for the rest of their lives.

I can see what you're saying but you misjudge your western world with the possible scenario of a backward and sectarian nation filled with religious extremists and poorly educated and illiterate warlords.

[Black Red Devil]

The whole project of wanting to create a modern state on the basis of a 7th century virulent ideology was the very definition of insanity.

Surrender and get out now.

That's if you truly believe they went there with the intention of being good Samaritans to build a modern society.

[Yamato]

Might as well declare victory and throw a hundred million dollar victory parade for the returning troops. They didn't lose the war, they won every battle they fought, it's the policy that lost. It's the policymakers who are the losers. When we forsake the rule of law and rely on nation-building exercises in the wake of undeclared war, it becomes a game of political will. Afghanistan is Obama's Vietnam and we'll leave when our bureaucrats get the nerve up to leave. Afghanistan like every other country on the planet will be the country it makes of itself once we're gone. Puppet Karzai's regime may collapse in a civil war after we pull out. US bureaucrats have to decide if their puppet in Afghanistan is worth paying for. It was already not worth it in 2003. Al Qaeda is in over 100 countries and we're worried about terrorists living on a pile of rocks in Afghanistan? I can't think of a better place for them to take up residence.

Among the many lessons of 9/11 we are too stubborn to learn, the terrorists have to be here to hit us here. So long as we keep poking and prodding people over there, failing to win hearts and minds and causing hatred and resentment against us by propping up regimes people find detestable, they'll keep wanting to come here and retaliate. We will probably live under this threat for a generation longer than our policy takes to correct itself. Best start that 25-year clock today.

[RavenHawk]

So in your opinion the way to address the ideology of Islam (the strict adherence to the ideology of Islam, considering we are talking about ultra extremists such as the Taliban), is through opportunities? I'm not sure you understand the forceful nature of religious extremists such as the Taliban but anyway, any suggestions?

It’s not just the extremists. Where do you think extremists come from? If you are one of the many disenfranchised Muslim youth with no direction or hope, you become susceptible to the promise of better times and purpose provided by the extreme. Jihad *IS* a noble cause.

Also, you might want to read up on the spread of Islam by the Arabs (from the Arabian Peninsula) and the Golden Era of Islam during the Abbasid Caliphate (also Arabs). The Ottomans were a great empire who unsuccessfully tried to spread Islam into Europe (except for current Turkey and pockets of land in the Balkans) but it was the Arabs who spread the faith.

Yes. I know all that. I usually give lectures on it. But that’s not what I said.

I can see what you're saying but you misjudge your western world with the possible scenario of a backward and sectarian nation filled with religious extremists and poorly educated and illiterate warlords.

The warlords are the educated ones. They keep their people uneducated and no opportunity. That creates and maintains their powerbase. Bush has nothing to do with it.

[Frank Merton]

One hopes that in time the benefits of the modern world and its tolerance will take root, as it seems to have some in Istanbul and Tehran, but there will always be troglodytes.

[pallidin]

Education is most certainly a part of the "answer'

But, as was said here, how does "Western" education hope to moderate radical Islamic idealogy when the "teachers" bastardize "Western" educational values.

Someone else here suggested that "peace" and "Taliban" is an oxymoron. I would have to agree.

I don't know. This whole damn thing is a mess.

[RavenHawk]

Education is most certainly a part of the "answer'

Yes, education is *a part* of it. But if you are educated and don’t have the opportunity, you’re stuck in the same spot. However, if you have the opportunity, then you really don’t need the education right away.

[pallidin]

Are the men of the Taliban of such an idealogy that they do not consider women, who birthed them, worthy of education apart from strict Islamic teachings that make them far lesser than men?

How truly sad, clearly sexist, and dispicable.

Edited June 22, 2013 by pallidin

[Black Red Devil]

It's not just the extremists. Where do you think extremists come from? If you are one of the many disenfranchised Muslim youth with no direction or hope, you become susceptible to the promise of better times and purpose provided by the extreme. Jihad *IS* a noble cause.

Well I thought we were talking about the Taliban. A group that has proven itself to be Islamic extremists of the highest order. Where men are expected to find a mosque and pray 5 times a day, where a women's role as an incubator of babies limits the workforce down by 50%.

Afghanistan is a country rich in natural resources so the opportunities are there. When a society forcefully delimits their growth opportunities through obscene and suicidal rules, I call that ignorance. It's not fair to compare extremists to all Muslims but I do agree on your generalised opinion that apathy in a society can create unemployment, which can create desperation, which can create last resort options by an individual.

Yes. I know all that. I usually give lectures on it. But that's not what I said.

You said,

The Ottoman Empire took the faith to its highest point. I would like to think the highest point was the spread of Islam. The Ottomans failed to spread the faith.

The warlords are the educated ones. They keep their people uneducated and no opportunity. That creates and maintains their powerbase. Bush has nothing to do with it.

Although I doubt the warlords are "that" educated, I do agree they take a big part in deciding the destiny of their brethren.

Edited June 23, 2013 by Black Red Devil