Exit Afghanistan
A VPRO, Tegenlicht documentary by Mariusz Pilis and Olaf Oudheusden in which warlords and diplomats question what the West actually wants in Afghanistan. How justified and necessary is the current foreign military presence in Afghanistan?
The Western allied forces have been fighting in Afghanistan for more than eight years, and although they have established a legal government in Kabul, security, peace and development for the Afghan people are still far out of reach.
Backlight examines the justification and necessity of a foreign military presence in Afghanistan and addresses the most important question; What does the West want to accomplish in this country with its tormented history?
Exit Afghanistan features stories of ordinary Afghans, interviews with Taliban leaders and warlords and intertwines these with comments from Richard Holbrooke, Lakhdar Brahimi and Ahmed Rashid. Renowned Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk provides a historical perspective.
Propaganda!
There is no solution to the problem with corruption,drugs and terrorism in Afghanistan. Not one that a foreign country can fix. History teaches us that fact. Other countries have been trying to impose their own ideas of what Afghanistan should look like for over 100 years and none have been successfull. This is only something that the Afghan people can solve. And other nations need to let them get on with it. It might be painful to watch but it's ultimately the only solution. Eventually, given time, a functioning Government will evolve. Once that happens, the rest of the world needs to accept the outcome, whether it's good or bad. That, I'm afraid is the only answer to the problem of Afghanistan. Say what you like about the Taliban Government, that once ruled that country, but at least it was peaceful and it virtually eradicated opium production. Yes, it was ruthless and by Western standards, totally unacceptable in its beliefs and practices, but can anybody honestly claim that the people and the nation is any better today for the meddling of other nations? If left alone Afghanistan might have had a chance of progressing to something less unacceptable to the West. However, that will never happen until we leave them alone to sort out their own problems. If they ask for help to transform the nation to a functioning democracy then fair enough. But military intervention is something that should be totally unacceptable under any circumstances.
it says in the description ''although they have established a legal government in Kabul '' why whud i want to watch the whole movie if I can find mistakes in the description. they gorvernment is as corrupt as can be and maybe even worser than the taliban themself. Druglord mr Karzai is in power, what an achievevent. a there is an illegal goverment, fatalities of police, cevilians have risen, its its more dangerous than ever, and dont even spealk about security. the amricans and the british have made everything worser.
Exit, yeah, I have seen the signs in Malls and Auditoriums , get the hell out of there as soon as possible , Can't see , they have nothing to lose , too poor and too ignorant to have any role in 9/11, the biggest bullshit, almost proved as false flag ,No one has ever conquered this Country ,Russian were more savage , still they had to pack up, if US/NATO believe , they have superior ''fire power'' , they are stupid , they are simply aliens to rest of the world and should be left alone .
ok this is for the people who watches the tv and the news too much or they dont know anything about war and likes to leave a stupid comment. First of all Afghanistan is not terrisost counrty or the taliban. The 9/11 happened maybe osma binladen did ithe is from SAUDI ARAB he went to afghanistan to seek shelter with his ARAB soliders. Afghanistan had war as far is Alexander and the mongol and english and so on they all got defedt in that land by its people they just wanna protect their homeland they're not there to take over the world or nothing its just that other people when they take over their land they defend their country in another word they dont take s*** from no one. In modern war since russia not even one Afghan commette sucide untill now its all the arabs that they do sucide bombings. Even now if USA and rest of the world satys there with their solders and the best weapons the Afghan people wont give up. and excuse my speling and as long as u get my point
whoops:
there are 2 things that are keeping the US in the place it is at right now economically:
thats wrong but im too tired to edit it, figure it out :P
i don't claim there is some overarching plan for world domination but there is definitely a strategic military action possibility as long as the US is within strike range of a number of countries. russia china, the mideast, south america, north korea.
there are 2 things that are keeping the US in the place it is at right now economically:
world oil is still mostly traded in dollars which gives us an enormous amount of borrowing power. everyone wants to dollar to do good and by extension the US when the major import export commodity has to be sold in dollars. they CANT f--k our economy by asking for us to pay our debt right now becaue of what it would mean to trade.
secondly we DO have a huge military presence all over the world. we are in striking range of basically every potential trouble area. can you imagine how we would feel if china had military bases in places like canada and mexico because they were strategic to them?? part of the issue with geopolitics is that we are moving really fast and doing a LOT of things. can we juggle 2 wars, an exploding middle east, and an exploding debt on our pointless(imho) 4 year election cycle? in addition to this is the fact that we have lobbies for corporate interests guiding a lot of our policies. its like a huge clusterf--k of $$$$ and oil and debt and religious extremism both in the US and the rest of the world. it makes my head spin to think about, thats my piece i guess.
get your head out of your arse! ireland ain't worth the hair on my balls...even in risk!
@corvus (comment No. 88) that about sums it up. it doesn't take a genius to figure it out, a map and some pins should do it.
i'm irish, and now that we've sold our soul to the IMF and soon will be auctioned off to the highest bidder, i wonder will some super-power ( my personal favourite - China) come to our rescue?
and then...
when we're beholding to them, set up a military base here and encase Europe.(anyone who has ever played 'RISK' knows the value of Ireland/British isles)
i continue to place my pins and am not optimistic.
if you wonder what is the point in doing this, it's because they live in closed communities where they can have sharia law which means that no one can check that they have not got 4 wives and I'm sure the police wont check, the result is the Muslim population is growing 10 times faster than the rest of us, the clock is ticking before the Jihad against the Christians of lebanon happens in the west so there is no point in feeling sorry for people who are going to force you to convert at the end of a sword. They do allow you to live if you submit to allah but they force humiliation on you as commanded by the Koran.
@Corvus no one is arguing just debating, loose change, 9/11 ripple effect, all this crying about palestine from the muslims when they have killed the palestinians aswell but not in self defence on a number of occasions and no im not a Jew, the other one is you are on muslim land and get off it carry on, they live in europe they are on our land and also they are occupying egypt and the lebanon. Alqueda declared war on the west in 1998 so what do you want the USA to do, the only mistake they have made is that they have tried to do it with kid gloves, same as in Iraq, aye some companies might be making a profit but thats not evil, it's just bad policies, the Americans have made a lot of mistakes they should have studied the method the British used in these situations. However that may not have made any difference because Islam hasn't reinvented itself it has gone back to basics and it has nothing to do with what the west or Israel has did but it's just they planned it this way, they know what they are doing, they know they have large Muslim populations in Europe etc and they are radicalising them into the original form of Islam and teaching them to hate us, I'm not completely sure if that would have been possible without the west being in afghanistan and Iraq but the fact is they set the bate and the USA took it but it doesnt mean we should be condemning our countries, have a look towards the arabs they started this.
@Jesus in another guise
what muslim propoganda? if they had a propoganda machine they wouldnt be blowing themselves up to send us a message
nevermind, i dont want an argument think what you want
@all the anti-establishments here do you want to live under towel head rule because that's the future, you need to stop believing Muslim propaganda, I bet not even one person here knows that the Muslims launched Jihad against the christian country Lebanon 30 years ago, I know you will all laugh and call me a lunatic but check out the facts from a non bias Muslim propaganda perspective, the problem with the west is that it has been infiltrated because there are too many anti-Semitic Nazi lovers who side with the Muslims against the Jews.
just thought id mention that japan afghanistan and iraq and israel are great locations strategically if you ever need to bomb say.. china or russia, korea, iran, or basically anywhere you cant just fly from the US in a short period of time. its not really about oil or platimnum in afghanistan or copper or natural gas, its al these things. the military presence will keep us in the right place to control our interests if our economy crashes or we run out of oil .
Not one mention of Osama Bin Laden the boogie man. He hasn't been charged. No one has been brought to justice for 9/11. It was an inside job. Get out of the middle east and let those countries run themselves.
Just read some more of the comments and I wonder why nobody points to the obvious solution: the Taliban are sh**heads and so are the US and her allies (which includes to my deep frustration my country as well). Both sides have done and will continue doing unspeakable things and both in their own little way. And yet the majority of the people on both side seems to choose readily to believe that their own cause is just and the others must be evil lunatics (how else could it be?). The Afghans herd sheep in the mountains and the vast majority of them have never read a book except for the coran so there is at least an explanation. Why most of the people in the West see this conflict (and the ones related to it) like a bunch of ret**ded 6th graders continues to escape me...
@ reasons voice
I'm not gonna get into the the usual 9/11 debate but for enligthenement's sake Pipelines through Afganisthan are very valid argument. They would come in handy for the Russians but are much more important for the Europeans since going through Afganisthan is the most practical route to transport oil and even more important gas from Central Asia to Europe without crossing Russian territory. This would decrease European dependancy from Russian gas significantly and is not in Russias interest. I can't say to what extend this was a reason for the war or just a welcomed bonus, I'm merely stating the facts. If you wanna verify I suggest researching Nabuco and North Stream.
The doc is a little shallow but well made by the way.
Greenock Bhoy,
Yeah, and Osama was just talking out of his ass when he bragged to one of his Saudi Sheik friends on camera about how he brought down the towers, and all those communications and coordination going back and forth between Afghanistan, Hamburg, and the US just prior to the attack among Al Qaeda members were just a figment of our imagination. f
You do not want to correct me because you do not have the evidence to correct me with, so just be quiet and get off that conspiracy pedestal. The towers were not brought down the the Mossad.
we cant leave there we need to use it as a base to invade iran and any ragheads who dont like it lick my balls u pedophiles
Jay W,if you really beleive it was AlQaeda that was responsible for that youre a lost cause and dont even deserve to be corrected.The Taliban is not sheltering them anymore.Only innocent Afghanis and soldiers based there are getting killed,there is no good going to happen if the US and co stay there.
Unlike Iraq, the only reason we invaded Afghanistan was because of 9/11 and the fact that they were sheltering Osama bin Laden. If 9/11 never happened and Afghanistan never sheltered bin Laden, nobody would have cared about them. It would just be another case of Third Worlders slaughtering other Third Worlders.
But the fact is, if we do leave, Al Qaeda will be back, and we will basically regress back to the pre-9/11 situation. The Taliban is still sheltering al-Qaeda in Pakistan, and all indications point to a return of al-Qaeda once we leave. And if we do leave, we will have lost a base to attack al-Qaeda in Pakistan.
@Joedenbob well said my dear fellow, in my opinion people who side against the United States of America and the United Kingdom just don't want to face the reality because they are scared of these people because they have a crazy indoctrine but what they don't realise is that Moslems pick on the weak it is an order in the Koran that peace is only temporariy until you are again stronger than your enemy and then you relaunch jihad, they need to be oppressed to be kept in check, we need to supervise and rule these m@#$%^.
Wow I would hope that someone could make an un bias documentory. What of the attrocities performed by the Taliban since the NATO invation and before. What of the gross human right violations, especialy against women. Get a grip and learn the facts before you comment!
What the"Holy jumping monkeys in the sand"is going on in the comments here.Sounds like some of you are some "hard core" library thugs.Is that what you are? Looking up every peice
of rubbish you can dig up on my country.Wow, wouldn't want to p!ss you guys off.I mean I don't want to make you go all crazy and through a challenging word at me.
You anti-US f^cks are truly not in tune with "Survial of the Fittess".We don't need to kill our own people to get what we want to insure luxuries/needs.Evertime a peice of sh^t film maker sell his propaganda at the expense of hurting the loved ones that died on 9-11 and make a fortune, it just disgusts and infiriates the average citizen who thanks God every morning for living in The Good Ol' USA.
I hear some bash the gov.(alright)But they've been their for centuries and must be doing something right.We're world power(how ever smug and aragant that sounds,don't care)
I'm just a proud US citizen stating my oppinion that comes from the heart and not from every peice of junk articles I can dig up just to justify my feelings.I have hatred for EVERY sanddwelling Islam monkey.(Redneck style)
What ever happened to pride and show of respect for the fellow Americans? You know dam well how we got our country.We used brutal force so we could build a free society for ourselves...What? do you want gov. to tell every bloodie detail that it really takes to be a world leader.Of course we take what we want! To build and maintain power for us only..Show me one power house in history who has not done this.(and we will keep doing this not only for ourselves,but more importantly for our children)
No matter what you anti-US/Gov goons say, US is going to thrive and NEVER go without... from the heart of a realistic American.(not from internet B.S. theory)
Reasons Voice, here is some copy-pasta:
During the Taliban rule, Afghanistan saw a bumper opium crop of 4,500 metric tons in 1999. However, in July 2000, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, collaborating with the United Nations to eradicate heroin production in Afghanistan, declared that growing poppies was un-Islamic, resulting in one of the world's most successful anti-drug campaigns. As a result of this ban, opium poppy cultivation was reduced by 91% from the previous year's estimate of 82,172 hectares. The ban was so effective that Helmand Province, which had accounted for more than half of this area, recorded no poppy cultivation during the 2001 season. By November 2001, the collapse of the economy and the scarcity of other sources of revenue forced many of the country's farmers to resort back to growing opium for export.(1,300 km² in 2004 according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.)