Osama is just a babe in the Woods

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Interesting. I've got a problem with Tojo. Pretty sure the figure might be a bit higher, but a million here and a million there and pretty soon you're talking a real death toll.

There's a great story (well not too great if you're Tojo) about the first US war correspondants to turn up to his house. He'd tried to committ suicide so the boys rung it in (HTF you ring something in in a war torn city maybe suggests the story is apochyphall) and the bastard didn't croak. So being the liberal pinko journos they were they naturally decided to help him along the way so they didn't fark up the deadline or file a dud story. After an hour of trying to kill the farker they quickly decided to refile the story.

were those journo's relations of yours, bradders?

Growing up in Pakistan no one told me about the Bangladesh genoicide and it was only through personal reasearch that i found out about all the killings in East Pakistan.

Unfortunately we have NOT learnt from that disaster and our army continues to kill innocent civilians(the so called Talibans) in Northern Pakistan. There are times when in ONE operation they wipe out an entire town of people. The so called war against Talibans has been inefficient to say the LEAST.

'so called taliban'

Are they the same dudes that 'sort of' stone people to death

they use the new fangled exploding stones a lot more nowadays

You don't think the US & Britain should be involved in Afghanistan, TO ?

anyone but the taliban/isi for me

its a tough situation for them though. i dont see it being easy trying to build credible and strong enough institutions within that country for a long time

Well, you surprise me on that one, with your feelings on empires & colonization etc - d'you mind if I ask why anyone but taliban ?

I really don't claim to know anything like enough about the politics of the region to say very much - but as a Brit I was against intervention from the beginning.

I saw it as an unwinnable war, with no clear aim, no exit strategy, and - like Iraq, the Grinning Liar showing the world how big his dick was.

Sadly, hundreds of deaths later and precisely bugger all progress and even less sign of us extricating ourselves, I haven't changed my mind.

no taliban as that allows afghanistan to be used as a nation sized training and breeding ground for terrorists. and that affects my country more than any other. notwithstanding their terrible effect on the local populace they also have a severely negative influence on countries in the region, which kind of makes us interested in their elimination as well. its not an apples to apples comparison with classical colonisation

ideally of course a local afghan government that serves its people and also does not allow its territory to be used to attack other countries would be most preferred. dont know how that will happen though, at least anytime soon

just something quirky though. youre the first brit i know who uses 'zee' in colonisation. a colonisation of the mind?

's' and 'z' are pretty much interchangable these days

z is the correct spelling for the majority of words ending 'ize', they come from the greek. 'Ise' is a french ending and should really only be used for words borrowed in quite recent times from french. It's not an american vs english thing as many people seem to think.

TO, thanks. Apart from the outrage in Bombay during our last tour, and the attack on the SL team bus in Pakistan, we don't hear much news of that kind from your part of the world. Am I correct in thinking (from your reply) that random shootings and setting bombs in Indian cities is quite a common occurrence ?

If that's the case, is there any particular organisation behind it - and what are they trying to achieve? It's well known that many fundamental Muslim groups feel that western culture is taking over the world with all the consequenses that follow. but as an outsider there's no obvious reason I can see for the taliban to have such issues with their neighbouring countries. As you probably know, we had 30 years of IRA terror - but their stated ain was a united Ireland - but thats a world away from the situation in Asia.

I see your point regarding colonisation examples - no nation has plans to take over Afghanistan or colonise in the classical way. As for the spelling ..... put it down to early onset dementia

Winkle Spinner wrote:z is the correct spelling for the majority of words ending 'ize', they come from the greek. 'Ise' is a french ending and should really only be used for words borrowed in quite recent times from french. It's not an american vs english thing as many people seem to think.

True, although it depends who you ask and they are generally interchangeable as long as you use one form or the other in a piece of text.

However, I was brought up to use -ise and almost everything I read is -ise so I intend to continue doing that, although quite a bit of science papers/books will use -ize. Plus I don't know which words are of Greek origin and which are not.

Most common spelling mistake I encounter: definate. Also, should of/could of is quite common.

JKLever wrote:'so called taliban'

Are they the same dudes that 'sort of' stone people to death

No, JKL. The label "Taliban" is a green light to murder. Get it?

Growler wrote:TO, thanks. Apart from the outrage in Bombay during our last tour, and the attack on the SL team bus in Pakistan, we don't hear much news of that kind from your part of the world. Am I correct in thinking (from your reply) that random shootings and setting bombs in Indian cities is quite a common occurrence ?

more common than anyone would like. besides the large scale slaughter in kashmir we had major attacks in 1993, 2003, 2006 and 2008 in bombay. an attack on the indian parliament in 2001 and smaller blasts in various indian cities over the years. of course the protagonists are pakistani not afghani, but the taliban in afghanistan used to give pakistan a lot more space for setting up various camps for their training. besides the pakistani mastermind of the 2008 bombay attacks was released from an indian prison in 1999 after an indian airlines plane was hijacked and flown to lahore and then kandahar. the relationship between the taliban and the isi is too close for our comfort

india has been a target of the pan-islamic jihadis since the end of the soviet retreat mostly due to kashmir and of course since most of us are infidels who deserve to be ruled once again by the holy

That's not good to read. You say the atackers are Pakistani not Afghan - knowing the feelings between the nations that would make sense - but having said that, I'm guessing that taliban fighters are more associated with/loyal to the tribe rather than any the nation of their actual birth ... Afghan or Pakistani, they're taliban first & foremost I think.

Yes the Taliban are Pashtuns first before they are Pakistani of Afghani. Same is the case with other like Balochis which is part of the reason for the continuing instability in Afghanistan / Pakistan.