with the bankers taking the mick out of joe public yet again and not even facing jail or punishment your defence of capitalism is shoddy and embarrassing!

“You keep saying islamism what is that? your stereotyping of 1.5 billion people is insulting and patronising to say the least.”

Er… you brought the subject up. I responded. And if you think your “evidence” is that capitalism has failed, then you should join Marx as he used the same 150 years ago.

Try harder.

Soso

“The West has been keeping the islamic world on life support since WWl, and it has been doing so in a myriad of ways.”

There’s a difference between the islamic world and islamism…

Anybody

You’re not anybody, i know you: you’re George Monbiot!

Second, we continue to send foodstuffs to majority-muslim countries that haven’t been self sufficient in food for decades now

Very good soso,

Is western Europe currently self sufficient in it’s foodstuffs? It plunders the third world and emerging nations. I didn’t know Europe could produce bananas all year round. I’m sure it was North Sea cod you had for lunch Friday afternoon, because the North Sea is teaming with marine activity.

It is doubly ironic that Islamists blame all the problems of the islamic world on Western interference when, in fact, it is Western welfare and aid that allows these societies to continue to function.

So basically you plunder the 3rd world blacks, and distribute it to the 3rd world browns. Nice one.

Are you quite sure? The Ottoman empire collapsed from within basically because it had no external financial suport. When left to their own devices, The Ottomans couldn’t pull through.

The West has been keeping the islamic world on life support since WWl, and it has been doing so in a myriad of ways. First, the countless billions in free foreign aid that have not only served to prop up various dictators regimes and theocrats, but which have also served to buy off the opponents of these same dictators and theocrats. Second, we continue to send foodstuffs to majority-muslim countries that haven’t been self sufficient in food for decades now. Third, The West keeps relieving the internal demographic pressures on these societies, pressures which could potentially serve as springboards to reform, by accepting wave after wave of Muslim immigration.

These ‘oxygen transfers’ are what is keeping the islamist patient alive.

It is doubly ironic that Islamists blame all the problems of the islamic world on Western interference when, in fact, it is Western welfare and aid that allows these societies to continue to function.

with the worlds poor living on less than $2 a day i would say capitalism has failed miserably unless your an MP or Sir Fred Goodwin and have a nice £16 million pension to live on.

If you haven’t seen real failure in the capitalist model i think you must have been living in a bubble, the economy is on the tip of an abyss and you can’t see any failure i think i found ideal job for you as the media representative for the chancellor of the exchequer!

You keep saying islamism what is that? your stereotyping of 1.5 billion people is insulting and patronising to say the least. With britian busily occupying and looting nations since its creation and currently occupying iraq and afghanistan irony of all ironies seeing as you want to blame islam and muslims for being occupied now! You can hardly call others the violent ones!

“post 33. By the same token the capitalists have been proven to be wrong following the economic meltdown we are going through yet again thanks to the boom bust bubble system!

If the muslim world prefers to have an islamic system over the democratic one let them have it or are you against them having that choice?”

er… capitalism isn’t utopian (alright, neo conservatism is, but that’s different) – it’s been with us since barter. also, i don’t see any real evidence of failure yet, do you?

On your substantive point, i’m not against consent, although it is worth remembering that the Nazis were democratically elected. Indeed, another “utopian” creed, it is useful to note that war and expansion also became their raison d’etre…

i am against Islamism per se because of its stance on women, gay issues, dissent etc, its tendency to resort to violence, and to use God as an “excuse” for its nastiness. islamism as i said above tends to exist and excuse its errors by blaming “the other”, another form of the religious practice (house of peace/ war etc and the duty to wage jihad) from which it takes its inspiration.

in short – an islamist neighbour would not be a quiet one.

It is called “The Remnants of an Army” by Elizabeth Butler

This was the massacre at Gandamak, the end of a disastrous campaign.

That makes sense. I did mean also that state building had never been attempted, but it didn’t come across that way.

There appears to be some confusion here in the comments thread:

Current strategy has been to keep troop deployments low coupled with massive firepower from the sky. This hasn’t worked, and has been largely counterproductive.

Proposals from General McChrystal involve increasing troop deployments and reducing aerial bombardment, with the aim improving intelligence and reducing casualties.

Just out of interest – what, exactly, was “legal” about the invasion of Afghanistan?

Sorry, it’s just one of those things that nags at me. Everything in your article is classic liberal/humanitarian Interventionism. Yet you don’t seem to apply the same principles to the Liberation of Iraq.

One thing that seems to get forgotten is that the US had, and has, no overwhelming need to Nation Build in either Afghanistan or Iraq. They could have installed “our son of a bitch” regimes in both countries and walked away. No occupations. No casualties. No huge costs. Just let the Afghans and Iraqis sort it out for themselves and bomb those we deem a threat. In fact that’s what some advisors told Bush to do.

You sneer about Bush “screwing it up” – but the fact that he made a commitment to the long term in both nations is, in itself, a remarkable step forward.

Isn’t it?

If the muslim world prefers to have an islamic system over the democratic one let them have it or are you against them having that choice?

Also, it would be worth noting that the Israeli state supported Hamas in the 70s or 80s in order to break the power of the (far more secular) PLO.

There is a power game going on, so it would be worth your while to explore who has done what and perhaps more importantly, who has the most power and who has less.

I won’t weigh in on what is the most effective way to end war, build social cohesion, and allow people in Afghanistan (and Pakistan) to build democracy – whether or not it is in a form that is to the liking of people in the United States or the UK. What I will say is that I think your primary argument for supporting the war is deeply flawed:

My reasoning for supporting the Afghanistan war: it will bring more stability to the subcontinent.

The mistake you are making is, as far as I can tell, assuming two things: 1) that ending the war would restore the pre-war politics and regional dynamics and 2) that the war itself is not damaging regional stability more than ending it would.

All the changes that have taken place during the 8 years this war as continued inlcude: the destruction of the poorly concieved of goal of the war in the first place; evidence that without massive and overwhelming force and violence in Afhganistan by the US and the UK no stable and remotely decent situation is going to be established in Afghanistan – and even that best hope is perhaps wishful thinking and more relevantly politically highly unlikely; the expansion of the war into Pakistan and the political cchanges in pakistan; the incipient decline (hopefully) of the Hindu right in Indian national politics; increasingly instability in Iran; a change in power to the U.S. to a more sensible group of people if nothing else; and most importantly, a six year unsuccesful, destabilising and violent war in Iraq that has been part of a broader social and political polarisation that frequently has included violence but also applies to immigration laws, diplomacy, funding, tacit or overt support for thigns like the blockade of Gaza, etc..

That’s just on the surface – it doesn’t even include what changes have occurred in the opium trade, which I don’t knwo about, what the extent of military penetration into social control in pakistan’s society and economy is and what the precise configuration of politics is in Pakistan right now, the stability of the state in pakistan, the prosepcts of the regime in Iran, etc. – all of which are in need of being taken into consideration – especially in the context of a global financial recession.

If you take as many of thsoe factors into account as possible, I would argue that continued violence in Afghanistan is likely to simply increase the level of violence without leading to any reasonable solution given the political will for war in genearl and this specific war in the U.S. and the UK for an enormous expansion that is effectively and honestly and reasonably conducted with sufficient appreciation of regional dynamcis, local context, and how to democratise, that the elties in at least the US have never understaood. In Pakistan, it seems that the violence and the actions of foreign powers on its soil are likely to increase social instability, increase violence, create new problems like the IDPs in SWAT, and perhaps push the state to try to exert more power than it is caopable of exerting, thereby leading to a massive catastrophe.

In contrast to the suggestion you are making, I think a clear indication of intention to withdraw would send a sign to people who are not in love wtih foreign and particularly US and Uk military presence in their countries, occasionally or frequently killing civilians, that there is a recognition of a coming stability. This, combined with a controlled withdrawal in line with a transition to more effective strategies (particularly involving civil society to civil society contact) would do more good for Pakistan and its people. I’m not clear what can be done about the entrenched power of the military in Pakistan or the graduyal islamicisation of Pakistani politics that has occurred over a long term, but I think that Pakistanis are the ones that need to be bolstered in dealing with those problems, rather than assuming that they can be bombed into agreement. This doesn’t preclude a much more targeted and realistic military component to foreign policy – but more along the lines of standard U.S. imperialism (along with its allies) than the descent into hubris and massive miscalculation and undermining of social cohesion on a global level that the Bush Administration fostered and which the Obama Administration hasn’t figured a way out of yet. That the British government has enabled the U.S. in doing this is its predominant sin.

I am not sure what will improve the situations best – it is highly complicated – but I do think that the idea that a continuation of the war in the manner in whcih it is likely to be conducted given contemporary politics and a global recession is liekly to do nothing for stability in the region at best and severely undermine it at worst. I would therefore abandon that as an idea for supporting the war and if that is what your support for it rests on, I would abandon your support for it.

Absolutely. The trouble is, like Samson, it risks bringing the temple down with it.

Islamism is a classic utopian creed – when it doesn’t work, it is only ever, like communism, because it was “not implemented properly”. So Iranian Islamism is a dictatorship “because they’re not proper Islamists” ((they’re shias, etc!).

The other excuse is conflict – note how Hamas can only exist in a state of war. When it won the election it had to spark further conflict with israel before it was exposed as useless (controversial!).

The trouble is though, that Islamists will always, always say – “it’s Gods law so it must be perfect, it’s just because the people implementing it are at fault/ outside powers sabotaged it, now come brother and concentrate on the higher cause as you murder and torture.”

It’s actually probably THE most dangerous, and useless, Utopian creed yet because at least the communists could be PROVEN economically wrong, and actually achieved one or two things like equality, space travel and dinky cameras, whereas the Islamists always end up poorer than they started off, at which point they call in God…

Sorry, but expect centuries of useless slaughter and relentless misery before the “collapse” of Islamism, folks…

Afganistan is a lost cause because the culture simply doesn’t give us anything to work with. Germany and Japan were defeated, reformed and democratised by the allies after WWII, but that was only possible because both countries possessed a ‘high’ culture permitting such changes.

Afganistan, otoh, is a fractured, tribal society, one which is dominated by clan warlords and one in which ony 15% of women can read and write.

I would even say that our interventions have exacerbated and prolonged this state of affairs because the money flowing in can be used to grease the squeaky wheels of clan-friction, thereby keeping the tribal arrangements and alliances afloat.

Were we to allow the Taliban to dominate, their outrageous misogyny, Bronze Age outlook and utter lack of sophistication, no matter the field of human endevour, would eventually lead to the implosion of the whole country.

Islamism, like communism, doesn’t work, and so when left to its own devices will eventually run its course and collapse.

I regretted it the moment and was going to change that bit — but a phone call did not allow me to edit it.

apologies, but that’s a motherfucking myth.

That’s a bizarre analogy.

why do you think the IRA and the Taliban are similar – I have no love for the IRA — but when IRA bombed they usually let people know in advance.

People are working together and are doing really good work in building a better quality of lives for all the people in Northern Ireland. Can you really say the same about the Taliban?