This week I will mainly be talking about Afghanistan

First time I spotted this thread. I'm always in many minds about what I think about our presence in Afghanistan.

But either way, in isolation, I like these bits of info as to what's actually going on on the ground there. I dislike the lack of quality info from the media(operational secrecy issues notwithstanding), considering our army is in a real conflict situation and taking casualties. Please keep it up Balbas, if you get more .

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AFAIK the primary is to keep the turrists on the back foot and to help establish a pro-western or at least western tolerant Afghan.

The tribes in the region have been used to getting pasted since Alexander the Great. All foreign armies have invaded easily and then been bled as the tribes retreat and fight from the mountains which give them home advantage. When not fighting foreigners, they fight each other and the inter-tribal politics is complex. The situation is not heped by artificial borders on the Indian and Pakistani sides arbitrarily bisecting tribes. By and large the Taliban took power originally after protracted to-and-fro battles with the Northern Alliance (mostly mudjhadeen) - to deny the mudjhadeen the country. Post American intervention, Karzai was installed as he is apparently descendant from the old Durrani royal lineage and is an ethnic pashtun, which traditionally helped. Problem being that you also have Ghilzai who were waging jihad against foreigners before the word was known in the west (circa 1800's set to with the British). For most part most "Afghans" see the Taliban as knobs, and people celebrated when they were routed from Kabul, but are now aboviously growing weary of continuing occupation and civilian casualties.

HTH.

From what I've gleaned from various papers, websites etc, that ^ is a very accurate summation of the situation.

Demo's point however is still very relevant. The objective must be to set up a western-sympathetic government with enough resolve and means to keep the nutjobs in the north in check. Whether they will ever be able to do that is the big question, and the longer our guys stay there the longer they are target practice and provide a rallying point to the opposition which the Islamists will use to recruit from among the nationalists and train their own out of country jihadis.

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Never break more than one law at a time, and never carry more grass than you are willing to eat.

And there was me thinking it was about cutting down the supply of heroin to the US and UK.

On the radio news this morning, joint forces have destroyed a stockpile of heroin with est street value of £50m.

One of the effects of our 'liberation' was that the Taliban, for all their faults, strongly disapproved of drugs. With them gone the hill farmers and warlords have returned to their historic crop production, seeing as they have no other means of making a living.

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Never break more than one law at a time, and never carry more grass than you are willing to eat.

There's a guy from Swindon trying to encourage tehm to grow pomegranates rather than poppies. Apparently that was their traditional crop...


Tackling The Heroin Menace With Pomegranates

BBC NEWS | England | Pomegranates over poppies

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IIRC most of your mates are 'Royal'. This chap isn't, but he is Cdo trained and works with the brigade, albeit as a percy. I don't see why the experiences your mates are having would be vastly different tbh. Fair enough if they are though, post some up, would probably be interesting for the folks here to get a different perspective.

Quite. Are you 'Royal' now btw? I vaguely remember a convo I had with you saying you were joining up with the intention of getting to CTC-RM asap but that you hadn't yet. If so, fair play, if not yet, good luck, mate of mine (ex para reg) has just gone through and found it 'emotional', although by all accounts he passed with flying colours.

Aye, I may well do chap. I have to be a little careful about what I post though. I could get myself/others in trouble if I posted some of the stuff I get sent

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MC011

I was actually supposed to start nearly a year ago...I started then left as my old man passed leaving me to sort everything as everyone else was busy.

Sorted things,cleared head etc, had some fun now ball rolling again.

This is by far the easiest job to apply for and has taken me the longest to start....very irritating. Waiting for minor Op on lower back, 3 weeks for stitches to come out which is another pain as I didn't expect to have it and was supposed to start last week.
fuck my luck.

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Silence is Golden, Duct Tape is Silver

Good luck to you then. Best get the back sorted properly before you get in IMO, from what I've heard any injuries you're already carrying will just get worse when you're there and you won't want to be back trooped.

Good luck though, it's an awesome achievment to get the green lid.

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MC011

No one calls it 'the stan', in the same way that no one calls Iraq the 'sandbox'.

Well at least they didn't, although now everyone and his dog has been there they've probably even 'chavved' that as well.

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Wolf in wolfs clothing.

never heard of the sandbox.

Ive heard the Stan used a fuck load of times before tho.

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Silence is Golden, Duct Tape is Silver

Just had another email from my mate who is nearing the end of his tour. Won't post the whole thing for a variety of reasons, but there are some interesting (to me anyway) extracts below

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MC011

Fined for being drunk? So there are no stand down periods where a section or fire team can let their hair down?

You mean to say that the tommies don't go out of their firebase for a kick around with the TB?

War...It's just not cricket.

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You can run.....but you'll only die tired.

Thats sucks for being fined big time and sent home....

Surprise the Iranians being mentioned again, fuckers.

My mate told how about 30 Marines got into "contact" with the Iranians at the border "by accident"....video footage is insane, obviously not on the internet.

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Silence is Golden, Duct Tape is Silver

I might have accidentally done that too once upon a time.

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MC011