I hope the answer to csteels question is no.
I too could look like AGiR ,but would not do it.
never going to make progress but will wait for that reply csteele.

Dear Yabby,

You said: “The Taliban survive, not because they are popular, but because if
you don't agree with them, you get shot. Fear is the driving factor.”

How do you reconcile your post with what is actually happening on the ground?

An example.

Mohamed Daord, Chora District chief, is the son of Rozi Khan, the Chora District Governor who was mistakenly killed by Australian SAS troops a couple of years back. Khan was vehemently anti-Taliban and his son holds no animosity toward the Australians for his fathers death. However last year he expressed grave concerns about the withdrawal of the Dutch forces fearing retribution from a former corrupt governor who is now a senior advisor to President Hamid Karzai.

He said when they leave he might be forced to flee Afghanistan or join the Taliban.

According to you as a refugee he wouldn't deserve sanctuary and as a fighter he would deserve a drone missile.

And I don't think it was fear that drove the father of one of the Afghan policemen who was also mistakenly shot by the Australians to join the Taliban, it was rage.

We seem intent on creating much more of it.

Csteele, one swallow doesen't make a summer. Sure there are
people backing the Taliban, but not the majority.

When the Taliban took over Afghanistan, millions fled to
Pakistan. When they were overthrown, millions returned.

Most of the Afghan asylum seekers here are doing so on the
basis of being Hazaras, so not getting on with the Pashtuns.

That is inter tribal, not inter religious.

Dear Belly,

It appears we may not have an answer forthcoming from SPQR. I am attempting other avenues to see if I can secure an answer.

Back to your post that I promised to attend to.

By saying you don't think the methods used to get Russia out of Afghanistan were a mistake you would agree then with Carter’s national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who said; “What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?”

You also asked; “what do you want for Pakistan/Afghanistan if America left today would you be happy.” Yes I would if they are going to continue with the strategy they are currently employing. Even the Australian contingent have been drawn away from reconstruction efforts to security measures, but after all these years their most forward base is only 30kms out.

To have the estimated Taliban numbers get as low as 10,000 then see within a year their number grow to 30,000 screams out to me that the current strategy is wrong.

It is a mess of America's making but they seem intent on going down a path of a military solution. It just isn't going to happen. Committing war crimes is hardly helping either.

I think Yabby, that csteele's observation is not so much in isolation, but one of many such instances of the persecution of the innocent.

The drones, (the subject of the original post) , only increase the possibility of such persecution.

Csteele also seeks to encourage discussion about the main motivators for hatred and suspicion, those being of course being, hatred and suspicion.

Regardless of left or right leanings, any society cannot judge itself valid, unless benchmarks for human behaviour are understood and accepted,
and at the very least, we should ensure that minimum standards are maintained.

And as for our own Civil Rights, they are practically non existent in our own country,
and we have managed to arrive at our this destination through our own apathy.

Never once having felt, the true weight of persecution.

Regardless of the pressure placed upon the persecuted, perhaps we could provide a social structure
for which the downtrodden could aspire, instead of despise.

In a perfect world perhaps?, but why not have that , if you can.

Drones in deed are the threads subject.
We hear they are a bad weapon, target civilians, funerals.
I disagree, but counter with a breaking news story.
First let me defend the questions that will come my way because of it.
Afghanistan was ,maybe still is,an international training ground for terrorists who act all over the world.
Moscow airport, arrivals area a bomb killed 30, not much chance it was aimed at military targets.
A great number are injured more may die,compare the intent of drones to this.
One mans terrorist we are told is another mans freedom fighter.
The freedom fighter is in uniform and in growing numbers.
Increasing awareness of this hate driven problem can not be diverted by highlighting a weapon of real use drones.
If Boazy is as you suspect so be it, if not?
Very hard to judge I grant you, but one way or another you case is not advanced by either result.
A generation has let it self be blinded to the history of warfare, to the reality that not fighting bully's and murderers is to surrender and in time seen only as weakness, further reason for more warfare.