Stoning

[Chronos]

Why are we spending billions of dollars propping up a government whose fundamental belief in justice includes stoning?

Adulterers may be stoned under new Afghan law

Under a draft of a new sharia penal code for Afghanistan, the penalty for convicted adulterers would be death by stoning if there are four witnesses to the crime.

[Dante]

Why are we spending billions of dollars propping up a government whose fundamental belief in justice includes stoning?

Adulterers may be stoned under new Afghan law

Under a draft of a new sharia penal code for Afghanistan, the penalty for convicted adulterers would be death by stoning if there are four witnesses to the crime.

Sounds like a party to me!

[ParkingPlaces]

While it doesn't apply directly to Afghanistan, we support Arab countries because we believe in oiling. Ourselves.

Saudi Arabia stones. We buy their oil. End of issue.

No standards at all are far superior to double ones, ya know

[Keyofdoor]

Why are we spending billions of dollars propping up a government whose fundamental belief in justice includes stoning?

Adulterers may be stoned under new Afghan law

Under a draft of a new sharia penal code for Afghanistan, the penalty for convicted adulterers would be death by stoning if there are four witnesses to the crime.

Can't you just buy witnesses?
And by witness are we talking about people watching someone commit adultery?

[Nick]

Agree with PP...bottom line is oil.  But we won't stand for stoning with rocks covered in oil.  We want the oil first.

[hickdive]

Maybe we could dig up the graves of some soldiers for rocks to send to Afghanistan as execution ammunition? That's just about the only way I can think of to make this more offensive.

I've friend who deploys to Afghanistan in March next year and will not be back until January 2015. I suspect his job will be turning down the duvets and putting mints on the pillows for the Taliban to get comfy just as soon as the last ISAF forces leave.

What a waste.

[Nick]

There is no reason to stay there after 2014.  There was not a reason to stay after Osama was killed.  We just do not know when to come home.  We still have troops in Germany and Japan from WW2.

[Chronos]

Can't you just buy witnesses?
And by witness are we talking about people watching someone commit adultery?

Apparently in Afghanistan doorways are 10 feet wide and voyeurism is not a sin.

[Chronos]

While it doesn't apply directly to Afghanistan, we support Arab countries because we believe in oiling. Ourselves.

Saudi Arabia stones. We buy their oil. End of issue.

No standards at all are far superior to double ones, ya know

We do buy what they are selling, just like we do products from China, Thailand, India, Russia ... but we don't have the US military in those countries to keep the peace and prop up the government.

[Chronos]

There is no reason to stay there after 2014.  There was not a reason to stay after Osama was killed.  We just do not know when to come home.  We still have troops in Germany and Japan from WW2.

Germany and Japan were different situations. We were actually in war with countries which had well-defined leadership, and we had to rebuild the countries from the ground up. We may have overstayed our welcome, but they aren't bombing our bases to make us leave, either. And, they don't routinely engage in human rights abuses, like stoning. Their females get an education and can drive cars.

We need to get the hell out of Afghanistan. There is no country to rebuild because we didn't destroy anything.

[Fiji]

Can't you just buy witnesses?
And by witness are we talking about people watching someone commit adultery?

Depending on the definition of adultery, this could just be four guys gangraping a woman and then handing her over to the cops.
They get a slap on the wrist and she's stoned to death.

[Mrjason]

Why are we spending billions of dollars propping up a government whose fundamental belief in justice includes stoning?

Adulterers may be stoned under new Afghan law

Under a draft of a new sharia penal code for Afghanistan, the penalty for convicted adulterers would be death by stoning if there are four witnesses to the crime.

Sounds like a party to me!

Sounds like dogging to me

[natlegend]

Why not just buy a pizza and watch some tv man?

Oops, wrong kind of stoned[1]

1.	I am not making light about this stoning thing, it is abhorrent and how it can still exist in the 21st century just... I have no words

[12 Monkeys]

There is no reason to stay there after 2014.  There was not a reason to stay after Osama was killed.  We just do not know when to come home.  We still have troops in Germany and Japan from WW2.

Germany and Japan were different situations. We were actually in war with countries which had well-defined leadership, and we had to rebuild the countries from the ground up. We may have overstayed our welcome, but they aren't bombing our bases to make us leave, either. And, they don't routinely engage in human rights abuses, like stoning. Their females get an education and can drive cars.

We need to get the hell out of Afghanistan. There is no country to rebuild because we didn't destroy anything.

Countries like Afghanistan and Kuwait are gateways to where the oil has to come through to be shipped across to the USA,that is one of the reasons we are there isn't it?

[Chronos]

Countries like Afghanistan and Kuwait are gateways to where the oil has to come through to be shipped across to the USA,that is one of the reasons we are there isn't it?

Afghanistan isn't one of the top 100 countries with proven oil reserves, though I've heard that Afghanistan has untapped natural gas reserves. It appears to be about 60th in the world. I don't think any of their natural resources are being tapped. So, if we are there for natural resources we aren't doing a very good job of manipulating them.

Did we even get one drop of oil out of Iraq? Did we get reimbursed for anything from the sale of Iraq's oil? While I agree that we went to Iraq for the oil, a lack of income from Iraq oil twice underlines the ineptitude of the Bush Administration.

Since we have been told repeatedly that we were there so long because we had to rebuild nations, we apparently suck at it.

[12 Monkeys]

I meant they were ports,gateways for the shipping lanes,thus needed for the tanker traffic

[stuffin]

Afghanistan may not have anything to do with oil (or gas), but rather Opium.

The UNODC report said the harvest was 36% up on last year, and if fully realised would outstrip global demand.

Most of the rise was in Helmand province, where British troops are preparing to withdraw.

One of the main reasons the UK sent troops to Helmand was to cut opium production.

OOPS...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24919056

Also remember reading something about thier mineral wealth which The U.S. was worried China was going to gobble up. 

[Chronos]

I cannot look it up at the moment, but I believe Afghanistan is the premier supplier of opium.

[Mrjason]

I cannot look it up at the moment, but I believe Afghanistan is the premier supplier of opium.

Its true. According to the UN anyway;

Production-wise, Afghanistan retained its position as the lead producer and cultivator of opium globally (74 per cent of global illicit opium production in 2012).

http://www.unodc.org/wdr/en/opiates.html

[Graybeard]

I am old enough to remember the beginning of recent UK involvement in Afghanistan: at the time, the TV News was full of "This is how we will stop the production of opium/heroin."

Later it became "Democracy for Afghanistan", well they voted for stoning - seems democratic to me.

Afghanistan has long been a buffer-state between Russia and India and later (now) between extremism and Pakistan. The problem has been that Afghanistan is anarchic and not a real country. It is more an area controlled by war-lords whose interests are themselves. The British tried to subdue the place in the [wiki]First Anglo-Afghan War[/wiki] (1839–1842), the [wiki]Second Anglo-Afghan War[/wiki] (1878–1880) and the [wiki]Third Anglo-Afghan War[/wiki] (1919) and then tried to install a puppet regime (shortly afterwards.) The Russian tried to take the place.

Nobody reads history and nobody learns. The Afghans are mired in the 12 century and there is nothing anyone can do about it.