Strong talk in Finland taking wider role in Afghanistan
 

The director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, an independent think-tank, believes that Finland should seriously consider expanding its operations in Afghanistan.

Raimo Väyrynen says that at the least, the increasing instability in the region means that the Finnish government needs to set down a clear policy of involvement. This includes a thorough discussion of the risks, justifications, and political reasons for peacekeeping.

"The question is, how ready is Finland to commit to Afghanistan," Väyrynen says. "Is Finland ready to accept responsibility for a whole area in the north? This would definitely require sending more resources, and the risk would increase."

He added that he doesn't see how Finland can decide to pull out, especially since co-operation with other Nordic countries has worked well.

The government is planning to do a thorough re-evaluation of its peacekeeping policy this autumn. The government has already decided to pull out of Lebanon, where Finland has a very small presence to help in de-mining. It?s expected that Finland will increase its presence in Kosovo.

http://www.yle.fi/news/left/id65222.html

Good that this is discussed, its time to start taking some responsibility and stop hiding behind others backs. The foreign minister, defense minister and military have allready proposed this. Now its up to our weak links, prime minister and the president.:roll: People seem to be ready, there have been no demands to get out of Afganistan. NATO has offered three possible PRT (Provincial Reconstruction Teams) areas for Finland, Nimroz next to Helmland bordering Pakistan, Deikund and Panshir near Kabul. None of them are in the north, and he knows it very well. I think a few f-18s, SOF and Jäger batallion with Leopards and AMOS would be a good contribution.

I would nobody recommend to headlessly increase his engagement in Afghnaistan without clearing out the objectives first. The politicial goals for Afghanistan, as voiced by our beloved leaders, are slogans and phrases only, having little or no link to reality. Right now, poppy is cultivated under NATO protection. Sympathizers of the Taleban get bribed. The alliances between Afghan tribes are fluid. deals are done with the arch-enemy. The Pakistani secret service has it's hands everywhere, strongly sympathoizing with the Taleban. On both sides of the border, talking of an Afghan civiol war and a war between Kabulistan and Pakistani is growing. Musharaf at the same time has serious troubles to keep alive and keep it all together, playing fould double games on NATO and maybe even has no toher chance than to do so. The Taleban have infiltrated bigger and bigger parts of Afghan society, especially the farmers. It seems they were able to gain sympathy not only amongst Pashtuns, like last time, but in all ethnicities there - and that is new. That also is helped by the regular civilian mass killing by American bombardements causing "collateral damage".

It'S a maze, and NATO blindly stumbles around and does not even know wether to move to the exit, to the centre, or where the noise is coming from, and wether the pink sky means it is sunset or dawning, or is a poppy-dust induced hallucination. It should go back to the North Atlantic.

What we know is that the poppy cultivation hit all-time record highs with NATO standing by, Taleban successfully undermining administrative and civil structures, and Pakistan steadily moving towards war. - Some thousand more troops are hardly able to change that. I would prefer to see a fundamental change in strategy, away from trying to win battles in foreign countries like Afghnaistan and Iraq, and towards sealing our own homesphere against these places: militarily, economically, politically, touristically. We need to battle civil infiltration, and ideological indoctrination taking place in our places at home, dependance of oil, and demographic pressure from legal and illegal mass migration. In how far our armies fighting endless battles they do not understand and cannot win on the other side of the planet, can help in that, is mistery to me. At the same time the Taleban, and other factions!, are winning by successfully preventing NATO to gain military victory. They must not militarily win by themselves.

Afghanistan was lost in the first 18 months after the Taleban had been temporarily chased away and attention shifted towards the unneeded Iraq war, not giving Afghanistan the priority support that it would have needed. If you plant new flowers, you water them immediately after that - not two weeks later. Not even half of the promises that were given, had been kept, and many projects were misled by lacking knowledge, stupidity, and unavoidably mistakes, which often went at the cost of the farmers.

NATO's problems are self-made. Wait, NATO even was not involved from the start, and later allowed to get lured into the mess...

I know all that, its more about showing our friends. The military wants to go, and the minute they dont want, they will be pulled out. Thats the system here. ;)

As much as I aqdvocate my country's continued role in Afghanistan, thats a very undemocratic way to think. I don't trust the military one iota.:p

Every year there are polls about who the Finns trust. Some results, politicians 10% , used car salesman 25%, police 91%, military 98% :rotfl:

Your soldiers will melt under the sun...:shifty: they'll feel at home at night though.

I dont know, thing they have allways done first, since Suez and Sinai, is to build a sauna.:D Even hot desert feels cool after even hotter sauna. Heres one From Afganistan.

http://img154.imageshack.us/img154/9902/getdataip0.jpg

What are you talking about? Afghanistan even has ice fishing! :rock:

One RPG = One catfish.....expensive commodity.....fish probably cost more than Opium over there :hmm:

Ha that may be true. But politicians and car salesmen never enact coups all by their lonesomes. I just look back to the 70s in Canada during the FLQ crisis to know how far I can trust the cops and the army.

We have never had that even close. The reason of the popularity is that over 80% of the male population and some women serve. Thats practically everybody fit to do so.
Political stance doesnt effect the popularity, only some "commies" decline to serve. Theres civil service option for these and prison for those that refuse any service. These people are looked down upon here.

That definitley makes sense to me. In many ways obliged military service creates a different cultural appreciation for the military and it keeps people down to earth on the issues. I wouldn't be against such an idea in my own country if I trusted us not to get caught up in another American quagmeyre. Fact is that it would probably keep us from electing the dolts that would. Smaller countries such as Finland and Canada are definitely the kind that would benefit from such a tradition. I'm just wary of how that might be applied in the current state of my country. Generally our understanding of our own military is a bit conflicted as of late.

But good for your country.:up:

It it the great equalizer in this society. Everybody goes regardles of their bacground. Its the best place to be for an immigrant for exsample, no racism tolerated and you get a lot of friends. And most want to serve well and the competiton in to NCO and officer schools is high.
Different tests and exams the whole boot camp. You get extra points to universities and different colleges for serving in NCO and officer positions. Foreing missions are all voluteer based with more training before debloyment. There is allways way more volunteers than positions. It creates a sense of unity for the people. Its cheap, as a large country with small 5 million population we have a 400.000 man modern defence force to defend the whole area.

I've always thought a universal conscription for national service would be a good thing for us to adopt too, but regardless of the system, the key I think is that a nations military stays connected with it's people.

As long as we are them and they are us there can be trust.

Given your large foreign commitments you would have to have a combination system. You could give the training duty to the National Guard. You could have some 1.500.000 men serving per year from 9 to 12 months. They could enter service two times a year, January and July. 1.500.000 allready served reservists could come to train each year for some 12 to 30 days depending of their MOS. The service lenght and refresher intervalls can be adjusted by the current threat level. That would make your reserve little over 20 million 18-35 years old trained men. Also a big recruitment pool for the regular army. You could have equipment for all of them or depending your need.
Im sure it would improve the social cohesion of any country.:hmm:

That is the brilliant component of it too I think. Really I wouldn't be against wearing camo for my country a few times a year, so long as I get to decide when its worth spending 18 months in a desert dying.

It would also make sure that we're all aware of the deficiencies in the military that always seem to be so hard for us over here to understand.

One should not force somebody to participate in a war and the killing of people against his convictions and/or decisions. But a member of the military cannot be given the freedom to choose freely in which war he wants to serve, and in which one not - if the situation occurs, a military memeber has to go and fight, no matter what he thinks, period. That's why I am against conscription in general, for principal reasons. It is not a job just like any other, and thus should be left to those who really put, for whatever their reasons are, their heart into it, fully accepting the consequences and knowing what they give up : the freedom to choose. Also, I refuse the idea to accumulate extra points, or prestige in the widest sense, in military service that can be changed for advantages in later civilian life, or gain access to posts and universities places that else would have remained locked. That is a little bit too totalitarian a society system for me. It reminds me of the draft of a society you can see in that Verhoeven-movie "Starship Troopers". Maybe that and other latent criticism in it were the reason why it was a flop in the anglosaxon world? Becasue it painted out how temtping a fascist society is - because it could function. The question is for the cost of that.

What I agree on is to have an obligatory year of commitment after school, were boys and girls can choose between several alternatives in how far they run an obligatory year of communal, social, or comparable work, which may, but must not include the military, and can mean participating in international projects (aid work, etc) as well.

I'm also all for school uniforms, changed education paradigms, penalties for parents violating their legal parental responsibility, etc. - and there you are - I get started again... :lol: Changing the general attitude of the individual towards the community he lives in (and of), is more than just making a year of serving obligatory, many things come together, because many different factors with different effects on the individual's approach on life form our society. If we see young ones misbehaving and not respecting the freedom and wealth they live in, and think their handies and special proprietary cloathing is more decisive for wether you are "in" or "out", then this is only a mirror of the adult's society and leads to a general superficial attitude that our modern world is plagued by - and the society mirror the juvenile cults as well to some degree. It's about mutual effecting, so you need to start fixing society at many different levels and accident sites simultaneously.

So, military conscription is never acceptable for me, for principal and ethical reasons. And ugly experience tells that such a system also is no remedy to racism (becasue somebody mentioned that) or extremism.Referring to german military as well as other military - it'S a problem everyhwere, as I see it. Is Finland really that different?

We don't. :D War mongers are a thing on their own(coffUSAcoff). We are not training military to attack every country in the middle east. There's this big place called Russia nearby, and the new American bases in central Europe wont help a thing. If Russians decide to go, then we are gone, no matter what. Then the best bet is a large army, not being allied with yanks.

We have the civil service option for these people, some 6% take it.

Our career soldiers officers, NCOs and enlisted men go were ordered. Theres always more volunteers to foreign missions than they have need.

No reason to be against. They have given vows to defend their country, nobody forces them. Why wouldnt a citizen want to defend his country? If someone has a problem in doing that i think it is only selfishness, but they have the civil service.


Its not like they wouldnt get in college otherwise. Its just a way to reward them for giving this service to their country. Its the state that is the real winner, they get the best talent to serve in the military. Of the 30.000 concripts a year, some 1400 are selected to the officer school in Hamina. Most of our leaders in goverment, business and research are reserve officers. Some even stay instead of going to some better paid civilian career. For our fachist state it has worked well for 90 years and is combat tested.;)

Finns have actually very racist attitudes sometimes. But its mostly towards those that people feel dont appreciate what we have built here. I can honestly say that there wasnt any racism when i served. We had people of vietnamese, african and russian decent in our patch. They really wanted to be there, when they saw they get treated the same by their superiors and respect for being there from their peers. I remember an african who didnt know how to ski but went on stubbornly. He got the respect of us all. Most of these imigrants went to NCO school. Their families seemed very proud at the graduation, they knew what it ment in our society.

So if you refuse civil service you go to jail? Certainly you're not mentioning the exception for motives of conscience or religion?