Let's say the roles were reversed, and you were one of the last thousand people fighting for democracy. You can't win. You can only lose. And you probably will be obliterated with the very next bomb. Do you surrender? Or do you fight to the death?
It's hard to fight for the ideal of democracy if there is absolutely nobody left to participate in that democracy. Of course, wars almost never result in reducing a country's population by 50%, much less wiping everyone out. The current war in Afghanistan certainly doesn't have nearly that level of casualties. How is this a role reversal, exactly?
I think he's talking about the number of people fighting for it. Lots of people will probably have surrendered. In Afghanistan, people are giving up left and right, and there's just a small core of "Taliban fighters" left. I honestly think it would depend on who's doing the attacking. If it was the UK and we could expect to live a decently free life, then yeah, I'd probably give up. If it was Nazi Germany and they planned to exterminate me, I'd probably keep fighting.
"No b*stard ever won a war by dying for his country. You won it by making the other poor dumb b*stard die for his country."
Would you really know what is going to happen you? Our government doesn't even know what they are going to do yet. I guess these would be the options... A.You will be interrogated and executed. B.You will become a political prisoner with a life sentence C.You will be prosecuted in a Military Tribunal D.You will be prosecuted in a War Crimes Tribunal (World) E.You are set free to do as you choose F.You will be prosecuted under Afghani/Islamic Law. But would you really ever know....
It depends on how you feel they will treat you. During a war you can tell if the people you're fighting is going to kill your or torture you, or just let you go.
These tourists ("Arab Afghans") don't have alot of good choices. These guys are Al Qaeda and Pakistani and Chechen jehadis; we have made it clear that we don't want them to escape from Afghanistan, because if they do then we're going to have to hunt them down. This situation is ideal from our standpoint. Some estimates put the number of Al Qaeda and other radicals at around 30,000 worldwide, and it appears that about 25,000 or so are trapped in Afghanistan. Much easier to kill them there than spend years hunting them all down... If they surrender they will likely face interrogation - Afghan-style (extremely brutal) - and then an Afghan Islamic court, which will sentence the vast majority of them to death. These guys have ruined Afghanistan, and the locals aren't to happy about it. I was mystified when I heard that several hundred of them surrendered and were sent to Mazar-I-Sharif. Of course we all know how that turned out... They're dead, one way or another.
Oh, I didn't understand the question earlier. Sorry. I agree that it depends on what would happen to me afterwards. And while that is somewhat unknowable, what you might be able to control is who you surrender to. Just like the fate was different for Germans surrendering to the US/UK after WWII instead of surrendering to the Soviets, Al Queda soldiers surrendering to US forces might be treated differently than those that surrendered to the Northern Alliance.
