Afghanistan. It's fucked

[Seabass]

It was just a joke, Scot, relax.

But the Dutch empire was just as brutal and racist as every other European empire. If you think otherwise, you're lying to yourself.

[Scot Dutchy]

It was just a joke, Scot, relax.

But the Dutch empire was just as brutal and racist as every other European empire. If you think otherwise, you're lying to yourself.

We were not colonists. We built forts etc for supplies to our ships and we tried to colonise Indonesia and made a mess. We had very few colonies compares to the French and British. Our biggest success was Japan.

[JimC]

The Dutch colonisation of Indonesia was just as brutal as any of the other European examples.

[Brian Peacock]

Who do you think paid for your Golden Age?

[Hermit]

Who do you think paid for your Golden Age?

Tulip buyers. Jan Brueghel the Younger documented it.



It is true that the Dutch kept their mitts off other lands. They were pioneers of keeping the exploitation of people at arm's length - subcontracting that task to others. It's a trick Apple Inc. has successfully emulated. It does not own a single factory that manufacture the hundreds of millions of electronic gadgets it sells every year. The factories are owned by other companies (Foxconn, Pegatron, Wistron and Compal Electronics) in countries far away from its headquarters in Cupertino, California, U.S.

[Svartalf]

So it begins:

Afghan women to be banned from playing sport, Taliban say

National cricket team included in prohibition, as interim government containing no women starts work

Followed by:

‘Nowhere to go’: divorced Afghan women in peril as the Taliban close in

As horror stories emerge from areas that have fallen to the Islamist militants, women living alone fear they have no route of escape

Afghan women’s defiance and despair: ‘I never thought I’d have to wear a burqa. My identity will be lost’

After 20 years of American occupation nothing changes.

Afghan women should play Lysistrata, or maybe go the full Danaide way...

[Svartalf]

It was just a joke, Scot, relax.

But the Dutch empire was just as brutal and racist as every other European empire. If you think otherwise, you're lying to yourself.

We were not colonists. We built forts etc for supplies to our ships and we tried to colonise Indonesia and made a mess. We had very few colonies compares to the French and British. Our biggest success was Japan.

Indonesi would like to disagree.

[Scot Dutchy]

We never ran Indonesia as Hermit says the old Dutch were good at employing others to do their work; good or bad. The same was true in Suriname and the islands. Japan was odd though. It was an artificial island Dejima created by the Japanese which was offered to the Dutch, after the Portuguese were removed, who had no scruples in accepting it. The occupation lasted over 200 years. The blue and white Japanese porcelain was used as ballast. It was copied by the "De Porceleyne Fles" Factory.

[rainbow]

It was just a joke, Scot, relax.

But the Dutch empire was just as brutal and racist as every other European empire. If you think otherwise, you're lying to yourself.

We were not colonists. We built forts etc for supplies to our ships and we tried to colonise Indonesia and made a mess. We had very few colonies compares to the French and British. Our biggest success was Japan.

They fucked up their attempt to colonise Mauritius.

[Scot Dutchy]

Another unsupported claim.

[Tero]

New wimpier Taliban allows girls to school.

[Svartalf]

Them talibans should have been exterminated while we were there. I know, the reds proved that's not possible, that just proves the standard military methodology is not appropriate for such an endeavour in such a kind of place, but we should have done better than go there, twiddle our thumbs, and give the place back to those mofos when we felt in impossible to stay any longer.

[Brian Peacock]

"Killing our way to a better tomorrow - one reprobate at a time." -- Shakespeare, Twelfth Night.

[JimC]

The Daleks had it down pat...

"Exterminate, exterminate!"