by frog
No, this is not the War of Terror!
It is a Twenty20 cricket match, played last Thursday, between Afghanistan and the United States of America.
The teams played in good spirit, despite the underlying politics and war. Afghanistan won by 28 runs, and subsequently defeated Ireland to qualify for the world Twenty20 cricket championship.
Big ups to the Afghan cricketers for such a momentous achievement coming from a country where they risk facing bullets and/or missiles at any moment.
Oops, let’s think about this for a moment…
Bugger, I just recalled there are resources like oil and land and minerals and water involved. Things that are up for grabs, if you have the military strength to acquire them. Things that run out sometime soon if we don’t conserve them.
President Obama and Prime Minister Brown, take note! And I hope the Indian and Pakistani and Afghan political leaders take note too. Oh, and John Key as well.
What a pity it is that international disputes cannot be resolved by friendly games of cricket such as the one Afghanistan and the USA just played, rather than protracted wars in which many innocent people die.
And, in the spirit of cricket, the resolution of the dispute should leave the loser with sufficient resources to play again another day. Anything else is just not cricket.
Published in Justice & Democracy by frog on Sun, February 14th, 2010
Tags: afghanistan, Barak Obama, cricket, Gordon Brown, india, john key, pakistan, United States, war of terror, war on terror
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
parsonally I find the sort of analysis one reads on Stratfor maach more informative than the usual old left-wing views frog ejects!
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*sigh* I never managed to get the rules of cricket sorted out, despite (a short) marriage to an Englishman.
Although I have to admit the rules of engagement for war are a lot more complicated, and seem to be idosyncratically redefined by some administrations so as to always put them on the ‘right’ side of the law.
Maybe I should put some effort into learning cricket rules, then I might be able to understand just what the Brit’s think they’re up to in NATO with the yanks….
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Please tell me this is sarcasm…the future of the world and future wars based on the game of cricket… heheheh it would probably lead to war anyway viz the loser of the game :p
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I thought that was what the americas cup was for?
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Well didnt the Green Party oppose the overthrow of the Taleban? The ironic thing was that sport was banned under the moderate peace loving Taleban, so if the Greens had their way such a sporting fixture would not have happened!
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not sure about this – I appreciate the sentiment, I really do, but with the ‘big offensive offensive’ going on and people in afghanistan getting displaced and killed as we speak…
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Same here Marty, appreciate the sentiment, that essentially it would be great to solve conflict without violence.
But the post seems to belittle the actual conflict going on right now
Sorry, I’m sure that’s not truly the intention.
I think my greater concern is that the post perhaps not deliberately implies, in the same way as any international sport, you need a unified central authority to arbitrate resolution.
Would I sacrifice my, and my country’s freedom to this central, international authority, for the sake of peace, assuming this authority had the power – unlike the UN – to prevent conflict?
Good question
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Excellent post Aidan
We could sacrifice our freedom to the ICC (not really)
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