Afghanistan situation.

Bad_azz

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I like many others have been horrified by scenes from the airport at Kabul.
I know some of our members have spent time in the country- I hope they are out and safe.
The video does contain some disturbing & distressing footage- but it has a warning in it before showing it.
 
Horrific. Of course there have been horrific sights there for 20 years centuries. Hopefully there will be net fewer in the next few decades without western involvement, and hopefully girls and women can retain at least some of their freedoms.
 
Horrific. Of course there have been horrific sights there for 20 years centuries. Hopefully there will be net fewer in the next few decades without western involvement, and hopefully girls and women can retain at least some of their freedoms.
Nice to see some of us still have some hope re the future for A/g
 
Nice to see some of us still have some hope re the future for A/g
Some hope, yes. But mainly I look at it as trading one terrible situation for another, and think it's misguided to be confident which option is actually better or worse.
 
Some hope, yes. But mainly I look at it as trading one terrible situation for another, and think it's misguided to be confident which option is actually better or worse.
I don't even pretend to understand a small % of what has happened there over the years/centuries.
I can only say that this really is not the kind of world anyone wants to live in, surely?
As a species we seem to lack that which we are named after- humanity.
 
This reminds me of some of the stories I heard about Vietnam at the end of the Vietnam War.
 
I just saw this image, a plane packed with people trying to get out - if you click on the image & zoom in on their faces, they look exhausted and terrified-all of them:
E89y8GaXMAMOOin
 
I just saw this image, a plane packed with people trying to get out - if you click on the image & zoom in on their faces, they look exhausted and terrified-all of them:
E89y8GaXMAMOOin
What shocks me much more is the demographics of the "passengers"...
A majority of rather young, body able men, who prefer to run instead of defending their country.

Mind you, for those of us who are a bit older, they will probably remember this :

 
I am not going to enter a political debate but the US was completely wrong to invade the country. If it was to catch Bin Laden, it could have been done with a minimum number of S.F. operators, together with the ANA.
Concerning NATO's involvment , NATO should never have been involved in the first place !

It's North Atlantic Treaty ! NATO in itself is another debate. Anyway, too late now.

20 years and hundreds of billions swepped away in 10 days !

Sadly many young Western lives lost for absolutely NOTHING.

Speaking about billions, as a quick guess I would say 50% went back in the US economy (military salaries, contractors, equipment purchases, constructions done by US companies, etc), 30 % went in the pockets of Afghan officials, top military, tribal leaders, the remaining 20% maybe reaching the population (schools, water and elec supply, roads..)

Interesting bio, the Taliban leader :

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...baradar-is-undisputed-victor-of-a-20-year-war

Interesting to see how they will act in the coming months with regard to the international community. I think their aim is to be recognized as a legit nation / government. And probably will succeed.
 
A rather good analysis :

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...afghanistan-unnecessary-post-imperial-fantasy

And yep, western politicians should stop this B.S. of "making the world a better place".

Because that really has worked great, see Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Libya... they really look better off than 20 years ago !

Look at the US / China relationship .... sure has greatly improved

Look at the West / Russia relationship....

Look at the Europe / US relationship... sure is more honest and trustworthy now 😁😁😁😁

Let all those politicians have meetings with the Greta girl, at least they wont start new wars.
 
A question should be perhaps considered rather than avoided as it seems to have been always done in the past by the western powers. It's why despite years of U.S. military training and billions of dollars spent, the Afghan security forces have been unable to stand up to the Taliban and have melted away in a matter of days. It happened in Vietnam in 1975, it happened in Iran in 1979, in Irak and in Syria in more recent times.,
President Biden said that The US "mission in Afghanistan was never supposed to have been nation building. It was never supposed to be creating a unified, centralized democracy." It is however the lack of having helped successfully to build the democratic structure of the country which is probably a major cause of what we are seeing today, You don't fight for a country which doesn't exist, you don't fight for corrupted politicians.
President Biden said that the US have been involved in Afghanistan in order to "prevent a terrorist attack on American homeland".
I see a great irony in Biden's statement. In less than a month we will be commemorating the 20th anniversary of 9/11, an attack masterminded by Oussama bin Laden's Al Qaeda from the Taliban controlled Afghanistan, and at the very same time the Taliban will surely be celebrating their total victory against the US in Afghanistan. Perhaps Biden feels that the US is now safer and that the job has been done, but I hope he won't learn that history often repeats.
 
I don't have any experience with Afghanistan, I just listen to interviews and read the news... but I have always felt a lot of skepticism about the possibility of imposing democracy there. In Kenya, when people I knew talked politics the tribe of the politician was always in the subtext and usually in the text. It is hard to unify people whose sense of self is tied tightly to the differences they have with their neighbors. At the same time, the unscrupulous have a nice rudder in these division with which to steer the populace. Indonesia seems somewhat similar, with the most consistently pushed button being the religious one. It is always easy to find a group of people who are willing to suppress and impinge upon the freedom their neighbors, for the "right" reasons.

My (somewhat ignorant) feeling is that Afghanistan has both of these problems stuck together. I don't see how you peacefully democratize a country that is divided by both religious extremism and tribalism. You'd have to install your own, effective (not like the US), authoritarian government for a couple of generations just to try and force cultural unity onto them. I'm not sure where the net benefit in human happiness is in that. I just don't see the Western solutions working for them in the near future.

Locally imposed authoritarian governments, on the other hand, generally provide stability... even if the cost in freedom is too high (in my opinion). You still see a lot of people in democratic countries, certainly including this one, who say that they choose a given politician for president because they are "strong". Indonesia has soooo many advantages over Afghanistan and to me democracy here feels tenuous. There are plenty of Suharto stickers on bumpers here, even now. To expect Afghanistan to unify in twenty years, because we made them do it...
 
It seems rather similar to Myanmar. The West spends ages pumping money in, trying to build a new country, and then the military comes in (with zero popular support, but control of the weapons) and takes over. In fact the Taliban does have support in the country, possibly up to 40% largely in the remoter areas, whereas the only people supporting the Myanmar junta are the army and their families (and not even all of them). Anyway both countries have to deal with their own issues now, a major one in both cases will be armed insurgency from various other minority groups.
 
War is a great manufacturer of $$$ for those who finance governments (& I don't meant the tax payers) & that is the sad fact.
 
I am not going to enter a political debate but the US was completely wrong to invade the country. If it was to catch Bin Laden, it could have been done with a minimum number of S.F. operators, together with the ANA.
Concerning NATO's involvment , NATO should never have been involved in the first place !

It's North Atlantic Treaty ! NATO in itself is another debate. Anyway, too late now.

20 years and hundreds of billions swepped away in 10 days !

Sadly many young Western lives lost for absolutely NOTHING.

Speaking about billions, as a quick guess I would say 50% went back in the US economy (military salaries, contractors, equipment purchases, constructions done by US companies, etc), 30 % went in the pockets of Afghan officials, top military, tribal leaders, the remaining 20% maybe reaching the population (schools, water and elec supply, roads..)

Interesting bio, the Taliban leader :

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...baradar-is-undisputed-victor-of-a-20-year-war

Interesting to see how they will act in the coming months with regard to the international community. I think their aim is to be recognized as a legit nation / government. And probably will succeed.
Oh balifrog , what can we do with you, sigh.
Your posts so often come across as bigoted and very narrow minded.
There are millions / billions of people on this planet who try to get justice and peace and just want a basic day to day life that doesn't involve them getting shot or blown up on the way to the shops. There are those who profit from unrest& those that are fanatics or control freaks .
A young Afghan life is equal to a young Western life.
They are young people who had hopes and dreams for the future, who want peace and romance and food on the table- aka humans.
 
It seems rather similar to Myanmar. The West spends ages pumping money in, trying to build a new country, and then the military comes in (with zero popular support, but control of the weapons) and takes over. In fact the Taliban does have support in the country, possibly up to 40% largely in the remoter areas, whereas the only people supporting the Myanmar junta are the army and their families (and not even all of them). Anyway both countries have to deal with their own issues now, a major one in both cases will be armed insurgency from various other minority groups.
I think it would be pretty hard not to "publicly" support those who have been known to splatter people & hold the guns.
Not saying they don't have their fans, but the Afghan people don't seem to have a whole lot of safe options on who to support.

Much of my knowledge- tiny as it is , has come from watching documentaries filmed with the troops out there.
 
A question should be perhaps considered rather than avoided as it seems to have been always done in the past by the western powers. It's why despite years of U.S. military training and billions of dollars spent, the Afghan security forces have been unable to stand up to the Taliban and have melted away in a matter of days. It happened in Vietnam in 1975, it happened in Iran in 1979, in Irak and in Syria in more recent times.,
President Biden said that The US "mission in Afghanistan was never supposed to have been nation building. It was never supposed to be creating a unified, centralized democracy." It is however the lack of having helped successfully to build the democratic structure of the country which is probably a major cause of what we are seeing today, You don't fight for a country which doesn't exist, you don't fight for corrupted politicians.
President Biden said that the US have been involved in Afghanistan in order to "prevent a terrorist attack on American homeland".
I see a great irony in Biden's statement. In less than a month we will be commemorating the 20th anniversary of 9/11, an attack masterminded by Oussama bin Laden's Al Qaeda from the Taliban controlled Afghanistan, and at the very same time the Taliban will surely be celebrating their total victory against the US in Afghanistan. Perhaps Biden feels that the US is now safer and that the job has been done, but I hope he won't learn that history often repeats.
I firmly believe that politicians state what they are told by their people what they think the public want or need to hear.
A politician's life is rarely about doing good. They are the actors on the stage following their re-election script.
 
This one is interesting:
Basically it seems that it is criticizing embassy staff who buggered off & left the military to deal with visa processing & documentation for those wanting to leave...
.
Now forgive me if I come across as somewhat a coward here... BUT I think if I worked for a consul at an embassy & the world around me started going to sh*t & my country had a military presence there- I would be offski, no looking back... I probably wouldn't even bother to pack- grab the pp & run.
.
The damn documentation could be dealt with once planes land at the other end, surely the priority is to get civilians out, paperwork should come 2nd to that- but that might be me expecting common sense?


 

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