Afghanistan

[rosewinner]

Amazing province are fighting back. Not fully sure how they are able to. Maybe it's the geographic nature of their terrain. Maybe it's their experience of defeating them before.

https://www.archive.is/oldest/https...ident-rally-anti-Taliban-forces-Panjshir.html

Do we think the USA and the West will change their minds? I'm still secretly hoping the fact everyone is appalled means they'll be forced to go back in and secure some kind of safe zone.

 

[emm]

Amazing province are fighting back. Not fully sure how they are able to. Maybe it's the geographic nature of their terrain. Maybe it's their experience of defeating them before.

https://www.archive.is/oldest/https...ident-rally-anti-Taliban-forces-Panjshir.html

Do we think the USA and the West will change their minds? I'm still secretly hoping the fact everyone is appalled means they'll be forced to go back in and secure some kind of safe zone.

I hope they would but I am unsure... if they are they really need to do so asap before the situation further deteriorates

 

[openbook1]

I mean the USA has already been there 20 years... 20 years to prepare for this. So does that mean the USA has to stay there forever? That isn't feasible.

 

[emm]

I mean the USA has already been there 20 years... 20 years to prepare for this. So does that mean the USA has to stay there forever? That isn't feasible.

the problem is they just didn't put in enough money/effort imo, re-building can be done, look at (West) germany post war, I just don't think the poltiical will was ever really there, the west has failed time and time again in the middle east

 

[rosewinner]

Problem with politics at the moment is that politicians care less about preparing for things and more about playing political games with their opponents. So I'm not sure they did a whole lot of use in that 20 years. Maybe this will be a wakeup call. Someone shared a comment earlier from a soldier on a forum which was very good. I'll repeat it here but credit to @Wind Fish, the original poster.

----------------------------

I deployed on HERRICK VI in a role which involved training the Afghan National Army.

I knew almost instantly that the UK - and the US - were not serious about investing in the Afghan Army when I walked into the Camp. All we had done was simply take our respective Armies Basic Training Packages and delivered them, lesson for lesson - in the Pashtun language.

Day One and I walked past an earnest British CSgt giving a Brecon standard lesson on how to build a basha in a woodblock to some ANA Recruits - “Make sure you find 4 equally spaced trees, lads” before coming round a corner to find an equally hard charging US SNCO delivering a Basic Hygine lesson, demonstrating with misplaced enthusiasm how to correctly floss teeth.

The fact there was a lack of trees - and indeed a lack of teeth - in the area seemed irrelevant, as long as we could honestly report that they had all recieved NATO standard training.

The ANA - a mixture of grizzled mountain men, older Mujahideen fighters and raw recruits, spent their months looking at us like we were cnuts.

And rightly so.

 

[Purrrrrrr]

I mean the USA has already been there 20 years... 20 years to prepare for this. So does that mean the USA has to stay there forever? That isn't feasible.

As I said a few pages back 20 years is nothing. Troops only came out of Germany last year from WW2. Afghanistan would IMO take a lot longer than 20 years to get back on track.

 

[emm]

As I said a few pages back 20 years is nothing. Troops only came out of Germany last year from WW2. Afghanistan would IMO take a lot longer than 20 years to get back on track.

Exactly, especially as it is so much more of a complicated situation in which the west were generally resented from the outset (unsurprisingly based on our history in the region)

 

[openbook1]

I feel like it is one of those places are will never be at peace. Perhaps that it is just my ignorance though? I feel like it starts at the government...when the president flees, then the army is of course not going to have high morale and will be fearful and flee too.

 

[emm]

I think also one of the issues is that their main source of income seems to be agriculture, which is something which (of course) is highly affected by conflict/people having to move around etc. It does just seem depressing that 20 years of whatever they were doing has seemed to be reversed in a couple of days with very little effort

 

[Miss Havisham]

Biden is an evil bleep. Pulling the rug like this - knowing the easy carnage he has handed to the Taliban.
I shuddered when I saw his press conference. Not a care, his beady little eyes expressionless.

 

[TheGlossy]

Whether people agree or not, I feel bad for Biden. The way this whole ordeal has been orchestrated is certainly not good at all. However, I do agree on the decision to remove the pull the troops out. It has been twenty years and the fact that cities fell so quickly shows another 10 or 15 years wouldn't have changed a thing because the country is riddled with corruption (the president just took the money and fled the country to protect himself).

 

[rosewinner]

Biden is an evil bleep. Pulling the rug like this - knowing the easy carnage he has handed to the Taliban.
I shuddered when I saw his press conference. Not a care, his beady little eyes expressionless.

People are very bad judges of character it's true. They vote for people like Biden and Blair who say all sorts of nice things but are clearly evil, and yet they object to the straight-talkers and call them fash.

Life is one enormous remake of King Lear. Most people would make the same mistakes as Lear and cast Cordelia out.

 

[Miss Havisham]

Whether people agree or not, I feel bad for Biden. The way this whole ordeal has been orchestrated is certainly not good at all. However, I do agree on the decision to remove the pull the troops out. It has been twenty years and the fact that cities fell so quickly shows another 10 or 15 years wouldn't have changed a thing because the country is riddled with corruption (the president just took the money and fled the country to protect himself).

It wont change. The past 20 years have kept the taliban out of controlling a huge country, and now they have control there will be consequences for most of us.
He has been in office for a matter of months and pulls this stunt. He has made no efforts to negotiate deals with other countries on keeping the Taliban out of Afghanistan - he just pulled the plug.
He is getting off very lightly in the general media. Imagine if Trump had done this?

 

[TheGlossy]

It wont change. The past 20 years have kept the taliban out of controlling a huge country, and now they have control there will be consequences for most of us.
He has been in office for a matter of months and pulls this stunt. He has made no efforts to negotiate deals with other countries on keeping the Taliban out of Afghanistan - he just pulled the plug.
He is getting off very lightly in the general media. Imagine if Trump had done this?

As a matter of fact, I think people would almost expect Trump to do something like this due to his erratic nature and lack of understanding of foreign policy. Hence, I don't think he would have received so much backlash because his presidency was tarnished by one disaster after another. It would have almost made sense and been regarded additional proof evidencing his incompetence.

On the other hand, people placed Biden on a pedestal due to his expertise and former role as Vice-President. They expect him to know what he's doing and foresee the long-term consequences of good or poor decision making. He fell short of that and that's what took people aback.

For sure, there will be a lot of uncertainty and fear around international security with the current climate.

This situation would have happened sooner or later regardless.

 

[Miss Havisham]

As a matter of fact, I think people would almost expect Trump to do something like this due to his erratic nature and lack of understanding of foreign policy. Hence, I don't think he would have received so much backlash because Trump's presidency was tarnished by one issue after another. It would have almost made sense.

People placed Biden on a pedestal due to his expertise and former role as Vice-President. They expect him to know what he's doing and foresee the long-term consequences of good or poor decision making. He fell short and that's what took people aback I believe.

For sure, there will be a lot of uncertainty and fear around international security with the current climate.

This situation would have happened sooner or later.

I would have expected much later - certainly not in my lifetime.

I also believe Twitter would have gone in to meltdown on Trump. I have mostly kept my nose out of American politics, thinking it’s a democratic country and not up to me who they vote for - but I am appalled at Bidens actions.
No evidence of his new administration looking to take less of the brunt of stabilising Afghanistan, e.g pressure on Middle Eastern countries to have more involvement (or even pay for most of it), he has just switched the light out.

 

[Oohthedrama]

Trump was the one who pulled troops. It was agreed for May, Biden is staying true to a deal already made, not that I agree with how it’s been done, but the Afghan government and troops didn’t seem to put up much of a fight to defend themselve either.

anyone believing an ounce of what the Taliban are promising is a fool.

 

[TheGlossy]

Trump was the one who pulled troops. It was agreed for May, Biden is staying true to a deal already made, not that I agree with how it’s been done, but the Afghan government and troops didn’t seem to put up much of a fight either.

anyone believing an ounce of what the Taliban are promising is a fool.

Trump indeed was the one who agreed to pull the troops, but it was supposed to be a phased approach. Biden just pulled the plug.

Although Trump is the one who made the deal, it was Biden's responsibility as current president to revise the approach to be taken when pulling the troops out. Trump never agreed to an overnight removal.

 

[Oohthedrama]

Trump indeed was the one who agreed to pull the troops, but it was supposed to be a phased approach. Biden just pulled the plug overnight.

Although Trump is the one who made the deal, it was Biden's responsibility as current president to revise the approach to be taken when pulling the troops out. Trump never agreed to an overnight removal.

Trump was the one who pulled troops. It was agreed for May, Biden is staying true to a deal already made, not that I agree with how it’s been done, but the Afghan government and troops didn’t seem to put up much of a fight to defend themselve either.

anyone believing an ounce of what the Taliban are promising is a fool.

I should have gone into more detail but.....

 

[WritersBlock]

This quote from Biden on July 8 has aged terribly.

“The drawdown is proceeding in a secure and orderly way, prioritizing the safety of our troops as they depart.“

In fact the whole press conference, in which journalists repeatedly asked questions about the risk of a Taliban takeover, shows how badly handled the whole thing has been. surely questions must be asked of the intelligence services?

or did they know but choose to press ahead anyway?

either way, the US is emerging badly from this.

 

[Merpedy]

I was also under the impression that the American public haven’t been supportive of the efforts in Afghanistan for a while too, so really whoever pulled the plug or started the process was just following what the public wanted

British public, on the other hand, never really had a strong view on what was happening from what I have gathered

Anyway, whatever happened and however troops moved out the result would have likely been the same. Afghanistan was never prepared to stand on their own two feet and given that the country has a tribal system (from what I understand) it was never possible to sit one man in charge as you would in the west and to tell them to follow human rights, which is what we practically seem to have been trying to do to some extent. Plus, the US doesn’t have the best track record of that anyway

Really, the country should have been left to sort itself out as soon as possible