Afghanistan

[Yel]

It's difficult to say (and really a waste of time now anyway, what's done is done).

Fundamentally you might say that Trump's deal with the Taliban was a bad idea, because it let a load of them out of the jails, also should never negotiate with terrorists etc. However that very same Trump deal with the taliban is precisely why we've had these last few weeks to get on and do the mass evacuation in (relative) calm (except for the separate Isis-K lot causing the trouble yesterday) rather than a full-on instant warzone, and has meant that loads of countries have each been able to get tens of thousands of citizens out safely. So Trump probably deserves credit overall for that deal strategy?

But who knows really. Trump said he would get out by May, Biden extended things to now. Trump probably would have kept the bigger and better Bagram open as an alternative airfield, Biden just binned that off and totally abandoned it without really telling anyone in July, forcing everything to go through the Hamid Karzai airport. Trump's withdrawal might have been faster but more orderly, Biden's has been chaotic and stuck two fingers up at other countries needing the airport as well. We'll never know.

Yep we will never really know but to me it does seem like Biden made the absolute worst of what he inherited and has been shameful since with claims like it was always going to happen like this and it was all unavoidable.

I agree trump would have probably kept open bagram airfield open aka what was the most secure and guarded airport until recently. That would have reduced much of the chaos and saved more lives.

 

[Sheila Bloom]

I think people were wanting him to storm in and say ‘no’ we want more time and the taliban would just well, have to accept it.

Unless it’s because they are winding things up now, when the 31st isn’t until Tuesday. But the line has always been so long as it’s safe to do it until then. And its not safe now so theyve had to move things on, however shocked we all are and upset at people being left behind.
But I think things will go on until then, it just won’t be reported so widely because it will be all the classified stuff, the military ops etc done between now and then when they have got the civilians etc out.

but I’ll be honest, I can’t work Biden out at all, so whether he’s just fucking everyone over to get thing done by a 9/11 deadline as I read, or whther the US have just rogue because they can, I dunno. But his decision making seems increasingly wobbly to me, not just in this matter

Wobbly?! Talk about the biggest understatement of the year.. He is an abomination. Stupid old prick

 

[MarquisDeSade]

We had no reason to be there in the first place, nor did we have a reason to be in Iraq. We need to stop clinging onto the United States legs whilst they go and do Israels dirty work

 

[Rita Chevrolet]

Sky News showed yesterday an ex-US colonel who with fellow veterans and some on the ground out there have been taking vulnerable people through the fences & security at the airport and putting them onto planes; Its apparently not that difficult to bypass at the paperwork and rubbish then is it??

Wallace is a twat of the highest order - he knew damned-well about that rule change but let the party go through hell to get to the airport then pulled the rug from under them. Why do that anyway? Why were they not allowed to leave when they got there and have done with it?? If he still has a career at the end of this fiasco I would be very surprised

 

[jaymie]

I haven't found Pen abusive, I heard desperation and passion in his voice.

I agree with a previous poster who said the leaking of that audio is suspicious.
Watching Sky news earlier and Anne Diamond told viewers he left on a military plane which is untrue, nobody bothered to correct her either.

My husband said the same thing, he has 80 lives in his hand, and things changed every minute. I sense despair in his voice

Also, the MOD needs to answer how had the voice recording/ phone call leaked? I feels to me like a PR stun, either way this is not a priority for now but it is deeply unprofessional.

 

[Raininvain]

I'm praying that pen farthing and all the cats, dogs and donkey are safe. Apparently 14 million Afghan people are expected to b facing starvation this year, if they don't get them out then they will be eaten!

They'll get them out I'm sure. The whole thing for animals and all the people of course is an absolute fucking disgrace. We should have very little to do with the USA in the future. They have caused all this utter mayhem and the whole thing had fuck all to do with us in the U.K.

 

[Underthetabletop]

I agree, thank goodness for people like him who will stick up for all life, human and animal.

It's the government people should be directing their anger at.

And people are pissed off at the government if you read the comments. People are very much annoyed and very much annoyed that Joe Biden potentially put the whole thing at risk today being a twat, and could be dragging us all into this again…..
The thing that’s pissed people off is the ‘but me’ attitude. There’s a bloke stuck there who comes from the same background, army etc and went into security. He’s been helping vulnerable women escape and is now stuck. But there’s no ire about him. No social media campaign from celebrity mates and tweeting at the gov for him and his family. That’s where people have been annoyed- people with no clue about how much of an operation it was choosing a pet project without thinking that actually there’s probably others the same, and worse off than him with no support or help….

 

[Yel]

I like the Rory Stewart video, although I think it misses that more and more territory was being gained with each week so I don't think the skeleton staff was even treading water. So it wasn't a no brainer to just stay and things will remain constant, not that there's any easy decisions with this.

Apparently they could have supplied the Afghan army with Soviet machines that were lower tech but far easier to maintain. But of course they didn't and only spent it on US top of the range ones that are hugely complicated that they had no chance of running without support.

A commentator made an interesting point that previously there was no money in the country. But now it's been flooded with dollars the Taliban are more likely to fragment and argue over it.

Blair can fuck off. He took a week to come up with that and refuses to go into any detail of his mistakes or admit responsibility. Why wasn't he at least saying this during the negotiations months ago? He's popping up to highlight others mistakes, which are pretty obvious.

 

[Warpaint]

I think people forget things like as many younger generation have been born with these rights so the rights themselves seem like they must be old. Marital rape for example only became illegal in 1992. Another shocking one is divorce only became legal in Ireland in 1996!

Even the Magdalene laundries were open until 1997 in Ireland which was practically imprisonment and slavery

 

[fluffyglitterbug]

Four US marines have been confirmed to have been killed in today’s attacks. This is just going to get nastier and more chaotic than it already was. What a desperate situation.

 

[Underthetabletop]

I think in this thread you are one of the ones who get it pen wad taken over children and woman what will happen to them now also I really think some of these people forget ul and USA government left papers behind so that the taliban and isis know who to look out for shambles but remember the government ain't done nothing wrong also while I'm here see the animals you want to leave behind most the soldiers have said that the animals have them kept them sane in war not only afghanstan and we as people think it's okay to leave them behind after helping soldiers with ptsd madness thars all I can say I know alot of soldiers who get it we dont get it as we ain't been there we are seeing the news ect maybe if you speak to people who has been over there you might understand more and have a heart

Oh stop it now. We all get it, we are all sympathetic to the animals, I’m a massive animal lover but come on, 103 people were blown to bloody bits yesterday! The people seeing that at the airport are stuck with that image for life and then have further trauma to come, they can’t have therapy etc and help to get past it. And I’m fed up of someone saying that because I don’t agree with you, I am heartless and privileged. Or are we only saying certain people can have trauma? Because it’s going to be pretty traumatic seeing your husband beaten and shot and your unmarried sister being a forced bride. And having to live this with no support services.
There’s women now who will be taking their own lives to avoid whats coming, killing their own kids. If you have a heart surely you can feel ashamed that this is what things have come to, then harping on about what a minister is or isn’t alleged to have promised.

 

[NeverEnough]

They've done this kind of thing so many times in the past that it would be more surprising if they didn't.

Biden will do precisely nothing. That is the reason he was elected.

 

[emm]

Some Americans training the Afghans didn’t have much faith in them preventing a Taliban take over.
What happened between us the Nazi’s was different, not every war is comparable to WW1 and 2. For instance our soldiers had the support of their government, monarch and people. In Afghanistan they didn’t, why should they fight and risk their life if even your Prime Minister doesn’t believe in the cause?

exactly, and we went in and created a power vacuum, making ridiculous demands (as I have said before how can you insist a country has 50% female parliament when women have been denied education for decades?) There never seems to be any ackowledgment of the totally different social structure etc when in the middle east, in the UK, for example, we took hundreds of years to develop our system, 20 years is not a long time at all.
Obviously the whole situation is a disaster, but if the west now ever intervenes anywhere else in this way how would we ever find translators etc to collaborate when the ones we have used have just been largely abandoned to be punished by this despotic regime? I really think (and this is very much my opinion of course) had we not intervened, eventually local people would have got sick of the Talbian and risen up against them

 

[Merpedy]

Some of the videos on Twitter of Afghan casualties are horrible

Its honestly shameful that the news is primarily mentioning the US military casualties

 

[NeverEnough]

I'm imagining a venn diagram of capturing a country and running a country and the circles don't even touch

They're telling government workers to return to work aren't they?

Beyond odd that they didn't have a translator all ready.

They sound almost reasonable don’t they, women to have rights “under Islamic law”. Hmm. I bet it’s men who interpret that law right? And enforce it.

 

[Raininvain]

At least this crisis has stopped us hearing as much about that crock of shit Covid.

 

[Oohthedrama]

sky news:
“Let’s turn now to covid......”

what we wouldn’t give to be making fun of Trump for his pronunciation of the “chhina virus”
the good old days.

(not a trump fan, but simpler times and all that )

Edit, looks like another US solider who was injured earlier has died.

 

[rosewinner]

I remember being told that the vast majority of major conflicts and wars are caused by disputes over religion.

Far from being the 'source of peace' it claims to be, it has caused untold damage across the world.

In fact, I would say religion is one of the worst things we have in this world, or was ever introduced. The world would be a far more pleasant and peaceful place without it.

I hear this argument so often from every second Bob and Steve dawwwn da pub.

Religion has never caused war, land has never caused wars, resources have never caused wars. It's human ego that causes war.

There is no evidence that any apparently religion-based wars were actually about religion and not about resources or land or something else.

The world would be a degenerate place without spiritual values. The British Empire and European Enlightenment were founded on a solid bed of Christianity. Our legal systems, great works of art and architecture, our moral civilisation, grew from a religious soil.

 

[kev1974]

UPDATE on Pen Farthing out in Afghanistan - Ben Wallace is seemingly holding up their departure as he says he's " not rescuing 'pets' " but as Pen pointed out - the plane is privately funded and already paid for and the animals will be in the hold & not occupying seats so WHY is this happenning?

Boris tell this muppet to sort his shit out please!!

Limited landing and take off slots I imagine.

It's not Heathrow with the tech abilities to land a plane every 90 seconds, or space to park them all, or fuel to refill them all, or loading crew for them all, or ground crew and servicing vehicles to do all the stuff a plane needs to be turned around, or enough soldiers to keep each plane secure once landed and parked. Not to mention the additional monitoring and measures to make sure each plane lands and takes off safely and gets away safely when there is an ongoing threat of any one of them being shot down.

They've got planes from all over the world wanting to get in and get their citizens, not just a handful of US and UK planes.

So quite feasible that they can't just let him and his charter plane in at the drop of a hat and disrupt everything for the more organised stuff.

That said I do hope he gets on his plane and gets out of there sooner rather than later so we can stop hearing him bleating on every day and stealing headline space from so many other worthy problems that there are in Afghanistan right now. It's not all about him!

 

[WhatwouldPrinnyDo]

Honestly wish the military could stop pratting about with concerns about animals Getting out, and focus on getting the vulnerable people out who need to be evacuated urgently.