Afghanistan

[thegirlscout]

it is kind of but I mean like the kind of atrocities we saw when ISIS were at large… all over social media, huge ransoms demanded that the West won’t and don’t pay and then brutal executions played out across the world. They’re like sitting ducks. It’s truly awful.

Ah yes, I see what you mean.
It’s horrible what will potentially happen to them. Part of me is hoping they won’t be the same because they want to aid money.
Someone pointed out on the news last week that those in power might say they have changed and attempt to be progressive but those below them, the foot soldiers are less likely to believe that and they will be the ones who will be cruel.
I heard they lured a gay man and grape him and sent a letter to his father to say he was gay. They’ve been pinning notices on people’s doors saying they need to come to explain their involvement with western forces. It makes me sick.

 

[NeverEnough]

I watched Biden yesterday and didn’t necessarily disagree with him. The war had been raging for 20 years at a cost of trillions of dollars and 1000s of lives and had to end sometimes. But he went a bit far claiming victory.

The bottom line is when the US and their allies went into Afghanistan the Taliban were in charge, now they are leaving the Taliban are in charge. There had been no significant change in Afghanistan. That sounds like a defeat to me.

 

[Tatooine_legend1]

Is there anything more pointless than wars. They barely ever end well, and the money spent is tremendous. The economic costs and negative impact of world war 1 on Britain is an example.

 

[Yel]

I watched Biden yesterday and didn’t necessarily disagree with him. The war had been raging for 20 years at a cost of trillions of dollars and 1000s of lives and had to end sometimes. But he went a bit far claiming victory.

Thing is the war ended a long time ago and they realised it was lost. No one was in favour of waring any more. Obama realised his huge deployments was a total waste of time, but this hardly gets mentioned now.

They should have kept a skeleton of crew there for the foreseeable future (as they do for many countries) to help hold it together after all of their intervention.

Biden's speeches have all been very disingenuous; telling half-truths and trying to get soundbites that only sound ok if you don't think about them too much.

 

[Tatooine_legend1]

It's estimated that we've spent £37b+ on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and for what? What did we achieve, sweet duck all! 20 years out there and after a week the Taliban are back in control again. We need to stop trying to push our form of democracy on countries and accept that there will be countries who cannot be controlled or changed.

 

[WritersBlock]

Didn’t Biden say no nation had ever carried out a mass evacuation on that scale?

Has he not heard of Dunkirk?

 

[Yel]

Didn’t Biden say no nation had ever carried out a mass evacuation on that scale?

Has he not heard of Dunkirk?

He said via air, the devil is always in the detail with these slimy speeches!

It's estimated that we've spent £37b+ on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and for what? What did we achieve, sweet duck all!

Lots of companies (mainly US ones) did benefit from the contracts that were awarded

 

[WritersBlock]

He said via air, the devil is always in the detail with these slimy speeches!

I should pay more attention to the detail! Story of my life!!

 

[NeverEnough]

It's estimated that we've spent £37b+ on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and for what? What did we achieve, sweet duck all! 20 years out there and after a week the Taliban are back in control again. We need to stop trying to push our form of democracy on countries and accept that there will be countries who cannot be controlled or changed.

Absolutely. Although if we stop trying to impose democracy we can’t really start screaming about human rights violations and women’s rights as those concepts tend to go hand in hand with democracy.

If a benevolent theocratic state has ever existed, at any point in history, I’m not aware of it.

 

[Merpedy]

Absolutely. Although if we stop trying to impose democracy we can’t really start screaming about human rights violations and women’s rights as those concepts tend to go hand in hand with democracy.

If a benevolent theocratic state has ever existed, at any point in history, I’m not aware of it.

Part of the problem with women’s rights when it comes to other countries, especially those with different cultures and potentially strong religious beliefs, is that we ignore that they probably have differing ideas to us to begin with

People understandably worry about women’s rights under Taliban, but women in villages and away from the capital likely don’t enjoy the same freedoms as their counterparts in Kabul and other surrounding cities and that’s going to continue now too if Taliban 2.0 is a thing

Wikipedia (a very good read for a simple run down imo) mentions that a lot of women experience domestic abuse because it’s seen as more ‘acceptable’. Other stats mention that a lot of women marry very young (I think they’re legally allowed to get married at 16?) and the like

Providing education and allowing women to pursue careers is all great, but it doesn’t mean that everyone is actually able to pursue that. I’d argue that people of the same culture (though not of extremist beliefs) and religion are probably better to allow for that change than the West

 

[emm]

Part of the problem with women’s rights when it comes to other countries, especially those with different cultures and potentially strong religious beliefs, is that we ignore that they probably have differing ideas to us to begin with

People understandably worry about women’s rights under Taliban, but women in villages and away from the capital likely don’t enjoy the same freedoms as their counterparts in Kabul and other surrounding cities and that’s going to continue now too if Taliban 2.0 is a thing

Wikipedia (a very good read for a simple run down imo) mentions that a lot of women experience domestic abuse because it’s seen as more ‘acceptable’. Other stats mention that a lot of women marry very young (I think they’re legally allowed to get married at 16?) and the like

Providing education and allowing women to pursue careers is all great, but it doesn’t mean that everyone is actually able to pursue that. I’d argue that people of the same culture (though not of extremist beliefs) and religion are probably better to allow for that change than the West

I agree, I have said this here before but the point is that change like this needs to be gradual, pushing a totally new system of norms on a tiny village in somewhere ;like Afghanistan could never have worked. How can you go from accepting that domestic violence is just standard to accepting that you need 50% of mps to be women?
Also not saying this is just an issue in the middle east at all, issues surrounding women's rights are basically questioned everywhere. Even now in cities like London looking at the statistics surrounding domestic violence/grape etc and lots of people's attitudes towards we are FAR from perfect

 

[Merpedy]

Ngl 'Taliban say they will be given back to embassies once staff return' made me chuckle

Anyway, how insane is it that social media and general technology allows people to get information like this in such a situation. I know it happens often but this has made me appreciate it all in a weird way

 

[thegirlscout]

Apparently the translators allowed include those who were fired? I understand that some were fired on disputed charges but I worry those who were fired due to more serious concerns have been allowed to relocate :/

 

[Lonewolf]

Can someone explain to me why considering this country is struggling with debt due to covid why we are giving Pakistan £30 million quid to help with the Afghanistan refugees they have taken in ?? When we are taking them ourselves! I don't get it!!

 

[Yel]

Just from my armchair, but the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan for a long time hasn't really made sense with the groups it's separated since it was established and inforced.

It seems logical to support that region which for many Afghani may still feel like home over the border, rather than try to relocate millions far away.

There's lots of dubious uses of foreign aid, but this maybe more worthy than lots of them. Especially as the current situation can be partly attributed to the British.

 

[Doctor_Wibble]

Can someone explain to me why considering this country is struggling with debt due to covid why we are giving Pakistan £30 million quid to help with the Afghanistan refugees they have taken in ?? When we are taking them ourselves! I don't get it!!

Two reasons, not necessarily obvious - as noted above, firstly better to help people without having to relocate them, and secondly on the financial side, it's actually cheaper in the long run.

 

[Merpedy]

Controversial opinion but we may as well just recognise the Taliban as the government

We’re basically working with them anyway to try and make passage out of there safe for mainly foreign nationals anyway, and Pakistan is right in saying that the only thing countries can do is just see what they do and how they behave rather than just branding them as horrible from the get go

The human rights stuff is a bit of an issue but we do recognise and work with plenty of other governments who have those very same issues to a degree. Plus, there’s not much alternative to the Taliban by the looks of it anyway

 

[Yel]

Controversial opinion but we may as well just recognise the Taliban as the government

Whether it's officially recognised or not probably makes little difference. I'm sure aid will start flowing in soon that will prop up the Taliban government seeing as millions will face malnutrition otherwise.

 

[emm]

Whether it's officially recognised or not probably makes little difference. I'm sure aid will start flowing in soon that will prop up the Taliban government seeing as millions will face malnutrition otherwise.

I often wonder what would happen if, in situations like this, we didn't give aid. People who are starving have nothing to lose and technically could cause an overthrow of the government, think the Russian Revolution for example. I often wonder what would have happened if the international community hadn't provided aid to north korea during their famine in the 90s. Obviously this is a total ethical minefield

 

[Merpedy]

I wonder what their plan is with the banks too. Seems like a horrible situation with that atm

Also, are the US actually doing anything? Raab is a muppet but at least he’s now trying to sort out the airport stuff and how to get people out of Afghanistan. US just seems to have negotiated a deal to allow people to travel out, trashed the airport when they left and has done nothing since