Almost 20 years since their fall, the Taliban are close to retaking Afghanistan. We the US and every one else is leaving. It felt right in 2001 but in retrospect we lost a lot and gained little. I guess it is China's turn to spend a decade lost in Tora Bora. "Even the Taliban are surprised at how fast they're advancing in Afghanistan" https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/na...w-fast-they-re-advancing-afghanistan-n1272236
I think withdrawing is the right thing to do but I really feel awful for the people of Afghanistan, especially the women who are going to see the fragile gains they made all reversed. At the minimum we need to get all of those Afghanis who worked with the US and coalition forces out. Those people are going to be rounded up and killed brutally if the Taliban retakes he country.
...the Japanese would have been the ones stealing American elections with doctored bamboo paper ballots instead of the Chinese. ...the Chinese would probably have still sicced the "China virus" on us though, so it would probably even out...
Amazing our leaders got us into this situation in the first place… so many examples from history and it played out just like the rest… unreal
. The problem is, everybody involved on both sides understands that they have a tiger by the tail. Everyone knows that they will eventually have to let it go at which point the tiger will turn around and run wild, but for only few extra trillion on the country's credit card, they can kick the can down to the next administration and avoid being the one tainted by the stink of failure. The Vietnam War dragged on for 5 or so pointless years in exactly the same scenario.
The Chinese will have more success because well they don’t care about human rights and all that. Hopefully we have some contractors left over that can secure those rare earth minerals mines I keep hearing about.
Add the U.S strengthening the taliban under the Gop to slice a Russian for accuracy. I know you guys like half assing history.
You might not realize it but when Trump admin negotiated to end the war with the Taliban, the Afghan gov was left out. The pic you show here reflected criticism (exaggerated of course) of that tactic. It didn’t get much attention at the time because the American people don’t care anymore. They just want out. What the Biden admin is doing now is honoring that agreement set by the Trump admin with the Taliban. If you aren’t happy with it, blames go to both but more to Trump admin for the deal that didn’t involve the Afghan gov.
Weren't you sucking dick for the previous guy saying he'd pull out of all our forever wars? One of the few things I appreciated Trump for.
I'll repeat what I said in another thread. There is very good reason for concern and the Taliban does appear to have the upper hand. Reports though of the imminent demise of the Afghan government might not be exaggerated. While the Taliban are dominating the rural areas the cities are another matter and within many of those there are many Afghanis that don't want to see a return to Taliban rule. While the regular Afghan soldiers are doing a poor job Afghan special forces are well trained and disciplined. The US is still going to support the government militarily with aid, airstrikes and intel. Also the Taliban success is being driven by cutting deals with other tribes and taking a softer hand than they did 20 years ago. Whether they can maintain that for a long time is an open question. Tajik and Turkmen tribal groups might not be fine with the Pashto Taliban if they go back to treating them poorly and try to impose their medieval style of Islam again. Things are going to be very rough for Afghanistan the next few years but there still is some hope.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/29/china/china-taliban-tianjin-afghanistan-intl-hnk/index.html Looks like the Taliban has a new BFF.
New Taliban = Old ISIS? Kabul could fall within a month. https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2021/08/11/biden-afghanistan-not-my-problem-503928 Hot damn, so that's what hundreds of billions per year with a peak one trillion over twenty years can give you these days. This started as a UN mandate, mind you. Not some half assed willing not-willing coalition. Oh yeah RIP to our servicemen and unnamed collateral damage during the occupation. We know they were under consideration when counting reasons to stay.... Talk about sunk cost fallacy. For reference, you could've been a bright eyed bushy recruit right after 9/11, have your own bright eyed and bushy kid volunteer now....only to shoot and kill the kid of the insurgent baddies you fought against during your own time there.
A little bit of history. The US aided the Taliban in kicking out the Russians and their communist (ie. totalitarian pre Berlin Wall Fall" ) government.. This was probably the last time that Afghan women and not just the elite in Kabul or a couple of other cities had much rights. I feel sorry for the women, the folks who aided us, and all the people of Afghanistan who suffered from 20 years of a futile American war that was bound to fail. The Pasthun sp? are the biggest group and they actually live there unlike the American troops with their deployments. The war accomplished little but did delay the gradual moderation of the Taliban will eventually begin.
