Taliban Taking Over Afghanistan - Does anyone care?

[05_never_again]

I've gotten the impression there are two major types of society (and probably a lot of sub variants). You have whatever we and most European nations are - nation builders with central or tiered governments, and tribal societies. Nation builders seem to be the successful first world countries, and the tribal countries bring up the third world. You work in coordinated fashion to build or you have competing interests that spend too much time fighting to create. Maybe it's too simplistic, but it explains the failure of many states to thrive better than believing that some races are superior to others. Afghanistan and most of the ME seems to be tribal or under the control of feuding factions/warlords - could be a national interest just isn't in their realm of thought.

Their biggest problem is the geography. The land that makes up Afghanistan, either as a stand-alone country or if it were part of another country, is ungovernable as a nation-state the way the West understands that term.

Their culture is the way it is mostly because of that geography. There are little isolated pockets everywhere that are inhabited, and they do not really have to or like to interact with each other. Given that the isolated pockets are made up of people from different ethnic groups, you have a recipe for disaster. Very difficult to integrate. People who know only that environment will probably never understand, much less get behind, the concept of a unified Afghanistan.

It also doesn't help that for thousands of years they have been stuck between major foreign powers of various sorts, but their territory is still ungovernable even if that dynamic didn't exist.

 

[BreatheUT]

We should not be there. BUT, the way we withdrew is a total disgrace. We have left THOUSANDS of Americans at risk. We have abandoned people who we vowed to take care of (interpreters and people who aided our efforts who will be killed and tortured by the Taliban). No one in foreign countries will trust the U.S. again. The irreparable damage done was unnecessary. Poor judgement and hubris caused this debacle. Biden just proved his incompetence. Even now, the Chinese are pumping propaganda at Taiwan saying America will abandon them as well. What a cluster**k!

Agreed, but we can't take these people over here.

 

[KentheOrange]

The good news is we've learned our lesson. No more limited wars on foreign soil.

What makes you think that? The only thing we learn from history is that we don't learn from history.

 

[BreatheUT]

And Bush?

I was just thinking about the Biden apologist mouthpieces.

 

[AM64]

Bet you dollars to donuts this man does not survive. Gonna be scapegoats

View attachment 387170

Probably depends on how far they've been able to pump up Pete's resume. They'd have to sell a new guy to congress, and moderate dems probably aren't buying a lot of what biden is selling right now. They may just have to sit on a lot of stuff rather than try to sell congress a new pick when the admin has been one debacle after another.

 

[W.TN.Orange Blood]

 

[W.TN.Orange Blood]

 

[Franklin Pierce]

How Long Will the Kabul Airlift Last? Around 40,000 Brits, US nationals and Afghans hope to be Evacuated which could take WEEKS... Unless they are Abandoned and Left Behind by the West

The evacuation of some 40,000 Brits, Americans and Afghans who sided with the West from Taliban-occupied Kabul is set to take weeks while thousands of people camp out at the US-controlled Kabul airport.

Currently flights are grounded after floods of desperate Afghans invaded the runways and tried to jump onto passing US planes before two stowaways fell to their deaths.

The airport is being secured by 6,000 US troops but they yesterday failed to stop the runway being invaded despite helicopters being used to try and herd people off the tarmac.

Meanwhile there are at least 34,000 people - both citizens and Afghan allies - hoping to be rescued by the US and Britain and an unknown number relying on European countries, Canada and Australia.

The US hopes to be able to evacuate 5,000 people a day and the UK 1,000 a day but has so far both have managed a tiny fraction of that.

How long will the Kabul airlift last? 40,000 need to be evacuated | Daily Mail Online

 

[Tyler Durden]

Where did this guy go? Pretty wild how he just disappeared off the face of the earth. What country out there is going to take him in?

Russia says Afghan president fled with cars and helicopter full of cash - RIA

 

[BreatheUT]

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She could take up one of the first spots on the short bus.

 

[Rasputin_Vol]

Where did this guy go? Pretty wild how he just disappeared off the face of the earth. What country out there is going to take him in?

Russia says Afghan president fled with cars and helicopter full of cash - RIA

The military industrial complex sure does know how to pick a winner...

 

[AM64]

Democrats Beg Joe Biden: Open U.S. Borders to Flood of Afghan Refugees

Democrats and mass migration activists are pleading with President Joe Biden to open the United States’ borders to a flood of Afghans.

As Afghanistan’s capital city of Kabul falls under Taliban control, House Democrats are urging Biden to admit as many Afghans to the U.S. as possible through the Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs) program and the refugee resettlement program.

Democrats Beg Biden: Open U.S. Borders to Flood of Afghan Refugees

By the time biden is finished, US citizens may not make up the majority of the US population.

 

[W.TN.Orange Blood]

 

[W.TN.Orange Blood]

She could take up one of the first spots on the short bus.

I'll gladly pay her one way ticket to anywhere but here island.

 

[AM64]

America Last: Biden Will Not Prioritize Americans Over Afghans in Afghanistan Evacuation

President Joe Biden is not planning to prioritize thousands of American citizens stranded in evacuations from Afghanistan, as the country falls similar to that of the Fall of Saigon in 1975, over Afghan nationals applying for visas to the United States.

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby confirmed to Fox News on Sunday evening that the administration will not give priority evacuation to Americans in Afghanistan over Afghans applying for visas.

America Last: Biden Will Not Prioritize Americans Over Afghans in Afghanistan Evacuation

Two groups at the bottom of the priority list should be the media and missionaries. Both should recognize the obstacles and dangers. Dumb and dumber, and I'm not sure which is which.

 

[W.TN.Orange Blood]

 

[volinbham]

You could have found faults with any way. Give them a date for withdrawal, don’t give them a date, leave equipment don’t leave equipment, plan for the country to fall in a month, plan for a year. You will be wrong on some, right on some, get lucky, screw up.

Again, I contend this entire thread would have a markedly different tone had the political leaders been on the other side of the aisle. LG and his ilk would be throwing rocks all over the place had this been Trump. And let’s not forget too, Trump was the one that gave the Afghans the May ‘21 date.

Biden screwed this up. So would any other President too and nobody would have got it right.

There is a lot of this being portrayed as common sense and with the total picture in hand and various sources of information, not to mention 3 previous presidents worth of foreign policy to build off of…it is not so common.

here are my specific criticisms:

1. the official line (press conf in July) was that Taliban taking over was at best a remote possibility and the administration had very strong faith in the Afghani govt/military. This was a 100% whiff.

2. we drew down the limited military we had prior to getting civilians out. Even if you had faith in #1 you'd think you'd hold ground until the time to leave. we chose to cede ground and retreat to Kabul militarily on flawed assumptions.

3. the IC, military and Biden (as he told us today) have extensive experience with the Afghani government and situation on the ground. It's hard to imagine they really had faith in what they were telling us (300K soldiers with the best equipment and a solid government will hold against Taliban or at least for some significant period of time).

4. so given #3 the plan should have been baked around the contingency that the Taliban is going to being a real impediment to the withdrawal (a notion Biden chided us for embracing).

I'm not complaining about the equipment - if you want the Afghani's to defend themselves you have to leave it for them.

I am complaining about the "surprise" that conditions got bad and that instead of focusing on getting civilians out we withdrew militarily first which was the catalyst for the "surprise" condition. We set the conditions for this to happen and when people questioned it we were told to shut up because it was all under control.

There are any number of ways we could have done this better.

 

[AM64]

I strongly disagree, especially if it is a Biden vs Trump rematch. Inflation and the "Afghanistan debacle" are as much the responsibility of the Trump administration as they are the Biden administration. The Afghan withdrawal is just a continuation of the Trump "peace deal" struck with the Taliban last year... which he used to want credit for.

And it is dumb to think that will have an impact on an American election in 3 years, anyway.

I might have to agree with you on this one. 81M people have amnesia when it comes to dem screwups, but they remember any other thing that offends their psyches like an elephant on anti Alzheimer drugs.

 

[Sandman 423]

Supposedly the Afghan troops that actually wanted to fight have met up in a valley and vow to defeat the taliban. Does the Biden admin give them air support and such?

 

[volinbham]

Supposedly the Afghan troops that actually wanted to fight have met up in a valley and vow to defeat the taliban. Does the Biden admin give them air support and such?

he already called them pussies today - hard to imagine they get anything from us

 

[AM64]

It won't be Trump. Taliban Joe will NOT be able to hide in his basement like he did in 2020. He will have to hit the campaign trail and it will exhaust him.

And blaming Trump for Biden's Afghanistan fiasco will not work.

You know dems. It's just possible that Joe's 2024 campaign could be that he's a better choice than the incumbent, and sell it to his flock ... 81M and counting.

 

[Pepe_Silvia]

This is at least more exciting than talking about covid.

 

[AM64]

Sorry, but facts are facts. Trump struck a peace deal with the Taliban last year.

Trump also said people had to wait on the other side of the border among other policies. Biden spent his first few days in office cancelling Trump policies and screwing up royally in doing so.

 

[Franklin Pierce]

Female Mayor in Afghanistan says She is Waiting for Taliban to Come and Kill Her



Zarifa Ghafari, Afghanistan’s youngest mayor and the first female mayor in the Maidan Wardak province, told iNews that she is waiting for the Taliban to come and kill her, as no help awaits her and her family.

Female mayor in Afghanistan says she's "waiting" for the Taliban to come and kill her

 

[Mccage]

Biden f'ed up the withdrawal, but its amazing that everybody thought it was a bad idea to go in with no exit strategy or definition of victory 20 years ago and forgot to mention it at the time.

Exit strategy? Lol...you think the guys running (Fluors) where going to let them leave?