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AHH F/UGH posted:I mean in the sense that like, yeah it's in the news but it doesn't really seem to be getting as much traction as it would (for obvious reasons) but also just because I think that people are so loving done with Afghanistan being anything at all to them that it wouldn't get as much play as like, 10 years ago or something regardless. I think it isn't getting much traction because there's no political will to go back. Nobody likes the Taliban but the prospect of sending forces back is anathema at this point. No politicians (well, I haven't seen any yet but I don't follow US media all that closely) are really disagreeing so there's less drama for media to sell. Covid on the other hand...
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Aug 14, 2021 03:02
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Count Roland posted:I think it isn't getting much traction because there's no political will to go back. Nobody likes the Taliban but the prospect of sending forces back is anathema at this point. No politicians (well, I haven't seen any yet but I don't follow US media all that closely) are really disagreeing so there's less drama for media to sell. Covid on the other hand... Why go all the way to Afghanistan to kill people when our politicians can take pro-COVID policies and kill thousands here?
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Aug 14, 2021 03:11
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On one hand war bad but on the other hand letting people fall under the rule of the taliban again is going to make most peoples' lives patently worse for generations so what the gently caress do you even do I guess just hope enough time passes that people rise up and fix their own country?
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Aug 14, 2021 03:13
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AHH F/UGH posted:On one hand war bad but on the other hand letting people fall under the rule of the taliban again is going to make most peoples' lives patently worse for generations so what the gently caress do you even do Its going to be the same result even if we stayed for another 50 years.
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Aug 14, 2021 03:25
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Seems to me the real time to have withdrawn was sometime after Obama’s second election. I guess he didn’t want to for political and electoral reasons but Dems ate poo poo in 2014 anyways, with Benghazi etc and ISIS and then lost in 2016. Pulling out of Afghan wouldn’t have added to that too much While you’re at it don’t invade Libya or intervene in Syria and the ME might be on the start of an upswing by now at little extra political cost over what we have now. Less of a refugee crisis, no Turkish coup, moderates possibly still in charge in Iran... Man, Obama was a catastrophically bad president, huh? icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 03:28 on Aug 14, 2021 |
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Aug 14, 2021 03:25
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icantfindaname posted:Seems to me the real time to have withdrawn was sometime after Obama’s second election. I guess he didn’t want to for political and electoral reasons but Dems ate poo poo in 2014 anyways, with Benghazi etc and ISIS and then lost in 2016. Pulling out of Afghan wouldn’t have added to that too much The president has very little to do with moving the imperial machine.
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Aug 14, 2021 03:30
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icantfindaname posted:Seems to me the real time to have withdrawn was sometime after Obama’s second election. I guess he didn’t want to for political and electoral reasons but Dems ate poo poo in 2014 anyways, with Benghazi etc and ISIS and then lost in 2016. Pulling out of Afghan wouldn’t have added to that too much The missteps the US has taken in the Middle East are the product of a mindset that both Western liberals and Western conservatives share. The idea that they can't reshape the world for the better with all their weapons and manpower and wealth is impossible for many people to get out of their heads. "This time it will be different," and there will probably be tons of distinguishing factors that years of university education will help them articulate. And you want to believe that it will be different because then it'll be you who changed everything for the better. It's too tempting for your typical politician.
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Aug 14, 2021 03:38
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icantfindaname posted:Seems to me the real time to have withdrawn was sometime after Obama’s second election. I guess he didn’t want to for political and electoral reasons but Dems ate poo poo in 2014 anyways, with Benghazi etc and ISIS and then lost in 2016. Pulling out of Afghan wouldn’t have added to that too much Yeah declaring mission accomplished after murking bin Laden was the best opportunity, and the longer we waited after that, the more sure the Taliban was that they could just wait us out. I think the Libya intervention was probably more consequential than anything we ever did in Afghanistan, especially since it led to Benghazi and the emails, but I don't know that I agree about the refugee crisis or the Turkish coup stemming from that. WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:The president has very little to do with moving the imperial machine. Obama overruled all his advisors when he decided not to attack Assad after the chemical attacks, so there's an instance of a president mattering a whole lot. It's true that it was a self inflicted crisis to some extent given that he was also the guy who stood up and made the red line statement, but that's just further proof that a president's whims can shift policy back and forth. Yes, of course presidents are surrounded by the Washington establishment/consensus/Blob, whatever you want to call it, and can be too intimidated to break from that consensus, but ultimately they do clearly have the power and ability to do so. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 03:49 on Aug 14, 2021 |
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Aug 14, 2021 03:46
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https://twitter.com/JustinTrudeau/status/1426324726465576962 Well, at least there's that.
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Aug 14, 2021 03:48
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quote:Taliban has also captured the Warsaj district of Takhar province. Close to 2,000 troops from Badakhshan, Kunduz and Taloqan who had taken refugee in Warsaj either surrendered or have retreated towards the mountains and to Panjshir province
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Aug 14, 2021 04:33
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I can see how the Taliban maintained numbers post-USA invasion, but how did they get in power in the first place during the 90s? As a dumb westerner, I have no idea how the Talibans ideology is appealing at all
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Aug 14, 2021 04:46
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Nissin Cup Nudist posted:I can see how the Taliban maintained numbers post-USA invasion, but how did they get in power in the first place during the 90s? As a dumb westerner, I have no idea how the Talibans ideology is appealing at all Their opposition was a bunch of corrupt warlords carving out their respective feudal empires between each other in the civil war that followed the collapse of Communist Afghanistan. What the Taliban brought to the table was a religious ideology and the idea of some kind of nation-state (but only for Pashtun). The warlords who survived Taliban rule were also the same that US brought into it's occupation government in order to rapidly attain stability post-invasion, of the many mistakes of the occupation.
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Aug 14, 2021 05:02
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lmao all estimates lose https://twitter.com/billroggio/status/1426384323163344898
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Aug 14, 2021 05:10
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Said warlords also got & continue to get up to some truly reprehensible poo poo (that doesnt get covered as much as the Taliban's crimes), which the Taliban has made use of to recruit members.
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Aug 14, 2021 05:30
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Vasukhani posted:lmao all estimates lose a few months ago, I remember poo poo posting about how with the end of foreign support, the Kabul government wouldn't make it to the 9/11 anniversary. I didn't think the situation on the ground was so dire, that the 20-year project had failed so utterly, and that the Kabul government was so hated and despised as to make the the flippant predictions accurate.
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Aug 14, 2021 06:20
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Yeah, it's becoming obvious now that the Afghan 'state' barely existed in any meaningful form and now the American arms that propped it up are being withdrawn, it's evaporating like the mirage it always was.
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Aug 14, 2021 06:24
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12 miles from Kabul https://twitter.com/MJalal700/status/1426386939318620164
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Aug 14, 2021 06:30
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The look of horror and anger in these two girls will haunt me forever, this is a catastrophic American failure.
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Aug 14, 2021 07:06
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Pistol_Pete posted:Yeah, it's becoming obvious now that the Afghan 'state' barely existed in any meaningful form and now the American arms that propped it up are being withdrawn, it's evaporating like the mirage it always was. Yeah the obvious difference between the end of the war in Vietnam and Afghanistan is that there was actually a South Vietnamese state to carry on the war for a bit. It was horribly corrupt mismanaged and overly dependent on American arms but it definitely existed. The Afghan state America spent the last 20 years building doesn't seem to exist outside of whatever room Ghani is currently sitting in.
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Aug 14, 2021 07:15
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Gonna be real interesting to see what the Taliban do with the government that currently is existing in whatever sense of the word I guess the people of the country REALLY wanted Islamic fascism so now they get it or whatever
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Aug 14, 2021 08:01
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https://twitter.com/NicolaCareem/status/1426424111299928064
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Aug 14, 2021 08:27
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AHH F/UGH posted:I guess the people of the country REALLY wanted Islamic fascism so now they get it or whatever Occupying forces generally aren't regarded highly, regardless of their intentions.
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Aug 14, 2021 08:38
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AHH F/UGH posted:Gonna be real interesting to see what the Taliban do with the government that currently is existing in whatever sense of the word Just like how they wanted to be occupied by the US for the past 20 years I guess
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Aug 14, 2021 08:48
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https://twitter.com/tajudensoroush/status/1426454447241285633?s=21 https://twitter.com/natsecjeff/status/1426454235189764099?s=21
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Aug 14, 2021 09:14
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Booourns posted:Just like how they wanted to be occupied by the US for the past 20 years I guess Yeah but I have a hard time thinking things like human rights will get better without the US and not way, way worse
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Aug 14, 2021 09:27
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AHH F/UGH posted:Yeah but I have a hard time thinking things like human rights will get better without the US and not way, way worse drat if only america gave a poo poo about human rights as much as you do they could’ve done a lot better in the last 20 years
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Aug 14, 2021 09:34
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AHH F/UGH posted:Yeah but I have a hard time thinking things like human rights will get better without the US and not way, way worse People have different definitions of human rights
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Aug 14, 2021 09:36
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GAME OVeR https://twitter.com/hnajafizada/status/1426458983078973442?s=21 more details in thread:- https://twitter.com/hnajafizada/status/1426459810027999232?s=21 https://twitter.com/hnajafizada/status/1426460825003376641?s=21
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Aug 14, 2021 09:47
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Are the Afghan military & government officials even really 'fleeing' anywhere, or is the assumption that they just run behind a wall, change their shirt, and re-emerge as a Taliban member?
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Aug 14, 2021 09:55
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Vasukhani posted:People have different definitions of human rights Yeah same, I call these alternative news or alternative reality!
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Aug 14, 2021 09:59
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Discospawn posted:Are the Afghan military & government officials even really 'fleeing' anywhere, or is the assumption that they just run behind a wall, change their shirt, and re-emerge as a Taliban member?
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Aug 14, 2021 10:02
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MiddleOne posted:Their opposition was a bunch of corrupt warlords carving out their respective feudal empires between each other in the civil war that followed the collapse of Communist Afghanistan. The civil war in Afghanistan began long before the communist government collapsed (which by the way stopped being communist in 1987, and became an Islamic republic in 1990), it's basically been going on since 1978 and probably won't truly end now, just as it didn't end with the Soviet wihdrawal, though like then it's likely that what remains of it will be lower intensity (just a reminder that the warin Afghanistan since 1990 has never even come close to the lethality and destruction that persisted under the Soviet intervention), and in this case I think, more regionalized.
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Aug 14, 2021 10:04
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The answer is that it varies. Special forces and milita forces that were aligned to someone the Taliban really hated? Mass executions, mostly. Leadership; they just let all the folks from Herat flee to Kabul, but there is some wild reports that is because the local Afghan forces leadership handed the local warlord over to the Taliban after he refused to let them evacuate earlier so they could all surrender. Other governors seem to be unharmed but in captivity. Rank and file ANA/police? Taliban seem to be turning them lose or even letting them flee as a unit if they give up. Random mid level guys, who may or may not be famous? Seen a fair few Executions, doesn’t pay to be middle management.
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Aug 14, 2021 10:10
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Al-Saqr posted:GAME OVeR oops? https://twitter.com/GEsfandiari/status/1426470871502295043
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Aug 14, 2021 10:10
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AHH F/UGH posted:Yeah but I have a hard time thinking things like human rights will get better without the US and not way, way worse As mentioned, human rights cover many different topics. The Taliban are much less likely to rape little boys (bacha bazi was and is a powerful recruitment tool), bomb your entire village into dust, or send the psychotic death squads of the Zero Units through your region (when the news refers to 'Afghan special forces' as the core of the national army, that's who they're talking about). The occupation government ruled more through a monopoly on violence than any serious attempt to establish goodwill and sustainable livelihoods, which is why they're evaporating so fast. The Taliban may be rear end in a top hat fundamentalists, but they could at least make a more credible promise of peace, security, and stable governance.
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Aug 14, 2021 10:12
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Yeah he doubled down. We’ll see what happens. Dostum seems to be riding around in the hinterlands unsuccessfully attacking, so I don’t think he’s gonna help much. But; there was an ANA convoy recently that fled over 100km through Taliban controlled territory without much trouble, so Taliban “control” might be less concrete then portrayed by maps. That said I also saw 3 similar convoys from else where end in mass surrenders since just this morning.
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Aug 14, 2021 10:16
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Discospawn posted:Are the Afghan military & government officials even really 'fleeing' anywhere, or is the assumption that they just run behind a wall, change their shirt, and re-emerge as a Taliban member? Presumably fleeing. You don't get to run death squads and torture prisons and then just overnight say you are on the same side as the people you spent decades hunting down.
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Aug 14, 2021 10:18
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Yeah looks like Ghanis gonna go down with the ship
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Aug 14, 2021 10:18
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Vasukhani posted:12 miles from Kabul The Taliban roll out like a war party in Fury Road.
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Aug 14, 2021 10:24
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seems that's what's left of the Uzbek and Tajik militias will try to hold out in Balkh province
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Aug 14, 2021 10:26
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