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Dear me we have ****ed this up....
Amazed how quickly it has happened.
Yes.
When I think of how much money, time and blood our nations invested in trying to make it a better, safer place, having the whole country descend into chaos this quickly is just shocking.
Maybe the next generation will work out why it happened and will be able to make changes a little more peacefully and successfully than we did.
So close to 20 years of occupation hasn't resolved anything, how does it get resolved?
IMO somehow the region has to sort it out themselves, god knows how that works though. Saudi funding to extreme Islam is a big problem, as is Israel always being happy to create the spark to ignite the tinder.
What are the chances of the west, Russia and China agreeing an arms embargo into the area, or will they all continue to see blood money as more important than life.
Is there a chance the strategy was to give up on fighting shadows, let them show themselves and pile back in? Probably not.
Lots more innocent people will be killed, tortured and persecuted.
The Taliban can now turn its attention to ****stan.
I remember channel 4 news doing a piece a few years into the occupation of Afghanistan. They were interviewing a former Taliban commander and when they asked him about the occupation, he simply replied “we’ve got all the time in the world…”
Hadn’t they just?
All those lives sacrificed, all that money spent and 20 years of ‘progress’ is completely erased in little more than a week.
I can only imagine how traumatic this is to witness for the families of soldiers who died or for those soldiers who lost limbs to IED’s or are suffering from PTSD.
We should never have been there in the first place. You’d like to hope that this time it will finally sink in about starting unwinnable wars in places we don’t belong
Encourage a generation of women to aspire to more then abandon them to the Handmaid's Tale on steroids. Makes me proud.
There is an element of that but, before the fall we are seeing now, women still faced a huge uphill battle for anything approaching the level of emancipation they had in the 60's and 70's. With the Taliban back in control, that generation with aspirations will be brutally reminded that the men that now control them do not want them to have ideas or aspirations.
We (and our applies) were trying to prepare Afghans to change their country for themselves. IMHO the Afghan government is corrupt and the military is unable to retain troops or use them effectively. This means, to me at least, that there is no chance to rule via soft politics and Afghanistan cannot be ruled by organised military force.
The Taliban have an advantage. They have a force of power, a set goal, and money. They can pay their fighters. They can rule by fear if they need to and did after the Russians left.
No one other than the Afghans have success in Afghanistan. I think we've shown well enough that it's largely pointless us being there. Unfortunately that leaves millions of normal people to suffer but what else can be done?
No more of this kind of thing then I guess:
Read this the other day too - horrendous. 🙁
A terrible situation. Short of staying there forever it was I feel inevitable, but it is an appalling tragedy for those living there. A lot of parallels to Vietnam, including the fact that all the Taliban had to do was wait. As a North Vietnamese leader once said ‘how long do you want us to fight you - ten years, twenty - we can fight for as long as it takes’.
I cant disagree with any of the above - all the western parties involved have created a real mess that isn't going to go away just because they have pulled the troops on the ground. ****stan must be the Talibans next move surely.
I understand there is a US commitment to exit Afganistan but why so quickly? They must have known what was likely to happen they are not stupid. It's not as if there is an election around the corner.
Did they suddenly realise the Afgan forces would never be capable of standing alone and decided there was little point in continuing?
My fear is that in 5 years time the West will be back in the region with more involvement than ever before.
So close to 20 years of occupation hasn’t resolved anything, how does it get resolved?
The same as every war ends: with either military defeat of the enemy (impossible for Afghanistan government) or negotiated political settlement.
Israel always being happy to create the spark to ignite the tinder.
Israel is neither the tinder nor the spark for conflict in Afghanistan. It's an abstraction to Afghans and its invocation is nothing more than a rhetorical device - just like Kashmir, Bosnia, Chechnya, Mindanao...
Amazed how quickly it has happened.
The warning signs were all there. The Bush administration invaded and drove the Taliban out, then pumped money in, but lost interest and turned to Iraq. In theory, the Afghan army and police were trained and equipped, but there was so much corruption that most of that money and effort was wasted. Police officials either hired their friends or just claimed they'd hired cops and pocketed the salaries themselves. Even an honest cop or solider is not going to risk their life to fight for a system that corrupt, so they just burn their uniforms and disappear as soon as the Taliban turn up.
The U.S. military kept on filing reports about all the progress that had been made, everything was going fantastically, etc. This went on through the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations. Nobody wanted to be the one to say, "Hey, we just burned a trillion dollars and got thousands of people killed and we have nothing to show for it," so everyone just went on pretending.
Trump sold himself as a dealmaker but was too stupid to realize that he is a hopeless negotiator. His administration made deals with the Taliban (and North Korea, etc.), ignoring the really, really obvious fact that the Taliban will ignore any deal anytime it suits them. The only thing those guys respect is military strength, so you can't do any deal with them unless you are willing to station thousands of troops there indefinitely.
Bush gets most blame for starting this without any coherent plan for ending it. Trump gets a lot for his fantasy that he could negotiate with murderous fanatics who have no interest in a peace treaty. Obama gets some for being naive enough to believe all the bogus status reports. Biden gets a big dose of blame for not bothering to plan an orderly retreat. I can understand his view that the war was lost and it's time to get out, but this is just pathetic.
https://twitter.com/NJdoc/status/1426780707339358208
How are the neighbouring Stans feeling about it? Are they aligned with Moscow or Mecca ? Can we expect a domino theory all the way to the Russian border?
Israel is neither the tinder nor the spark for conflict in Afghanistan. It’s an abstraction to Afghans and its invocation is nothing more than a rhetorical device – just like Kashmir, Bosnia, Chechnya, Mindanao…
The Afghanistan conflict is not an isolated bubble, it is single conflict in a war of religion, oil, greed and power being played out in the whole region.
****stan must be the Talibans next move surely.
The ****stani intelligence services see the Taliban as their ally. Their enemy is India. A large part of the reason that the U.S. could never wipe out the Taliban was that the ****stani military were giving them haven. Do you remember where Bin Laden was living when he was killed? Do you remember how pissed off ****stan was about that? They weren't pissed off because he was secretly living in ****stan, they were pissed off because they knew he was there and thought he was safe but the U.S. killed him without warning ****stan what was going on.
We should never have got involved. Any canter through history show that no one has controlled Afghanistan. The Russians tried in the 80’s, the British tried in the days of empire all with no success. I feel sorry for the service men and women who lost their lives out have come home mentally and physically injured for nothing.
It isn't even that it will return to the state it was in before occupation, it looks to be heading to a much much worse place.
1839 British take Kabul
1842 British kicked out, return and quit
1878 British have another go
1919 British have another go
1979 The Red Army takes kaboul.
1986 - 89 The Moujahidines kick the Russians out.
Civil war which the Taliban win (note the change from Moujahididne because they're the good guys remember and the Taliban are bad guys, obviously)
Heroin adicts benefit from cheap supplies to Europe
2001 Two Saudis fly planes into the towers in New york and the US takes Kaboul, go figure.
2021 Saudi is still untouchable, the Moujahitaliban are about to take Kaboul and Russia looks interested.
And still we buy heroin. Would it really be any worse if we just let them get on with whatever horrors they get up to when not in the horrors of a war?
it is single conflict in a war of religion, oil, greed and power being played out in the whole region.
Israel has no oil and is not in the same region as Afghanistan. Israel is not to blame for foreign interventions and invasions of Afghanistan nor the religious extremists taking power there.
So close to 20 years of occupation hasn’t resolved anything
Economically more beneficial to let it drag on 😉
I'm surprised that WW2 only took 6 years, especially being faced by about a million and a half heavily armed Germans and not like today's mostly of former agricultural workers with a few mercenaries thrown in rag tag army of nationalists, freedom fighters and religious nutters off doing the lord's work.
Dear me we have ****ed this up….
I'd see it more as the Taliban and their many enablers in the region as the ones who ****ed it up.
'We' attempted to improve things, without much success.
What a grim place, don't beat yourself up about it, there's almost sod all 'we' can do to help while they are in the grip of a death cult / religion / call it what you will.
1839 British take Kabul
1842 British kicked out, return and quit
The remnants of an army, Jellalabad, January 13, 1842
R4 interview with security expert pointed out that the towns and cities taken so far have been taken without much fighting
Regional governors, tribal elders and warlords we bought into our side, have handed power over without much resistance
I suppose they now have all the weapons we/USA supplied then with too.
Poor country (and loved what skatistan were doing & still do elsewhere )
Looking at the imagery, you’d struggle to tell the difference between today and the the final humiliating exit from Saigon
Very little seems to have been learnt in the intervening years
https://twitter.com/ozkok_a/status/1426818553664126977?s=21
I do wonder what would have happened if Iraq hadn't happened.
I mean, the world was kind of OK with the US invading Afghanistan. It had been attacked and after some mental gymnastics Afghanistan had been blamed (they could hardly go invade Saudi, after all, and somebody's country had to be bombed to dust).
If Afghanistan had been the focus for the last 20 years would things have turned out differently.
It’s not as if there is an election around the corner.
I actually think this is exactly the reason for the timing. He needs the maximum amount of time for images of Chinooks on the roof of the embassy to fade.
This thread is worth a read. Thomas Tugendhat is chair of Foreign Affairs Committee, and served in Afghanistan both in military and civilian roles. Strong stuff
https://twitter.com/TomTugendhat/status/1425919651469565955?s=19
I expect that the Taliban will be setting about settling scores with anyone deemed to be a collaborator or insufficiently pious. That and the further subjugation of everyone female.
Will ‘we’ be ready to accept our responsibilities for the next wave of refugees fleeing our way?
Hmmmmmm…. let me hazard a guess…
‘We’ attempted to improve things, without much success.
How incredibly selfless of "us". If only there had been some kind of precedent that would have indicated how difficult it would be for foreign powers to control and change Afghan societies.
This thread is worth a read. Thomas Tugendhat is chair of Foreign Affairs Committee, and served in Afghanistan both in military and civilian roles. Strong stuff
There is so much in there that I agree with, it is hard to believe he is a tory, so little of it seems to align with current tory ideology.
This thought has just entered my head after reading the word 'time' quite a lot when failed conflicts of a 'helping' nature occur.
Could it be that unless you (as a country) are invading/protecting (call it what you will) another country that you intend to keep as your own or one that has a religious, economic, government, weather? structure in place similar to your own - you will ultimately fail long term.
The theory is that even as helpers, like the west was to Afgan, we essentially invaded their country and tried to support it using our methods. These could have been successful whilst we were present but as soon as it is removed things will go back to how they were.
Unless the helpers colonize any said country they are 'helping', the original invaders have time on their side and will always win.
Edit. I say original invaders, more accurate is probably 'a sector of the countries own people with different beliefs' In that, there will always be some through the generations which makes it virtually impossible to remove.
Will ‘we’ be ready to accept our responsibilities for the next wave of refugees fleeing our way?
We aren’t even honouring promises of visas to those who got scholarships now… you know, in case they decide to overstay rather than go home to be tortured and killed for seeking to learn in the west.
This thread is worth a read. Thomas Tugendhat is chair of Foreign Affairs Committee, and served in Afghanistan both in military and civilian roles. Strong stuff
It's another "our brave heroes were stabbed in the back" thread. If I really thought that keeping troops there indefinitely would lead to a stable, functioning state, I'd be all for it. There's no indication that it would. The Afghan army outnumbered the Taliban by three or four to one (on paper), but in town after town, they just laid down their weapons and turned it over to the Taliban. If 20 years of military and economic support can't produce an army that doesn't capitulate when some guys roll up in pick-up trucks, I don't see what another 20 or 50 years is going to do.
Prediction: The next occupation of Afghanistan will be at the instigation of China, after a rise in terrorist attacks both inside their borders, and in countries where they are working hard to make allies.
The theory is that even as helpers, like the west was to Afgan, we essentially invaded their country and tried to support it using our methods.
Afghanistan was never invaded to 'help' them. It was invaded as revenge for 9/11.
I think the speed that the Taliban have retaken cities shows what little impact the last 20years really had. If you cannot train/supply an army to look after its country over 20 years, would it ever happen? I guess the Taliban will be happy for all the fancy equipment it will be collecting from the Afghan army along its way to Kabul. As Britain and America have sent a bunch of troops back to help get people out I wonder will the Taliban sit back for a day or 2 and let this happen, to avoid pissing America off and drawing them back in, or will they start trying to have ago in Kabul and capture some high ranking diplomats etc? I mean is it not really risky flying in and out of Kabul right now, surely the Taliban could take a pop at a plane if they really wanted to. How do you get all these people/troops out of a city that’s surrounded?
How do you get all these people/troops out of a city that’s surrounded?
I guess the Taliban will be happy for all the fancy equipment it will be collecting from the Afghan army along its way to Kabul
They won't know how to use or maintain much of it, that was the problem with the afghan army, and the way the US set up conflicts to feed tax spending into private company profits. The maintenance of equipment was done by American contractors rather than teaching Afghan engineers to maintain their own equipment. The operators may switch sides, but the equipment will have a limited lifespan.
As above and what I've heard a few times recently, the Chinese may decide to enter stage left. Could be Genghis khan all over again.