MolarAm🔵
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Aug 26, 2021 6:34:43 GMT
So the evacuation actually looks like... it's going not too badly? It's happening quickly with thousands leaving every day, there haven't been any deaths, the government and Taliban are negotiating to create "a government acceptable to all Afghans" (whatever that means), etc etc.
Which isn't to say that it's been perfect (it hasn't), or that leaving was overall the correct decision (reasonable minds may disagree on that), or that there won't be further pain and violence down the track (probably, who knows). But so far it doesn't look like quite the clusterfuck we were looking at a few days ago.
(of course the "this was an unmitigated disaster" narrative has already been set; this probably won't make a whole lot of difference to that)
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Post by Tonka (🐑,🪤) on Aug 26, 2021 7:33:15 GMT
Afghanistan had two problems, now they have one.
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Post by Jambowayoh on Aug 26, 2021 7:43:06 GMT
I think we're all aware that the Taliban will be back to business as usual once the media have moved on.
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MolarAm🔵
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Aug 26, 2021 7:48:14 GMT
I think we're all aware that the Taliban will be back to business as usual once the media have moved on. But without keeping troops there indefinitely, that was always going to happen. It was a civil war that we couldn't win; only one that we could prolong. |
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Post by Jambowayoh on Aug 26, 2021 7:58:04 GMT
Oh totally.
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Post by simple on Aug 26, 2021 8:27:00 GMT
So the evacuation actually looks like... it's going not too badly? It's happening quickly with thousands leaving every day, there haven't been any deaths, the government and Taliban are negotiating to create "a government acceptable to all Afghans" (whatever that means), etc etc. Which isn't to say that it's been perfect (it hasn't), or that leaving was overall the correct decision (reasonable minds may disagree on that), or that there won't be further pain and violence down the track (probably, who knows). But so far it doesn't look like quite the clusterfuck we were looking at a few days ago. (of course the "this was an unmitigated disaster" narrative has already been set; this probably won't make a whole lot of difference to that) They’re getting the job done but there’s not much denying that they’ve also fucked it. |
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Post by Dougs on Aug 26, 2021 8:30:23 GMT
Sounds like it's getting (mostly) done inspite of everything
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Zyrr
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Post by Zyrr on Aug 26, 2021 8:35:56 GMT
Looks like the evacuation has come to a grinding halt this morning as both the US and UK are warning of an imminent suspected terrorist attack on the airport. Warning all nationals who are still awaiting evacuation to stay away, apparently.
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MolarAm🔵
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Aug 26, 2021 8:45:25 GMT
It's also worth noting that
1. The Biden state department advised American citizens to leave asap in April
2. The Afghan government asked the Americans not to mass-evacuate their people earlier, because this would have accelerated government collapse
And that collapse would have happened even if we had delayed evacuations further. It just would have been... delayed.
Again, it's not to say that everything happened perfectly. But... we lost a war. Losing a war is messy as a matter of course, and this could have been a *lot* messier.
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Post by stuz359 on Aug 26, 2021 14:02:36 GMT
Looks like it's all kicking off now. No details yet so no point posting a link, but 'explosion outside Kabul airport' is the gist of it.
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Post by Resident Knievel on Aug 26, 2021 15:27:52 GMT
20 years of slow progress rolled back in months due to a preventable failure cascade
Millions of lives ruined
fucking fuckedy fuck Trump the cunt
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 26, 2021 15:36:28 GMT
The general consensus from people who have been over there is that there's been fuck all actual progress in the last 20 years and this has always been inevitable. All the last 20 years has done has taught the Taliban how to fight better.
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Post by Resident Knievel on Aug 26, 2021 16:38:49 GMT
There's been a monumental amount of progress for the quality of life for Afghanistan women in the last 20 years
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Post by simple on Aug 26, 2021 16:52:23 GMT
Looks like it's all kicking off now. No details yet so no point posting a link, but 'explosion outside Kabul airport' is the gist of it. Sounds like its been a nasty one. Selfishly telling myself the soldiers I know there are probably out of the firing line as the Americans are the ones who manned the perimeter. |
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Post by Jambowayoh on Aug 26, 2021 16:59:00 GMT
So we're back to the good old days of ISIS being back in play then? Fuck.
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Post by Danno on Aug 26, 2021 17:57:46 GMT
Lockheed/Boeing etc need things to wind back up, several tens of million dollars a day is pathetic. At least this way the US can deploy troops in a few months somewhere or another. Gotta think of the shareholders.
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H-alphaFox
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Post by H-alphaFox on Aug 26, 2021 19:59:22 GMT
Unconfirmed reports of another big blast, via various live blogs.
From Guardian
Taliban spokesman inspires confidence.
I mean yeah, the US just lost a dozen or so men and women. I bet they are destroying iskp ammunition 4 blocks from the airport.
Just a thought.
What a mess.
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Post by Jambowayoh on Aug 26, 2021 20:19:31 GMT
I see Islamic State confirmed it through their own official Telegram account. Which is totally fine and normal.
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Post by stuz359 on Aug 26, 2021 20:22:32 GMT
I find it weird how people are saying we could not have had a sustained presence in Afghanistan for a long time. I mean, they still have significant amounts of troops in South Korea, Japan & Germany(!). They only had 2500 troops on the ground, no deaths of US troops since 2016, they were essentially providing air support to the Afghan army.
The thing with nation building is, it takes a long time. The US haven't really been even in there for one generation. For true change, in any country, the time to change the culture significantly, is a long one.
Think about this country FFS. Women got the franchise just over a 100 years ago. In theory that should have given them equal rights at the same time. But it took a long time culturally for that to change (until about the eighties or nineties it was still common for women to be 'stay at home mums' etc...). Things have obviously gotten better, but there are still a lot of issues and women are still not treated as equal in this country.
We could, have set an example here over many generations, look at what could be possible example to the entire middle east, a society that worked, but it would have taken time, a lot of time. All wasted, alas.
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Post by GigaChad Sigma. on Aug 26, 2021 20:36:13 GMT
20 years, billions pumped into a corrupt system. It doesn't seem sustainable.
Hundreds of years of tribal conflict and a society where a majority doesn’t want Western politics.
If progress is going to occur and be permanent it has to be driven by the Afghan people rather than a military occupation.
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Post by anthonyuk on Aug 26, 2021 21:12:48 GMT
Implementing a Western style democracy with hand picked rulers was always going to fail. Unsurprisingly welcomed as much as any of the Western countries involved being invaded by the UAE, then having hand picked arab politicians and heads of state put in place.
I keep hearing how brutal sharia laws is and how women are second class citizens. I don't agree with it, but it's laughable how the media have forgotten most of the Muslim world operate in this way including Dubai and Saudi Arabia. Not saying I agree at all, just the double standards are mind blowing.
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MolarAm🔵
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Aug 26, 2021 22:25:14 GMT
I find it weird how people are saying we could not have had a sustained presence in Afghanistan for a long time. I mean, they still have significant amounts of troops in South Korea, Japan & Germany(!). They only had 2500 troops on the ground, no deaths of US troops since 2016, they were essentially providing air support to the Afghan army. It's not really the same thing. Japan and Germany were both allied nations under imminent threat by powers that posed a strategic risk to America (ie. the USSR), and are still potentially under threat by Russia and China (and North Korea). There's no similar strategic benefit to keeping troops in Afghanistan, except maybe possibly stopping Al Qaeda from coming back. With a cost of billions. And if you want Americans to bring troops into places to help, just out of the goodness of their hearts without thinking of benefit to America... well, there's heaps of other options. What about Myanmar? Or Ethiopia? Afghanistan isn't special. |
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Lizard
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Post by Lizard on Aug 26, 2021 22:50:53 GMT
Nation-building in an essentially tribal state with long-standing divisions and was always going to be hard. It's spent much of its history subjugated and/or war torn and never really developed organically as a nation state.
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Post by Jambowayoh on Aug 26, 2021 22:53:44 GMT
True, plus some of the cultural differences are just huge
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Post by simple on Aug 27, 2021 7:54:55 GMT
MOD saying we’ll be out before the Americans leave on the 31st.
Isis fighting an insurgency against the Taliban is going to get a lot uglier before its over now. Could Biden end up providing air cover and drone strikes to support the Taliban to get revenge and hold Isis back.
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Post by Resident Knievel on Aug 27, 2021 8:53:29 GMT
MOD saying we’ll be out before the Americans leave on the 31st. Isis fighting an insurgency against the Taliban is going to get a lot uglier before its over now. Could Biden end up providing air cover and drone strikes to support the Taliban to get revenge and hold Isis back. But that's pretty much what the US was already doing with the Afghan army |
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Post by simple on Aug 27, 2021 13:07:13 GMT
The Times is reporting that we left personnel files with the contact details of loads of Afghans who’d work with us behind in the Embassy. And they’ve been found.
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Post by irongiant on Aug 29, 2021 14:46:34 GMT
So another US drone strike, this time they've killed an Afghan child in their quest for blood and revenge.
Go Biden, let's see how many other innocents you can kill in the name of freedom and to get your ratings up.
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Post by simple on Aug 29, 2021 16:40:24 GMT
I think the message is Bush, Obama, Trump or Biden US military policy changes very little in its application whatever the overtures from the White House.
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Post by Mr Wonderstuff on Aug 29, 2021 16:55:26 GMT
So another US drone strike, this time they've killed an Afghan child in their quest for blood and revenge. Go Biden, let's see how many other innocents you can kill in the name of freedom and to get your ratings up. Yea pretty bad. However, how many people would have died as a result of the bomb going off? Still, the US needs to be more precise. Tough call no matter which way you look at it. Tailban could have done sonething if they were told I suppose but no guarantees on that front. |
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