Afghanistan Has Fallen

[SomTum]

15 minutes ago, AussieBob said:

I feel sad for all those troops and their families that served.  Just as I do for all those that served in Germany and Japan and Vietnam  etc etc etc.  It was not all a fruitless exercise - would you want to be in a world ruled/run by Hitler or Japan as it was pre-WW2? Will the Taliban stop in Afghanistan or will they spread across to the Middle East?  What will they do with all that money if they do?  Why should American families pay one more life??  Was all their deaths in Europe and the Pacific and Afghanistan really needed?? Ask yourself those questions before slagging off at Biden and Trump and Bush - and remember that they didn't pay the price - the Americans who served and their families did.  

There has been a lot of ground gained and lost since 2001. The original aim of disrupting al Quaida worked well. Everything else has been... humbling. But we are very good at wishful forgetting when it comes to the more troubling parts our history, and bad at resisting charismatic leaders, so sorry to say, I suspect it's only a matter of time before this occurs again.

[PBS]

Taliban claim war is over...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2021/aug/16/afghanistan-taliban-kabul-evacuation-live-news-updates?utm_term=2ab346c2916465cd341358df79e5bb1a&utm_campaign=GuardianTodayAUS&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=GTAU_email

 

[JackIsAGoodBoy]

Adding injury to the insult the Taliban captured latest high tech drones and what not from the hastily retreating US forces. There seems to be total shitshow going on among recently appointed Biden's admin woke morons and the military.

[PBS]

32 minutes ago, AussieBob said:

Bush - Trump - Biden - they are all to blame - some more than others.  The problem is that USA believes that it has to 'help' the situation in the World - and it does. Without USA money the UN and many other 'world'  organisations would be either broke, or reliant on Chinese and Russian money - so they are stuck.  Since WW2 it has been the 'role' of USA to 'police' world problems in order to try and stop another WW from happening. There are many examples of where their help has succeeded - never perfectly - but overall it has been a success. Personally I feel they should pull out completely and let them all go to Hell or China - until they ask - and until they pay. It will only be when the world realises that we need USA - when USA has gone. 

I feel sad for all those troops and their families that served.  Just as I do for all those that served in Germany and Japan and Vietnam  etc etc etc.  It was not all a fruitless exercise - would you want to be in a world ruled/run by Hitler or Japan as it was pre-WW2? Will the Taliban stop in Afghanistan or will they spread across to the Middle East?  What will they do with all that money if they do?  Why should American families pay one more life??  Was all their deaths in Europe and the Pacific and Afghanistan really needed?? Ask yourself those questions before slagging off at Biden and Trump and Bush - and remember that they didn't pay the price - the Americans who served and their families did.  

Not forgetting the lives lost of the Afghans opposing the Taliban.

https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-business-afghanistan-43d8f53b35e80ec18c130cd683e1a38f

[JackIsAGoodBoy]

With this kind of personnel I am sure Biden's admin will take care of this clusterf***!

 

[Ajaythai]

Afghanistan has been a total disaster from when Bush sent in the troops until when Biden carried on and completed what Trump started.

At the end of the day which politician did what and when and how much money it cost is totally irrelevant.

What matters what really matters is how many brave men and women from the many countries who sent there military personnel to Afghanistan were killed or disabled fighting there, and for what.

Everything in Afghanistan will shortly be back just like it was before. Sharia law will be implemented and women will lose everything.

What did the West get out of it all?

A lot of young men and women returned home in body bags. A lot went home disable for life and even more went home with major PTS problems.

A lot of big private companies made an awful lot of money as the industrial military complex rolls on just waiting for the next opportunity to make money.

Very sad but also very true.

[JackIsAGoodBoy]

Mostly Democrats are to blame. They raised the participation trophy totally pampered and spoiled generation. Today, a lot of them are in their 30's and in this woke Biden admin as mid-level officials. The same crap in the private sector. They ruin everything. This is just the first major clusterf*** to come.

[9S_]

3 hours ago, PBS said:

A revision....Trump and American domestic political demands gave Afghanistan to the Taliban

Strange how no provincial capitals were lost under Trump or how Kabul still had a president when Trump left office 

But all provincial capitals fell under Biden

Kabuk fell under Biden

$1 Billion in US military equipment abandoned under Biden

Afghan President retreated under Biden

[gummy]

16 minutes ago, JackIsAGoodBoy said:

Adding injury to the insult the Taliban captured latest high tech drones and what not from the hastily retreating US forces. There seems to be total shitshow going on among recently appointed Biden's admin woke morons and the military.

Well with all the high tech equipment donated to the Taliban now by the US then should they combine with the Iranians given their technical prowess and distain for the US and its pal Israel, then a shit show with Israel being targeted could be an understatement.

[9S_]

2 minutes ago, Ajaythai said:

completed what Trump started.

LOL when Trump left office Afghanistan still had a president. They still held onto provincial capitals. All US equipment were in American hands. 
 

Under Biden only:

All provincial capitals fell in one month all under Biden

Kabul still had a President

All US equipment totaling nearly a $1 Billion were under American control

Trumps was not the President when Afghanistan fell, the Resident is who is currently on vacation in Camp David and was on vacation last week in his hometown of Delaware

[thai3]

Don't see it as 'fallen to the Taliban' the country always was the Taliban. Almost all of them want sharia law and strict Islamic rule, that's why there was no resistance to them walking in and taking over. Now they have it, welcome to the middle ages again.

[Zool]

9 hours ago, Benroon said:

So after spending a humungous $778 BILLION dollars, according to the US dept of defence, to get one man the americans have left their usual chaos ! They just don't learn - I wonder where they're going to go blundering in next ?

Nowhere. You can stick a fork in the USA, because she's done. The American empire is about to fall. 

John Glubb's 26 page essay on "The Fate of Empires" is a sobering read, showing the US has all the symptoms of a dying empire.

http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf

[gummy]

1 minute ago, thai3 said:

Don't see it as 'fallen to the Taliban' the country always was the Taliban. Almost all of them want sharia law and strict Islamic rule, that's why there was no resistance to them walking in and taking over. Now they have it, welcome to the middle ages again.

Its their country after all. Would you like some foreign aggressor come to your country and change the lifestyle you have chosen and lived by for a few thousand years ?  Their laws and way of life may be absolutely abhorrent to you and I but  what right do we have to tell them to change ?  Mind you guess the Taliban can tell the rest of the world exactly what they can do with their political correctness.

[JamesE]

2 hours ago, 9S_ said:

How many provincial capitals were lost under Trump?

The same number as were lost under Obama and Bush. But Trump made the "deal" that Biden was forced to live with. But don't believe me. Look it up.

[Sjoerd]

22 minutes ago, JackIsAGoodBoy said:

Mostly Democrats are to blame. They raised the participation trophy totally pampered and spoiled generation. Today, a lot of them are in their 30's and in this woke Biden admin as mid-level officials. The same crap in the private sector. They ruin everything. This is just the first major clusterf*** to come.

Not true: Republican G W Bush started this useless war. He should only have hunted Osama bin Laden and bomb Al Qaeda, not try to turn a country with so many different tribes into a democratic country. Bush showed his stupidity again by invading Iraq, although he was warned by historians (eg the Dutch prime minster Balkenende) not to do this, because of the danger of a civil war between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. 
Gratitude to Bush ISIS was founded and a million refugees from the Middle East and Afghanistan flooded Europe, causing right wing parties to flourish, endangering democracy and causing social unrest.

https://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/11/who-founded-isis-abu-musb-al-zarqawi-started-the-terror-group.html
"ISIS was founded by Al-Zarqawi who started funneling foreign fighters into Iraq through Syria. He also had little difficulty attracting fighters from disaffected Sunni tribes in Iraq, most of whom had little money or means of acquiring it, but many of whom had arms they had either stolen or bought from the collapsed national army."

Bush is the #1 war criminal of this century !! (up to now...)

[JamesE]

17 minutes ago, 9S_ said:

LOL when Trump left office

That's because Trump left office before his deal's due date. The mechanisms of withdrawal had not even begun.

[JamesE]

23 minutes ago, 9S_ said:

Kabuk fell under Biden

It was the end of Japanese theatre? Dammit, Joe. Enough is enough.

[HappyExpat]

2 hours ago, colinneil said:

Just another American clusterf..k, when will they ever learn to mind their own business?

A total failure, many lives lost, and for what?

<snip>

I can't help but think this had SOMETHING to do with it

(source: https://www.unodc.org/documents/crop-monitoring/Afghanistan/20210503_Executive_summary_Opium_Survey_2020_SMALL.pdf)

 

[9S_]

7 minutes ago, JamesE said:

It was the end of Japanese theatre? Dammit, Joe. Enough is enough.

Leave me alone I have fat white stubby fingers. 

[thai3]

16 minutes ago, gummy said:

Its their country after all. Would you like some foreign aggressor come to your country and change the lifestyle you have chosen and lived by for a few thousand years ?  Their laws and way of life may be absolutely abhorrent to you and I but  what right do we have to tell them to change ?  Mind you guess the Taliban can tell the rest of the world exactly what they can do with their political correctness.

You could argue their ideology has come into western countries and changed it for the worse. They are on a mission to convert the whole world, it's at the core of their belief system, Afghanistan is just one faction of this rotten worldwide religious horror.

 

 

 

[NumbNut]

23 minutes ago, Zool said:

Nowhere. You can stick a fork in the USA, because she's done. The American empire is about to fall. 

John Glubb's 26 page essay on "The Fate of Empires" is a sobering read, showing the US has all the symptoms of a dying empire.

http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf

Great link, thank you for that

[9S_]

12 minutes ago, JamesE said:

The same number as were lost under Obama and Bush. But Trump made the "deal" that Biden was forced to live with. But don't believe me. Look it up.

Last I checked Biden is US Resident not Trump. The blood of millions of Afghans are on his hands. 
 

Biden watched as jihadis stormed provincial capitals one by one from the chair of his vacation homes in Delaware every weekend. 

Biden proudly proclaimed that US intelligence was wrong that the Afghan government would collapse

Biden proudly proclaimed that the Taliban would never seize the country

Kabul fell under Biden, not Trump

Afghanistan fell under Biden, not Trump

The upcoming genocide will fall under Biden, not Trump

[gummy]

6 minutes ago, JamesE said:

That's because Trump left office before his deal's due date. The mechanisms of withdrawal had not even begun.

It appeared though that the sole mechanism for withdrawal  that was eventually established by the US and few remaining UK forces was solely running to the airport mainly under cover of darkness leaving everything behind, was it not ? I wonder how long the Pentagon took to work that out ? Or perhaps the big wig generals had been watching the movie " Dunkirk" the previous day and thought it was a good idea.

Of course the scramble to get Embassy staff out now indicates that after watching that 1st movie they just watched the other one for ideas "The Fall of Saigon".  The Chinese will be lapping up the incompetence of such a major military power and possibly now have an even bigger incentive to address the Taiwan issue. 

[gummy]

4 minutes ago, thai3 said:

You could argue their ideology has come into western countries and changed it for the worse. They are on a mission to convert the whole world, it's at the core of their belief system, Afghanistan is just one faction of this rotten worldwide religious horror.

All religions are culpable. They only survived and grew by murdering those that believed something different.

[PBS]

4 minutes ago, 9S_ said:

Strange how no provincial capitals were lost under Trump or how Kabul still had a president when Trump left office 

But all provincial capitals fell under Biden

Kabuk fell under Biden

$1 Billion in US military equipment abandoned under Biden

Afghan President retreated under Biden

IMO to solely point the finger at Biden is ridiculous.

Hopefully, people who have served in Afghanistan, in they are honest, will post clarification, but my understanding from reading and so on shows the current scenario was a long time coming, with villages and towns surrounding the provincial capitals being absorbed into Taliban territory. Endemic corruption within police and the military was never successfully addressed with billions of dollars in cash being shipped offshore, personnel not being paid, opium trafficking for weapons, inter ethnic conflict, Pakistani safe haven etc etc etc none of which was resolved under trump, though other Administrations were also unsuccessful - read the Afghanistan Papers.