Yeah man, I feel sorry for the people who will have to live under the fucking Taliban, but we've spent way too much time, money and blood on Afghanistan already.
We shouldn't have been there in the first place, but for them to just instantly roll over to the Taliban... Just compare it to Ukraine, where they are fighting for their lives and freedom against a much more powerful enemy.
It's long past time for Afghanistan to deal with their own problems.
Yeah, like what do they expect? Another foreign military intervention?
That will not happen again for decades at best. Longer if all the developed nations really learn from America's mistake this time.
Sure, we can sanction them, but any aid just gets intercepted, so that's out. It sucks so many Afghans are suffering under the system, but it's the system they let happen. Did they want to be an occupied country forever? Was this a fight America was expected to wage indefinitely? Twenty years was already too long.
I never thought about this at the time. It was all just shocking and frankly pathetic. Didn't realize the men had the least at stake, while women had the most, but were not allowed to join the fight. Many men probably didn't care or even resented the "changes". (Women's rights. Sounds familiar. MAGA?) Unwilling to put up any kind of fight for that kind of future for their partners and daughters.
I wonder what most Afghan women think of these men now. And if joining the military was ever a realistic possibility, and could have changed the result.
Kipling has some lines about what happens when you give Afghan women knives
Tbf Afghanistan defeated a much stronger Russia back in the 80s.
With less help than Ukraine gets.
Edit: so the downvotes are just ignorant of history or are they trying to rewrite it to suit their own agendas? Regardless, not a good sign for the future.
It's not the graveyard of empires because it's farmland.
Well the Taliban took over the pieces after the U.S. abandoned the Mujhaideen.
Funny how history repeats.
The downvotes are probably because you seem to 'ignore' the US role in arming the Taliban.
See below. This was addressed yesterday.
I wonder if it was "hard" or "I want the Taliban to take over." There's probably a decent amount of people in that area that can fundamentally agree with the Taliban. it's a religious and oppression group. If you're ideologically aligned with the Taliban, and male, you're probably either as good or better of under them.
Not saying this is everything but I imagine there's at least some people who are ok with the new government, mostly because they don't care about others over their own self.
Well, that sounds like propaganda videos where they had already surrendered and the taliban wanted to make it seem like all it would take was one person to make people volunteer...
But, you're also talking about all the equipment that was expensive but neither side had the knowledge or equipment to maintain, right?
Do you have more info about what happened then?
About why the Taliban took over so quickly?
Yeah, Afghanistan isn't a normal country. It's a loose collection of tribes that have been pitted against each other for centuries. There's no unity, they've never really had a federal government just other countries that used militaries to try and force compliance from all the tribal leaders.
So when America left with like 2 weeks notice, everyone just went back to their tribes. The "Afghan Army" had better equipment, but it was equipment they just couldn't maintain. After a couple weeks of fighting it would have all broken down and they'd have ran out of ammo. Meanwhile the Taliban had supply lines and decades of experience fighting with their equipment.
The Taliban is just a coalition of the most extreme tribes. One that was trained in gurellia warfare by America and is actually united in their religious extremism.
First of all, none of these women were in that army so painting this as the consequences of their actions seems a bit dishonest.
Second, I remember when they were alleged to have a phenomenal army but it turned out most of that was on paper not real.
The facade crumbled.
I wonder how things would have turned out if the US had built up divisions of the Afghan army with women.
none of these women were in that army so painting this as the consequences of their actions seems a bit dishonest.
What makes you think that these women who choose their culture as dignity would oppose their rulers which they gained power from it?
I'm sorry but I don't understand this question, could you maybe rephrase it or explain your reasoning? I don't think these women have "gained power" it seems like the opposite.
First woman quoted in the article (a refugee):
“I had a beautiful house and a job that I loved. I lived with my family, I had friends and I was pregnant. But I lost my baby, I fled my country without my husband and now I live here alone. I’m safe, but do you think I’m happy, do you think I can sleep at night knowing my family’s situation in Afghanistan?”
The Afghan army seemed totally incompetent. Examples:
Remember that the government is installed by the US and allies. If they actually care, the could have spent some time to find candidates that can gather people around and build a unionized front along with education and infrastructure. The reality is they put a thief in power who is now living somewhere in Europe and enjoying his wealth.
Blaming a victim complaining about their experience or at least expectations is in bad taste.
candidates that can gather people around and build a unionized front along with education and infrastructure
I don't think that person existed in Afghanistan.
The ANA never had very good moral, just read the experiences of US troops with them.
Remember when the Afghan people had a phenomenally well equipped and well trained army, and then they just gave up inside a week because things were “hard”?
You didn't read the Afghanistan Papers did you?
You gonna link or
https://www.washingtonpost.com/...
There is also a book by the same name. I also recommend the documentary Bitter Lake by Adam Curtis.
I'd have more sympathy for the people of Afghanistan if they had actually fought back against the Taliban.
People say that America lost in Afghanistan, but we were basically the only thing propping up democracy. The people themselves made no effort.
Nah, they didn't make an effort. The Taliban was welcomed when they rolled in. The US military expected there would be resistance, but the Taliban had pretty much captured everything before we were even gone.
Yeah agree. Like what does the world need to do for your country internal problem.
Outside of Kabul it seemed the average rural person felt that they had to choose between a temporary US occupation supporting an uninterested government vs the Taliban who were all around them on a daily basis and would take over the second the US left. They did the safe thing and sided with the Taliban.
At some point, the people of Afghanistan should be able to take control of their own country. How can a vast majority of the people sit there and let a tiny percentage dictate the lives and rules for everyone? Kick the Taliban out of your country.
The problem is that the Taliban have popular support. The media don't want to report it, but this is a society where public life has always been under the purview of men, it's a largely Muslim country, very rural, and the alternative power centers there are chock full of child molesters and corrupt individuals. The Taliban, despite their strong ideological position, has a lot going for them. They're not taking bribes to sell out their values. They're capable of maintaining stability. Even if people disagree with some or other things about them, theyre better than the alternatives. Fact is, they're in power there because they're the only organization capable of holding power there.
it’s a largely Muslim country
Pretty much all the Abrahmic religions do this shit when they're in power...
I wouldn't have pointed it out, because it's kind of like saying the sky is blue. But from the rest of your comment it seems like you legitimately think it's just Muslims., And not that entire religious family
It's not just Muslims that are fundamentalist extremists. But of every major religion, Islam has the highest rate of that kind of extremism. There are plenty of Christian countries which are socially progressive and endorse modern sensibilities. No Muslim countries are.
I have a dear friend of mine who is a religious minority in Egypt (she's a Copt). The paranoia that she and her parents have when interacting with Muslims is saddening, because of how it's been justified. Her church has lost several members to religious violence, and she's lived through a suicide bombing which happened at that church and targeted Christians.
I'm not saying there aren't Christian extremists. There are. But the Muslim extremist problem is an order of magnitude larger within that faith.
Judge individual Muslims for their own beliefs. But there is no Christian version of the Taliban state or ISIS. And Islam is to blame for the actions of its extremist adherents writ large. It desperately needs a religious reformation, but instead, the Saudis are still chopping the heads off of people who offend their religious police.
Feels like a geopolitical issue more than a religious issue.
It’s not just Muslims that are fundamentalist extremists. But of every major religion, Islam has the highest rate of that kind of extremism
Not really...
There's over 1.7 billion Muslims in the world, that's a lot of people.
But there is no Christian version of the Taliban state or ISIS
So basically you're saying we can just ignore all the countries where they're trying to do it, just ignore them till their in power?
Nah, I don't see how that helps anyone except Christian extremists.
I said Muslim once. The rest of my comment is about Afghanistan.
They really don't. Israel is a Jewish country and women are allowed to go to school or university.
There's countless Christian countries and that shit happens nowhere.
You're confusing a country where a majority of citizens are Christian with countries who are lead by Christian leaders...
I can't think of a single equivalent than the Vatican, and if you're acting like that's a great government...
We probably dont agree on what makes a government good.
It reminds me of Iraq right before 9/11 happened.. ye they had a piece of shit dictator Sadam; absolutely. But they wasn't being bombed to smithereens. And in the mess of war in Iraq the ISIS were able to fuck shit up n grow , even growing into syria, Afghanistan n maybe other countries...
Yeah but they're extremists and terrorists who want to control all aspects of the media, stop women from having rights over their bodies and return to their place in society serving men, criminalize everything that goes against their religious beliefs and restrict voting and democracy to preserve their 'values', carry guns with them everywhere and fanatically praise their leaders.
Err, there's some differences somewhere I'm sure..
No shit. The second we left they fell apart. No resistance.
As far as I'm concerned we should only help those that help themselves, like Ukraine is doing. Afghanistan has always been Taliban simps. Those women know where their men sleep and have knives ffs.
I suppose the devil they know is better than the one they don’t know.
Yeah, we should only help white people right?
This is a great message for the world, we'll help you, as long as you're white
Bro, you went so far that you actually became racist yourself. You literally said: “Do help themselves” == “white” “Don’t help themselves” == “not white”
You are pushing the american stereotype for “lazy immigrants”
Thats kinda cringe tbh.
"Talking about the dynamics of racism is racist." I'll let MLK know.
Found the racist.
Are you implying that non-whites are incapable of helping themselves?
Has nothing to do with race. Ukraine didn't bend over for Russia instead fucking their shit up day 1. Their president didn't flee instead stayed and mocked the occupiers by showing off him and his crew were still in Kyiv.
Afghanistan? We trained them for twenty years to stand up for themselves as a independent democratic nation and threw it away the second we left. What a fucking waste. They didn't even have fucking OIL to take. Nor was Osama there, or ever was.
If Afghanistan actually gave a fuck and tried but failed my opinion would be quite different. I'd be all "remember our fallen Afghan allies" o7 n shit.
So yeah take your standard operation trolling elsewhere. I've seen this exact same talking point before it's not original, think for yourself for a goddamn change*
If you think that's the timeline of events for Afghan forces, then you don't know shit. We never trained them to use the equipment we spent trillions of dollars on. The manuals didn't even have an Arabic translation.
And somehow the person calling out racism is always dubbed the racist by those who refuse to acknowledge their own privilege, let alone their blatant bias. Fucking typical.
That's been the American motto since the country's independence. Huge debates about helping the french aristocracy at the start of the reign of terror, but not even a single response to the former slaves in Haiti after their revolution.
We didn’t like the Reign of Terror because it was the Reign. Of. Terror. Also bribery with the XYZ Affair turned us against the murderous revolutionaries.
We didn’t help the Haitians because of Southern Slavers were scared of that happening to them. If only it did…
The problem is that “the people of Afghanistan” don’t see themselves as a united people. Regional and tribal ties are far, far stronger in the region than any true sense of national identity outside of “let’s cooperate just long enough to kick these fucking foreigners out”. Immediately after that’s accomplished, the region regresses into very old-school power politics and warlord fiefdoms. This has happened twice now in the space of 50 years. The truly galling point, though, is that US leaders and officials should have known this… but there were effectively zero coherent plans to handle that aspect of the occupation.
How can a vast majority of the people sit there and let a tiny percentage dictate the lives and rules for everyone?
Is that a serious question?
The vast majority of the world lives like that...
Even in first world countries.
I'm American, and a very very tiny percentage of other Americans hold the vast amount of wealth and use it to buy the majority of both parties off so that literally no matter who wins any election, they're going to be someone that puts corporate profits over the average American.
Where do you live that's truly led by the majority?
Fun fact, the dynamic where the majority class controls the "rules" is called communism. Maybe they want us to give it a go here in the US?
Same way stuff happens in the USA... inequality n disparity keeps growing... The ruling / wealthy 🤑 class keeps consolidating wealth n we all just go on with our lives... Don't we?
A lot of the Afghanistan problem is that they have no national identity, they're a collection of tribes and warlords, so the only united group in the country is the Taliban, and the Taliban has a lot of help from Pakistan and other regional powers.
What in the racist fuck is this generalization?
IDK exactly what the "world" can do here. The Taliban is the legit government of Afghanistan now (well, maybe legit should be in quotes). Do people want another war to take out the Taliban? That didn't go so well the first time. And there are already sanctions on the Taliban's government but other countries are still willing to trade with them.
I don't see any international fix working here. There needs to be internal change. Whether that's reform, coup, or whatever.
You aren’t forgotten. US and allies accepted the decision that was made within a week of us leaving. The country, as a whole, collectively chose the easy route of Taliban rule. That decision has consequences.
They're not saying the withdrawal was quick, they're saying the takeover after the withdrawal was quick. Which it was, Pentagon officials said it was faster than all their estimates.
The gov had poor control over the countryside and the Taliban had infiltrated everywhere and was just laying in wait. The irony is they are now fighting another, even more extreme Islamic group, Al Qaeda.
Yeah, I mean, we were over there for well over a decade trying to fix that shit and the country as a whole just did not want to change, so we gave up and left. It was a giant waste for everyone involved.
Lol yeah that's totally what happened in. It definitely wasn't a scam where we turned Afghanistan into a black hole for contractor money.
It's unbelievable how naive and arrogant this thread is. How low can you get?
My dumb ass was 16 when it all started and even then I was aware enough to realize it was all about Raytheon, Haliburton, PMCs, etc...
I blame those fucking pieces of shit Cheney and Rumsfield for not only stealing a potential future from me (because after realizing all that I said fuck joining the military) but obviously worse all the death and destruction that was caused for their financial benefit...
Trump had a line "they're not sending their best here" when being a dickhole in reference to immigration, but honestly that quote goes especially well for pretty much all of our politicians.
You didn't go to fix shit. You went because you wanted revenge. You stayed because a lot of people made money.
Everybody told you back them you can't fix Afghanistan's issues by force. You just killed a lot of Afghanis for nothing.
Then you went to Iraq.
I don’t really get the stance of “you wanted revenge, bloodthirsty revenge murica”. Did you forget that innocent lives were taken, unasked?
What the fuck would YOU do? Sit there and twiddle your thumbs all like “oh…3,000 people, never forget. sniff”.
That is revenge. You think it is justified revenge. Perhaps it was though history did not start on 11/09/2001. It certainly is not "we were over there for well over a decade trying to fix that shit" as the guy I replied too said.
You also kind of forgot about the guy that actually arranged the attack for a few years while many more people died than in Afghanistan and Iraq than in WTC, most of them having nothing to do with the attacks.
The feeling there was....
- The gov didn't care about anyone outside of Kabul.
- They knew the US wouldn't be there forever and the ANA had shitty moral. The Taliban however would be there when the US left and people didn't want to be targeted for revenge killings, etc.
Many people including Americans are suffering and have been forgotten because of what happened over there. I guarantee there are many that wish they had done things differently and just minded their own business. Patriotism is a powerful con.
Yeah, but we aren't reporting at the level we used to.
But to be fair, we still ignored Afghanistan a lot during the occupation.
Why should we? Honestly, if I was American, I would be salty about this as hell. So much money spent and then they give up the moment US leaves? Apparently they got exactly what they wanted. Sure, not everyone likes it, but don't blame the world "forgetting" about you, this shit is entirely of their doing.
As it was reported by the Onion in the late 2000’s: The majority of Americans support emotionally withdrawing from Afghanistan.
What else would you call it?
If all you use are facts, the soundbites aren’t as good.
There was an attempt at nation building and it didn't go well. Afghanistan and the Middle East is a culturally complicated place, it's mostly tribes and smaller villages with a lot of history. It's hard to point fingers at the US for leaving when a decent chunk of the country either didn't care, or didn't want them there anymore.
Even if the US intentions were good (and they were not great, basically being revenge for 9/11), who wants to be ruled by a foreign invader?
If some alien superpower invaded the USA tomorrow, gave them free healthcare, 40 days holiday a year from work, legalised abortion again and mountains of affordable housing in the places people actually wanted to live, they'd still fight back. Even if it meant things going back to how they were before.
And it creates the question -- what should the aliens do long term?
If they leave, what do they owe those of us who liked them?
I really struggle with this. I can't say as an American that we don't owe them anything. But I also can't say that it's our job to go back and invade once more. We've done that. I don't know what changes we could make to change the outcome.
Sorry for the sudden musings, haha
They would. Just point anyone they think deserves less then themselves and they Will fight tooth and nail. So so many americans will gladly cut off their nose to spite their face
I mean, literally any other country in the world is welcome to step in and fix it. Imagine the bragging rights at the next UN summit. "We fixed Afghanistan!" No? No takers? Alright.
As cynical as a take as that is, yeah national building hard espically out there. People will resist change, you have very little infrastructure to work with, and a poor little esucation population
The second part sounds a bit like a copout. They have done military interventions in a lot of different regions. The US has ransacked a growing number of countries just to get rid of a small amount of "baddies".
You don't get to destroy shit and leave. If you play world police, start doing the whole job, not parts of it. And I'm totally fine with US starting less interventions because they don't wanna clean up after themselves. Probably a net positive given the history in the middle east.
I agree with you, but also... they absolutely did not want us there. America isn't trying to colonize.
The people in power are corrupt, the world around. Religious states, doubly so.
We can't even control the zealots rising up in our own country.
The thing is, we weren't there for a decade just destroying things. A few years, absolutely. But the rest of the time was spent trying to clean up and rebuild. Maybe the US just isn't good at that, but what else can we do at this point? Returning would just be meddling again and earn ire.
Rebuilding translates to funding the lavish lifestyles of our puppets. Very colonial.
I'm not sure what people want, exactly. 20 years of occupation wasn't enough to change their culture even a little bit. Do they want permanent American occupation? That's clearly untenable for many reasons. I don't want America to be the world police, and I don't want them invading countries on moral grounds.
Any aid given to Afghanistan immediately ends up in the hands of the Taliban now.
No, the Spanish Republicans definitely put up a real fight. If the Afghan Army had the same mettle as the Republican Army of Spain, then the Taliban would have been kicked back to Pakistan because of massive materiel superiority.
100% . The dude you responded to is just wrong. Franco started the Civil War in 1936, but it went until 1939. He had a lot of the army plus the backing of the Nazis. The Spanish Republicans had... Picasso and Ernest Hemingway.
The painting "Guernica" is about Nazis bombing a small town. If you have to kill a horse and some children with a bomber, you aren't going to be winning any time soon.
Might as well annex Afghanistan and make them a state of the Union, then some changes could happen.
We spent twenty years fighting their battles for them, $2.3 trillion spent helping build up their infrastructure, supplying them with weapons and training, and trying to help them build a legitimate democratic government. After all our efforts, expenses, and American lives lost, it took the Taliban just ten days to retake the entire country. Freedom can't be given it has to be won, and frankly they weren't willing to fight for theirs... and I say this as a disabled combat veteran who lost dozens of friends to this conflict either in combat or to their own hands once they returned home. What a waste.
To be fair Russia, the UK and the US also took turns totaly destroying the country for the better part of the last century. We can't give them their freedom back on a plate but we shouldn't forget that we're also the ones that took it away. That money and those lives weren't some kind of gift they were an attempt to undo the collective damage we've done. Well the American/British money and lives, pretty sure Russia didn't give a crap.
Wow I'm american and this is some american kool aide if I've ever seen it. The Taliban is evil but the framing of the invasion and occupation as some noble humanitarian effort is like newsmax propaganda.
We built schools and got girls into the schools. The first thing the Taliban did was close all of those schools.
When externals were (unsuccesfully) trying to change something in the country, it was a total bust. I read in these comments that intentions were not pure from America, and I can imagine that. I also saw interviews with US military personal after they came back from Afghanistan, who seemed to genuinely want to help, but had to deal with a lot of corruption, low education, internal theft and child abuse (Bachi Bazi). Now no one is helping, and even though I'd like for the local population to live free lives, I don't even know how one would start to help. The Taliban will just hide and guerilla it's way back after occupation has dissapated. It seems like a real life Kobayashi Maru situation. No winners, only losers here :(
It reminds me, I read about veterans who went to volunteer and fight for Ukraine because they wanted to help, and they felt like they hadn't in Afghanistan.
The organization ended up fracturing, and one of those factions went on to become a terrorist organization. Not all of them though.
Uh, wrong.
We only invade brown people and commies.
Germany was brown commies?
I think they just expected empathy and interest in them as a people.
Ok, they have our empathy and interest. How does that translate into meaningful physical action?
It translated pretty easily for 2 decades. Then an orange chimp decided he didn't care just like he doesn't care about anything his country commits to and left. Then Biden just pushed it through while the Afghanistan government was unready and countless American sympathisers and supporters still had not been extracted just because he also doesn't give a sh*t about promises his country makes. America leaving was inevitable. The taliban retaking was almost handed to them by how America decided to withdraw.
There was no way the ANA would have held on for long after the US left, held on for a little longer, maybe.
There was no way the Taliban wasn't going to eventually win in some capacity.
Do they? You're more focused on trying to have a gotcha on the internet than displaying any empathy or interest in them.
Is that your idea of what empathy or interest looks like?
What do you think it should look like? I'm not pleased with the situation but I don't know what we could do differently.
Not to be a dick but if they don't like it they could do something about it themselves. Hoping that "the world will do something" rarely has good results.
Yeah haven't they been at war or occupied for like 200 years? The withdrawal was a clusterfuck but it was never not going to be one. Idk what the rest of the world can do at this point. I read China wants to tap into those sweet lithium mines. Let them give it a shot I guess?
The Taliban are not the Nazis, not even close. They're a guerilla group, and not a particularly effective one. They lost almost all engagements with the US and allied armies. They were mainly good at running away and doing drugs in the mountains.
The problem is, the people of Afghanistan do not have the ability or desire to be a unified country right now, so there is no one to oppose them. The Yugoslav Partizans (who did fight the Nazis) would have beat their brains in. The IRA would have easily beaten them. There are even modern day rebel groups who would beat them.
The opposition was mostly murdered by the Taliban before and after the fall. The military aid we gave the Afghans was also entirely fake and we allowed it be stolen.
But then people in this thread have the arrogance to come in here and go on rants about how it's all the Afghans' fault when we literally occupied their country for 20 fucking years and achieved nothing. The US is fully responsible for his situation.
It's disgusting to see Americans attack Afghans in this thread because they're butthurt that a woman said Afghans were forgotten, which they absolutely were. No wonder so many people in the world hate us.
White Supremacist rhetoric, wonderful
I left reddit because most of you are just nazis, now you're here spamming the same garbage
Do you... think it's good that Europe has some of the craziest guerilla groups in history? Like do you think that's something to brag about? Ok...
Nigeria still has Boko Haram, which was the deadliest group in the 2010s:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boko_Haram
In DRC, there were militias responsible for multiple civil wars in the 90s and 2000s. Latin America has had a ton of rebel groups (both left and right wing) too.
Are you happy now?
The overwhelmingly left leaning reddit, which practically never had any even right leaning headline upvoted to /r/all (besides The Donald, when it existed) are mostly Nazis...
If r/politics are Nazis, then Mao must be a centrist by your standards. Just how deluded are you?
The world spent trillions of dollars and thousands of lives to help you. It didn't take.
Gotta love all the 'muricans trying to defend their exceptionalism and blaming Afghanistan and its people for the country's woes.
USA never cared about Afghanistan or its people. In the 1980s, it, along with Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and United Kingdom, helped fund the muhajideen fighting against the Soviet Union (Soviet-Afghan war). As soon as the war was over and the soviets retreated, the funding dried up.
After 9/11, USA went into a bloodlust, invading Afghanistan because they (Taliban) wanted proof that Osama bin Laden was involved with the terrorist attack first. bin Laden fled to Pakistan, but the USA didn't invade them, nor threatened to. Instead, USA just kept their boots on foreign soil because, hey, free real state and cheap poppy, amirite?
Also, since at least 2010, it's been publicly known that Pakistan has been helping the Taliban in fighting for Afghanistan. Yet, there were no sanctions, no tough talks, no threats, nothing, against Pakistan.
Afghanistan is full of a bunch of small tribes. They all hate each other and refuse to work together. Just go Google "dancing boy parties Afghanistan" you will quickly lose any sympathy for the people and culture. The US had to turn a blind eye to pedophile parties, which are a time honored tradition, in order to keep the peace.
The forces the US trained and equipped were basically the dregs of society that would be in prison in most countries. They would steal and sell shit to the Taliban. Claiming to have driven many miles on patrol to syphon and sell the gas was common practice. They sold the guns and trucks. There is no helping this country. It's going to be a shit show until they get past their tribal hatred and work together.
Can't believe the victim blaming going on in this thread. What the fuck? You people can't understand that ordinary people didn't want to rise up and risk their lives? They weren't asking for help from citizens of other countries like them, they were asking for help from other militaries since their own failed them. Yet, the people are to blame? How is that a popular opinion? The complete lack of empathy from the privileged is alarming.
Nobody forgot. Your friends and family accepted it.
Get out. It's the only chance at freedom you'll have for generations.
Pretty sure its extremely difficult to get out of Afghanistan, especially if you're a woman. In fact I don't think you can unless you're accompanied by a man. I get what you're saying but "getting out" is immensely dangerous
Yep, and yet it's literally the only solution besides literal revolution steeped in death.
Sometimes there is literally no easy answer. It doesn't make the answer any less true.
Maybe this is the best we can do at this point -- NGOs to negotiate safe passage for any Afghan to safely leave if they want to, and the Taliban do nothing to stop them. The UN as a whole can distribute refugees in a way that every country has equal burden.
Forget quickly? You want someone to invade again? What is the world supposed to do? They sanction, break diplomatic relations, issue travel advisories, the only thing left is another war. Nobody wants that.
Does anyone have stats on Afghanistan's opinions on America's occupation right before we left? I imagine most of them wanted America to leave...
Though I'm now curious what their TRUE opinion was of the Taliban, because I see people wanting Communism back in Russia, I imagine people wanted the Taliban back instead of the Americans.
I'm sure at least 50 percent of them are like "Fuck no" (women), but when that group isn't a huge part of the people guarding the country, I wonder if this was inevitable. Even if we somehow destroyed the entire Taliban, there would be another fundamental Islamic group who wanted to take over.
I think they looked at the Taliban as a pragmatic choice and a familiar force. They also saw the US leaving as at least an end to years of war and a return to something resembling normalcy.
Dude, you should probably read up on the history of Afghanistan before you start saying "America is to blame".
I mean, yeah... America IS to blame... among others. And it goes back WAY further than 20 some odd years.
Sort of, the local communists, probably without soviet knowledge or support, overthrew the local military dictator. They started unpopular reforms like gender equality and social ownership, people got very unhappy about that, the situation devolved into a civil war and the Soviets decided to intervene to support the Afghan communists.
Not quite a straight invasion like Ukraine and probably more justified than the US intervention.
Yep, the worst religious radical is better than the best atheist. Cuz they're commies and fuck that.
Lets give these guys some guns, I'm sure it won't backfire.
They weren't good because they were reds. They weren't even really RU/SU-aligned. They were good because they were progressive and also happened to be neutral in terms of foreign affairs. But they learnt that the US funded the taliban and that's why the reds were invited in. The US got word. And disaster ensued.
Important reminder that the Mujahideen fractured, and one of the factions went on to become terrorists. Not the entire group.
The resources you're referring to during the first decade were not used for "fiddling", but well-spent on capturing and killing bin Laden and negating the threat of al-Qaeda. The occupation of Afghanistan following the raid on bin-Laden continued to be costly without reaping similar tangible rewards and that's all the more reason for the US to subsequently withdraw from Afghanistan.
The US didn't "lose Afghanistan", they stopped pouring resources and lives into a very costly and difficult occupation without significant local support that didn't make any sense or reap any benefit after achieving their stated goals of capturing and killing bin laden and dismantling al-Qaeda.
Nobody has forgotten Afghanistan, there just isn't a foreign power actively occupying and policing their country anymore.
The US didn’t “lose Afghanistan”
No, they were just overthrown by a handful of civilians with guns and thrown out of the country. Totally no loss at all /s
Let me guess, the US also didn't lose the war in Vietnam, but decided to just leave the country?
In Vietnam, the stated US goal was to stop the Communist takeover of Vietnam as a means to "stop communism", which is ludicrous and vague and didn't work. I have to disagree with you and say the US military lost Vietnam since they did so poorly militarily and didn't achieve what they set out to.
In Afghanistan, they had specific goals of capturing and killing bin Laden and dismantling al Qaeda, two specific goals that were achieved while dominating the country militarily. So yes, the US "won" Afghanistan in that they achieved both of their goals and did well militarily.
I guess you're arguing that since communism didn't spread out from Vietnam following US military intervention, the US "won" Vietnam, but the US military didn't succeed in any practical sense or achieve anything tangible.
If you believe that the war was one man's and not the nation's, then the US obviously didn't lose any war according to your definition.
You're making broad political assumptions based on the physical appearance of George Bush, which is not a very convincing argument.
You allege bush had "intel", that he didn't listen to anybody, and he felt he had all the answers, but you aren't providing a thesis, evidence, context, examples, or drawing any conclusions from these assumptions. You're just complaining about assumptions you made up.
Saying "all we had to do was go to Pakistan, and we would've gotten Osama a lot earlier" is probably the least-sensical assumption you're making.
That was the whole point of finding him, his whereabouts were unknown.
You might as well get angry at homicide detectives for finding killers. "Gee, you know if you just went straight to the murderer:s house that you didn't know the location of, you would have arrested him much sooner. Don't know why you bothered with all those clues and evidence for years and didn't just meet him at his hiding spot right away."
They had to find bin laden before they knew where he was. Bin laden was in something like a half dozen different safe houses in an area of the size of Texas, supported and protected by a terrorist organization spread across more than two countries that by themselves added up to the size of Mexico, and most of the hijackers of the 9/11 attack were from Saudi Arabia.
Only lose Afghanistan in less than a week
Somehow, this chuckles me. What if Americans lose their country in less than a week?
Ukraine's choices are in its own hands.
Fight back? I mean...
I know way too little about this to have an actual opinion about it. I read the article just as a way to learn more about what's going on with those people right now. At the very least their lives are ruined, and we're mostly just hearing from the refugees.
Ending quote: The man blames the former Afghan government under Ashraf Ghani and the international coalition, which operated in the country for 20 years, for “everything falling apart so quickly.” “We have lost everything, even our hope for the future. We’re living in a country of lies, a country that no longer exists,” he concludes.
why didn't you fight harder for your country
Being elected is now "taking power". Ok, commie.
what difference does that make
"Fix your own problems. We're sick and tired of being the world's police force"
-- America
(...along with the world's checkbook. And no matter what we do, everything gets blamed on us. We're taking our ball and going home)
I'd just like the US to stop playing world cop and have a decade or two without some intervention somewhere.
Yeah, that would be nice. But the same people who claim that they don't want to be the world's police force anymore also tend to miss the point of what that means.
Sorry, but we aren't going to swoop in to some African country and save the people there. We aren't going to overthrow some dictator in Asia just because he is unpopular. Just because some leader is cruel to his own people, that doesn't mean we should take down his government. That means the rest of the world has to solve it's own issues and not come running to the US every time some other nation starts threatening them.
Spell better, dummy.
8 trillion*
my bad
You tend not to go to war (which are really bad things) until you are attacked.
I'm not surprised.
Hell I'm pretty sure people are forgetting Ukraine is at war. This is why I hated the "They're winning" "Russia is retreating" rhetoric. Because wars take a long time and a lot of people will die in them. People are cheering something they have no part in but by saying "Ukraine is winning" I think many of them also add "And now we can stop focusing on them".
Part of it is the media diverting attention or focusing on what they want people to focus on (watch how coverage of different shootings are covered. If it's a white guy with a death toll, it's covered far more than if it's a woman, a non-minority, or a low death toll. People will defend that by "It's focusing on the higher death toll" But doesn't focus on the coverage changes based on race, gender, or if it's a gang/drug related shooting.
Part of this is click bait but I think part of it too is a narrative that's formed. Which is why school shootings are covered more than random alleys and such. But the reason why isn't the problem, it's more how the media shapes the national narrative due to what they decide to focus on.
The other part is people have enough going on in their life that they can't think of every little thing going on in the world, but since the news is covering this, I guess we'll focus a bit on Afghanistan for a bit again.
Damn, a lot of "Fuck Afghanistan, hoo rah America is great" kinda vibes in here :-/ I left Reddit to get away from the constant USA Defaultsm nonsense...
Yes, let's ignore the most important issue - people are suffering and as decent humans we have a duty to them, when we can instead use it as an excuse to point out how much better Americans are at being a country, etc etc :-(
My impression of reddit was the opposite. Lots of people who have never set foot outside of their town saying America was the worst place on earth.
It seems people will do whatever mental gymnastics they want to be correct and have their experience be the only true experience. You don't need to blame social media for that one.
Honestly fuck that? USA, it's intentions mixed as they were, at least tried to help - and that's a country that already had experience in influencing growth and change in other countries. I can't really see other options for them.
Yeah, they are in a bad place but please let's not forget that they actually worked to be in that place. So screw that, my heart goes to them but they're lost case for now, until they are ready to fight for themselves.
If you look at infant mortality rates, one thing we can at least take a shred of pride in is how they fell during the US occupation.
Holy shit, right? Is lemmy populated by children?
"Hey let's give the Taliban 4 billion USD. That will surely fix the country"
Absolute insanity. I feel like I'm in the bizzaro world.
Thing is, you can find the most trustworthy politican in Afghanistan, dump a truckload of 4 billion at his doorstep...
...and then the next day, the Taliban knocks on his door with a gang armed with AK-47s, and they announce "Hello! I heard you wished to make a $4bil donation to the Taliban's women-beating fund!" What's he going to do in retaliation?
Hence why re-establishment projects keep the money on the part of the project (in this case, the US military) until they have places to spend that money (the infrastructure). Course, we can't do that now.
I left Reddit to get away from the constant USA Defaultsm nonsense...
This is possibly the most delusional take in the entire thread. If you thought that reddit, where people take every opportunity to shit on America somehow has constant "USA Defaultism". You have to be a Stalin worshipping commie to even begin thinking that.
Yeah I read that and was rather surprised, it felt like it was the opposite. And I wasn't in rah rah murica subs, this was in the large default ones.
How can most people help and as a follow up how can we help them and not the Taliban
Lost causes are relegated to the history books, and remembered by ivory tower academics.
Germany could pretty accurately be described as "Warring Tribes" until Bismark unified Germany in 1870. Doesn't take that long for these things to change.
LMAO 🤣 US occupation wasn't about rebuilding them; if that's what You believe
Anyways, judging them or any other war torn nation is equivalent of judging homeless people and people who are mentally ill ; " it's their fault, was their choice"
It's pathetic to say the least
Today's US isn't the same US that existed during WWll btw... The country has changed drastically
Kek
Japan didn't have anything pre-WW1, it's literally why in WW2 they had to invade China, there weren't enough resources in Japan to establish an industrial base for their empire.
And Germany wasn't even unified until what, the 1870's? Germany is technically a younger country than the U.S, same with Italy, it's pure revisionism to say that European countries were ever united because they weren't until WW1 when Ultra-Nationalism became the name of the game in geopolitics.
I think you people are just legitimately uninformed about world history. The Afghans have the same thing going on for them, but Russia screwed it all up and created their divisions when they invaded
Yeah it's probably their brother's, fathers, and sons. The people they raised in their dipshit religion. Fuck all religious nut jobs, especially Christians. What's the world going to do about the brainwashed?
Westerner whose predominant contact with religion is with Christianity, so gotta hate what they know.
This is lemmy dipshit. You've never used reddit? Wtf is your point?
Everywhere should be a place where we hate facists and religious nut jobs. Walk on eggs shells all you want. Go be nice to trump and the like, I'm sure theyll think you're a good person. These mfers are not rational, it's time to bust out the heavy hands.
Soviet (mission accomplished) : 3 years against US + China and muslim world backing after USSR dissolved.... US (disorganised retreat) : 3 days with no backer...
Modern afganistant still rely on soviet infrastructure...
You talking about the Taliban? Think they were called the Mujahedeen back then tho.
That's where they got their US training, Osama Bin Laden was in newspapers all over the US and Afghanistan and hailed as a "freedom fighter" and equated to the founding fathers...
We didn't just train his group, we turned him into a folk hero over there. Then we killed him and turned him into a martyr, and dumped his body in the ocean so there's not even hard proof he's dead.
If the goal was a decades long plan to invent an inspiring legend for them to fight against invaders, I don't think we could have done better if we tried.
I always had the notion it was swept out of focus because the white people started fighting not even a year later.
Jfc, the comments here are disgusting.
As if this is the first time an imperial superpower has intervened so heavily in a country and then backed the fuck up once there was no profit left to be made and left the locals to go fuck themselves.
And yet fuckers whose only knowledge of the situation over there comes from their biased racist google search abilities, and who not only would, without a shadow of a doubt, run and hide and piss themsleves if they ever encountered any situation a tenth as threatening as Afghan people have had to put up with, but probably end up joining the oppressive force because that's what people with tiny fragile egos tend to do - seek ways to abuse others, get to sit here and judge those poor people who are nothing but pawns in a war for profit for "not helping themselves"?!
The fucking audacity of you fuckers is beyond belief.
I'd say go read some fucking history and educate yourselves about the hundreds of examples of how imperial and colonial powers have ravaged and then abandoned people all across the globe, but I honestly don't think it'd help people with their heads so far up their own asses that they actually think their ignorant selves are somehow qualified to pass judgment on these people's lives.
That's clearly a you problem, try removing your head from your ass, that might help
You asserted intervention in Afghanistan was profit-driven
Lmao I bet you think we invaded Iraq to hunt down al-Qaeda too. The billions we poured into defense contractors in Afghanistan just magically went missing right?
If you don't want to get labeled as a fragile tool then maybe don't lash out and attack an Afghans' mild criticism of the US. The US literally invaded and occupied Afghanistan for 20 years yet you all are trying your damnedest to pretend the situation there is someone else's fault all while blaming the victim.
Did all the defense contractors go under?
No profit from the country itself, we funnelled an insane amount of tax payer money into contractors. Moral superiority mightve got us into Afghanistan bit .only drain from actual government.ent services is what kept us there so long.
Yeah for real. Hilarious to see a bunch of neckbeards talking tough about how a lady in Afghanistan should shut up and fight a civil war against the Taliban, who the US couldn't beat even after 20 years. How dare she point out that the US utterly failed her country after invading it.
Incredibly pathetic
Threads like this just remind that the fediverse existed for over a year before reddit shit the bed, and was populated mostly be far right extremists who had been IP banned from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and pretty much every other social media.
The idea of the fediverse is great, but the fact is you can never really permanently ban anyone from it.
So in a lot of ways it's also the gutter the worst get washed into. And they're usually the most active
If you really think the fediverse was ever "populated mostly by far-right extremists" you have zero clue what you're talking about and zero credibility.
Less than a year ago Lemmy was mostly communist meme threads and a few years before that Mastodon was just a FOSS community hangout.
I have to admit seeing the comments in here made me realise I need to load kbin on desktop so I can use its function where we make notes on users.
That or figure out how to run the kbin enhancement suite.
They're mostly a bunch of neo-colonists that believe in western exceptionalism and won't spend any time learning about the country the west occupied for over 20 years, let alone the complicated dynamics of the country.
I mean legit half the comments are variants of "We need to civilize the savages".
Reminds me of all the crocodile tears against leaving Afghanistan in the first place "Think of the women!" they cried, well what happened when the country was dealing with a famine (which of course impacted millions of Afghani women) and the US stole half of Afghani assets at a time they desperately needed it? crickets.
Propaganda is a hell of a drug.
Welcome to capitalism.
Fox news much?
Then you don't get to speak about the condition of our policy and economics when you have no say whatsoever.
When asked to explain your incoherent statement, your instinct is to accuse the other person of consuming too much propaganda.
I mean I like the irony of your inanity but goddamnit couldn't you at least put some effort into your hypocrisy?
You've got to be fucking kidding. Read a fucking book. You sound like a trumper patriot.
I mean capitalism surely isn't helping good journalism but I fail to see how this is the fault of capitalism. News will always cover new things - the fact that the Taliban took over two years ago is nothing new anymore. I would also like coverage of situations like that but I also think that news would just get too overwhelming. It would take hours to give every small update for each topic like that, and people are already sick of bad news anyways.
"News will always cover new things"
If they can make a profit for stockholders.
Ukrainians, you are up next! Stop following that clown and sue for peace. To my western media brainwashed fellow brethren: do some research, Putin has been offering peace talks since 3 days after the beginning of the war. He's being blown away by the Z clown, like a spoiled kid of a rich dad (USA!). Stop the suffering of slavic people and end the war now by starting peace talks.
Edit: let me make it easier for your research. Here you go: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/...
Lefties always forget the evil they continuously do.
20+ years, billions of dollars, and years of the West bitching about the US swinging it's dick around.
5 years later: Help us Afghanistan is a shit hole and Europe probably couldn't defend itself against Russia much less China.
I don't agree so he's a troll 🙄
The US is supplying the vast majority of the aid. You think Ukraine wouldn't be overrun if it was missing the 90% of the weapons that the US donated? Even EU policy leaders are calling for more EU defense spending to get away from being dependent.
Do you believe Ukraine would be in the position or is without US intervention? Despite internal political rhetoric that the EU needs to be more independent from the US?
The US has donated nearly 100b in aid, 45b of that in weapons. The closest two EU countries are UK and DE topping out at ...checks notes.... 12b or so.
If the US said fuck you guys, we aren't sending you weapons, we are done ensuring the West has the ability to be the effective world police , Eastern Europe would look far smaller.
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Remember when the Afghan people had a phenomenally well equipped and well trained army, and then they just gave up inside a week because things were “hard”?
Like if you don’t give a shit…no one is going to give a harder shit about you than you will.
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