20 years, for what?

Your point is as valid as the next man's, mine included. The cultural aspect is very important, perhaps the deciding factor.

 

Estimated Taliban fighters:

2001 : 45000
2021 : 85000

 

Johnson has said there’s no military solutions for Afghanistan,,,,,,Somebody should tell the taliban.

 

I would desperately like to think I am wrong but do not think I am. On reading the article in the link I instantly recognised the direct parallels with 1930s Germany.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-58205062

A fanatical group of violent zealots blindly following 'leaders' following a flawed ideology, rounding up and killing supporters of a more liberal minded government, society and ideology with a proportion of the population supporting them and denouncing people they have lived alongside for years knowing full well they are most likely imposing a death sentence on them.
This parallels the Nazi Brownshirts, and ultimately the Gestapo and S.S. who rounded up and ultimately murdered academics, opposition leaders, Jews and even disabled and intellectually impaired - in short - an anyone with different views that opposed their brutal regime.
Many young (20 somethings) did not necessarily buy into the ideology but were thugs/ill educated drunk on the sense of power it gave them and emboldened by the organisation leaders telling them that they were part of a righteous 'crusade' being able to control and dominate others. Blind obedience to the cause was the mantra 'Loyalty is my honour' being the S.S motto. Civilian casualties irrelevant. The massacre of whole communities who opposed them e.g. Oradour-sur-Glane, is repeated 77 years on.

We never learn. Do we stand by them or just abandon the population to the barbarians claiming it is a different culture we do not understand? Who is to say If they have full control in Afghanistan their ambition may not grow and they cast their eye on neighbouring countries like Pakistan where they have many sympathisers and beyond? Do we appease or oppose?

I honestly have no answer.

 

Oil.

 

I said 20 years ago on here it was a fools errand. 20 years later @ $1 trillion (UK circa £40bn) and it all collapses inside a month leaving the US evacuating staff a la Vietnam and shredding documents as they go.

 

I would say that the lack of wars in Europe is down to generally sensible leaders living in the 21st century rather than the dark ages' with the best will in the world your not going to achieve long lasting peace in places that still chop limbs off' stone women for being raped' whip people in the streets for listening to music etc' when us and the yanks went in to bring down saddam hussein most experts warned them that all it would do after the initial euphoria was create a massive power vacuum with different terrorist groups vying for power and out of it came groups like isis and make no mistake they will be back ' there will never be peace unfortunately ' its so tragic for the poor people who will be suffering at the hands of these people and when the decision was made to go in and "liberate " them it should have been on the understanding that a permanent military presence would be in place..

 

The road to Kabul Airport. Taliban de facto leaders, transfer of power being negotiated. Taliban entered Kabul unopposed.

 

Whilst all other Embassies are closing the Russian one has stayed open with assurances from the Taliban that they will be safe.

That's the same Russia who left Afghanistan in the early 80s with their tail between their legs after being beaten by the Mujahadin who were heavily funded by the USA.

The Great Game continues...

 

so true.


THE TALIBAN - A CREATION OF THE USA

In the late seventies Afghanistan was undergoing real and unprecedented social change. After an army backed revolution, a secular socialist government (by the PDPA, People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan) had declared woman equal to man and child marriage illegal and was instituting a massive educational and literacy programme and distributing land to poor peasants.

There was overwhelming support for this progress in the cities but in the countryside local traditionalist fundamentalist factions, although weak and divided, were bitterly opposed. The Afghan Army, led by progressives, was more than a match for them. The war was brutal, and atrocities were committed by both sides, but compared to what came later it was a relatively small scale war, fought in the name of a new, progressive Afghanistan where education was available to all and men and women could live together in peace and equality.

I’m not saying the PDPA were perfect, far from it. Following in the great tradition of Left parties everywhere, they had split into two factions, Khalq (‘people’) and Parcham ‘flag’) and were often at each other’s throats. But great social progress was being made. Thousands of young teachers were being sent into the countryside to explain the practices of the new Afghanistan, distributing land to poor peasants and liberating women and girls to enjoy their right to education and independence.

Good news, right? Good news for Afghanistan, good news for the world. The logical development of the 1960s ‘hippie trail’ which had seen Afghanistan visited by thousands of progressive young Westerners who had inspired Afghan youth to throw off the shackles of their past and embrace socialism and women’s liberation.

Not for the US government of Carter and Brzenski. The PDPA were ‘evil carmewnists’ and the ‘brave Mujahideen’ needed to be backed by the USA to entice the neighbouring Soviet Union into the war and ‘give the Soviet Union its own Vietnam’.

On July 3, 1979, five months before the Soviet intervention, President Jimmy Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the fundamentalists. A bunch of disparate, feuding medieval warlords were trained and financed, fundamentalists from all over the world (including, of course, Osama bin Laden) were encouraged and paid to join them, the Soviets came in to help the PDPA, a full-scale war happened and the US gave Russia its Vietnam…at the expense of training, funding and encouraging Islamic fundamentalism to the point where it turned from the Mujahideen into the even more extreme Taliban. Then they bit the hand that fed on 9/11, leading to a never ending war against a now formidable enemy, a final withdrawal…. and this.

In January 1998, three years before 9/11, Brzezinski was interviewed about the dangers of using allies so opposed to the very principles of everything the USA is supposed to represent.

Here is his response.

: What is more important in world history? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some agitated Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

The Taliban - an American creation. (Aided by various Western lackeys, of course, including Sandy Gall on the BBC news.)

 

Wednesday's debate in Parliament should be very interesting. I assume there will be powerful contributions from (Captain) Johnny Mercer, (Major) Dan Jarvis and (Lieutenant Colonel) Tom Tugendhat, all of whom served in Afghanistan (I anticipate there may be others who served). Hilary Benn is usually good for a thoughtful and passionate contribution on these occasions. I suspect little to be done though, except follow the lead of our American masters. Interesting though that Trump is now decrying President Biden for a series of actions which he himself set in train.

 

There's nothing that can be done. The UK has no financial and military power to act without the US, masters or otherwise. Parliament will be another talking shop of the defeated, wondering blindly how the 'world's finest militaries' failed to defeat a bunch of ragtag religious zealots with ak47s, landmines and jeeps. It's as if they never read a history of Afghanistan, which let's face it, they haven't.

 

I would like to bet half of the U.S. population would not even be able to identify Afghanistan on a map.

 

The obvious answer but not in the real World would be an absolute blockade on weapons and munitions entering the region. The arms trade is as much to blame as foreign Governments allowing these fanatics and war lords access to weapons and munitions. However fanatical I would like to see the them fighting a war with spears bow and arrows, albeit I.E.Ds.are still a pretty potent threat and nigh on impossible to police.
Like I said, though there are too many vested interests in both Eastern and Western countries for it to ever be a possibility. As an example , North Korea regime, without the support of China (and the threat it escalating into a nuclear Global conflict if the West resorted to 'full on' military intervention ) would have long since fallen. They may have a huge standing military force but it is questionable how they would maintain it logistically if called upon to use them for purposed other than an annual display of military power in annual Parades. Plus most of it is pretty obsolete in modern warfare.

 

I think the pictures of the huge numbers of people in Kabul trying to flee the Taliban and the scenes at the airport suggest your view that we are imposing unwanted Western views and values on an unwilling population is nonsense. Sorry, but cutting off hands or feet, stoning, executions for listening to non religious music, sentences of lashes inflicted for failing to grow a beard, banning of education and jobs for women , public hangings and refusal to allow bodies to be removed and buried and left to rot, are NOT cultural values and there is no place for them on this planet in the 21st century. It is nothing to do with religious or cultural beliefs but simply control and rule by fear.
'Live and let live' has its place but there are limits, and imposing an extreme (and of questionable validity for many of their interpretations of Sharia Law) regime on an unwilling population is one instance where they have crossed the line.

All that implies iexternal ntervention but that has failed so I have idea how we fix it other than the 'fantasy' idea in my other post about a total block on Taliban access to weapons and munitions which cannot happen in the real world.

 

I'd bet that a lot more than half of the UK couldn't. I'd go as far as to say 90%

 

Britain would have been in many more wars had Lloyd George and Churchill not skint it with it's efforts in the First and Second World War. The only reason the U.K bowed out of other skirmishes was because of the fall of Empire. We can't afford another war. I'm sure Britain would have been involved in Korea and Vietnam had the Second World War not happened or been so close to the First World War.

The biggest blight on the U.K was the decision to humiliate Germany after the First World War.

 

The problem with Afghanistan, was that it was seen as an "easy" target when the USA wanted to beat someone up over 9/11. So they went for Afghanistan without trying to stop the Taliban (which would have meant fighting in Pakistan) or stopping the funding - which would have meant going against the Saudis. No long term plan, no working with the surrounding countries to create a stable order. Then just pulling out leaving the Taliban to zoom back in - with the Afghan forces fleeing for fear of theirs - and their families - lives.