20 years, for what?

20 years ago they'd have been better not invading bombing, killing and occupying, but instead sitting down with the Taliban and agreeing to spend the same amount of money (over $1tn) building roads, housing, hospitals, other infrastructure etc.

Afghanistan would still have the Taliban but it wouldn't have suffered 20 years of war and would have a much better country to show for it.

Of course people said, "you can't deal with terrorists", but truth is they have done over 20 years and are still doing so as of today, so really it's just a load of nonsense.

 

I think we have to agree to disagree on those viewpoints. You are clearly on the appeaser side. Neverthless IMHO you cannot negotiate with fanatics so entrenched and obsessed with their own flawed ideology ( not that half the foot soldiers even really believe in that ideology if accounts of looting, summary execution and rapes are anything to go by) . Their behaviour towards their own people goes way beyond terrorism and is so far removed from the values of the current century's concept of a civilised society (and even the past two or more), that there can never be any common ground on which negotiations can start. As regards building hospitals roads etc... with the levels of corruption much would have ended up in the hands of the organisations bent on expanding the forces of the Jihadists into the West.

 

Surely the people they’d need to sit down with to offer support would be the Afghan government? De escalation by removing the root cause of division. Rather than creating even greater cause for division.

 

They've been appeasing/negotiating with the Taliban for the past 20 years on all sorts of subjects and are still negotiating right now over the terms of "handing over power" to them. Another example was the pipeline they have been trying to build through Afghanistan:

(also note the Taliban were slated to get 'oil transit fees' for the oil passing through Afghanistan)

So the question isn't about whether 'we' netogtiate with them, but rather "what do 'we' negotiate with them about?". 20 years of war and killing has got us no further forward. If they can build pipelines, they can build lots of other things. The only other alternative is to ignore them and let them do as they wish.

 

There wasnt an Afghan government to negotiate with, just the Taliban. There's no perfect answer, just least worse alternatives.

 

I think the USA/UK should keep telling others how to run their lives/Countries and if they don't do as they are told we should intervene militarily to show them the error of their ways. History has taught us that this sort of approach always works.

 

FFS. Sadly some of the people hung on to the wheels of the plane and were later seen falling from it as it rose into the sky.

 

Donald trump himself claims to have been negotiating with them last year

 

For the sake of accuracy, I should add that Britain was involved in the Korean war. The Gloucester regiment famously lost a third of its 700 strength in a 3 day battle to successfully prevent UN forces being encircled. The decision not to get involved in the Vietnam war was down to Harold Wilson. That lost him brownie points with the US administration, but it was a very wise political decision given the division it caused amongst the public in America.

 

How wrong Biden was.

 

Big mistake by looks now.

 

The problem with this narrative is why did nt they let trump own this early last year . Everything was in place for a withdrawal but they held off until bidens term started which merely strengthened the Taliban meantime . Someone somewhere has made a serious error of judgement if the whole point of delaying was political point scoring .

 

Looking back at it all makes little sense all round.
What was really original mission is Afghanistan? Was it Human rights? Was it establishment of a long term democracy?
As I recall it was to stop the country becoming/continuing as a base for terrorist groups.
I think this should have been made a lot clearer throughout as it may have resulted in a different public opinion.
Obama as I recall ran under the platform of ending the US presence in Afghanistan but then seemed to come to the conclusion this was a bad idea.
Trump then campaigned under the same platform of ending the conflict and again as I recall was at various points making open overtures to the Taliban.
Followed into office by Biden who, again on the face of it appears to have simply just pulled out without any sort of plan in place for the ramifications.
Throughout it all it feels like we have just been along for the ride.
Ultimately whichever of the goals were the original objective none will be reached, the decision seems to be not to see through what had been started and athos point I'm at a loss as to who it actually benefits.
The videos and reports coming out of Kabul are horrific. Nothing short of human tragedy.

 

Thanks for calling my views nonsense. Thanks for taking the whole thrust of my comment out of context because of the videos of Kabul airport . My views and explanation of my views are just as valid as yours so please dont patronise me because you have your view and deem it to be intellectually superior to another poster's.
The THRUST of my argument was that foreign powers often intervene in states where there is internal strife because they are playing power politics and using the unrest to try and mould those states into an image they want because it serves their purpose. The fact that women's rights in Afghanistan improved was a by-product of an American wish to fill a perceived power vacuum and not a wish primarily to improve women's rights per se. In my opinion. I agree with you about the scenes at the airport and the fact that some practices of the Taliban are barbaric but please, again, do not demean other people's posts as you did do. It's uncalled for.

 

Just after the Americans went into Afghanistan someone published a Taliban saying...

“The Americans have all the watches. We have all the time.”

They were playing the long game and knew what would happen.

 

And I think it also caused the slump in the value of the pound due to US control/pressure on the world bank, which directly led to the famous "the pound in your pocket" speech and the devaluation of the pound by Wilson.

 

I don't know why I was worried about the Afghans who worked for the coalition, Raab was on GMTV this morning and said that out of the many countries involved in the area, UK were the the best at get the workers out. How predictable!

 

It's another success of brexit. We are now unshackled and can now turn base metal into gold.

 

Good post and I agree, I fought in the second Iraq conflict, the majority of us were perplexed why we were sent, we followed orders but we still had a mindset and opinion and we all knew we were going there based on a lie ( WMD), Sadam Hussein was mad as a box of frogs but by removing him from power our intervention then allowed ISIS to rise, so rather than one lunatic or a handful we indirectly created thousands, my experience in these countries is that the majority do not want democracy ( as daft as it sounds to many) these countries are built on centuries or thousands of years of rule their way, to go drop bombs and fight hoping that after a few months or years they will change to democracy rule is laughable, I do think the world is now in a worst state security than it was pre Iraq ( second time) Afghanistan, Lybia etc.