voice
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Goals are a form of self inflicted slavery
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Post by voice on Aug 15, 2021 16:01:02 GMT
Well it's all over bar the post power transfer massacre and murdering. The collapse has been spectacular. Bet when Trump negotiated this and invited the Taliban to Camp David he didn't see it all falling apart so quickly.
Afghan gov desperately negotiating a transfer of power, presidential palace fallen, Ghani has fled the country.
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ootlg
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Post by ootlg on Aug 15, 2021 16:16:48 GMT
Beheadings, amputations and stoning next.
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mids
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Post by mids on Aug 15, 2021 16:26:44 GMT
But enough about Tower Hamlets...
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rick49
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Post by rick49 on Aug 15, 2021 16:46:47 GMT
This is my hostage to fortune. It may take a year or so of violence and suppression but I think this time the Taliban will fail. I think that Afghanistan has advanced too much over the last years. The mass of the people will not support the Taliban and there is only so far violence and suppression can go without the will of the people. soviet union lasted around 75 years. |
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Post by wetkingcanute on Aug 15, 2021 17:29:32 GMT
There is one very large difference for the Taliban to face.
Up to now they could defend their slaughter and suppression by telling the Afghan people that they were fighting a Holy War against the non believers and fighting to remove the foreigners from the land.
But now they non longer have that excuse. Now, they are simply slaughtering and suppressing their own people.
Time will tell.
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voice
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Goals are a form of self inflicted slavery
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Post by voice on Aug 15, 2021 17:58:13 GMT
They came to power last time not fighting the foreign invader. Though this time a lot of the old northern league warlords have simply sided with them rather than fighting. War fatigue perhaps thinking let's just end this and get back to the 7th century.
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Post by Repat Van on Aug 15, 2021 23:54:35 GMT
There is one very large difference for the Taliban to face. Up to now they could defend their slaughter and suppression by telling the Afghan people that they were fighting a Holy War against the non believers and fighting to remove the foreigners from the land. But now they non longer have that excuse. Now, they are simply slaughtering and suppressing their own people. Time will tell. Surely for the longest time the “fighting the foreign invader excuse” hasn’t worked. Maybe I just happen to have read books my progressives but depictions of the Taliban have never been positive. Seems like they were briefly seen as champions before being seen for what the really are. |
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rick49
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Post by rick49 on Aug 16, 2021 1:38:15 GMT
white house:
not our fault! we were misled!
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Post by Repat Van on Aug 16, 2021 1:56:47 GMT
It’s odd. 20 years later and it’s back to where they were before the US invasion under GW.
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flatandy
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Post by flatandy on Aug 16, 2021 3:03:56 GMT
white house: not our fault! we were misled! Not quite true, is it. More like “White House: we were given no choice given that Bush had f**k*d things up from the outset and created a world of corruption. Then Trump made sure there was no chance of any outcome other than this one by drawing troops down to tiny numbers.” |
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rick49
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Post by rick49 on Aug 16, 2021 3:41:26 GMT
white house: not our fault! we were misled! Not quite true, is it. More like “White House: we were given no choice given that Bush had f**k*d things up from the outset and created a world of corruption. Then Trump made sure there was no chance of any outcome other than this one by drawing troops down to tiny numbers.” in other words we should have let bin laden safe and cozy in his taliban protected sanctuary. and i was unaware the world was in a state of purity until bush going after bin laden created world wide corruption. |
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voice
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Goals are a form of self inflicted slavery
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Post by voice on Aug 16, 2021 3:59:07 GMT
You do like your bad faith arguments don't you, Bush should have stuck to spanking AQ instead of this futile attempt to turn Afghanistan into Dennark. It was never gonna happen, enough told him so at the time but he and his neocons were so aragon they thought everyone wanted to be just like the US.
Though it didn't help he had zero long term plan and quickly pivoted to go for Iraqs oil instead (and he f**k*d that one up just as badly.
While no one expected the Afghan gov to fold so quickly, everyone knew once the withdrawal was negotiated with the Taliban they were gonna take over. Good job the outrage at Trump inviting them to Camp David caused his to cancel them coming, cos those pics would not have aged well
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mids
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Post by mids on Aug 16, 2021 6:31:29 GMT
Biden was handed a bit of a shite situation which he's managed to make even worse.
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ootlg
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Post by ootlg on Aug 16, 2021 6:59:50 GMT
Trump signed a treaty to remove US troops this year. Biden either did the honorable thing and stuck to an international agreement or he did a creepy little bit of Johnsonian chicanery and reneged. He's a bigger man than that. Either way he couldn't win - damned if he did, damned if he didn't.
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mids
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Post by mids on Aug 16, 2021 7:28:11 GMT
Boris is their only hope. They think he's the reincarnation of Alexander the Great.
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mids
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Post by mids on Aug 16, 2021 8:00:30 GMT
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bertruss2
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Post by bertruss2 on Aug 16, 2021 8:15:29 GMT
The United States proclaims victory.
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ootlg
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Post by ootlg on Aug 16, 2021 9:10:16 GMT
They could have dealt with the people who attacked them without leaving US soil.
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rick49
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Post by rick49 on Aug 16, 2021 11:00:51 GMT
bit worse than what i first said. kabul has fallen. all al qaeda and isis prisoners have been released by the taliban. we have one airstrip left to evacuate everyone. taliban may keep the embassy standing so they can torch it on 9/11. american humiliation complete. white house press secretary has disappeared on vacation along with biden. mission accomplished for team joe.
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flatandy
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Post by flatandy on Aug 16, 2021 11:04:27 GMT
The problem was that they tried to do nation building on the cheap - well, not really cheap, but because they were military-obsessed and it was all run by the military they took an “if you have a hammer, every problem is a nail” approach and saw every problem as one that could be solved with boots on the ground and guns and helicopters. This was useful for the neocons cheerleaders who still fill up the R side of congress because it was a way of shovelling US taxpayer cash to their friends. (Hence, not cheap), But they didn’t spend nearly as much money, or time, or manpower, or thought, to all the other parts of nation building - the rebuilding infrastructure and education and civil society, to making sure that the government was stable and corruption wasn’t rampant and that all parts of Afghanistan were engaged. It’s the same attitude to Iraq. They believed in the military side of the game and thought it would do all the work.
I don’t hold the Democrats blameless in this - HRC as Obama’s Secretary of State was definitely part of the continuation of the problem. But it was a Bush war, and it was Trump who collapsed to Taleban demands and told them they could have the country and he’d get the troops out, but didn’t have the balls to completely finish and left an absolutely skeleton back-up in place for Biden, leaving Biden no choice at all other than to pile tens of thousands of troops back in and try to start again.
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