Afghanistan falling to the taliban.

[clv101]

Urm, not quite following you there. Many of those who worked for the west are Muslims and just because someone is a Muslim absolutely does not mean they necessarily want to hang around in a Taliban controlled Afghanistan!

[kenneal - lagger]

There are Muslims, Adam, and Muslims with their heads still in the Middle Ages and many militant Muslims come in the latter category. We will just have to wait and see whether the changes bought about in the last twenty years in Afghanistan have had an effect on the Taliban and brought them into the 21st century.

What really annoys me is the cacophony from the left wing about the betrayal of the women of Afghanistan by the military withdrawal. These are, in the main, the very same people who have been making a cacophony about us having troops in the country in the first place.

If we hadn't gone into Afghanistan in the first place the Afghan women would have been living under medieval Taliban Sharia law for the last twenty years. Mind you they wouldn't have known what they were missing because they wouldn't have had TV either.

Also left wingers have to get used to the idea that there are governments in the world which will actively work against anything that we think of as good and are quite happy to cause floods of refugees simply to inconvenience us and embarrass our government. Unless we are willing to fight against this attack those countries will simply overwhelm us.

As you might have noticed I am getting fed up with the noise at the moment.

[Stumuz2]

British and US commanders in open slanging match because British Paras are operating rescue missions into Kabul to get evacuees to the airport.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ ... e-missions

[BritDownUnder]

I recall just after the operation in Afghanistan began there was an interview with Francis Pym, who was defence secretary during the Falklands War. He said that by being there all you were doing was buying time and it looks like he was right. One can only hope that the last 20 years have made the Afghan people a bit more insight into freedom than they had before and that they may resist the worst excesses of the Taliban. Other than that I don't really mind what goes on there as long as they don't harbour terrorists.

[Catweazle]

If the USA hadn't given $40bn to the Taliban / Mujahadeen in order to undermine the 70's marxist government and give the USSR a "Vietnam" then the women of Afghanistan would be considerably better off today. Funny, the US seems to have forgotten about that.

[Mark]

However the pictures on TV suggest that many of those trying to escape are muslims. Why would they be so desperate to escape ? Surely now that the taliban are in charge, Afghanistan will be run on proper islamic lines and in accordance with sharia law. Should be an islamic utopia now, in which good muslims would be happy.

A very ignorant post Adam, which needs challenging
Islam is the official religion of Afghanistan and approximately 99.7% of the population is Muslim.
As Stumuz has already pointed out, Afghan society is also conservative and hierarchical.

However, being Muslim and from a traditional background doesn't automatically equate to support for radical Islam, the Taliban or Sharia Law.
For a start, most Afghan women are petrified by it (nearly 50% for a start). Afghanistan also has one of the highest proportions of young people in the world — the median age of the population is around 16yrs, but nobody ever hears their voices. Plus, the professionals in the big cities, particularly Kabul are mostly against it - there was a noticeable lack of any welcoming parties when they arrived...

It's obviously difficult to tell precisely, but the actions of the ordinary population shows that many/most do not support it - hence the scenes at the airport and countless others fleeing to the Panjshir Valley or the land borders, or those desperately trying to melt away or those who just want to stay in their own homes and are trying to keep very very quiet...

[kenneal - lagger]

British and US commanders in open slanging match because British Paras are operating rescue missions into Kabul to get evacuees to the airport.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ ... e-missions

I can just imagine British paras given their American rivals a ribbing about sitting on their arses in the fort while the Brit "Seventh Cavalry" get the job done! All in good nature of course!

[BritDownUnder]

If the USA hadn't given $40bn to the Taliban / Mujahadeen in order to undermine the 70's marxist government and give the USSR a "Vietnam" then the women of Afghanistan would be considerably better off today. Funny, the US seems to have forgotten about that.

From what I remember the Soviet backed regime was not a pleasant affair even if they were replacing an even more nasty form of 'socialism'. Quote from Wikipedia.

At the same time, the PDPA imprisoned, tortured or murdered thousands of members of the traditional elite, the religious establishment, and the intelligentsia.[citation needed] The government launched a campaign of violent repression, killing some 10,000 to 27,000 people and imprisoning 14,000 to 20,000 more, mostly at Pul-e-Charkhi prison.[128][129][130] In December 1978 the PDPA leadership signed an agreement with the Soviet Union which would allow military support for the PDPA in Afghanistan if needed. The majority of people in the cities including Kabul either welcomed or were ambivalent to these policies. However, the Marxist–Leninist and secular nature of the government as well as its heavy dependence on the Soviet Union made it unpopular with a majority of the Afghan population. Repressions plunged large parts of the country, especially the rural areas, into open revolt against the new Marxist–Leninist government.

About the Soviet occupation.

Scholars such as W. Michael Reisman,[136] Charles Norchi[137] and Mohammed Kakar, believe that the Afghans were victims of genocide by the Soviet Union.[138][139] Soviet forces and their proxies killed between 562,000[140] and 2 million Afghans[141][142] and Russian soldiers also engaged in abductions and rapes of Afghan women.[143][144] About 6 million fled as Afghan refugees to Pakistan and Iran, and from there over 38,000 made it to the United States[145] and many more to the European Union. The Afghan refugees in Iran and Pakistan brought with them verifiable stories of murder, collective rape, torture and depopulation of civilians by the Soviet forces.

I am not sure about the body count from the NATO occupation but I would think it would be less. According to Wikipedia there have been around 50,000 Afghan civilian casualties killed by all parties in the last 20 years.

[Stumuz2]

Good article on the failure of the west and especially the US failure in Afghanistan.
It is clear that it was not an intelligence failure, but a political failure. Political also includes the most senior military commanders who could not bring themselves to admit, to their political masters, that on every metric the campaign was a complete failure.

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/ ... tasy-died/

[Catweazle]

I don't know how many died in Afghanistan, I know it was many, which tends to happen when you give many billions d of dollars worth of weaponry to religious fundamentalists to fight a superpower.

I've read that it was the US intention to give the USSR their own "Vietnam", and thus destabilise the USSR, making it more difficult for them to hang on to their satellite countries. US officials have claimed credit for splitting the USSR via Afghanistan.

The question is what were the effects on Afghanistan of being used as a pawn in this game ? I suspect they would have been better off without Western "help", I look forward to comments from someone who knows better.

[UndercoverElephant]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graveyard_of_Empires

[BritDownUnder]

Afghanistan was certainly a pawn in that conflict. After the Soviet withdrawal when the Americans were not there they complained about them not spending the money and encouraging the Taliban to take power. Then they come in and spend money and the Taliban still come. A hard people to please.

America sure knows how to pick 'em.
South Vietnam.
The Shah.
Iraq.
Afghanistan.
Cuba.
Nicaragua.
Venezuela.

It was on the TV in Australia today saying that Hamid Karzai was a Taliban supporter all along. The current guy could not fit all the cash he fled with, into his escape helicopter.

[BritDownUnder]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graveyard_of_Empires

According to that article - apparently not. A money pit perhaps.

[Potemkin Villager]

It was on the TV in Australia today saying that Hamid Karzai was a Taliban supporter all along. The current guy could not fit all the cash he fled with, into his escape helicopter.

The yanks tend to prop up folk who fully endorse US core values of probity, integrity and honesty.

Highly recommend watching Bitter Lake as a grand way to spend a wet afternoon.

https://youtu.be/84P4dzow1Bw

[BritDownUnder]

It was on the TV in Australia today saying that Hamid Karzai was a Taliban supporter all along. The current guy could not fit all the cash he fled with, into his escape helicopter.

The yanks tend to prop up folk who fully endorse US core values of probity, integrity and honesty.

... and telling their paymasters what they want to hear.