Afghanistan - then and now

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 06 Sep 21 - 12:03 PM

You don't 'get' irony then, Bonz?

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 06 Sep 21 - 12:01 PM

Exactly!!!

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 06 Sep 21 - 10:45 AM

Bonzo reminds me of the Boy Scout marching with his Scout troop in the St. George’s Day parade, and whose admiring mum turns to her husband and proudly declares, “Oh look George, they’re all out of step except our little Bonzo!”. :-)

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 06 Sep 21 - 09:55 AM

Matter of opinion

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Sep 21 - 08:55 AM

You did not criticise Biden in any sensible way, Bonzo.

I think Biden is wrong in what he is doing because x, y and z

Is not stupid.

USA's reputation in the world has never been lower than it is today, and ALL blame must fall on biden who is not fit for public office, not fit to be President of the USA, and not fit to be the leader of the free world.

Is stupid because it does nothing to back up your opinion; the USA's reputation in the world was far lower when Trump was in power; How can the blame fall on Biden for an agreement that Trump made with the Taliban and, finaly, the leader of the USA is not the leader of the free world. Now, I can only suggest that you do as previously suggested and only post when you are wearing your sensible hat.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 06 Sep 21 - 07:57 AM

So I'm being stupid when I criticise biden - I despair!!

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Sep 21 - 08:10 PM

The value of translators in WWII by German born jews that were in the US army was that 60% of intelligence were supplied by them. They trained at camp Richie and were called the Richie boys. They did the interrogations and worked in virtually every battle, Nuremberg trial and became crucial in post war policy. Some of the Richie boys became famous in science or the arts like J.D.Salinger.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Sep 21 - 06:30 AM

125 people whose job is was to guard the British embassy in Kabul were promised that we would get them out. The number who have made it here is...one.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Sep 21 - 06:26 AM

Well I don't necessarily refrain from posting when I'm having a drink of an evening (the only time I drink), but on the couple of occasions down the years on Mudcat that I've been accused of posting under the influence (not quite the same thing as posting after a moderate glass or two) I was stone cold sober each time. Just sayin'...

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 04 Sep 21 - 01:33 AM

No problem, SRS - I thought it was probably something like that! ;-)

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Sep 21 - 11:05 PM

Sorry about that, Backwoodsman - after deleting a couple of posts, Bonzo got himself put into timeout. Again. He needs to stop drinking while he's posting, to start with. He also needs to stop being so flagrantly stupid.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Sep 21 - 06:10 PM

Bonz hits some humorous home runs but when you swing for the fences it sometimes looks like an unfunny hyperbolic foul ball.

The best comparison for the shameful Afghan evacuation is the shameful evacuation from Viet Nam.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 03 Sep 21 - 02:23 PM

I sincerely hope you’re right, SRS. It’s clearly not only the White Supremacy movement that’s alive and well in TX, Male Domination appears to be too. Shameless, shameful. I used to spend a little time each year working in Houston - I’ve been astonished at the appalling attitudes revealed on FB by some of my former colleagues there whom I’d always believed were decent, mature adults.

”USA's reputation in the world has never been lower than it is today, and ALL blame must fall on biden who is not fit for public office, not fit to be President of the USA, and not fit to be the leader of the free world.”

I think you’re confusing Biden with his predecessor there, Bonz. Trump, via his bum-boy Pompeo, made the withdrawal agreement with the Taliban, which guaranteed US withdrawal by the end of May - a date extended by three months under Biden. The withdrawal has undoubtedly been disastrous, but imagine the utter shambolic canine’s cojones it would have been under Trump and working to the dates set out in his treacherous agreement. If anyone was unfit as you say, it was Trump.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Thompson
Date: 03 Sep 21 - 02:13 PM

Lots about Afghanistan in Dervla Murphy's Full Tilt.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Sep 21 - 01:04 PM

That was the definition of a blather fart.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 03 Sep 21 - 01:02 PM

USA's reputation in the world has never been lower than it is today, and ALL blame must fall on biden who is not fit for public office, not fit to be President of the USA, and not fit to be the leader of the free world.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Sep 21 - 01:00 PM

There will be remedies to this absurd new legislation. Soon, one hopes. The legislators thought they were being clever by leaving the enforcement in the hands of religious zealots, but it will come back to shoot them in the ass. I suspect, for example, that every GOP member of state government will find their names added to the offenders list by "whistleblowers."

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 03 Sep 21 - 12:48 PM

"When does the airlift start for getting women and girls out of Texas?????????????????????????????????????"

Good question Bonz! I just saw a good one on FB - a photoshopped image of a highway sign which read 'Welcome To Texas!", with an image of June Osborne (Offred) beneath in full 'Handmaid' garb. ;-)

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 03 Sep 21 - 12:44 PM

That's good. Let's hope it turns out that way.

BTW, I'm unhappy, too, about the UK's miserable, mealy-mouthed attitude towards refugees. These unfortunates didn't ask to be invaded but, having done the dirty deed and invaded, I believe it's the responsibility of the US, the UK, and all the other 'allies' to take responsibility for those they have failed so disastrously.

And let's hope that the lesson has been learned - invading another country is the easy bit, having a viable, ethical, equitable Exit Strategy is what's difficult. Without it, invasion is not the answer to anything. And, in this instance, the invaders failed miserably.

The usual disclaimers apply......IMHO, YMMV etc.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 03 Sep 21 - 12:36 PM

When does the airlift start for getting women and girls out of Texas?????????????????????????????????????

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Sep 21 - 11:56 AM

Trump isn't in office with his toady Stephen Miller to keep things at a standstill, and despite COVID impacting immigration, there will be a lot of those Afghans coming here. They're arriving already. Canada is struggling to get a lot of the translators and local staff who helped them out. Many of the efforts are by individuals who will offer sponsorship, and we'll have to see how this shakes out by the end of the year.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 03 Sep 21 - 11:30 AM

The US doesn’t even rank in the top ten refugee-hosting countries, whereas Germany and Turkey - Europe’s largest hosting nations - both do. I’d suggest the US has not only the responsibility, but also the space, to take a good share of those its feckless, reckless abandonment has forced to flee Afghanistan?

The usual disclaimers apply......IMHO, YMMV etc.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/refugees-asylum-seekers-and-migrants/global-refugee-crisis-statistics-and-facts/

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Sep 21 - 10:52 AM

Afghanistan crisis: How Europe's relationship with Joe Biden turned sour

The words I don't see in this article are "refugee" or "immigrant" - and the possibility of lots of Afghanis fleeing to other nations. The US will be taking a lot (many coming to Texas) but I'm sure there will be grumbling in Europe.

Meanwhile, Afghan Women stage protest in Taliban-controlled Kabul.

For many it is simply wait-and-see.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Sep 21 - 08:57 AM

Oh, for God's sake, Bonzo. Even he's admitted he shouldn't have done it. One of the worst international crises for decades and the foreign secretary won't get his arse off the beach? Do me a favour, mate!

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 03 Sep 21 - 06:30 AM

Raab is entitled to a holiday as much as anyone else.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 03 Sep 21 - 05:46 AM

No, but they will do him a good curry!!!

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Sep 21 - 05:33 AM

I see that our utterly incompetent foreign secretary Mr Raab (the one who refused to desist from sunning himself on a Greek beach just as the West was being routed in Afghanistan by the Taliban) is visiting Pakistan, large tracts of which are bandit country in which al Qaeda and the Taliban find refuge whenever they're on the back foot. I doubt whether the well-meaning Pakistani administration can ever do much about it...

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Sep 21 - 04:58 AM

We've seen images on the telly of US gear that had been completely scuttled before the military left. You would do that, I think, if you couldn't get the stuff home...

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 03 Sep 21 - 04:33 AM

I do know, but there does seem to be a great deal of babble in this thread!!!

I work with a lovely lady from North Vietnam who's dad helped to inspect aircraft left behind when the usa pulled out!!!

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: The Sandman
Date: 03 Sep 21 - 02:42 AM

Afghanistan not Afghanibable

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 03 Sep 21 - 01:45 AM

I wonder just how many aircraft/helicopters left behind in Afghanibable actually go???

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 02 Sep 21 - 08:31 PM

No. Instead of being all equal about it, Jeri, why not persuade the silly sod to get off my back? Are you actually following the thread?

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Jeri
Date: 02 Sep 21 - 08:06 PM

Will the two of you get a room?

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 02 Sep 21 - 07:41 PM

The question has been comprehensively addressed, and please don't make it look like I said "its [sic] the right thing to do" by putting it in quotes. Those were not my words.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 02 Sep 21 - 07:21 PM

"Its the right thing to do" is a good reason to not answer the question. There have been many a moot academic question here.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 02 Sep 21 - 05:55 PM

What happened historically is irrelevant. This is a moral issue for today. Calling them "foreign" is a familiar distancing tactic. They are in peril because they helped us. We owe them. And we were "foreign" in their country for 20 years, by the way.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 02 Sep 21 - 05:03 PM

Historicly the question remains "Does the US army routinely bring cooperating foreign civilians or troops back to the USA. After WWII select Germans and Italians reached US shores. As victors we did not have to meet a deadline as we did today. Other nationalities had to obey immigration laws after wars that we fought in distant countries. They can be virtually traced from the number of new restaurants that appeared in the US.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 02 Sep 21 - 05:12 AM

Thanks for the expected insult. Let me look at your question "...but is it really normal and moral to reward all collaborators with a free pass to the US?" from the other side of the mirror: Is it moral to abandon people who have helped you, for many years in many cases, to the mercy of marauding and murderous thugs who are not under any form of central control? Let me remind you again that the Taliban chaps who are politely sitting around tables with us in Qatar are not the same as the Taliban who are running rampant in the Afghanistan countryside. And we in the UK are behaving just as immorally. So the answer to your question, for both our countries, is YES.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 02 Sep 21 - 02:10 AM

So is it standard practice to bring allies/collaborators to an invadimg nation's country at the end of hostilities or is this unique to Viet Nam and Afghanistan, wars we lost? I know this is a loaded question like "does slavery have an upside?"

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 02 Sep 21 - 01:55 AM

A double agent should appear to be both ally and collaborator to both sides. Otherwise they are either collaborator or allies dependimg on your POV. Do you not see they are both...our allies are wanted by the Taliban for being collaborators, so I don't separate them as you do.
To be one you have to be the other. Its a matter of semantics.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Sep 21 - 09:13 PM

The distinction, Donuel, is between the word "collaborator" (a negative, someone on your side cooperating with the enemy) and allied people in the country who work with the invading army (in this instance, US). To the Taliban, they are collaborators, to the US, they are allies. This is an important point to remember.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Sep 21 - 07:38 PM

A good example that his macho cod piece doth overfloweth.
Like a bad lawyer I'll ask a question that I can't answer.
After WWII did GI's have the opportunity to sail home with; translators, innocent babies from nazi orphanages or double agents?
I know operation paperclip did repatriate actual Nazis in the US but for all your average collaborators I don't know the answer.
Tradition in war is no reason to continue a practice but is it really normal and moral to reward all collaborators with a free pass to the US? just askin

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Sep 21 - 05:52 PM

"This is MUDCAT BS: It is a temple of truth, a blank canvas, a second chance, a fresh start, a culture of honesty, a symposium of reality.

Or is it mostly a bunch of yahoos mouthing off, reducing facts to rumor, people to slime and good ideas into crap?"

It's neither. It's a discussion forum which attracts some wisdom, some prejudice, some foolery and a lot of disagreement. What it doesn't need is a bunch of cod-philosophising over its content in a thread about Afghanistan. Cheers.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Jeri
Date: 01 Sep 21 - 05:42 PM

A report of military working dogs being left behind is a lie.

Which, considering who said it, isn't suprising.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Sep 21 - 05:26 PM

To rewrite history it is wise to write misinformation often and early.
This is MUDCAT BS: It is a temple of truth, a blank canvas, a second chance, a fresh start, a culture of honesty, a symposium of reality.
Or is it mostly a bunch of yahoos mouthing off, reducing facts to rumor, people to slime and good ideas into crap?
You be the fair and balanced judge.
History is a consensus of the winners and as such is fluid over time.
Afghanistan will be right up there with the hundred years war.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Sep 21 - 05:09 PM

By the way, Bonzo, the use of Latin phrases isn't poncey nonsense to us. In fact, to many of us it's a sine qua non...

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Sep 21 - 05:07 PM

Pen's dedication to his cats and dogs is admirable and I'm quite happy to accept that it wasn't a case of human lives vs animals. Grand. But in the overall scheme of things it's a bit of a peripheral issue and isn't quite in keeping with the substantive in this thread.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 01 Sep 21 - 04:47 PM

Pen Farthing's dogs all arrived in amazing condition and most of them will be adopted by veterans.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Sep 21 - 04:17 PM

Not little Toto too!

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 01 Sep 21 - 03:22 PM

And I hear that the USA army left their service dogs behind - how disgraceful.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Jeri
Date: 01 Sep 21 - 02:22 PM

Yeah! muta illud!

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 01 Sep 21 - 01:39 PM

Latin poncey nonsense. Israel deserve all the support they can get against trouble making terrorists in Palestine or whatever they call it now.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Sep 21 - 12:58 PM

There is a current wider context with regard to Afghanistan, which is western foreign policy (note that I didn't say US foreign policy). My point there was to point out that Biden's promise, whilst progress of a sort, has limited value. That's all, and I think that reference to that is very much on-topic. News correspondents certainly seem to think so.

Tu quoque and whataboutery aren't necessarily exactly the same thing and I wasn't thinking tu quoque when I said that.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: The Sandman
Date: 01 Sep 21 - 12:42 PM

I think we have to remember, that any news we get is biased, the only way to get any balance is to listen also to chinese and russian news/ propaganda as well

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Sep 21 - 12:41 PM

Israel is a criminal state. The support there should be stopped. This is spreading beyond the topic of Afghanistan. No tu quoque when answering your statement very directly and to the point.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Sep 21 - 12:17 PM

You could easily have listed another dozen or two countries that Britain didn't exactly leave in great shape, Maggie, but this is no time for excuse via whataboutery. At least Biden has promised that never again will the US move in to make countries. That would be progress. But you don't have to actually move in in order to fatally interfere. Just back your proxies, as in Central America and Chile. The CIA are quite good at organising that. And I wonder where Israel would be today were it not for the unconditional support of the US. As I say, you don't actually have to move in...

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Sep 21 - 11:01 AM

Didn't the UK leave Afghanistan in great condition, Robert Peel? Get real. No one can change the place. No one should even try, not with weapons and occupation.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Sep 21 - 10:54 AM

FOUR Presidents made decisions that effected the 20 years of failed war after the defeat of Russia, UK twice and more all the way to antiquity.
I'd say the Afghans are the chosen people :-/ biden ended the nonsense.
War hawks are most upset.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Sep 21 - 10:30 AM

The trouble is that the Taliban isn't one thing. The guys sitting around in "talks" and doing the public relations thing are not the ones in the Afghanistan countryside who are calling all the shots in their own disparate and undisciplined ways. There is currently no government in that country and the Taliban don't know how to form one. Didn't we leave Afghanistan in great condition, Joe Biden?

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Sep 21 - 10:03 AM

The only way the Taliban will become legitimate is to follow through with what they say about being more inclusive, not continue the old actions that foment fear. It looks like the old habits die hard. Folk singer murdered.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Sep 21 - 09:40 AM

We should help our own country for a change. Every trillion dollars spent on a presidential declared war is a theft from the poor. War is a theft for and by the rich. Twenty years ago the Neo CONS prepared and plotted for such wars.

Bonzo did you serve and sacrifice for Afghanistan?

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Sep 21 - 08:50 AM

To be honest this country desperately needs a infrastructure overhaul.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 01 Sep 21 - 08:05 AM

And biden is abandoning everyone to everyone else.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 31 Aug 21 - 07:18 PM

That cash can help resettle some of our Kurdish allies (if they're still alive after Trump abandoned them to Turkey and the Syrians).

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 31 Aug 21 - 06:49 PM

We no longer have to spend 300 million dollars a day on a total wasteful FUBAR.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Aug 21 - 09:06 AM

Then: The US invaded the Republic of Afghanistan.
Now: The US leaves the Islamic Emerit of Afghanistan.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 29 Aug 21 - 12:17 PM

My shirts are all ironed very nicely thank you!!

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: meself
Date: 29 Aug 21 - 12:11 PM

"biden should resign, not up to the job."
"I am not the least bit interested in usaian politics. biden is a lost cause ...."

And how would you like your irony - well done?

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Aug 21 - 11:15 AM

It could have been less messy if we left in winter when fighters go home instead of leaving in the middle of fighting season.
Afghanistan has always had a fighting season like we have a fire season. We can't go back now. Now its better to just pull the tooth.
It will bleed and be painful but that is the nature of war.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Aug 21 - 10:55 AM

Its not really about rules its about each flawed person with different scars expressing their changed realities and personalities. That expression is revealing and may be healing in the long run but has little to do with arbitrary rules. There are times of sound and fury that signify psychic pain and that could make your job of successfully herding m-cats challenging. Facebooks found that reinforcing established beliefs is good for their business. That doesn't/shouldn't happen here.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Aug 21 - 10:18 AM

This topic is about Afghanistan and the wars fought there. It isn't about a charity for dogs. We understand the value of dogs to vets, but that's a different thread.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 29 Aug 21 - 10:06 AM

I am not the least bit interested in usaian politics. biden is a lost cause and now frankly a laughing stock.

You would do well to read what Pen Farthing has achieved with his charity over the last few years providing support dogs to service men suffering from shell shock, preventing the spread of rabes to other dogs and humans, and more.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Aug 21 - 09:42 AM

You're gaga over a man who will bring out dogs instead of people yet condemn Biden who is having to deal with the Taliban who were stoked by Trump to take over everything. Yet Biden has still managed to bring out thousands. And you need to look up Trump's toady Stephen Miller - who was single-handedly responsible for bringing the processing of Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs) to a grinding halt for all of the people who applied to leave Afghanistan in the past and the system has remained largely broken since he shut it down. And if you've been watching the US Supreme Court you may have seen that Trump packed that court with his followers who have worked against Biden in trying to offer humane treatment of immigrants. Even though Trump tried to do it, the US president doesn't govern by fiat here.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 29 Aug 21 - 09:16 AM

Hooray for Pen Farthing!!

biden should resign, not up to the job.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 29 Aug 21 - 05:38 AM

The idea that the UK government didn’t bring out Afghans due to not enough room because of one flight of animals is like saying that London’s homeless would be housed if it wasn’t for Battersea Dog’s Home.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: The Sandman
Date: 29 Aug 21 - 03:35 AM

Middle East 09:59, 29-Aug-2021
Taliban spokesperson says Western media report distorts reality
CGTN

Share

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid dismissed individual Western media reports as distorting the truth, he said on Sunday via social media.

Zabihullah Mujahid said Reuters interview with him distorted his words, and he asked the media and reporters not to take these words seriously.

He also dismissed reports that two Pakistanis were arrested on August 26 on suspicion of plotting an attack on the Turkmen ambassador as false and clarified that no such incident had taken place and that the Embassy of Turkmenistan had not been threatened.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Aug 21 - 09:14 PM

Have you ever heard of honor killings, public beheadings, throwing gay men off of roofs, arranged marriages to minors, state santioned wife beating, female circumcision, marriage by capture...
I do not treat these subjects with sarcasm.
I do however treat vengence, revenge and warfare with SARCASM.
You have ironicly censored and removed an anti war cartoon yet left Charmion's editorial comment about it.
See it again on real time with Bill Mahre next week.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 28 Aug 21 - 02:29 PM

Amen, amen, amen to that, Charmion.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Charmion
Date: 28 Aug 21 - 02:25 PM

Sorry, Don, but that’s just not funny.

Blowing people up is never funny, whoever does it.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Aug 21 - 06:41 PM

Waging a war 7,000 miles away or more is a losing strategy.
War is a losing lifestyle.
however
I favor a war on facebook corp by Biden who plans to break up the size of facebook.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 27 Aug 21 - 06:22 PM

He’s a British? National who runs an animal rescue centre in Afghanistan.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Charmion
Date: 27 Aug 21 - 05:56 PM

Who is Pen Farthing?

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 27 Aug 21 - 04:40 PM

We should celebrate that Pen Farthing and his animals are coming home!!

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Aug 21 - 10:54 AM

Ezra Klien is not old enough to have lived during the Viet Nam war and is naieve enough to borrow old memes. His Heart is in the right place and could possibly have a stellar career in the future.
Richard Engel has much more experience and respect as a middle east cprrespondant and is respected by natives and Americans alike.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 27 Aug 21 - 02:06 AM

I’m certain the Doha Agreement was a time-bomb set by Trump in case he didn’t get re-elected in November 2020. If he had been re-elected well, we know very well his lack of respect for agreements and his willingness to walk away from them.

He dug a pit, and Biden sadly walked straight in to it.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Aug 21 - 11:58 PM

A Trump supporter friend of mine (yes, we've struggled to keep the friendship going based on everything except politics) has blamed Biden for this. Such nonsense is tough to get past when Trump is her party leader. The sooner his role in all of this is completely revealed, the better. A year and a half ago he resigned to the Taliban, gave over to them, through Pompeo. As we watch the evacuations continue out of Afghanistan now, we need to finish the Trump investigations here. I'm willing to be real money he made money out of this negotiation.

And ISIS-K needs some daylight shed upon them.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Aug 21 - 08:58 PM

That's right, Jeri.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Jeri
Date: 26 Aug 21 - 08:39 PM

Tha suicide bombers weren't Taliban. They were ISIS. There's always something worse that comes along. I'm thinking in degrees of badness
.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Charmion
Date: 26 Aug 21 - 08:17 PM

Bogeymen of this generation, Dave.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 26 Aug 21 - 02:18 PM

All extremists are prone to cause terror, Bonzo. MauMau, Black September, IRA, UDA to name but a few. Counting the extremists nutters who maim and kill in the name of whatever weird political party or religion they feel strongly enough about, there must be hundreds of them.


Al Qaeda and the Taliban are just two in a long line of organisations who want power. They are the bogey men of the month.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 26 Aug 21 - 11:51 AM

The attack on innocent people at Kabul airport simply trying to escape the horror of Taliban rule shows exactly who the group has brought with them.

The pattern is well established - from Nigeria and Mali to Syria and Iraq whenever Islamist extremists take power, terror follows.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 26 Aug 21 - 10:53 AM

2 explosions reported outside Kabul Airport.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Charmion
Date: 26 Aug 21 - 09:38 AM

Ezra Klein has a good column in today's New York Times. Here it is.

Ezra Klein is a journalist, not a military historian, so he did not leap immediately to the conclusion that he instead sneaks up on and still doesn't quite recognize: Regular armies -- by which I mean the professional, highly mechanized First World kind -- are helpless in the face of a determined insurgency.

Quote:
"Focusing on the execution of the withdrawal is giving virtually everyone who insisted we could remake Afghanistan the opportunity to obscure their failures by pretending to believe in the possibility of a graceful departure. It’s also obscuring the true alternative to withdrawal: endless occupation. But what our ignominious exit really reflects is the failure of America’s foreign policy establishment at both prediction and policymaking in Afghanistan."

In short, the US/NATO effort, as mounted, was doomed from the start. Such nation-building efforts always are, unless the imposing power can secure the cooperation of a super-majority of the population.

In a previous post, up the thread, I wrote that the NATO nations in general, and the United States in particular, are still blinded by their success in the war against Hitler's Third Reich and the Japanese "Co-Prosperity Sphere". This is most apparent in what happens after the invasion.

The reconstruction of West Germany worked because, caught between the Soviets in the east and the western allies stampeding across the Rhine, the vast majority of Germans agreed that it must work, and the small minority who were indissolubly connected to the Nazis were successfully branded as war criminals. These facts gave the occupying powers an exit strategy that -- as I noted before -- only the United States has yet to employ. (Even the British Army of the Rhine is gone.) In Japan, the people were too traumatized by, first, the terrible wastage of the decade of war they had somehow survived and, second, by the horror of two atomic bombs actually dropped and the possibility of more to come.

The British and French experience of the dissolution of their empires should have given pause, but the United States isn't an imperial power, right? RIGHT? So the stuff that happened in Algeria and India and Borneo and Malaya and Ireland and whole whack of other places couldn't possibly apply. Vietnam was obviously a freakish exception driven by Communist pressure.

All the commentators who aren't blowing smoke say something about Westerners not understanding Afghan culture. News flash: it isn't just Afghan culture Westerners don't get. It's the culture of any group with a sufficiently different idea of the good life.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Aug 21 - 10:41 PM

And, to add to Charmion's observation, I am certain that buried deep in the negotiations, Trump managed to have money directed toward his corporation. Bribes. He's just that avaricious.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 25 Aug 21 - 09:45 PM

Charmion down here we have a mortgage company commercial that has Tracey Morgan say "I'm pretty sure these parachutes are good" as a sandwhich falls from the backpack... "Don't be sure, BE CERTAIN with blah blah mortgages".

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 25 Aug 21 - 08:59 PM

Hindsight might have been required back in January so my knee jerk accusation that Biden is guilty of some negligence may be undeserved. This is the united states of amnesia but the world will see it differently in a historical context.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Charmion
Date: 25 Aug 21 - 07:36 PM

Remember, the enemy has a vote.

I'm sure the Taliban leadership had a full set of contingency plans identifying all the US/NATO bases and Afghan government sites to be hit as soon as President Biden made a move to abrogate the Trump-Pompeo treaty.

Pompeo's "deal" left Biden with nothing to do but back out quickly.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Aug 21 - 02:14 PM

Easier said than done, Don. The Taliban were on the move after signing documents with Pompeo in early 2020 - once they knew the US wasn't going to stop them as long as they stopped killing US soldiers. Too much damage was done by the time Biden was in office, had time to catch his breath after the COVID stuff he did first, and started looking at that hot mess.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 25 Aug 21 - 01:21 PM

I never liked the malnourished phrase 'the skinny'.

Biden did not have to carry out the Trump plan. He could have and should have scrapped it and organized a new improved exit strategy.
Now Pakistan is full of radicals who are emboldened to assume government control and inherit a nuclear armory from the infidel cooperators of the current Pakistan government. Thats one of many dreadful possibilites of this procrastinated bungled scramble from Bogram airport.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Charmion
Date: 25 Aug 21 - 09:04 AM

Today's New York Times has the straight skinny on the collapse of Afghanistan from a major-general who was plucked out of his division in the south and put in command of the Afghan Special Forces too late to do any good.

Here it is.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 25 Aug 21 - 07:26 AM

PS the brand name is 'Don's Johns'

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 25 Aug 21 - 07:14 AM

Dave has a point about shit with one bathroom for a thousand people who have avoided the Taliban but can not avoid the call of nature. Vomit Shit and even your odd after birth is greeting new arrivals in Qtar after a less than sanitary plane ride. Portable trump toilets should take 2 weeks to arrive.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 25 Aug 21 - 06:55 AM

Some folks here might be forgetting about Thermopolye, Islamic Spain and the Crusades, Its OK that Mudcat has no emerging talented diplomats here.
Ya know, its not about forgetting, I think many folks have no sense of history to begin with. Thats my 2cents worth and I'm not an Historian.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Aug 21 - 05:54 PM

It can't be any more simple, Bonzo. Start stirring shit and you will create a stink. Saying it is not that simple just causes people to keep trying it.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Jeri
Date: 24 Aug 21 - 05:24 PM

It seems like things don't work out well when westerners involve themselves in middle eastern politics. we keep doing it, though.
It's not compassionate, but I often think we should but out and let things run their course. Things will get bad, then maybe sort themselves out. In the meantime, people will be killed and abused, and all manner of bad things, but we can't solve other people's problems with a temporary occupation. Compassion interferes with progress, but there is no perfect solution.

And, speaking as an American, we have enough inhumanity, and abuse, and religious fanatics, etc, here at home we could be trying to abolish.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 24 Aug 21 - 03:50 PM

I don't think it's quite so simple as that.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Aug 21 - 12:56 PM

I was listening to a version of Kipling's Ford o' Kabul River yesterday and was reminded that the poem references an incident from 1878, during the second Anglo-Afghan war. The first war started in 1839. You would think that after almost 200 years the west would have learned to keep their nose out of Afghanistan wouldn't you.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Aug 21 - 12:38 PM

Thank you Charmion because I do care. You may recall in the distant past that I asked you in PM if I could borrow your editing skills. Having severe dyslexia has its language drawbacks however my son was diagnosed as hyperlexic. Yea! In 20 years I have made significant progress compared to where I started. Even the blind can learn to paint a portrait but there are some things they can never reproduce compared to the sighted.
The CIA had a secret meeting with the Taliban leaders and the results were as dismal as selecting Hillary or Malala Yousafzai to meet with them. The Taliban claims there will be consequences should the US cross the Red Line Date. Perhaps Malala would have had better results afterall.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Charmion's brother Andrew
Date: 24 Aug 21 - 11:42 AM

"Talib" is a typical three-consonant Arabic noun in the singular meaning "student." "Taliban" is its plural. I believe these are imports to Pashto that came with Islam. Something of which we Westerners are often unaware is that Arabic nouns have dual forms for two of something. The plural is used for three or more.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Jeri
Date: 24 Aug 21 - 11:24 AM

At what point does it become easier to remove a cookie, than monitor a person for racist posts or personal attacks?

I wonder...

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 24 Aug 21 - 11:02 AM

I looked for you in DFW but you must have been in Love!!!

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Aug 21 - 09:34 AM

NPR ran an interesting interview with one Afghan former interpreter who got his family out and after a couple of flights has landed in Italy to finish their processing. I believe they said he has a brother in Fort Worth!

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Charmion
Date: 24 Aug 21 - 09:20 AM

Donuel, I know you don't care about how you write, but please -- the word "Taliban" is plural.

One talib, two taliban.

It's Pashto, and it means "students" or, in some contexts, "seekers".

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Aug 21 - 04:58 PM

The Taliban is going to have to hire our mechanics for the hundreds of billions of dollars worth of our big hulking vehicles and aircraft we left behind. I bet they would love to trade for our Harley's.

Most likely they will become the new budget weapon dealers in the Arab world and take the money, watch TV shows like Kandahar Hilbillies, Afghanistan's got Talent and My Favorite Mohammed. With roads they can open a chain of McGhani Goatburgers with opium fries and get fat.

My idea of modern warfare is killem with kindness. All weapon delivery systems would contain warheads of concentrated serotonin, Oxytocin and magic mushrooms. The Taliban would be as Happy go Lucky as Santa Claus on the 4th of July.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 23 Aug 21 - 04:25 PM

And your point is???????????

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Charmion's brother Andrew
Date: 23 Aug 21 - 03:59 PM

"It took 20 years, trillions of dollars and 4 US presidents to replace the taliban with the taliban!" Yes, Bonzo, that's true, but now the Taliban understand English.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Aug 21 - 12:53 PM

Try completing your visa paperwork in 5 years

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Aug 21 - 11:26 AM

The Afghan fiasco is a very good argument for the 'Prime Directive'.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Aug 21 - 11:23 AM

"Whataboutism." Pointing at other people who did the same thing at another time. Irrelevant to the matter at hand (but something to be aware of.)

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 23 Aug 21 - 11:19 AM

I don't do poncey latin either!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Aug 21 - 11:06 AM

Yeah . . . India. 1947 was a very bad year. 2 million killed and up to 20 million displaced. They're still fighting, as are Palestinians. But this isn't about Tu Quoque. This is about Afghanistan now, this week.

The point is, a lot of what is happening is behind closed doors, under wraps, SECRET. There is a mess over there but there is a lot going on that is only conjecture right now. You'll probably have to look at the Instagram "Good News" account to see a steady trickle of escaped-Afghanistan-in-the-nick-of-time stories. Refugees reunited with their US allies. It seems a lot of the work going on is piecemeal, individuals pulling strings from home trying to rescue their Afghan co-workers and employees.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 23 Aug 21 - 11:05 AM

I'm glad you have nothing else to do!! And I am not a member of the "it would do you good" club!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Charmion
Date: 23 Aug 21 - 09:26 AM

Bonzo, it would do you good to remember that Britain has a fair few messy imperial withdrawals on its record, too. Maybe you've heard what happened after the partition of India? No? The end of the mandate in Palestine? Don't be so cocky.

However.

I have been reading the professional military commentary, and the short answer to the fast collapse of the Afghan national security forces is ... sad.

The US provided the Afghan National Army and the Afghan Air Force with all the "enablers" of modern First World combat: helicopters, ground-attack aircraft, and, most important, intelligence, surveillance and target-acquisition resources, especially drones. Afghan pilots flew the aircraft, but did not maintain them -- American contractors did that. Afghan soldiers were trained to depend on information fed to them from surveillance drones operated by USAF crews and maintained by American contractors.

The US withdrawal took all that combat support away.

Troops who know damned well that they have no back-up will not fight if they have any alternative.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Aug 21 - 07:20 AM

You are spot on. I too am flabbergasted that Biden actually followed the Trump plan for evauation.
"MADNESS"
quote: Bridge over River Kwai.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 23 Aug 21 - 05:30 AM

If you ever feel useless, remember it took 20 years, trillions of dollars and 4 US presidents to replace the taliban with the taliban!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 23 Aug 21 - 02:06 AM

You need all points of view on this even if you don't like it that the usa has failed!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Aug 21 - 09:57 PM

Some things are ongoing stories for a very long time

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Aug 21 - 09:08 PM

Bonzo, you're linking to a right-wing anti-Biden site that posts chopped up press conferences that are of no news value. You're not adding anything useful to this conversation. You also apparently didn't read Charmion's answer. They're not going to put what they're doing on the news because it would telegraph what they're up to. You're just going to have to sit and wait for the story like the rest of us.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 22 Aug 21 - 05:43 PM

They should have done, it's pathetic. Thank Clapton they have the British Army holding their hands!!!!!!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Charmion
Date: 22 Aug 21 - 05:21 PM

The lack of a bug-out plan would not be Biden’s fault, Bonzo. That’s entirely on the head of Commander CENTCOM.

Although I bet money plenty of matériel is going up in smoke as we speak, but the spokesface is not about to tell the world about it. They’ve known since last summer that this year is the end of the mission; they just never foresaw how fast it would go down.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 22 Aug 21 - 04:57 PM

Another idiot who does not have important answers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Unbelievable!!!

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 22 Aug 21 - 04:53 PM

This shows the absolute shambles of biden's making.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 22 Aug 21 - 05:54 AM

Let's hope the suggested G7 meeting brings much needed help from Russia and China, as usa has chickened out!!!

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 21 Aug 21 - 10:20 PM

Inexplicably when trump introduced Mike Lindell, he got the second largest cheer, more Than Marjorie Green or Mo Brooks who said "We are witnessing the Second Coming of Trump". If trumpists believe Afghanistan is why Biden has a failed presidency I don't think it will stick to the wall.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 21 Aug 21 - 09:59 PM

Do you mean an aerial version of Churchill's Dunkirk?
I already suggested Spirit Airlines volunteer.

I may take a cartoonist's POV too soon after tradgedy but I do agree that invectives like rag head and sand nigger are shameful.
Tonight I watched Trump in Alabama, currently hobbled by a health crises, got his biggest cheer and chants when he said "Everything woke is shit". I guess the the word shit amused the maskless crowd most.

i also noted how he changed history in the retelling of his most embarrassing moments. His 'ramp moment' was retold as "It was raining and slippery" }I watched a dry and sunny day. He made fun of Biden falling on steps with his still broken foot. He evoked the the image of a veteran quadruple amputee to support his Afghanistan policy and applause line.

He lost attention on the retelling of the big lie and reclaiming democracy for his own.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Aug 21 - 09:18 PM

You can talk about them without using invective that lumps all sorts of people into the insult.

It looks like Biden may compel private carriers to make some flights to help move things along. They would transport evacuees from the points where the US is dropping them off now.

The White House may invoke the Civil Reserve Air Fleet, which was created in 1952 to assist the military during emergencies following the post-World War II Berlin Airlift. The program could facilitate almost 20 commercial jets from five airlines to help transport evacuees from bases in the region, according to the official.

Another senior administration official told CNN that the commercial jets wouldn't be flying into Afghanistan but instead would be helping to transport Afghans from locations where they were taken after being evacuated from the country, including US bases in Qatar, Bahrain and Germany.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 21 Aug 21 - 04:28 PM

Unlike a number of medication-challenged muff-faced mule-brained male narcisist multi-personality malicious mulletheads in this part of the forest, I have no talent for the sting slur or snub.
'Course, I know the difference between communication and shit'
Shit is what is left after all the nutrition and information has already been digested.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 21 Aug 21 - 03:50 PM

The taliban are scum for the destruction of archeologic sites alone. They are a murderous motorcycle gang with a religion for corrupt legitimacy and are willing to shoot little girls.
Bonzo I liked your creative fresh combo of slurs.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 21 Aug 21 - 03:32 PM

I will slur the taliban, they are despicable.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: robomatic
Date: 21 Aug 21 - 11:26 AM

I am listening to Weekend Edition Saturday with Scott Simon and so far I have heard some of the best overall coverage of the Afghanistan events and what it means that I have heard on the subject so far.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Aug 21 - 10:17 AM

Bonzo, I've left other pejorative remarks when there was a link or point to it, but stop with the slurs.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Aug 21 - 10:58 PM

From the makers of Grand Theft Auto comes the new game 'Evacuate!'
The object is to make your way to Bogram airport. Earn big scores by passing your newborn over the wall to a GI. If you can get on a plane, preferably on the inside, fly to America by way of Qtar, Guam or destinations unknown. Players must avoid everything from the Taliban to American anti immigrant QAnon. Discover new challenges like one bathroom on a plane with 2,000 men women and children for an 18 hour flight. Evacuate! - its breathtaking in more ways than one.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Aug 21 - 05:18 PM

There are solutions to avoid this in the future written By Mr. Sopko and his agency. Cultural ignorance on behalf of the USA is a narcicism we can avoid next time around. You'd think government appointees never watched STNG or mayors never played Sim City.
The State department has been decimated but thats no excuse.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Aug 21 - 05:13 PM

To be childlike is a virtue. I think you mean childish.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 20 Aug 21 - 04:51 PM

No it's not just one person, it's the usaian government which has let the whole world down.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Aug 21 - 04:09 PM

My last link shows everything John Sopko learned Bill.

There is plenty of blame to go around and it is sad SO FAR.
To blame one person is child like.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bill D
Date: 20 Aug 21 - 12:40 PM

It may not show here.. it did on Facebook

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bill D
Date: 20 Aug 21 - 12:37 PM

If you can access this, it clarifies a lot of what went on the last 20 years...

Maddow interviews John Sopko
Or just google him.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 Aug 21 - 12:23 PM

The UK is welcome to send those support military personnel. Trump mangled any strategic and efficient exit plans, but it was time. Trump was trying to pull support out of several other places; consider it fortunate that this is the only one he managed to pull off. I'll point you to historian Heather Cox Richardson for a comprehensive view of the Afghan situation.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 20 Aug 21 - 12:10 PM

Absolutely right Backwoodsman, and how many usaian troops have been stationed in South Korea for the past 70 years?????????????????????

I would also say that Hilary Benn's Syria speech during debate on military action in Syria still holds relevance

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 20 Aug 21 - 12:02 PM

Thanks for that link, Bonz - a good summation. For anyone who is unaware of Rory Stewart’s credentials…

Rory Stewart.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 20 Aug 21 - 11:56 AM

SRS, I don’t give a FF about a ‘few oligarchs’ - I’d put the lives of millions of ordinary Afghanis, none of whom bear the slightest iota of responsibility for anything that’s gone on there, above everything else. The US has a military presence in many countries, some dating back 60 or 70 years - e.g. there are still 54,000 personnel in Japan, 35,000 in Germany, the US presence has existed in those countries for 76 years, yet they present no threat to the US, nor to their own populations. Why is there no clamour for ‘withdrawal’ from those countries, yet it was apparently essential to desert the people of Afghanistan with indecent haste and no viable plan, and leave them to their fate?

And I’m not ‘missing the point’ at all. I’m very much aware of what’s gone on, and I couldn’t agree with you more that GWB’s project was absurd. But start it he did, in the US’s name (and others of course) and, having committed the US and it’s allies to occupation, it’s only right that they should remain there to protect ordinary Afghanis until a viable exit plan was worked out. And the Doha Agreement wasn’t a viable exit plan.

And BTW, I include the UK, as the US’s major ally, in the above - our hands are just as dirty as yours.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 20 Aug 21 - 11:53 AM

Don't agree, I don't care who gets rich. This Russian rifled ragtag raghead prick waving rabble should never have been allowed to take over Afghanistan.

More words of wisdom from Rory Stewart

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 Aug 21 - 11:03 AM

Bonzo and Backwoodsman, so you'd have the US continue to support the status quo of the few oligarchs who got rich and richer with all of the cash poured into Afghanistan? It had to end. Intelligence seems to have failed, there are now reports and interviews from various high-ranking folks who should have known, who have said the information didn't come to warn how fast the Taliban was moving (because Trump positioned them to buy the cooperation of many regions and towns starting in early 2020. Bribes happened and lots of cooperation was purchased. This was apparently a low-key operation. And Trump released 5000 or so Taliban staff from prison to do the job.)

I think you're missing the point of just what has been going on there since George W. Bush started this absurd project 20 years ago. The question now is did Trump manage to enrich himself in this process. We're going to need to impeach his ass again.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Aug 21 - 07:19 AM

America has done this in Viet Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan and will do it again so there are things we need to learn to do it better

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 20 Aug 21 - 06:34 AM

So sad!

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 20 Aug 21 - 05:28 AM

I agree that neither the US nor the UK should have pulled out, but the agreement for withdrawal that set the ball rolling was completely Trump’s doing.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 20 Aug 21 - 05:24 AM

The Doha agreement was signed by Pompeo under Trump’s presidency and the date for full withdrawal was set at 31/5/21.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 20 Aug 21 - 05:19 AM

Biden knows nothing but does the worst. No way should usa have pulled out.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Rain Dog
Date: 20 Aug 21 - 03:13 AM

Interesting posts Charmion.

"Thank you for your service."

Sometimes we are just grateful that somebody is willing to do a job that a lot of us would not like to do.

In times past, when we had conscription and/or asked for volunteers, it was not a career choice for the majority of those who risked their lives.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: robomatic
Date: 20 Aug 21 - 01:20 AM

Reminds me of the quote about doctors:

“Surgeons know nothing but do everything. Internists know everything but do nothing. Pathologists know everything and do everything but too late.”

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Aug 21 - 09:21 PM

Here is the ULTIMATE summation https://www.sigar.mil/interactive-reports/what-we-need-to-learn/index.html

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Aug 21 - 08:28 PM

Robo your npr link is truely a summation and not just an angry died in vain wake up call.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Charmion's brother Andrew
Date: 19 Aug 21 - 08:27 PM

I made the same career move as Charmion, to which our father reacted, "Oh, no, not another one?"

I filled Charmion in on UNFICYP when I was posted to Kingston for a French language course just four months after my return the said mission. I pointed out that the reason it was working at the time was because the U.S. Sixth Fleet was just over the horizon to smack whoever got too uppity. Canada was happy to take on such peacekeeping roles that the U.S administrations knew they could not sell to their public.

Before I got too old and crusty, I had figured out that the role of the military is to operate the state's monopoly on violence or the threat of violence to meet state ends. I was still, however, enough of an adventurer that I would volunteer for missions.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Charmion
Date: 19 Aug 21 - 08:18 PM

That’s Steve Coll, author of “Ghost Wars”, “Directorate S” and a book about the Bin Laden family. Essential reading.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Aug 21 - 08:02 PM

Archeology

In Time
the dust of history
will become stone.
As events grow worse
every breath
feels like the curse.
In Time
mistakes are understood
and made again,
until forgotten
like digital text
in a city of stone.

Forbidden and hidden again

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: robomatic
Date: 19 Aug 21 - 07:16 PM

Fresh Air this day was devoted to an interview with Steve Call of The New Yorker well worth the listen and I believe a transcript is available at the Fresh Air site.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Charmion
Date: 19 Aug 21 - 04:53 PM

Guilty as charged, Stilly.

And I lived through the whole thing as a worker bee in National Defence Headquarters and Canadian Expeditionary Force Command Headquarters.

I wrote and rewrote the official Canadian government website pages on our military operations in Afghanistan several times a year from 2001 to 2013. At the same time, I wrote and revised all the stuff we published about all our other foreign deployments. So I have had a good long time to make up my mind.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Aug 21 - 03:34 PM

I agree about Charmion's explanation of the history and military - but I think we also have a bit of a ringer here - didn't you copyedit a book on the subject a couple of years ago?

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 19 Aug 21 - 03:19 PM

Tom Tugendhat sums it up well in House of Commons!!!

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: meself
Date: 19 Aug 21 - 02:37 PM

Yup. Everything she writes on here is well worth the read. Thanks again, Charmion! [The automatic "Thank you for your service" is just another of the more recent Americanisms that's creeped into Canada - at least "Support Our Troops" was original (I think), whatever exactly it was supposed to mean.]

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Aug 21 - 01:43 PM

I would buy a history book written by Charmion.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Charmion
Date: 19 Aug 21 - 11:26 AM

On social media, I have many friends who are military veterans and some who are still serving. I am more than a little sad to see some of them writing about how the Canadian combat mission "improved" life for -- as one put it -- "an entire generation of Afghans." Then, inevitably, there's a statement about girls going to school.

Y'know, that's not what armies are for.

The military profession is a tragic one because it is inherently wasteful and its core business is destruction. The fact that training for war can make good people better just makes it worse. The view of military service in the so-called Western world was severely warped by the Second World War and its crusade against Fascism in general and Hitler's version of it in particular; we won, and that victory halted a great evil. That success blinded us to the great evils we perpetrated ourselves to accomplish it, and the fates of many innocents who perished or were permanently scarred along the way. The end justified the means -- stopping the Holocaust justified the fire-bombing of Dresden, etc. etc. etc. Look back a century further and note the same logic around the American Civil War: the abolition of slavery justified slaughter on a scale grander than anything seen since the 30 Years' War in the 17th century.

Canadians are very romantic about military service, largely because they know almost nothing about it. "Peacekeeping" is a big part of our national myth, and it's a crock of lies; it works only when all parties to a conflict are ready and willing to quit fighting, and no patron powers are stirring the ashes. Of the UN missions under way now, UNFICYP in Cyprus is a good example: in 1974, after nine years of peacekeeping, EOKA was a spent force and the newly independent island was beginning to confront its ethnically defined inequities, when Turkey gingered up its diaspora on the north side of the island and actually invaded in support of a breakaway statelet. Cue the pocket war, and UNFICYP is still there.

When we first accepted a gig with ISAF, it was 2003 and we were going to Kabul to keep the peace while the Afghans organized their new government and conducted their first national elections. It was a very bumpy ride, and a clear-eyed after-action analysis in 2005 would have resulted in a withdrawal instead of doubling down with a move to Kandahar to fight the Taliban as part of a combined formation made up of troops from Britain and the Netherlands as well as us. (At that time, the US was running its own show, Operation Enduring Freedom, and was not part of ISAF -- although everything ISAF did had to be tailored to US intentions.)

The war in Kandahar shifted quickly from forces in the field to counter-insurgency, and the highly professional regular armies of ISAF had neither the skills nor the experience for it. The ruthless British imperial armies of the early to mid-20th centuries probably could have put it down -- for a while -- but the post-Cold War forces of NATO were still designed to fight the Soviet horde thundering through the Fulda Gap. So it did not go well.

Alas, the Canadian public still has no clue. When the nice kid who mows my lawn realized that Edmund and I were ex-military, she reflexively said, "Thank you for your service"; she had no idea that joining the Canadian Forces was a career move, not an act of sacrifice, for people like us. In lovely, leafy Stratford, where the military footprint is limited to an Army Reserve unit of about 100 part-time soldiers parading on Thursday nights at our handsome Edwardian armoury, cars with Veteran licence plates park for free because, first, romance, and also because there are so few of us.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Aug 21 - 10:37 AM

War is always a racket. Sometimes I grow weary of another sterile global political analysis. Sure the neo cons chose the wars they could sell and earn fortunes. When will we stop buying?

I should classify war and its euphemisms as all the same war.
imo it is not just politics by other means, it is cruelty by another legalized name to create wealth.
War against war makers
False flag wars
Corporate wars
Police action
religious war
territory war
and the ironic,
humanitarian war

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Aug 21 - 09:54 AM

Rachel Maddow does a very good look back at who profited from all of the money poured into Afghanistan. For the most part it wasn't the Afghan people, it was a few well-connected profiteers.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Aug 21 - 08:40 AM

Cultural isolationism is a danger.
We gradually grew up in an ever more isolated culture. Physically houses lost their porches, they later grew decks hidden in back.
TV let you stay home lonely and not go to the movies. You can go on your phone and even play poker alone. Mudcatters are an anachronism to a less lonely time, singing and playing together. People who can't sing go to a Q'Anon event or Trump rally and they don't feel alone anymore. Their thirst is quenched but by drinking in a venomous cult and not a fun song.
Eyes are reopening and we are trying to be less isolated but in a pandemic it is tough and facebook is often toxic. So what is possible now? Do we fly all the girls and women out of Afghanistan?
Some things are more possible than others. We have to be realistic.
I hope I am guilty of being too obvious rather than just being preachy without a religion.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Aug 21 - 08:12 AM

A great President ideally should have an omnicient understanding of all processes and contingencies involved in each possible outcome of policies involved. Then implement the best policy that maximizes the most benefits and minimizes the risks. This leaves the posssibility that the best choice will still leave one open to criticism that the President is a total wanker. A more temperate opinion might be 'Biden is a partial wanker'.

On the other side of the equation is WHO are the ones critisizing?
The people alive now that come from America and elsewhere are the middle classes that came form the parents and children of those who were victorious in WWII. The middle class who were armed with a GI bill and were less hungry than those in the depression. Their rage comes from cultural insecurity, tribal party alliances, obcessions with ethnicty and identity, blunted with ambition and a childlike understanding of the process and limits of government. It is easier to share a hatred than a love among political strangers. It is easy to believe/understand an emotional dynamic lie than a subtle truth.

Many of us a have what we want but are still unhappy we don't have more. They cry and wallow in victimhood and greivence and tribalism.
Then they refuse a simple vaccine because the great orange Cheeto had a another idea.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 19 Aug 21 - 02:27 AM

Biden has proved himself to be a total wanker.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Charmion
Date: 18 Aug 21 - 08:14 PM

Soldiers aren’t owed a victory, Donuel, so President Biden did not “betray” the veterans of Afghanistan. As citizens, however, the veterans have a right to resent the nation-state that exposed them to so much danger and unpleasantness in a futile and often meretricious cause, and flat-out wasted their precious time.

And yes, your memory is spot on: both Presidents Bush f***ed over the Kurds and didn’t even kiss them first.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Aug 21 - 03:30 PM

Did Biden betray our veterans and ally Afghans? No and yes.
As I recall both Bushs betrayed the Kurds in Iraq.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Aug 21 - 12:37 PM

I was going to transfer this over from the Trump Actions thread, but the system isn't letting me, so it is simply duplicated here.

Here is the "Peace agreement" Trump and Pompeo worked out in Feb. 2020.

Summing up by Paul Nuki on Twitter:

1/5 Have you read the deal agreed between the US and the Taliban?

It explains why the Taliban now rule Afghanistan again; the US just surrendered it, even promising financial support.

A quick thread follows but 1st a pic of Big Mike Pompeo doing the deal in Doha in Feb 2020...


2/ The deal itself was simple: The Taliban promised (on the lives of their mums, daughters etc) not to hurt the US or its allies again. In return, they got the following five things:

i/ A complete withdrawal of all US and allied troops under an agreed time line. Nice...


ii/ The immediate release of thousands of Taliban prisoners - you, know the ones guilty of terrorism, stoning women, blowing up US/UK troops, that sort of thing...

iii/ Dropping all sanctions/bounties on the Taliban by a week this Friday so they can get on with building their new caliphate unhindered. Great .. .

iv/ A firm promise not to threaten the Taliban ever again or interfere in the running of their new caliphate. Super ...

v/ Being friends with the Taliban in future and helping them build their new Islamic state via "economic cooperation". A new US/Afghani narco hub perhaps?? Smashing...

3/ If you think my take on this a bit one sided, I urge you to read the agreement for yourself.

It's basically Versailles, as drafted by the Taliban.

Here it is in full. It takes just 5 mins to read: https://2017-2021.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Signed-Agreement-02292020.pdf

4/ One last thought - was Big Mike under duress when he agreed it; was he threatened with torture, death or similar in order to sign away 20 years of blood and toil?

Not judging by the pictures from the event. He just seemed his normal plump, jovial self...


5/ And what of the Taliban; how did they seem at the signing ceremony in Doha last year?

Well, as usual, they appeared to be hanging tough. But having played an absolute blinder, they were almost certainly crying with laughter on the inside.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Aug 21 - 12:16 PM

The casino delusion is driven by a fallacy that winning is enevitable. The Sunk Cost Dilemma is a formal economic term that describes the emotional difficulty of deciding whether to proceed with or abandon a project when time and money have already been spent, but the desired results have not been achieved. The Sunk Cost Dilemma is also called the Concorde Fallacy. I would call it the Trump fallacy.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Charmion
Date: 18 Aug 21 - 11:45 AM

It wasn't ignorance driving over all those IEDs for years and years; it was a military version of the casino delusion: If I don't bet, I can't win.

American foreign policy has a bone-deep contradiction baked right in; the US is a republic and refuses to be an empire, so it does not occupy a country when it sends in a massive army and takes control of it. Instead, it's "nation-building" -- identifying a cooperative power-broker (e.g., Hamid Karzai) and forcefully aligning the people, resources and institutions of the country to, first, put that individual and his (always his) faction in power, and then keep them there as long as they cooperate with the American program.

Because of that original foreign policy contradiction, an American occupation is supposed to end with an orderly withdrawal with the natives waving bye-bye and everyone friends, like Germany in the middle '50s (except the US forces are still in Germany ...). Trouble is, the enemy has a vote, much clearer objectives, and no concern for the voters back home.

Those old enough to remember Vietnam will recognize the pattern.

Allies like Canada, Britain, Australia, Germany and so many others are roped in to make the US occupation look like a world-wide drive to set the target country straight, but the illusion holds up only as long as no one looks too closely.

I hope I live long enough to read some good historical analysis of the last 20 years.

Subject: RE: BS: Trump Actions and Effects
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Aug 21 - 10:00 AM

Instead of shooting off in all directions, do what I did before I posted that post and google "Americans' knowledge of history."

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Charmion
Date: 18 Aug 21 - 09:39 AM

Tora Bora, Donuel.

Spelling matters.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Aug 21 - 08:57 AM

It was an initial reactionary attempt at petulant political revenge that almost worked but after its Bora Bora failure, policy took a back seat while continued ignorance drove over endless IED's.
Where are you taking me? Leggo my arm. Can we talk about this?

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 Aug 21 - 09:34 PM

Yeah. And a lot of US veterans are VERY annoyed* that what they worked for and died for fell in a blitzkrieg. Billions of dollars and a huge number of lives lost (Allied and Afghan) to try to prove that what Russia and Great Britain tried to do could be done. I thought that when it began in 2001 and never saw anything to change my mind.


*I was at the local VA Clinic today (getting hearing aids repaired, not getting me repaired) and while waiting heard a young female veteran excoriating every US administration from 2001 to the present. Then she started to weep over friends she lost there -- the psychology people came and took her into their area of the clinic. Her command of rhetoric was quite impressive!

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Aug 21 - 07:56 PM

Malcolm Nance said in an interview last night that (paraphrased)
**the problem is that those in the responsible positions in the U.S. simply do NOT understand Afghan culture, which is dominated by a very narrow set of religious views.**

   They had hundreds of years of doing things in certain ways, and we had some idea that in 10, 15, 20 years we were going to change that?

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Malcolm Storey
Date: 17 Aug 21 - 07:08 PM

Amazing that no one ever learns from history - especially politicians.
Who is going to write this particular history - perhaps the losers again - because "it sure as hell" wasn't their fault. Not much!

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Aug 21 - 06:18 PM

Afghans had all the time. We had the clocks & watches that ran down.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 17 Aug 21 - 12:15 PM

One thing you can be certain of is that, no matter their protestations, nobody, but NOBODY, at government or diplomatic service levels, is ‘astonished’ or even ‘mildly surprised’ that the Taliban came back toute de suite. The second it was announced that Trump’s poodle, Pompeo, had signed the agreement with the Taliban for US troops to withdraw by April 2021, Mrs Backwoodsperson and I looked at each other and said, “Here come the Taliban!”.

If Proles like us suspected it was going to happen, and quickly, you can damn well bet your boots on it that those in control knew for sure.

Time will reveal what the real plan has been all along.

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: meself
Date: 17 Aug 21 - 11:54 AM

Thanks for that outline from the inside, Charmion.

**********

"if anyone has been paying attention to history" .... Many people have - not the right ones, though.

We're being told over and over how astonished the world is at how quickly the Taliban has taken over .... Hands up if you're astonished .....

Subject: RE: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Charmion
Date: 17 Aug 21 - 11:02 AM

When Edmund went to Afghanistan in 2008, not a good year for ISAF or its parallel US formations, he was deployed with an American outfit called the Combined Security Transition Command - Afghanistan (CSTC-A , pronounced "See Stick-a"). CSTC-A was supposed to "build capacity" in the Afghan state and security forces and, in Edmund's case, that meant convincing the Afghans to adopt the Western European and North American rule-of-law ideal and apply it to war.

He knew that his mission was futile from the get-go, and said as much but only to me. He liked and admired many people he met there, Afghans and Americans alike, but could not imagine any circumstance in which the Americans had a prayer of making so much as a dent in Afghan culture. When he came back to Canada, he put the Afghan experience firmly behind him and returned to defending soldiers at court martial and advising assisting officers as quickly he could.

I never saw Canada's participation in the war in Afghanistan as anything but part of the protective multinational cover applied to US operations. Like the European nations in ISAF (the Netherlands, Germany, Romania, Poland et al.), we were there to help make the US occupation look like an effort of the "community of nations". Well, NATO nations, plus like-minded allies such as Australia. Eventually, frustrated by the hassle of deferring to allies with differing objectives and agendas, the Americans took over ISAF. The Netherlands and Canada were early leavers; by the end, I think only the British and a few other nations were left of the once-mighty multinational gaggle.

Having made what we hoped was a good showing, we cut our losses and bugged out in 2014. The Dutch were out by 2012.

Sitting at my perch in Canadian Expeditionary Force Command Headquarters in Ottawa, I saw the mission re-formulated and narrowed year by year as waves of jargon came and went. Ink-blot theory, COIN, counter-IED, sustainment. In the end, we polished off a 20-km stretch of road in Panjwaii District and handed over our remaining small segment of Kandahar Province to the Americans and moved to Kabul for two years of trying to train the Afghan National Army. When that was done, we left.

Edmund and I were both brought up on Kipling and the history of the British Empire, and I vividly remember how we reacted to the first moves of the U.S. intervention in 2001. "What can possibly go wrong?" we said. "Just about everything," we said. "This will end in tears."

There's plenty of good history and analysis of the so-called "global war on terror" (promptly reduced to the acronym GWOT), and the stuff that's any good starts and consistently circles back to the aspirations and activities of Pakistan, the rampaging elephant in the room that the US never even tried to confront. Now we'll see how the Pakistani security and intelligence services manipulate the Taliban (that's a plural, people) as they try to govern Afghanistan, and how long it will take before China and, possibly, Russia decide that they can't stand the instability any more.

Subject: Afghanistan - then and now
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Aug 21 - 09:40 AM

Back in 2010 the newest iteration of Sherlock Holmes appeared on TV, this time with Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock, and the more robust representation of Dr. John Watson, the army doctor wounded in Afghanistan, played by Martin Freeman.

What was so remarkable about that? This modern-era Watson was impacted by Afghanistan just as the ORIGINAL Dr. Watson, in Victorian times, was an injured veteran of an Afghan campaign.

Afghanistan is complicated and isn't about to be sorted out by Western nations.

I'm seeing a lot of commentary about the departure of US troops from Afghanistan this week, but if anyone has been paying attention to history, this was always the way it was going to end. It just took a long time for someone to acknowledge that and just get the hell out.

Nearly 20 years ago the Washington Post ran a perspective piece about Afghanistan:
Afghanistan's Rugged Land and People Carved by History

The probable battleground for our current war has, for most of human history, been the turbulent crossroads of Central Asia: a place where man's noblest instincts and achievements have warred with his lust to rule by terror. Osama bin Laden is only the latest prophet of violence to make it his base.

Whole civilizations rose and died in Afghanistan 2,000 years before Christ. Alexander the Great founded Kandahar, its second-largest city, which still bears his name. Uzbeks and Persians have braved its mountain passes with dreams of conquest. Tajiks and Greeks have shivered in its avalanches and sheltered in its caves.

On the southwestern border with Iran, toward the minarets of Zabol and Isfahan, stretch the ruins of an immense and ancient city no one can name. They lie at the edge of the Desert of Death.

The topic is bound to come up, so I'm giving it a broad base for discussion. There is no point in just discussing the Trump v Biden part of it or the "why didn't Obama pull out once they killed Bin Laden" or even "what in hell was George W. Bush thinking?"

The UK couldn't do it, Russia couldn't do it, and the US couldn't do it. My heart breaks for those citizens stuck with the power structure as it is now, but short of giving them an avenue out of that mess, there isn't a lot that can be done. China shares a short part of border with Afghanistan; perhaps they will next enter the fray.

Let the hand-wringing commence.