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I'm not tryin to start nothin and don't,but. why didn't people leave afghanistan after joe said he was pullin out in stead of waitin till the last minute?
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It is not their fault. Our allies were told we would maintain adequate security in and around Kabul.
Our allies are furious about this, btw. Many of them have people trapped in Afgahinistan right now.Biden Assured Allies in June U.S. Would Ensure Kabul’s Stability
President Joe Biden told key allies in June that he would maintain enough of a security presence in Afghanistan to ensure they could continue to operate in the capital following the main U.S. withdrawal, a vow made before the Taliban’s rapid final push across the country, according to a British diplomatic memo seen by Bloomberg.
Biden promised U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other leaders at the Group of Seven summit in Cornwall, England, that “critical U.S. enablers” would remain in place to keep Kabul safe following the drawdown of NATO forces, the note said. British officials determined the U.S. would provide enough personnel to ensure that the U.K. embassy in Kabul could continue operating.
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Anyone with travel papers who didn't instantly fucking leave was a fool. You're either there on US military business, Coalition military business, can't escape because you're a local, or an imbecile if you can leave but decline.
In every war there are some US citizens who lose their mind and stay too long but there were no consequences for that in Nam and in Iraq there was plenty of warning as ISIL (who our misbegotten invasion and idiotic misgovernment kickstarted in the first place) expanded for US folk to move. Locals were still fucked though. Average A-stan civilians of course had no way to escape. It's a lot more complex than it looks.
An exception are the terps who fought loyally beside US forces and often have more combat time. Those guys paid their dues and should have been evacuated but Americans are culturally incapable of managing constabulary operations in foreign cultures so we not only lose badly or get a Pyrrhic victory like Iraq, we fuck everything else up in fine style. Besides misleading the American public about how badly the war was really going our incompetent military leadership ignored our few genuinely loyal Afghan helpers who risked much more siding with us when they could have been local heroes with the winning team instead. The way they were treated is a national disgrace in a severely misfought war most of the public forgot about years ago or never cared about in the first place.
This cat earned his keep twice over a while back and became a Marine. https://taskandpurpose.com/immigrati...e-infantryman/Comment
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China's input is fairly easy to discern.
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Afghans....nice blankets and even better dogsComment
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It is not easy for people to leave their homes, besides, Afghans are strong-willed and strong people who are ready to fight to the last for their country.Comment
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Well, it is a real shame they did not. In fact, the probably aren't even in as good a shape as they were before the war, because the area held by the Northern Alliance is gone.
It's Taliban all the way now, and they'll have China's backing and full support. They will not be recognized as the (ahem) "legitimate" government of Afghanistan.
It's sad. I hate to see it happen like this. But that certainly looks like how it will all shake out.Comment
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I don't know if the difference is culture in Islamic societies, or the nature of the invasion and the cultural changes that were pushed in post invasion Afgahinistan?
But for whatever reason, self determination doesn't seem to be a priority for them.
I sometimes wonder if they saw "Gay Pride Month" and the "UN's Sustainability Goals!" painted mural size on buildings there, etc/so on, and just rejected the whole proposition outright because they didn't want to get crossways with God?
Maybe rule by the Taliban is something that aligns better with their values than the cultural changes we were proposing?
Everything we did was sold, based on a concept sometimes called the "End of History" It comes from the Marshall Plan for postwar Europe and was considered by many in the political establishment to be definitive proof that Western Democracy was superior to other forms of government and could be exported as a model.
This worked very, very well in Europe and Japan. It is working in Russia, today. The model was successful.
But I don't know how you look at two decades of similar work in Afgahinistan falling apart in mere days. The "blue on green" killings that plagued the occupation throughout. The resilient nature of Islamic culture there. And come to any conclusion except that the West and our ideas were simply rejected outright?Comment
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Just watched a docu-drama about Jerusalem. Went back to biblical times and man I knew the middle-east was messed up, but seriously it is tragic. Two decades is but a drop in the bucket to the turmoil that region has seen.
If you think you know what is going on there, you need to know the history behind it all and Jerusalem is the key to it all.
This link is to a timeline of the major shit that has happened in the region. https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/18/middl...ine/index.htmlComment
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DoomBuggy is right on. I spent some time in Palestine and Jerusalem and what struck me most was , aside from the urban elite, their sense of time and ancestry is so much larger(broader ?) then our western perspective.Comment
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Damn right, and having stayed in an Islamic country I remember:
Tradition is huge
Religion is huge
Their view of life is fatalistic.
Their urban areas welcome western culture, but it doesn't mean shit in rural areas, some rural afghans have said that they are relieved the dust has settled, even if it means Taliban rule.
I'm sad for the people I work with that risked their lives there. I'm sad for my neighbour who lost his legs there. But we don't understand, our one size fits all approach is proof.
I know one westerner who did understand , T.E. Lawrence, a biker to boot. He paid a price for the experience that gave him that understanding. He was ultimately unsuccessful, in his own view.
Last edited by Hoghead; 09-09-2021, 10:44 AM.Comment
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Exactly.. That sure is how it looks from here.
Yeah.. I'm saddest, I think, for the generation that was raised under relative "freedom" and for the women and girls there. Their lives are going to change immediately and for the worse. They're effectively slaves, and that is horrible. I hate it. I hate seeing it. I hate the knowledge that we, objectively, probably made the problem WORSE. I'm embarrassed by it.I'm sad for the people I work with that risked their lives there. I'm sad for my neighbour who lost his legs there. But we don't understand, our one size fits all approach is proof.
But, to be honest? Some of the women want it that way also.
I remember the Burka kerfuffle in Europe. Various countries imported a bunch of Muslim women and it was just kind of inferred that they had been rescued by the benevolent West and freed from Patriarchy! Which is objectively true, if you think about it.
But did it matter? Nope.. Or not as much as one might think? Because they didn't all run out to get bikini waxes and go clubbing. A bunch of them wore the Burqua. A costume the West considers abhorrent and abusive. And someone said so, flat out. (Tony Blair, Maybe?) And just condemned it in the strongest terms used by politicians in Europe.
The result? MORE women wore it..
They took it up in solidarity and they took it up because they didn't want to get crossways with God.
I think that was a microcosm of what caused our failure (Actually, a rejection.) in Afgahinistan.
Similar things have happened in France. Their culture is the great divide.
Interesting. Never heard of him?I know one westerner who did understand , T.E. Lawrence, a biker to boot. He paid a price for the experience that gave him that understanding. He was ultimately unsuccessful, in his own view.
But I'm a noobie biker. I was a heathen Rice and Dirtbike/non-biker guy before being baptized by my first Harley purchase.Comment
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