That might make Reeling in the Years 2021 so I guess I'll watch.
Because they believe the US military is over there protecting their freedoms....don't ask me how their freedoms got all the way over in the middle East,though they do seem to move around
Is there any examples of orderly retreats/ evacuations from losing sides? I wonder if they rewrite history like in Vietnam to say they achieved their strategic even if their allies were defeated.
I see, so no substantive discussions from you then.
Binden is right about what are we supposed to do if Afghans Don't fight for themselves ,I'd don't agree how they went about the withdrawal and trump's negotiations which got us to this point,
They could have easily held on to bagram airbase and litterally gave the afgans airsupport and extra help with NATO special forces to back up the ANA ,
yeah I've been following her reporting on this - she is brilliant.
its simplifying the issue though and passing the buck. its the implementation - the plan that has gone astray. NATO is made up of many members there should have been more communication between the lot of them and looping in the UN, international aid agencies and NGOs etc, to make sure they could maximise the amount of people who could get out. seem like alot of people blindsided.
Americans may see American issues a little differently to how you choose to see American issues
yeah interesting point and i think it would require a thesis level amount of research. so if they didnt think they could do it orderly as perhaps doesnt work that way then they should have at least acknowledged that at the beginning.
Just watched ITN news. People clinging to the sides of planes taking off and then bodies falling to ground being reported. Awful scenes of desperation. Last time I saw something like that was 911 when people jumped from the windows in desperation knowing it was certain death. An awful situation for the people there .
So the spin on this from the UK media is: There's a group of fake male Muslim terrorists taking over the country where one of their aims in to subjugate woman. I find it quite repulsive that some would turn this current crisis into an issue of misogyny.
I think when the intention is to leave Afghanistan altogether that a Taliban takeover would inevitably ensue whether a sudden withdrawal or a staggered one. The end result is always going to be the same.
We all know exactly what the problem is and there is no way we can fix it. It might fix itself in a few hundred years is about the best we can hope for. What truly democratic Islamic country's are there in the world anyway? There's isn't one so the idea we could turn Afghanistan into one is delusional.
Biden is coming under a lot of criticism for this but I'm behind him on this on. I wouldn't dream of sending Irish soldiers to Afghanistan to fix their underlying problems risking their lives for objectives that can't be fixed in the first place. It is not a matter of simply defeating a terrorist organization and that's it job done all sorted now. Wish it were but there it is.
I assume even in their desperation they didn't believe they could actually hold on to a moving plane. I imagine they thought it wouldn't take off and they could force their way in or climb into the wheel hatch like some Hollywood movie.
Either way it is an incredibly shocking image
Hard for rioting to change stuff that's already happened...
One that comes to mind is the South African withdrawal from Angola in 1976 aka the tail end of Operation Savannah. After their advance was checked by Cuban/ MPLA forces at Ebo. The South Africans called up reserve military units and other units to facilitate their movements back to the Namibian border. It helped that during the battle of Bridge 14 they had given the Cubans a rather bloody nose. As such the pursuing forces to the withdrawal give them considerable space and advanced at a rather sedate pace.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9898321/Freed-jail-help-Donald-Trump-Abdul-Ghani-Baradar-head-Afghanistan.html
Wonder what will happen if the Americans ever leave Iraq. They do have a large and expensive base in Baghdad so perhaps will never leave like having Gitmo base in Cuba.
Might shock you but we had troops over there.
The USA and UK actually do zero when Saudi Arabia hold their mass public beheadings. In fact they arm and train that brutal regime.
Best hope is to get the likes of the powerful Islamic countries to influence taliban to behave somewhat responsibly going forward.
I don’t have much confidence though.
Very few ever over 20 years ,
I wouldn’t hold my breath on that one. I mean the support was there for the full withdrawal if you believe opinion polls but the way it was done was an utter mess.
Already did with isis , America withdrew most of the forces and not long after Isis appeared and rolled across the border after the collapse of the Iraqi army.
The biggest issue in Iraq is all of Iran proxies groups directly funded and supported by Iran they have no intention of leaving Iraq ,give it a few years and they will try to install a puppet government , they already have support in various politicans who are staunchly anti America
I hope the terrible pictures of today are kept on file for the next time the US and UK are putting together a “coalition of the willing” to invade some other country.
Their effectiveness was increased by the fact that Isis were afraid of being killed by a woman because they would be dishonoured and not allowed into the happy ever after.
Shure the head of the British army was quoted as saying "we will police Basra like we policed Belfast" and meant as a boast about how good they were at policing. So I don't think the big boys ever learn from their mistakes
The anti vietnam, the creation of independent Malaysia. One of the very few times an occupying power helped set up a stable state.
Post war Germany was a very different state to most of German history.
It helped that the local population was utterly shamed into not resisting change after what they had done
It's just an utterly depressing situation.
Absolutely disgusting to see the Taliban back in power.
And with hindsight, in Iraq, that was one major mistake that was made there. In their eagerness to remove all traces of Saddam, they also removed all Bathist members of the administration, or any position of power, but these people knew how to run the Country ( not mention that most of them feared and hated Saddam, ) So you had basically a rudderless administration,,,and the Country devolved into out of control power blocks, same as Libya is now.
The problem with Afghanistan is that its divided into tribal areas and groups, which in the rural areas are poorly ( if at all ) educated, Its not uncommon to find people whose Family name is taken from the district they were born in, and as for birthdays? Forget it. And these different districts and Families have often been at war with each other. The Haqqani network for example. So I guess that at the time, the US thought it best to leave the existing setup in place.Very hard to roll back a system that has been in place for hundreds of years.
Panjhir one of the few areas not under Taliban control are planning to holdout against against them after arming citizens and galvanising local militias ,
Could very well be the start of the northern alliance 2.0.
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