Could certainly see the Japanese scrapping article nine of their constitution in the near future.
I thought that as well. Maybe they're hoping China will try and reclaim Taiwan so they'll have an excuse to go at them..
Venezuela could be a candidate?
Same reason that the North Koreans enthusiastically support the leadership. It’s an act for self preservation. It’s easy having a go at the Afghan population for not resisting but honestly if any of us were in the same situation there is almost no chance we would resist.
So who's next in line for the USA chopping block? They need to keep their military machine ticking over. The scumbags behind the scenes need to keep making money.
My favourite would be Iran. An outside bet would be Cuba..
I have to agree with Biden's comments, there was never going to be a good time to leave Afghanistan.
But when the Afghans themselves refuse to fight for their own country and their "political leaders" flee the country, why should American armed forces stay behind and keep fighting? Makes no sense.
That's intended for US domestic consumption to excuse the failure of foreign intervention (See Samantha Power and RTP), it is out of touch with the reality and fails to acknowledge the reality of the lives of people who live in Afghanistan whose per capita income is estimated at something like $2,000. When you are dirt poor survival matters more than freedom and democracy.
As a tangent a more interesting understanding of what the region is conservative may come from the parasite-stress theory that disease shapes human behaviour and that liberal freedom and democracy as we understand it only came about through the control of disease. Recently discussed by Dr. Randy Thornhill in an interview with Dr. Jordan Peterson.
A huge percentage of military work involves moving people and things around. It's a specialization. Plus, they had several months to plan the logistics of withdrawing equipment and people. Where was the contingency planning? It makes little sense that this chaos is unfolding.
I don't buy 'the Taliban took over too quickly.' You plan these things so that your people are safe whether the Taliban take over quickly or not.
Well I know the consequences of the Taliban getting IN to power so I dont know why they got such a welcome. The US kept them at bay at least.
Neither fighting the Taliban or welcoming the Taliban seem great, yet the Afghans immediately gave up.
But it had to end sometime, the way it has been handled is a disgrace but if the afghans were more focused on robbing the US with "ghost soldiers" etc then the Afghanistan government, culture of corruption has to take some of the blame, they had an opportunity for twenty years and there was a concerted effort to abuse the opportunity.
Yeah. I was thinking that too. A lot of allies in precarious situations feeling worried today.
Do you know the consequences of fighting the Taliban and failing? The US military did not destroy them in 20 years, do you think some poor people would have any confidence of success?
I would say there are some ambitious PLA officers that are tweaking plans as we speak.
Hard to disagree with Biden's comments.
The nanosecond Afghanistan was left to the Afghans the Taliban were let waltz in happily with no resistance. They clearly werent that interested in freedom/democracy.
Different situation but I'd say there are some interesting conversations going on right now in Taiwan.
The world moves on, there are other matters to deal with.
The geopolitical consequences of the U.S. defeat will be felt for a long time. As Andrei Martyanov writes:
The world took notice and the United States handed the victory to Islamic fanatics and thus emboldened them, the same way the United States fanned the flames of Political Islam in 1980s and helped to form the force which is radically anti-civilizational in its essence.
This IS the main failure of the combined West and it will be, yet again, up to someone else to clean this **** mess after the US, whose political and military "elites" not only did not learn **** from anything but are incapable of learning. In that, when combined with a myriad of other economic, scientific, cultural and moral failures, modern West, headed by the United States, declared itself a failure. Events in Kabul today demonstrate perfectly and are the epitome of the modern West.
I am much less concerned about the Taliban as a winning local resistance in Afghanistan than about the example their victory sets for more radical Islamists in other parts of the world.
Afghanistan's neighbors will see to it that Afghanistan will not again become a black hole or a nest for foreign radicals. As Giustozzi remarks:
Overall, however, the primary concerns of the future Taliban-led government will be pragmatic. It will have to manage relations with neighbouring countries – Pakistan, Iran, Russia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and China – most of which have existing relations with the Taliban, but do not entirely trust them. All have interests that they want the Taliban to respect. The Taliban-led government will struggle to keep the economy afloat and to maintain the provision of essential services, which have been suspended in much of Afghanistan as they advanced.
Yesterday Iran was informed by Russia that it will now become a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). So far the SCO included China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India and Pakistan. Iran will now join and Afghanistan has observer status. This block, which is to a large part about military and policy coordination, will cover for Iran when the U.S. will try to escalate over Iran's nuclear program. Today Pakistan's prime minister Imran Khan was in Iran for further talks. He will then travel to Doha to talk with the Taliban leadership.
source
It's a travesty. All those dollars that could have been spent on domestic infrastructure. You should see the Army helping out after natural disasters in the U.S., absolutely brilliant, serious engineering skills.. they could rebuild U.S. infrastrcuture in six months. Instead all that talent and labour (and money) is wasted playing global police.
That said, I don't know what 'the dollar' even means any more since they are printing so many of them. I'm no economist, but it seems like another sign of an empire in decline.
When I see all the blaming of Trump and Biden
https://twitter.com/sumaiya15258374/status/1427328981754339339?s=21
The US presidents (Bush, Obama,Trump and Biden) well deserve criticism for their roles promoting the military industrial complex. I concluded back in 2005 the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were lost and the US should just cut their losses and declare victory and leave. The "leaders" the Americans sponsored are in it for the money, the army were poorly paid, if at all and often resorted to extortion of the local population to survive as well as being from different ethnic groups outside the areas they were deployed. The US sponsors pulled out they have no incentive to stand and fight and the Taliban have the greater motivation. No surprise they took over.
The blame lies with the war profiteers, the people who built McMansions on the back of this, in the US you will find them in Northern Virginia. Until the people of US (Britain & France as well) demand the profiteers be put on trial this thing will keep going. We don't get away either as it is we will all pay the price for the trillions of dollars earned by the war profiteers by means of inflation and shortages just like in the aftermath of the Vietnam war era since devaluation or default is the only way to pay for this.
I for one am shocked that a US military led operation on foreign soil can be a complete disaster from start to finish.
This is surely the first time such a thing has happened.
In 2019, The Washington Post — obviously with a nod to the Pentagon Papers — published a report about secret documents it dubbed “The Afghanistan Papers: A secret history of the war.” Under the headline “AT WAR WITH THE TRUTH,” The Post summarized its findings: “U.S. officials constantly said they were making progress. They were not, and they knew it, an exclusive Post investigation found.”
And
Last month, the independent journalist Michael Tracey, writing at Substack, interviewed a U.S. veteran of the war in Afghanistan. The former soldier, whose job was to work in training programs for the Afghan police and also participated in training briefings for the Afghan military, described in detail why the program to train Afghan security forces was such an obvious failure and even a farce. “I don’t think I could overstate that this was a system just basically designed for funneling money and wasting or losing equipment,” he said. In sum, “as far as the US military presence there — I just viewed it as a big money funneling operation”: an endless money pit for U.S. security contractors and Afghan warlords, all of whom knew that no real progress was being made, just sucking up as much U.S. taxpayer money as they could before the inevitable withdraw and takeover by the Taliban.
Sheesh. That's a terrible thing to say about Eisenhower there Dyr :) Do you prefer 'permawar machine'? Why not visit google news and search for appearances of the phrase 'military industrial complex'? It might help build your resilience against other words and phrases that upset that fragile sense of liguistic propriety, such as 'evidence-based', 'common usage' and 'no soliciting.'
Lets hope the Irish governement is very vigilant when looking at asylum applications from Afganistan seeing as about 90+ of the general populace support Sharia law. I doubt it however.
Biden's legacy has aready been cemented, he is responsible for the inevitable mass deaths and rapes.
Who doesn't like the bumper cars?
Technique could do with some work.
I actually think it's not a bad exit. I think we need perspective here, if you are going to judge the outcome it should be compared to other outcomes from similar situations historically. Id say in terms of combatants and citizens lost and injured for the exit of an occupying force, it's a success. I don't know what people expect, that the Taliban would just chill and a foreign backed government would not be corrupt and would lead it's people to freedom! I mean come on, you are happy to get out alive from such a situation.
Surprised at such a foolish comment from a man who seems to know a lot about current affairs. An 8 month term US president resign over an Afghan problem? Under what circumstances has an American president resigned in the past? Get a grip man.
Maybe potential snow season soon so you can return to your natural habitat in the weather forum. Choo-choo!
Add to that he allowed the Taliban to flourish, replenish and re-arm under his 4 years. And here we are today.
I can only imagine the delight and relief these people are all feeling. Crazy day, and more days, ahead.
Well they have let the USA land in Shannon to go to war for a while now
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