I get the feeling a lot of them don't care which side they fight on. The Yanks roll in and its obvious they are going to win so many Taliban suddenly become rebels. 20 years on and it's clear the Taliban are going to win and suddenly the Afghan army are secretly Taliban.
I would imagine a lot of soldiers are like this and don't really care who is on top
Can you clarify on whether your talking about the insurrection after Biden was elected in America or Afghanistan?!
Not my clowns and not my circus. The Irish have stood up before. The Afghans are cowards.
80-100k Taliban soldiers. 42m people in Afghanistan. If they organised into militias they'd route the Taliban. Running away leaving the women and children to their fate. Cowardly.
It does seem odd…
Wow all 42 million are running away. That must be some big airport I keep seeing on the news
My own opinion is that the warlords took to the dollar, seized the opportunity to milk USA for dosh, built up a little nest egg for themselves and parachuted out.
If they allow wi fi that’s progress from the taliban
season 8 ep 2 when carrie was speaking with the afghan vice president details exactly what happened this weekend in kabul...even mentioned saigon! homeland always had its finger on the pulse. they even pre-empted the paris attacks but that season was set in berlin instead
Afghanistan is a culture that has been fighting for over 40 years.
Away from the glare of the international media in places like Kabul, it sounds like Taliban 2.0 are exactly the same as Taliban 1.0 in the other cities and provinces.
They are stopping women from working, even widows with no other income.
Taliban would pick off the militias one by one. The Taliban this time around and last time have benefitted from the fact Afghanistan is a massively diverse country with different ethnic groups. All it takes is one fairly competent large militia to take over the country.
Yes, it surprises me sometimes that what began all of it is often glossed over and Afghanistan is lumped together with Iraq war. I thought at the time if anything the US should have sent a larger force in to depose the Taliban and destroy Al Qaeda themselves.
That was probably the original aim, ostensibly at least. But Bush and Co. dusted off an old plan to attack Iraq instead. Control of Middle Eastern oil proved to be more important to them than either Bin Laden or the Taliban.
Notice during the coverage on one of the news channels they had a civilian taking a selfie with a Taliban fighter just like on the show.
Shona Murray of Euronews stressing the point that Biden took the decision to withdraw without even consulting anyone in the EU or in NATO first : almost Trump-like in the way he went about things.
Has there been any reports on the status of the Afghan air force and their pilots, have they fled into hiding? And are the US likely to bomb the hangars the jets are in?
I think Ireland is the only country in Europe apart from Cyprus and Malta without a single heavy lift military aircraft. We are begging for space on other country's aircraft for the umpteenth time in recent years. Why we don't just buy a couple like normal countries I don't know.
I'm no fan of Biden, but to me all this seems like a bit of a storm in a teacup. Things will blow over and return to normal very soon.
Russia, as usual, are taking a sensible approach - not closing their embassy, and saying whether or not they recognise the Taliban as officially in charge will depend on their actions.
A new normal though. Or rather, back to the pre-2001 Afghanistan normal, possiby.
Quite a few aircraft were flown to neighbouring countries. Considering that there was an assassination campaign against them, imagine they are laying low.
Its grand we just get the EU to do our heavy lifting.
How many times is umpteen btw ?
Just reading through the thread from the beginning and seen this. Who would have thought it would be only 3 weeks?
Libya and Wuhan spring to mind. The latter prompted Coveney and Varadkar to push the issue a bit but nothing since.
What do you mean get the EU to do it? We are having to beg because we couldn't be arsed investing in even a small heavy lift capacity.
We shouldn't be relying on others for something we should have for these events. They are Irish citizens, it's our responsibility but for whatever reason we don't bother.
One was actually shotdown by the Tajiks next door when the Afghan plane entered into the airspace .
They didn't have the biggest airforces in the first place
Haha Wuhan would you get over yourself. I know you want us to be some gung-ho US style country but even if we had the aircraft I doubt its as simple as just popping down to pick up our people.
And we are not begging so dont be such a Miss Piggy about it
Countries all over world are sending aircraft for their citizens. It's not unusual. Except us of course.
I know you want to be all anti-USA but it has nothing to do with the US.
We cant get or citizens out of Donegal by train so your long range heavy lift aircraft is just gonna have to wait. I bet there are a whole heap of countries doing the same as us
A bit of tokenism ,we will take in 150 refugees , only recently media reports of having to bring out 150 Irish nationals most of whom have dual nationalities aka an Irish passport on top of their own nationality ,
So are we getting refugees or just bringing in passport holders
No, other countries take responsibility to their citizens seriously.
Countries all over Europe sending military transport for their citizens. Except Ireland, we don't have any.
It's absolutely mad. Still trying to wrap my head around it.
