Did the Chinese give him a polonium stir fry?
Hopefully it's true, I know if I had delusions of grandeur to make Russia great again and it failed that badly I wouldn't be sleeping to well the past two years and at his age stress is a killer.
My immediate thoughts were would there be a sequel in it.
There is some level of spin going on with regard to America's time in Afghanistan. Yes, in any conventional battle or military engagement America wins, so they won in Afghanistan in that regard, but in terms of achieving a geo political objective they failed as Afghanistan is now run by a regime not in tune with American interests. An insurrectionist movement like the Taliban do not have to win against a conventional force, they merely have to survive, the Taliban not only survived but they grew powerful enough to eventually take over the country from the US puppet regime. So they achieved their main political objective, therefore they won.
Not so funny that some of the comments take it seriously and it plays into their Trump take on Climate Change.
I wouldn't be concerned if I were the Russians, sure they have loads of spare Putins
When was such an objective set? By whom? Where?
The original aim was to get Bin Ladin and Al Qaida and any other Islamists who would cause trouble in US
That they done, along way it seems there might been pressure to “nation build” from some sections of US give as that allowed to wash 2+ trillion via military industrial complex but that became politically unpopular as body bags returned home.
But I don’t remember any of the presidents standing up and proclaiming they have some grand geo political objective to make Afghanistan like Germany or Japan post ww2, if anything Bush very quickly got distracted by the Iraq fiasco
True that was the original aim and it was achieved. Why then stay so long after the initial aim was achieved and pump billions into the country if that was the only objective though. It seems to me they were also trying to ensure the Taliban would never be in a position to come back into power. They clearly failed in that objective as the Afghans were too tribal and corrupt.
Yeh maybe the mission creep turned into hey let’s install some sort of modernity in the Afghan state and military
and that failed in Afghanistan as you mentioned, imho they simply left too early, tho I can understand why
but the same has succeeded in Iraq where the much more dangerous ISIS had their arses handed to them
Russian pundits called Israelis nazis now. They've gone full 1984 doublespeak.
Very true.
Unfortunately the Express is somehow worse than The Spectator, which is worse than the Daily Mail.
Probably not true :(
Reports on twitter:
Sweden's NATO Accession Protocol was signed by Erdoğan on 23 October 2023 and submitted to the Turkish Grand National Assembly.
Couple of sources posted this
I see that the local Feis contestants have gotten more aggressive since the Irish dancing judging scandal last year
Going to be busy times for Viktor Orban, who has said Hungary won't be the last country to ratify Sweden's membership.
That's actually a pretty fair analysis how it all happened, America didnt have much choice but to go in at the beginning, defeat Taliban and get Osama
But they should have walked away then, even though the world was saying you took over this country, now you need to look after them
Afghanistan is like you say tribal, it was never going to work in the long term
There mistake was trying to fix a country that some of the population didn't want fixing
The majority i think did and the progress was great, but in the end the few that didnt want progress and just the old way won over
The guys with the guns
Very sad for the country, especially if you compare it to photos of Afghanistan in the 1960s, now they are set back 500 years compared to that
As m2-browning said, the US came to Afghanistan in the search for Bin Laden and other like minded operatives. They came when they decided, and left when they decided. While they were there, they did their best to modernize Afghanistan and bring it into the 20th century. In many ways they were successful. It's unbelievable the change's they made, and all for the better. Quite the opposite to what the Russians did in their 10 year tenure, which left Afghanistan in a ruined state. Only for Pakistan, the Taliban would be history by now, and maybe Afghanistan would be on the path to prosperity, and stability, but they would definitely be in a better place than under the Taliban in any case. No blame attaches to the US for the present situation. I've said this before, but its worth repeating, the US kicked the Taliban out of Afghanistan in a matter days, and they could do the same thing again now, and that's taking into account a better armed Taliban.
That all would sound great if you ignore the fact that the US left too early leaving their Afghan brothers, who they trained and broke bread with for years, far too early and at the mercy of the Taliban.
According to reports Russia is expanding their assaults today with 90 different skirmishes being reported along the front from Avdiivka to marinka
How long did you want the US to stay in Afghanistan? Out of the 20 year time line, for the first 15 years, the US financed and trained Afghans in managing their own Country, and for at least 5 years before the US pulled out, Afghans were running Afghanistan. The US left on the understanding and signed agreements with the Taliban that they would share the governing of Afghanistan with Hamid Karzai's government, and it would not be a return to the ways of the "old" Taliban. But the real reason is that even had they remained a further 20 years, there was no guarantee that there would be a different outcome. Pakistan, the creator and supporter of the Taliban would make sure of that. A strong and independent Afghanistan is the last thing they want.
Fresh ammo deliveries from China and North Korea?
The Google translate version.
(from Moscow and the Moscow region and other regions We are contacting you to understand the actions of our command upon arrival in the DPR, we were assigned to the 200th motorized rifle brigade to carry out storm tasks, our detachment suffered losses, the personnel of the fiber equipment we were sent and are sent to carry out tasks without reliable ones without a communications post, despite this personnel replenished all the assigned tasks; it is impossible to lose personnel to all the advisory proposals of the personnel of the brigade leadership and military unit 31 985, the commander himself of the 4th Kantemirovskaya Tank Division, HF 31 985, does not react, sets impossible tasks Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich)
Note how they think they'd get more traction stating they're from the Moscow area. Didn't posters here say Putin and the military would be afraid picking conscripts from the Moscow region? Well they are picking them now. Look at that how you may.
Seems that Russia is making a little progress near Andeevka. Hopefully this doesn't become the next Bakhmut but they'll be determined to keep going so it's not a total loss on their end.
Despite having probably close to 300k dead there's still 400k Russian soldiers in Ukraine. A huge number would be involved in logistics and not fighting but still. They're not going anywhere for a while yet.
“autumn mud will stop offensives”
It will
So quite possibly heading towards some sort of “peace deal” or at least “talks”. ?
doubt it... Russia will still hurl Cruise missiles..
if anything, if ATACMS supply continues, the mud will possibly be an advantage to Ukraine, even if it's only area denial.
Most people have lost interest in the Russian invasion. The Hamas attack, the rugby world cup etc has sucked the media coverage from the invasion which means less discussion about it among the general public. Also the failure of the Ukrainian offensive has disappointed many people. Now we have reports of a potential Russian offensive. I, Personally I don't have a clue where things go from here.
The public has largely lost interest because let's face it these awful events are just another form of distraction and entertainment for many people, look at the frenzy on the Israel Hamas thread right now, in a few weeks it'll fade too and the thread will go quiet again when some other story takes over. Ukraine doesn't have the novelty factor anymore.
But the wars go on and the misery goes on for those involved. What matters for Ukraine is getting the military and logistical support more than how many people are discussing it over pints in the pub. It needs big shifts to become news and there's little sign of that happening.
At the expense of sounding like it’s some sort of morbid “entertainment” , yes I agree. Whilst I had my doubts about the Ukrainian offensive earlier this year I really was hoping that they would make inroads. My guess now unfortunately is that Russia will play the long game and just literally throw men at this conflict, maintain a stalemate of sorts but very slowly make inroads overall.
I think the international community will also adopt a different approach and may push for some form of talks to take place - Israel has taken the no1 spot for attention in terms of western nations- I don’t think this will end well for Ukraine and after all their spirit and hard work.
that's probably the most naive take on international politics I've seen in a good while :-D
It's not a case of "top news story takes precedence of all people and resources".
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