AIBU to think Biden is wrong to pull out of Afghanistan

[bluewanda]

Biden says he doesn't regret the decision to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan. Really?!!

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9883367/Taliban-going-door-door-forcibly-marrying-girls-young-TWELVE.html

I know the Americans can't be expected to sort out every problem on the world stage, but how can we just turn our backs and leave those poor girls in the hands of these monsters There isn't any alternative IMO but to keep the troops there.

YABU

The Afghanistan people need to sort out their own country.

The US and UK sending troops there was never about protecting women and girls...it was an ego trip from start to finish because a terrorist group used the country openly as it's base yet similar countries in the region aren't being invaded

That things improved for the non-radical Afghanistan residents was a side effect rather than intent of the invasion.

I can't understand some of of these posts.

Right now there is a targeted assault on the women and children going on.

I think that should be stopped.

I don't think it's soley down to the Americans to stop it.

But I think it should be stopped.

• whatever the complex motives of any power being there, a by product was the protection (as far as that ever goes in a Muslims countryside) of women and girls to go about their lives.

Not be dragged out of the their homes by wild medieval neanderthals who want to rape and enslave them.

🙄 To compare the American army to the Taliban is ridiculous! The Americans spent a huge amount trying to improve welfare standards in A to empower people. The Taliban is only interested in destroying everything so they empower themselves. I'm sure there are bad apples in the US army but the vast amount are doing their best in challenging surroundings with their life on the line every day. In contrast there may a few good apples in the Taliban but they are ineffective against the majority.
If I were a girl or woman who was living in A, I know who'd I prefer to be in charge of my welfare.

@Panickingpavlova

Samy

What do you suggest right now to stop another single girl taken right now from her family and passed to a fighter like a chattel?

I am very hesitant to answer this question because the unemotional answer to it is not very palatable, but here goes anyway.

In short...Nothing.

The western way of life is so vastly different currently and historically, not just militarily, economically and technologically, but far more importantly culturally and religiously that there is no foundation to even begin to build a bridge.

Short of full scale military occupation and enforcement of western ideal, there is nothing. Even then, compliance would be under duress. You can't force change of hearts, minds, and way of life.

That has to wanted and to come from within, and like it or not, understand it or not, these nations and cultures, and people don't want it.

@Martianworld I agree with your point.

Samy, how could you possibly say what they do or don't want when they have never been given the choice.

Especially the women.

There are families right now being torn apart and daughters snatched from their mothers, no one is going to tell me this is what they want.

A small religious hard core want to inflict medieval ideas into women so they can rape and take at will and keep women subjugated and as slaves.

What women allowed to live freely in the west would choose to live in such conditions as in Afghanistan under the taliban.

[quote Globaluser]@Martianworld I agree with your point.[/quote]
@Globaluser

👍

So is this another case of western self soothing and lets celebrate multi-culturalism and diversity...so long as it doesn't differ tooo much from our own, and if it does, then we have to throw our militaries around to get them back in line?

I don't understand your comment. Read the article, look at the fear on those people and those children's faces. I'm pretty sure no Afghan family wants their 12 year old daughter to be taken from the family home, forced into marriage with a Taliban soldier and repeatedly raped, beaten and abused.

The Taliban are an absolute scourge to the people of Afghanistan. Of course now that they are in charge of some areas of the country their first priority is to curtail women's rights. Already women are being ordered into the burka and not to go out unless accompanied by a male guardian. This is the group that burns schools and shoots children in the head for daring to speak out against them. It is absolutely heartbreaking that Afghani women have to put up with. It is unacceptable and barbaric, it is NOT their culture as NandaKanda said and to use the word 'distasteful' to describe the actions of the Taliban just shows ignorance. They are the most misogynistic bunch of bullies and the world's powers have a moral obligation to protect ordinary Afghani citizens, especially women, from them.

@Panickingpavlova

Samy, how could you possibly say what they do or don't want when they have never been given the choice.

Especially the women.

There are families right now being torn apart and daughters snatched from their mothers, no one is going to tell me this is what they want.

A small religious hard core want to inflict medieval ideas into women so they can rape and take at will and keep women subjugated and as slaves.

What women allowed to live freely in the west would choose to live in such conditions as in Afghanistan under the taliban.

And there is your first problem. The level of choice, want, and self determination you are talking about is a western ideal, spoken through a western lens. It is not universally shared.

Don't get me wrong here, I am from a western nation, hold dearly to western ideals, and find much of the rest of the worlds plight to be absolutely abhorrent...

but you can't teach someone the alphabet by using numbers.

If I were a girl or woman who was living in A, I know who'd I prefer to be in charge of my welfare.

This. There was a wonderful young woman interviewed recently on Newsnight (I think it was) who has an organisation that tries to help women in Afghanistan. I can't recall her name - can anybody else?

She was saying that conditions have improved for women in Afghanistan for the last 10 years but obviously that is now under serious threat once again.

@BlueBellsArePretty

The Taliban are an absolute scourge to the people of Afghanistan. Of course now that they are in charge of some areas of the country their first priority is to curtail women's rights. Already women are being ordered into the burka and not to go out unless accompanied by a male guardian. This is the group that burns schools and shoots children in the head for daring to speak out against them. It is absolutely heartbreaking that Afghani women have to put up with. It is unacceptable and barbaric, it is NOT their culture as NandaKanda said and to use the word 'distasteful' to describe the actions of the Taliban just shows ignorance. They are the most misogynistic bunch of bullies and the world's powers have a moral obligation to protect ordinary Afghani citizens, especially women, from them.

And the only way to accomplish that would be indefinite full scale military occupation and maintenance. History has shown time and time and time again that that never works to accomplish what the occupying military sets out to accomplish.

@BlueBellsArePretty

The Taliban are an absolute scourge to the people of Afghanistan. Of course now that they are in charge of some areas of the country their first priority is to curtail women's rights. Already women are being ordered into the burka and not to go out unless accompanied by a male guardian. This is the group that burns schools and shoots children in the head for daring to speak out against them. It is absolutely heartbreaking that Afghani women have to put up with. It is unacceptable and barbaric, it is NOT their culture as NandaKanda said and to use the word 'distasteful' to describe the actions of the Taliban just shows ignorance. They are the most misogynistic bunch of bullies and the world's powers have a moral obligation to protect ordinary Afghani citizens, especially women, from them.

The Taliban is the current scourge for sure, but they are also part and parcel for a culture that has historically had extreme power concentrated in few people, where the strongest people impose their will upon the populace.

Not all that different from old world monarchies and empires, modern dictatorships and strongmen where having a benevolent leader meant good things for the people, freedom, prosperity, and a malicious leader meant very bad things for the people.

I think whether women were a material part of the reason for the war is a false argument. Their life was better, more women and girls were educated and there were safer areas of the country.

I don't think that troops should ever have gone there but they are deserting them at present imo

It's not unreasonable to think Biden shouldn't have pulled out as this horror was expected, but it's also not unreasonable for people to think it's long overdue as the longer we try to solve such a complicated network of systemic issues in Afghanistan, the more we're blurring our own lines of what is acceptable to end this.

There has been some back and forth about whether the US will continue to provide air support to Afghan forces, but in general, I'm not sure how much good further US combative support will do. There are other ways to support or "not turn our backs" than that.

Yes, it's terrible what's going on, but it's also terrible that we're now approaching the 20th anniversary of the US invading Afghanistan, practically a generation of this, with all those lives destroyed, and this is where things are at. The US - and other nations and international organizations - can provide support for the Afghan forces to do more to stop this without sending more of their own to fight or further expansion of drone strikes.

If the UN or others want to step in or increase support, go for it, but I don't think America has the solution for this. Some US work there has been great, that shouldn't be erased. However, some has been horrifying and a whole spectrum in-between. They've recently jailed an intelligence analyst for the release of documents on the US "kill list" (with last I read at least hundreds of thousands if not over a million targets) and civilian deaths in drone strikes that were doctored away as combatants including girls and women maimed and killed.

How many more times does the whistle need to be blown before it would acceptable to call time on American combative intervention? What more can they do that hasn't been done over the last 20 years that could actually last?

i really enjoyed that 2017 article in the diplomat. thank you to whoever suggested "the graveyard of empires"

The United States being in Afganistan in particular, but more generally, the presence of western militaries in the nations doesn't fundamentally change anything other than flip the balance of power to a different group of people. The problem is, the power shift is artificial, and lasts only as long as the western nation remains present.

The only reason western democracies work is because the people, the subjects if you will, have agreed to give the government power. That is the real danger in people like Trump. A significant number of people were willing to take power away from the established government and hand it over to a single person.

What I think is the most shocking is that in the 21st century there are no Muslim countries coming forward with ideas and resources to keep peace in these countries and enforce basic human rights and equalities. Surely it would be easier for assistance to be accepted from countries with the same religion and therefore similar cultural backgrounds.

It's difficult.

On one hand some people blame all the problems in Africa on colonisation, in the Middle East on western interference, etc., and on the other hand some (often the same) people want the west to act as the world's policeman in situations like these. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

We can't say it's not shared when people have not been given the choice.

What we do see is people fleeing these countries as refugees trying to get into the west.

I don't see refugees desperate ate to get into Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan.

Martian I agree but let's face it, what are women's rights under sharia law?

And to be honest I'm less interested in the history, what's going on right now should be bringing international condemnation and a united response.

@Martianworld

What I think is the most shocking is that in the 21st century there are no Muslim countries coming forward with ideas and resources to keep peace in these countries and enforce basic human rights and equalities. Surely it would be easier for assistance to be accepted from countries with the same religion and therefore similar cultural backgrounds.

Because they don't want to. It's that simple. This also touches on one of the biggest issues and that is religion. Religion has always been a tool of control. It has no accountability beyond what it holds itself accountable for. It is fundamentally dictatorial. And when religion is the basis of, or at least plays a primary role in government and culture, views on basic human rights and equalities are subject to the same lack of accountability, and become what ever the current leader and adherents declare them to be.

@ChaBishkoot

May I also point out that Afghanistan is fucked up BECAUSE for 300 years the British, Americans and the Russians have used it for their political purposes with little thought for the Afghan people? We haven’t already forgotten who armed Bin Laden in the first place, have we? I don’t have a political solution but let’s not pretend these countries were in Afghanistan ‘for the women.’

Thank you.