Taliban enter Kabul

[tttigress]

I was in my early 20's when 9/11 happened, the last 20 years has been overshadowed by endless wars without clearly defined objectives (original point of going into Afghanistan was to "get" Al Qaeda, there was then massive mission creep)

AIBU to think the last 20 years in Afghanistan was a total waste of time?

@osprey24

LadyAria do you think the Afghan military have failed Afghans too? by not even trying to stand and fight the taliban.

Yes absolutely. But then, the Afghan leaders that we had that would fight them were taken out before this. Its a corrupt puppet government. This was planned all along.

Why did Biden pull out the soldiers the way he did!?? It was so strange. Everyone in Afghanistan knows this was all planned, they can see it. How are the Taliban able to take hold so fast? We need to really look at who is funding them... It's certainly not the afghan government...

The US government gave Afghanistan to the Taliban on a plate, they created them, funded them, fought them, had enough and left and left the country open to their barbarism...

[quote tynat]@LadyAria the situation is horrendous, what would you do to stop the Taliban? I think the world should act together but they won't. [/quote]
Yes, I think at this point the World should act together. But the truth is they don't want to. Let's question why a superpower like the US and Britain could not win this war against the Taliban!?!??

We NEED to ask these questions. Because why are service men and women killed for nothing!?!? How could they with all their weapons etc not win this war??? All those families who have lost their soldiers in this war should demand answers. They have paid the ultimate heavy price as have many Afghans...

Therr are countries such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia that will recognise them as the government just like they did before. They are the true axis of evil in my opinion.

Yes, many have died in vain & sadly many more will. Some countries likely want the Taliban to succeed & will give them legitimacy.

The Taliban is popular with the Pashtun majority. We should never have invaded.

@ChardonnaysPetDragon

This is NOT a civil war, this is a group of animals called the Taliban, funded by America, created by Pakistani government literally tearing through Afghanistan imposing their version of Islam upon Afghans. A version that is not even true to the religion...

But how are they able to tear through the country if the country doesn’t want them?

Because of the kind of funding and backing they have.

Believe me, the country does not want them. Do you not see the apocalyptic scenes at Kabul Airport today? Those are Afghans desperately trying to flee.

Most Afghans just want to live in peace, they don't have weapons, they live very simple lives. They literally have no choice but to accept the Taliban if they just want to live. Imagine a huge group of soldiers tearing through a village with families, young girls and boys etc, they do not have weapons, they do not fight. What hope do they have of winning!?!

I think Afghans are honestly just tired of fighting. I am 37, the war started before I was even born. My whole life, I've only ever known war in my country, I'm tired of seeing this.

You know, the Afghan diaspora is unlike any other. We can't go home and we feel guilty for the life we have in the West. I thank my lucky stars that we got out when we did but my heart bleeds for some of my relatives back home. They only know pain.

Afghans are strong and the most hospitable people you will ever meet, but 40+ years of war has surely taken its toll

@LadyAria I do understand your feelings very well, I am from Ukraine myself and not so long ago have been in a similar situation, hopelessly watching from afar when my homeland burned and burned.
I also know that speaking to your compatriots about what is happening at this time actually makes it worse - you try holding on tight to each other, but only drown together as a result. And no one else cares or understands, it is just some wild place far far away.

If you need to talk to someone, I can listen to you.

Yes, I think at this point the World should act together.

But shouldn’t Afghanistan act itself as well?
You had 20 years of help, training, finances? Why did everything collapse in days?

To really get in depth you have to go back to British coloniasm here. The British created the Durrand line, basically they took land from Afghanistan and India and created Pakistan. By doing this they literally tore apart families and tribes overnight. Now those tribes are finding a way to come back together.

The Taliban are Pathan Pakistanis mainly and have recruited pashtuns into the mix for their agenda. Whilst all this is going on, do you know that Pakistan are planning to take more land from Afghanistan? Literally bit by bit at the borders. There are many reports, they are not even hiding it.

Pakistan government fully support the Taliban, because the Taliban are mostly made of Pakistani fighters.

To the west you wouldn't recognise the accents, but us Afghans know the difference between Pakistani pashto and Afghan pashto languages.

It's like English being spoken in different dialects, to a foreigner they wouldn't know the difference, but you would yourself...

Perhaps we should have committed to leaving a garrison there for a generation. We still have troops and bases in Germany.

@ChardonnaysPetDragon

Yes, I think at this point the World should act together.

But shouldn’t Afghanistan act itself as well?
You had 20 years of help, training, finances? Why did everything collapse in days?

Corruption and a puppet government. Both presidents of Afghanistan who have been placed there by America have American citizenship, this is not a coincidence. They have always been puppets to whatever America wanted.

Afghanistan should act itself but they simply just do not have the power to do so.

The corrupt government of Hamid Karzai literally stole millions through dubai. The palm in dubai is virtually 90% funded by stolen afghan money, it was a huge scandal with Kabul Bank.

The corrupt government of the coward Ashraf Ghani stole all too. They lined their pockets whilst selling out the country.

A handful of people have carved out a destructive future for the innocent civilians who have no part in this.

I wish these corrupt politicians did not have a way out. Many of them have citizenship in the west and always know they could get out when things went bad. Innocent Afghans don't have that luxury and privilege.

Send Ashraf Ghani and his team back to face his consequence. Let his family live under the Taliban. If he knew he'd have to, he wouldn't have left like a coward today...

@ChardonnaysPetDragon

Yes, I think at this point the World should act together.

But shouldn’t Afghanistan act itself as well?
You had 20 years of help, training, finances? Why did everything collapse in days?

Do you not understand that often a government and its people are often coming from two very different positions. If the government fails it's people are the people to blame? Do you honestly believe that the people of the country recieved all that money, or did the government? If the government/military leaders leave the country leaderless, how exactly do you expect your average ordinary person to be able to pull a whole country together to fight back. This is not the movies. Though I will liken the Taliban to Orcs.

Never should have been there in the first place.

Ashraf Ghani sure hauled ass out of there fast with his millions.

[quote firstmentat]@LadyAria I do understand your feelings very well, I am from Ukraine myself and not so long ago have been in a similar situation, hopelessly watching from afar when my homeland burned and burned.
I also know that speaking to your compatriots about what is happening at this time actually makes it worse - you try holding on tight to each other, but only drown together as a result. And no one else cares or understands, it is just some wild place far far away.

If you need to talk to someone, I can listen to you.[/quote]
Thank you for your solidarity. Honestly, we don't want the Taliban in our country. We don't want those animals governing our state. We do not recognise and Islamic emirate of Afghanistan, to us, it does not exist.

We just need solidarity from all, for everyone to understand that the Taliban are animals and their way of life that they force on Afghans is not a way that we accept or want.

Don't accept or believe the propaganda that comes from them, Afghans have lived through the reality of their barbaric ways before and the world has seen it. They are still the same. As far as we're concerned they are a terrorist group. Their version of Islam is not Afghans version of Islam at all, we do not believe in the extreme Saudi wahabi ways...

I'm afraid Afghanistan can not expect the world to send troops again to protect the Afghan people if their own military will not stand and fight. They have been trained and equipped by the west, they out number the Taliban, but appear to have just walked away from their responsibilities. The UK has had too many people killed and injured in Afghanistan. No more.

@Askmeaboutpins likening Taliban to orcs is being too kind... They are far worse.

Remember the times when they would shoot women in the back of the head for the silliest reasons in a football stadium for all to see?

They are inhumane. Look at their picture sitting in the presidential Palace today, which of them looks decent!?! They all look barbaric and pander to it too.

But yeah, orcs is a good place to start so people can get an image of how barbaric they really are...

I feel sorry for the families of UK troops who were killed & the ones that were maimed & injured by the Taliban. So many young men who were injured by ied's who lost limbs & others who were blown to bits. It makes a mockery of what they did when serving & I'm sure we will hear about what they think in the weeks to come. I follow one of the most badly injured soldiers, Sgt Rick Clement, he was virtually blown in half when he stepped on an ied, lost both legs, the ability to have children, nearly lost one arm & until recently relied on stomas for his bowel & bladder waste, he says he doesn't feel bitter towards any Afghan, it was just part of his job.

@osprey24

I'm afraid Afghanistan can not expect the world to send troops again to protect the Afghan people if their own military will not stand and fight. They have been trained and equipped by the west, they out number the Taliban, but appear to have just walked away from their responsibilities. The UK has had too many people killed and injured in Afghanistan. No more.

But if the World stops destabilising Afghanistan to push its own agenda then they would live happily in peace...

They created this... When Russia attacked Afghanistan in the first place, the US armed the mujahadeen to fight them back. That was never about Afghanistan, that was about Russia and America. They couldn't go to war with eachother so used Afghanistan as their battleground.

When Russians left, civil war broke out. The US and Russia still carried on arming both sides. The Taliban swept in in 1995/1996. Funded by America, created by Pakistan. They created a safe haven for extremists.

9/11, nothing to do with Afghans but we paid the ultimate price. Governments created by the west, the US and Britain pulling out suddenly from Afghanistan, destabilising it yet again ready for Taliban to swoop on through via Pakistan.

Why shouldn't the World help? The Afghans had many who would fight, Ahmad Shah Massud is the most famous of our fighters, he was murdered a few days before 9/11, this was no coincidence.

The afghan army were told to stand down by Ashraf Ghani, it's corrupt political leader. Afghan civilians are not it's government.

The army is not sophisticated enough, they simply do not have the manpower or good enough training to fight.

To be honest, this whole thing was just planned. The way they've swooped in, everything about this was planned and not just by the Taliban, the withdrawal of troops was no coincidence.

Clearly the world has abandoned Afghanistan. We never expected people to fight for us, we would have been happy if countries just left us alone from the offset... Everyone just keeps pushing their own agenda on the country and innocents get trampled along the way.

@Nat6999

I feel sorry for the families of UK troops who were killed & the ones that were maimed & injured by the Taliban. So many young men who were injured by ied's who lost limbs & others who were blown to bits. It makes a mockery of what they did when serving & I'm sure we will hear about what they think in the weeks to come. I follow one of the most badly injured soldiers, Sgt Rick Clement, he was virtually blown in half when he stepped on an ied, lost both legs, the ability to have children, nearly lost one arm & until recently relied on stomas for his bowel & bladder waste, he says he doesn't feel bitter towards any Afghan, it was just part of his job.

I feel sorry for them too, they gave their lives for nothing now. All to push an agenda from their government who has failed them... There are honestly no winners in this war, everyone has been failed here.

Also, it wasn't the Afghans fighting him, it was the Taliban. The Afghans were working with the troops, they just mostly wanted the war to end.

The good innocent people of Afghanistan have been thrown to the wolves, lions and crocodiles. Women’s rights and the safety of young girls just evaporated into thin air.

God help them all.

@Thewiseoneincognito

The good innocent people of Afghanistan have been thrown to the wolves, lions and crocodiles. Women’s rights and the safety of young girls just evaporated into thin air.

God help them all.

Literally used as pawns in a, game between superpowers.

It's all about location location location. Afghanistan is in a very important location, its all strategic. Though I don't think a widowed mother with young children living in Afghanistan right now would know or care about this, she's fleeing for her life, with nowhere to go...

Women and children suffer the most. This is like the true real life Game of Thrones but even more barbaric...

It's easy to say "why didnt the Afghans stand and fight", but they had incredibly poor leadership as a direct result of generations of talented leaders being assassinated from multiple sides. This is how you keep a people down, you ensure they never have a good leader, by killing them.

If you combine this with an understandable diaspora of educated middle class, there is an unfillable hole of both military leadership and competent civil service in Afghan leadership which was very intentionally created and maintained by subsequent occupiers.

When the Americans left and abruptly vacated that hole, the country simply collapsed into the void.

LadyAria very interesting to read your posts. So what do you think the US agenda is now, when you say it was all planned and they let Taliban win, in your last post? US obviously does not want to create a centre for nurturing terrorism, are you saying it was just a financial deal with Saudis/Pakistan as I can't see what else the agenda would be?

@Idontknowwhat2

I think its hideous. Remember that the Afghan national army heavily outnumbered the Taliban but from what I see they just let them take over.

I'm horrified for the women and children, but the overall lack of resistance to the Taliban must show Afghans are majority in favour of their barbaric ways?

@Idontknowwhat2, this article might be of interest to you:

“Former western military officials and independent academics say the collapse of the Afghan armed forces reflects widespread public disillusionment with President Ashraf Ghani’s government, chronic corruption and mismanagement within the armed forces, and a sheer lack of confidence among the troops that they could win against the Taliban without US military and intelligence support.

The problem with the army was not lack of training or weapons. The most important thing in war is politics,” said Mike Martin, a former British army officer and author of a book about Afghanistan’s decades-long conflict, An Intimate War. Martin said that Ghani, a World Bank technocrat who wrote a book on reconstructing failed states before he was elected president in 2014, lacked the political skills to keep the country’s many different ethnic groups loyal to the idea of a national cause.

When faced by an imminent US pullout, many Afghans’ more traditional ethnic, tribal and even family ties overshadowed any loyalty they might feel to the nascent Afghan army, enabling provincial Taliban commanders to negotiate the virtually peaceful surrender of many troops. The Taliban political franchise was able to peel off bits of the government because the government did not tend to its constituents enough — the tribes, clans, militias and ethnicities. That is the fundamental issue,” Martin said. “The army commanders just surrendered in return for amnesty, which the Taliban granted them and let them go home.”

Full article here:

www.ft.com/content/b1d2b06d-f938-4443-ba56-242f18da22c3

@CatAndHisKit

LadyAria very interesting to read your posts. So what do you think the US agenda is now, when you say it was all planned and they let Taliban win, in your last post? US obviously does not want to create a centre for nurturing terrorism, are you saying it was just a financial deal with Saudis/Pakistan as I can't see what else the agenda would be?

Afghanistan is in a very strategic location, they have a huge border with Iran and its location makes them very central to controlling the area in general.

The US decided that they couldn't keep fighting them so instead decided to put them in power and use them. This way they will be funded and instead of using their own troops, they will use the Taliban to push their agenda.

A lot of people do not realise that Afghanistan is very rich in natural resources, they have been untapped for centuries. Whilst the 'war' was going on, a lot of these resources were being moved and exported.

The Afghan troops didn't just lay down their guns for no reason. Afghans have always fought for their country, throughout history. It was the corrupt government telling them to stand down and not fight the Taliban, all made obvious by coward Ghani fleeing the country. A corrupt government with their pockets lined with American money. It is widely believed that many in the afghan administration are CIA...

Again, the US have on of the strongest military in the World backed heavily by Israel and vice versa, do you think they couldn't have destroyed the Taliban if they actually wanted to? World leaders will say anything to push their own agendas, this will come out in due course. Let's not forget the complete failure of Iraq and weapons of mass destruction narrative.

Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, Lebanon, now they're looking towards Iran which has always been a difficult case for them. I could never understand why America thinks its OK to have nuclear weapons and they have been the only government to USE their nuclear weapons but no other country is allowed. The only reason Iran hasn't been invaded and bombarded is because they have nuclear weapons, it's their safety net. Tbh, it makes the US the most dangerous country in the world. They have destabilised more countries and governments than any other and have been pushing the Islamophobic narrative for a while now...

All these so called terrorist groups that appear suddenly and cause mayhem have killed more Muslims than any other group of people. Where are they coming from and who is funding them!?! But that's a theory for another day...

@LadyAria

I appreciate and understand everything you have been posting. However there are some who want to blame the Afganistans so that they can turn their backs on them without guilt. They have no interest in educating themselves on the situation. They know that they themselves are currently safe (the I'm alright Jack attitude), therefore someone else's safety is of no concern, and they'd rather not hear about it. From my perspective I think it's naive to believe that any government has our best interest at heart, so we may not always be 'safe' (women's rights in the west are already heading downhill). Events in history show how easily people can become completely oppressed. Remember 100,000+ women in Iran marching against wearing the hijab, to what end...

Even if people can not give physical aid, please show some compassion to those who are victims of this horrible situation in Afganistan.