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?

Original point of going Afghanistan was to loot Afghanistan and show Western power.

Who looted it?

The Allies who sunk billions into it?

@BrozTito

250 aircraft they had

Big question though is how many people do the Taliban have capable of flying those aircraft, how many of those aircraft are now serviceable, do theTaliban have to expertise to do that servicing and can they get any spare parts?

Exactly 😂 loot what? The weapons and money we gave them? 80% of their GDP comes from foreign aid.

This is from 2012 but it kind of highlights how this was inevitable.

Some countries don't give a flying F about women

Times are changing in the Middle East, Saudi is improving, and maybe the Taliban will as well

Yes, they really sound like the kind of people who are going to start caring about women’s rights.

Her voice choking, she said reports of women and girls being beaten, forcibly taken as wives and raped left her panicked that this could soon be her fate.

“Firstly I am worried about myself because I am a girl, and also a woman journalist,” she said.

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/16/we-see-silence-filled-with-fear-female-afghan-journalists-plead-for-help

For heaven’s sake, stop deluding yourself and get real.

Invading their countries was not about saving women. It was about money, oil and control

Very possibly, but self-flagellation by the west isn't much use to the suffering women of Afghanistan, and in any case it's not usually western men who are stoning and raping them and keeping them in utter subjugation

Certainly there's a lot to do in our own countries, but I was referring to the loud cries about the needs of Afghani women and wondering what exactly folk expect us to do that doesn't involve forcing our own culture onto others ... but strangely there's rarely an answer to that

@justasking111

Just looking at pictures from the airport people dead trying to flee hanging off planes. All men so they must either think their mothers, sisters, wives are safe or just not care.

China won't stand for muslim s unless there's money in it

Or, the entire family perishes if they stay, but they may be able to work, survive, and send money back - and eventually apply for family reunification - if they can manage to survive the streets and reach the airport, secure one plane seat and therefore leave. So they leave in a refugee version of putting the oxygen mask on yourself before fitting it to your child.

You must remember that there would be huge risk to taking women (and children) out into the open as it would be obvious they were fleeing and would expose the women particularly to great risk of immediate harm.

There have been reports of entire families and children with lots of luggage at the airport, but these are presumably wealthier individuals who have visas and passage already secured, therefore the risk benefit of coming out into the open makes more sense. Even so, it's become chaos and even these individuals may not make it out.

Just seen footage of men clinging to plane landing gear then falling off mid air. Worse than saigon now

Original point of going Afghanistan was to loot Afghanistan...

What on earth are you talking about?

*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*

Won't China just come along and buy up those resources? Nothing in it for the Americans.

No significant oil in Afghanistan, actually getting really fed up of people smuggly dropping that in like they have all the answers but are so above it all. Saw one person claiming we went to the Falklands to secure a base to bomb the middle east ffs

We should imo actually try to negotiate and try to still invest in Afghanistan and keep diplomats there

9/11 was an attack sponsored by the Taliban on a NATO member, the USA.

We were told it was by Al Qaeda, but the Taliban were supposedly sheltering him. Who knows? He wasn't discovered there, but that doesn't tell us where he had been previously. We didn't go and invade Pakistan. Why not, I wonder?

So even though it wasn't the Taliban as the Afghan Government committing the twin towers atrocities, I don't think that they were regarded as a legitimate Government, so the excuse that we went in as a NATO member in support of another country attacking a NATO member, to me at least, seems extremely thin. After 9/11 the Americans under Bush wanted revenge and didn't care too much how they did it.

I would have been in full agreement of them pulling out of Afghanistan, but not in the botched way they have done it.

Big question though is how many people do the Taliban have capable of flying those aircraft, how many of those aircraft are now serviceable, do theTaliban have to expertise to do that servicing and can they get any spare parts?

I think it can be assumed that the military trained for those aircraft will now work for the Taliban. They will not refuse to, they will be killed. The military downed tools effectively so I don’t think it’d a big leap to say they will now work for the current government which is the Taliban.

@Puzzledandpissedoff

Invading their countries was not about saving women. It was about money, oil and control

Very possibly, but self-flagellation by the west isn't much use to the suffering women of Afghanistan, and in any case it's not usually western men who are stoning and raping them and keeping them in utter subjugation

Certainly there's a lot to do in our own countries, but I was referring to the loud cries about the needs of Afghani women and wondering what exactly folk expect us to do that doesn't involve forcing our own culture onto others ... but strangely there's rarely an answer to that

It's not about self flagellation, it's reality. There are almost 8 billion people in this world, and roughly half women. How many countries you want to invade to save them? How many want to be saved from your own western standards? How many thousands of them and their children need to be killed from Western driven wars?

There are millions of refugees in countries like Jordan and people dying of hunger in Africa and displaced people in the middle east every day thanks to the West driven policies of getting as many resources as they can.

What about letting them deal with their own issues when we can't resolve our own?

People need to realise 9/11 wasnt the start, al qaeda were attacking the US from the early 90s. Does anybody remember the anthrax post? Nobody talks about that tthese days

@BrozTito

Just seen footage of men clinging to plane landing gear then falling off mid air. Worse than saigon now

It's 9/11, the Rape of Nanking and and Saigon combined. It's so heartbreakingly horrifying.

I cant even remember if that was alqaeda, doesnt seem their style

@BrozTito

Jasjas the afghan army was given both significant air force and heavy weaponry/artillery. Last generation US stuff that other countries would pay billions for. They had tons of black hawk helos. Guess who has them now? They didnt even bother to blow this shit up before surrendering

Yet it was US contractors, 1000s of them, that kept the afghan military machine running. This was reduced to 1600 and then over Zoom to help the afghans how to fix their hardware.

Afghan special forces, desperately trying to leave Kabul, Ben Wallace in tears over the fact that loyal and brave Afghans will be left behind - 66k afghans died fighting the Taliban, this idea they all caved in is bollox.

British Americans Afghanistan'is won't make I out we have to face this fact

No 9/11 wasn't the start, but if I remember correctly, the Taliban were being trained by Pakistan. We didn't go and invade Pakistan.

Afghan special forces, desperately trying to leave Kabul, Ben Wallace in tears over the fact that loyal and brave Afghans will be left behind - 66k afghans died fighting the Taliban, this idea they all caved in is bollox.

Where are you getting this number? It’s 51k since 2001, people are talking about this week. Not the last two decades.

Certainly there's a lot to do in our own countries, but I was referring to the loud cries about the needs of Afghani women and wondering what exactly folk expect us to do that doesn't involve forcing our own culture onto others ... but strangely there's rarely an answer to that

We aren't forcing our culture on them but we were there, the afghans doing the fighting, afghani women etc had some freedoms, it was as many who know far more about the country than any of us do, a low cost "occupation"

What will be the cost when Afghanistan becomes an area open for extremists and we see the utter devastation for women in this country, already rapes, girls sold to Taliban, education stopped, work halted.

Let alone the cost in British lives when or if we are forced to re invade.....