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?

@Wheretoeattweenandteen

I thought the mujahadeen were the taliban?

They were the resistance fighters against the Soviets. Some were absorbed by the Taliban, some formed resistance against them. Ahmad Massoud's father was a legendary leader in the fight against the Soviets and the more fundamentalist fractions - he was killed by Al Qaida a couple of days before 9/11.

His son has gathered troops and supplies but without international support in supply and logistics they will not be able to sustain the fight, compared with Taliban who are not short of suppliers and backers.

@Frezia

Members of ANA are joining the Northern Alliance which is apparently gaining some ground against the Taliban. Ahmad Massoud is gathering the mujahideen against the Taliban with former ANA soldiers joining him. This narrative of Afghans have no stomach for a fight is wrong.

Yet their former allies' governments are already saying they're prepared to acknowledge and work with the Taliban.

Yes, I’m picking up on these reports too.

@Xenia

It is a difficult issue and people make good points. However video has been shown today of an Orthodox Jewish man being punched in the face without cause by a man in long white muslim clothes (who I suppose could be someone dressing up to pretend who he was - I don't know) in broad day light. We have 2m muslims and 250,000 jews in the UK and I want us to start with protecting them and the rest of the 67m of us here.

Also I disagree on income taxes. Most people pay about 33% income tax and NI if they work full time. That is pretty high. others pay 47% tax./NI marginal rate (our upper rate) some plus 9% student loan "tax". For higher earners never in British history have we paid so much of the UK's income tax burden. I work half the year to pay income tax and some of the rest to pay all the other taxes - I just paid loads of insurance premium tax for example, never mind nearly £4000 council tax a year.

When I read this drivel, I despise your attitude, do you know what is actually happening out there?

I pay an eye watering amount of tax but happy to pay more if it means more people can be rescued from Afghanistan. The crisis is of the government’s making- they knew the Americans were leaving so they should have started the evacuations earlier. The costs of these rescues and settlement in the U.K. are nothing compared with the mess Boris and his idiots have made of Covid and Brexit.

Yes muhajadeen means jihad doers. A lot also join Al Qaeda after bosnia. Basically became professional mercenaries. They won in Bosnia against the 4th largest army in europe.

Ooo managed to slip your income in there xen, cheeky

I pay an eye watering amount of tax but happy to pay more if it means more people can be rescued from Afghanistan

You can; there's nothing to stop you sending a voluntary cheque to HMRC if you wish, so feel free ...

You still saw big personality cultesque pictures of massoud snr in government areas up until now over there. Massoud jr is the only one who can pull it off

@Puzzledandpissedoff

I pay an eye watering amount of tax but happy to pay more if it means more people can be rescued from Afghanistan

You can; there's nothing to stop you sending a voluntary cheque to HMRC if you wish, so feel free ...

Have already increased charity donations to human and animal charities in the area and a local charity at home is asking for donations for those being resettled in the area.

@Puzzledandpissedoff - my earlier comment was in response to @Xenia’s post about the amount of tax she pays.

We all pay tax but doesn’t stop us wanting to help others in crisis.

What kind of Arsehole mentions the amount of Council Tax they pay in a thread like this, it's repulsive.

New Money.

My earlier comment was in response to Xenia’s post about the amount of tax she pays

Ah, fair enough and I see what you mean
Doesn't change the principle that anyone can "donate" to HMRC as they see fit though ...

@xenia whining about your massive tax bill from the comfort and safety of the UK is crass beyond belief. Don't you realise how bloody privileged and fortunate you are to be in that position?

For higher earners never in British history have we paid so much of the UK's income tax burden

Big derail warning, but she started it . There is amount paid, and then there is proportion of tax burden. It is quite possible for taxes for the rich to have been cut, while the proportion of taxes paid for them to have increased. The total tax take has fallen because big businesses get away with as little as possible - indeed many "higher tax earners" are in the finance and accountancy sector helping those big businesses to avoid their social responsibilities - and the impoverishment of lower and lower middle classes means that even working full time, they need top-ups to their wages to survive in this "great" country rather than be able to pay taxes. The terms "economy" and "economics" all have the word "con" in the middle, and a focus on "the economy", i.e. chasing big bucks while ignoring the plight of people is exactly what is causing most of both Britain's and Afghanistan's mess. From the late great Douglas Adams "Most of the people living on it [earth] were unhappy for pretty much all of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper… which is odd, because on the whole, it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy...”.

A word of warning - the refusal of the rich to pay taxes and the inability of poor groups to make up the shortfall is one of the (many, many) factors involved in the collapse of Byzantium.

Shows what an absolute fucking mockery religion is with these nasty brutal drug cartel totally violent and abusive bastards "preying" angry watching over the locals at prayer. angry

Never was a truer word spoken. And that same "religion" is apparently the biggest increase in the UK, and none of us are allowed to say anything against it.

Come to think of it, corruption is being cited everywhere as a major factor in the collapse of Afghanistan's armies. Wow. Who'd have thought it could demoralise a people and leave them vulnerable.

For higher earners never in British history have we paid so much of the UK's income tax burden

Can this be true? Remember George Harrison's Taxman - "there's one for you, nineteen for me"? When the top rate of income tax was 90%, except that it wasn't on the whole of your income, you worked up through the rate bands. And the wealthy could find ways to minimise their tax bill.

But all this is a distraction from the failure of US policy in Afghanistan, aided by the UK running in behind them. There is an argument that the US always wanted to go into Afghanistan and 9/11 just gave them a good excuse.

However, if I was in insecure housing myself and on a waiting list forever, I would be cheesed off to see people from Afghanistan given priority. But I wouldn't blame the Afghans we might bring out - the blame firmly lies with the politicians that we have in power, who have chosen not to fix a broken housing system.

@HHSchultz

What kind of Arsehole mentions the amount of Council Tax they pay in a thread like this, it's repulsive.

Yep, arsehole of the decade.

Watching the UK and US soldiers at the airport...they are absolute heroes. Scenes are looking worse with dead bodies...It's just awful beyond words

The US embassy is now advising US citizens in Kabul not to travel to HKIA because of security concerns. Desperate people waiting outside the airport are now being crushed to death. It's hard to watch and will only get worse whilst the US administration, without absolutely no leverage, thinks it can negotiate with terrorists for safe passage of people eligible for evacuation.

People are going to get left behind or thousands more troops will need to be put at risk to complete the evacuation by the deadline.

news.sky.com/story/afghanistan-sky-news-correspondent-sees-kabul-airport-mayhem-and-then-bodies-covered-in-white-sheets-amid-evacuation-scramble-12386778

How has it come to this?

@Puzzledandpissedoff

My earlier comment was in response to Xenia’s post about the amount of tax she pays

Ah, fair enough and I see what you mean
Doesn't change the principle that anyone can "donate" to HMRC as they see fit though ...

Actually you cannot donate to HMRC. You can reverse fiddle your self-assessment tax return and over declare your income, but if you send money to HMRC unsolicited they would credit it to your account and eventually send it back to you.

It is purely academic, but why would you do it anyway? Why would you pay money so that 600+ often ill qualified people can make a decision on what it is spent on? Far better to make gifts to charities directly.

I won't respond on tax (although the whole thing in Afghanistan is about money as are most thing) or we will get off topic. If people want to pay extra you can eg make a donation to pay off some national debt for example. Also one journalist got sick of keeping receipts for genuine expenses and decided to pay tax on 100% of what was received and not claim any expenses. People could not pay into pensions and therefore avoid tax relief on those (I don't pay into a pension).

Anyway back in Kabul it is certainly a horrible situation as indeed it is in North Korea and many other countries. Sadly Afghanistan is not currently the worst place on earth and how those in the West and in Saudi and other countries try to help others abroad is never an easy decision.

www.nowzad.com/

If anyone does want to make a charity donation, this one of the ones I’ve chosen. His Facebook and Twitter feeds show real-time how bad things are. The banks are closed so no one can be paid or get cash buy food.

There are widespread protests in London today against how its been handled - see Daily Fail.