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Post by mich64 on Aug 20, 2021 17:37:52 GMT
But, whereas they now rule the whole country, which they didn't before, maybe, just maybe, if they wish to seek recognition from other nations, they may give the pretence of moderating their actions. I agree Mark and hopefully reporting will get out as to what is actually happening so the pressure of sanctions/humanitarian aid could help moderate more than just pretence. I do think that when they were in the position of as always fighting for territory and trying to overtake is now very different to all of sudden having your followers expected to know how to control/network the entirety of the country. It may devolve into them fighting amongst themselves for control for quite some time. It saddens me to think or imagine of what families there are going through now and in the months and years to come. My brother-in-law was severely injured in Afghanistan while there working as a contractor for the Candian Armed Forces in Kandahar. Ten years later he still suffers daily from his injuries and is permanently disabled, yet he will tell you he would go back if he could.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 20, 2021 17:45:49 GMT
Sorry about your brother-in-law, Mich, but I fully understand the dedication of many people who served there voluntarily.
I agree that the various factions will all start bickering with each other very rapidly, and also they know that they are under much greater international scrutiny than in the past. They didn't use to care much about such things but now they do. But basically I think that China is the key to their future -- if China accepts all of their crap, the rest of us would be screwed. But luckily, China also cares about international opinion these days, even if it is not as much as we would like.
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Post by mich64 on Aug 20, 2021 18:03:02 GMT
But basically I think that China is the key to their future -- if China accepts all of their crap, the rest of us would be screwed. But luckily, China also cares about international opinion these days, even if it is not as much as we would like. Yes, agree with this statement as well. China is being forced to accept the reality (as much as this infuriates them more) that they have to think more about international opinions on every level.
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Post by bjd on Aug 20, 2021 19:13:01 GMT
I wish the various Afghan commentators living abroad sounded more optimistic but several I have heard interviewed claim that as soon as all the foreigners are out and there will be no international scrutiny, the Taliban will be just as horrible as during their first reign. They have already started to completely ignore what was being said at the press conference the other day. The spokesman talked of an amnesty for all government workers but there are reports of Taliban going door to door looking for people and beating or even killing them.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 20, 2021 20:50:45 GMT
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 21, 2021 18:19:35 GMT
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Post by questa on Aug 22, 2021 14:19:58 GMT
Like Mark I have travelled in the region as well. I was turned back at the Pakistan/Afghan border when I tried to go travel up the Khyber Pass. I spent most of my time in Pakistani territory just walking around photographing and talking to women and kids .After Peshawar things got more hairy and we needed Army escorts to get further north. After Chitral, where all the men (defined as male old enough to grow a moustache) were carrying weaponry, we only had the incredible Karakoram Highway to deal with.
Of the 20 highest mountains in the world, 12 of them are in this area.
Napoleon, when asked why he couldn't take Russia, is said to have replied, "They had "General Winter" on their side." Well the people of Afghanistan have "General Mountain" on theirs. The topography makes things almost impossible for foreign military to travel far. There is also the problem of who belongs to which group...friend or foe.
This video is well worth watching.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 22, 2021 15:30:32 GMT
Most of the commentary I have seen is merely 20/20 vision hindsight, which is not very useful. If we (and our leaders) were all so clever, some of the problems (probably only a small fraction) could have been avoided.
I am a bit peeved by all of the people who say how obvious it was that the Afghan government could never survive on its own. Well, yes, I knew that, too, but I did not put up billions of dollars, pounds or euros to send in troops and pretend otherwise. It was easier to believe back in Vietnam (but it turned out to be wrong) and the verdict is still out in Iraq. Afghanistan, no way.
France sent military forces to Afghanistan in 2001 like many other countries, but removed all combat troops in 2012, leaving only about 1000 troops for training and logistics. Lip service in other words. I don't know if this was just cynical or realistic or both.
One wonders why the United States and the United Kingdom chose to continue the illusion for so much longer. And of course, the United Kingdom unfortunetely seems to only take orders from its big brother and makes no military decisions of its own.
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Post by onlyMark on Aug 22, 2021 20:11:39 GMT
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Post by tod2 on Aug 24, 2021 11:10:53 GMT
WE HOPED THEY WOULDN'T SLAUGHTER US.
Our Sunday News papers brought us the story of a South African man, Dwayne Thompson, and his harrowing escape from Kabul this past week. He is 40 years old and has been in Kabul since 2013 and was one of 24 Security Personnel assigned to look after the Canadian Ambassador and other diplomats at the Embassy. He and his team struck an uneasy truce with 10 Taliban members at the Hamid Karzal International Airport by taking selfies with them and sharing cigarettes and water. In the end the Taliban fighters helped them get past thousands of hostile Afghan civilians who were thronging the airport. He said they were trying to remain onside with them. He had no weapons except their only weapon - were their hearts and minds. The Taliban had killed their friends and they in turn had killed theirs. He said the Taliban loved it when they took pictures with them and that is how they tried to win them over. He said he didn't even wear body armour, so if it did happen, "My death would be quick". Thompson has previously served with the British military said "We knew no-one was coming to help us. He said the Taliban exerted incredible power because ordinary Afghans knew they would not hesitate to use force.
After a tense race to get to the Zohak Village hotel next to the airport by Saturday afternoon, Thompson and 11 other security personnel were struggling to get into the airport by 4pm Sunday - the deadline the Taliban had set for foreigners to leave Afghanistan. Thousands of Afghans desperate to get out of the country were clamouring at the gates, and the runway was full of panicking people trying to get on an aircraft. The military airport where Thompson and his team were due to board their flight was adjacent to this. "The Taliban members said they would provide security for Thompson to move to the airport gates. It was extremely terrifying , as he did not know if the Taliban would keep their word. "We just had to trust them and hope they didn't slaughter us" he said.
Once at the gate to the airport the team waited 5 hours for Nato Forces to clear the runway of civilians before they could enter. He said the animosity towards foreigners from locals was palpable. " You felt the hatred they felt for us just leaving them". After 20 years of fighting, the Taliban were now protecting us" Thompson said, and that nobody would believe him. Finally, as the Nato troops struggled to clear the runway, the Taliban fighters grew agitated and did the job themselves.
Speaking from England before his flight to SA, Thompson said he had been so terrified in Kabul that he had recorded voice-notes saying goodbye to his wife and two children because there was a high possibility he would not make it out of the country. He said by Saturday the Taliban had taken over the entire country except for Kabul. Foreigners in the Green Zone, an area of Kabul where the presidential palace and most of the embassies are located, had to be out of this area by 4pm that day. Thompson said on Friday when the Taliban were literally at the gates, the Canadian Embassy pulled the plug in the middle of the night and started destroying documents. On Saturday embassy staff began moving to Zohak Village to wait for a flight out. Half the 24 security staff were assigned to the ambassador and flew with him back to Canada. The remaining 12 including Thompson, were left in the green zone to look after the embassy along with about 100 Nepalese Gurkha soldiers. They were told Canada would send a plane for them ..."Ïn a few Days". The local guard force turned up and were angry because they hadn't been paid and barricaded them into the compound, locking the gate. That day, the Taliban were coming and Thompson was meant to leave by midday but the locals delayed them and they were still there at 2pm when money arrived to pay them.
Thompson waited for the promised chartered aircraft but the timeline went from three days to five, then to 8, then 10 days. They realised nobody was coming for them. Stranded in the green zone with the Taliban deadline looming, the team tried the UN's Foreign office - a dedicated line to help extract foreigners from the country - but the line was dead. They then got hold of contacts in Northern Ireland who using WhatsApp, organised an evacuation flight. But first they had to get to the airport 3km away. They left all their luggage behind and loaded eight vehicles for the first trip. It took 3 hours with heavy traffic. They arrived at 3.45pm and there was still 150 people to evacuate before 4pm when the Green Zone would be taken over.
Fortunately, the main road had cleared. The US military offered to fly the Gurkhas from the Green zone to Zohak but only 40 people at a time. Thompson said every time he thought they had one more load, people would turn up. "We were evacuating Gurkhas from other embassies and still had 60-70 people to evacuate and the Taliban were literally around the corner. We got all to safety at 4pm with 250 people from the Green Zone, but the danger now came from the civilians who were streaming into the nearby airport. The Military side of the airport was still safe as Nato forces were guarding it.
That night Thompson heard heavy gunfire as civilians tried to get into the military airport gates. Thousands had taken over the airport and it was absolutely crazy. They had no option but to sit and wait. Soon after they received a report that Taliban fighters were on the way. Thompson saw them clear the approach road of civilians before helping his group make it onto their aircraft. He waited to leave the UK so he could decompress before seeing his two small children.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 25, 2021 17:16:50 GMT
The international specialists have been pointing out more and more that the Taliban have very little in common with Al-Qaeda or ISIS. The Taliban are only interested in ruling Afghanistan and do not have any plan for exporting their views to other countries in the world. They just want to be left alone in their own country. This does not make them good people, but apparently they are not a threat to the rest of us, just to the people within their borders.
This would tend to just put them in the same category as all of those other countries of which we disapprove but who mind their own business.
We need to concentrate more on Al-Qaeda and ISIS.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 26, 2021 16:25:28 GMT
So, now ISIS is attacking the Taliban in Kabul. When push comes to shove, we will probably end up supporting the Taliban.
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Post by onlyMark on Aug 26, 2021 17:05:17 GMT
I was passed a message today - it reads, "If ever you feel useless, remember it took 20 years, trillions of dollars and 4 US Presidents to replace the Taliban with the Taliban."
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 26, 2021 18:16:05 GMT
And American soldiers are still dying.
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Post by questa on Aug 26, 2021 23:15:57 GMT
"you're paid to stop a bullet it's a soldiers job, they say and so you stop the bullet... and then they stop your pay.
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Post by questa on Aug 27, 2021 6:09:21 GMT
America is getting a lot of practice in retreating from wars it should not have been in. No-one here has mentioned "Bay of Pigs" yet but that was a glorious f**k up as well. It lacked the 'helicopters on the roof' finale or the current 'falling from the wheel well' crowds, but the generals must have had a bad day when they tried that little skirmish. Do the senior military still get medals for these wars, or do they have some ripped from their ageing chests?
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 27, 2021 8:44:58 GMT
No, everybody is automatically a hero. Anybody who dies, even if they were scum, is a hero, too.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 28, 2021 15:52:11 GMT
My political opinions were not very sophisticated at the end of the Vietnam war, and I shared the general disdain that many young people had when the war ended. No sympathy for the soldiers, even the draftees -- they were just stupid pawns who should have refused to go in the first place. Vietnam had not done any harm to the United States and America deserved what happened, or so it seemed. Actually it still seems that way more than 40 years later, although I no longer hold the grunts responsible -- they were as young as I was and were easy to convince that they were doing the right thing.
The Afghanistan war is completely different and lasted a generation. Also it started with a deadly attack on the United States even though it is open to debate whether the American retaliation was appropriate. The perps were hiding in caves in the mountains and had been financed by wonderful American allies such as Saudi Arabia. Okay, the taliban were controlling the country and we all agree that their ideas are not in conformity with our own but there are plenty of countries to attack if that is the essential criterion. An American backed government was in place in the country already in December 2001. This apparently was not enough, so the Americans stayed, and the NATO forces stayed, and lots of other countries participated, too.
It felt good to be on the right side this time, and lots of young people were proud to serve in the armed forces. Even a lot of the children of the soliders from 2001 grew up to join the military, too. I don't really know how much disillusion had set in over the years, but only idiots could have felt confident about the future. At the sime time, I'm sure that it felt good to protect a whole generation of Afghan boys and girls who were able to go to school normally and not die too often in terrorist attacks.
So how are the repatriated soldiers going to feel now? Will they feel that all of their efforts were a waste of time? Will they feel betrayed by the government? Will they forgive their own armed forces for all of their comrades who died? Or will they just move on with their lives? At least the general public will not be accusing them like after Vietnam, but I just don't think that will be enough.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Aug 29, 2021 8:07:48 GMT
The UK tv news and newspapers are highly selective these days about what they report, atm they're still obsessed with sport.... we're more likely to get an interview with a sportsperson than any news about what's actually happening in the world. We've had the headlines of course, but the interviews questioning political leaders about their lack of organisation (when they had over a year to prepare) are few and far between. I'm ashamed but not surprised. So much for 'Global Britain'.
I know that there has been/is a pandemic going on atm but that can't be used as an excuse.
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Post by questa on Aug 29, 2021 13:19:21 GMT
. we're more likely to get an interview with a sportsperson than any news about what's actually happening in the world. We've had the headlines of course, but the interviews questioning political leaders about their lack of organisation (when they had over a year to prepare) are few and far between. So, 9/11 occurs but instead of looking for the perps the US starts a war in the Middle East. Then they get mixed up looking for Osama. As my son said after a few more Afghani villages were bombed, "How hard can it be? There is not a lot of 6 foot 4 inch blokes attached to dialysis machines in those caves."
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Post by kerouac2 on Sept 3, 2021 15:12:47 GMT
Pakistan, Qatar and the Emirates have begun to get aid flights into Afghanistan, which needs plenty of help. Western Union has resumed money transfer services. I'm wondering when our western countries are going to suck it up and decide to help the country too.
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Post by bjd on Sept 3, 2021 16:56:08 GMT
I had an email from Doctors without Borders this afternoon (I donate to them) saying that they are still running their health clinics in Afghanistan and that numbers of people coming in have gone up now that fighting has stopped.
While so many countries still refuse to recognize the Taliban as the official government of the country, it's unlikely that they will be sending aid money or supplies. They would figure the Taliban would hijack them for their own purposes.
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Post by kerouac2 on Sept 3, 2021 17:50:04 GMT
Paying off corrupt officials to get aid into countries all over the world has existed for more than 100 years. Haiti, Rwanda, Panama, Lebanon, Iraq, most or all of West Africa (or East Africa, if you prefer), Egypt... it would take all night to make a full list. Why must the rich countries pretend each and every time that they are shocked and offended by corruption when all of us have plenty of it in our own countries clogging our courts? Money of any sort will always breed corruption was will any goods (wheat, medicine...). So, suck it up! Help is needed.
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Post by kerouac2 on Sept 9, 2021 14:40:45 GMT
So, Afghanistan now has a government that we all hate but we will do nothing about it. We all decided to abandon Afghanistan because it was too much trouble (too expensive), so should we keep bitching about it? Since we dumped the country, perhaps it should go to the end of the list of our priorities, and we should work on places like Saudi Arabia, Brunei, Brazil, Belarus or Sudan.
Oh, that's right -- we just want to get on with our lives.
Frankly, the new Afghanistan government has been horrible but perhaps less horrible than we expected. Women are still demonstrating, even if they are getting caned for it, reporters are being arrested, but the bearded leaders are still trying to be careful. I don't think anybody has died in Kabul in recent days, and that is probably a plus. And today there was a flight to Qatar for people wanting to leave the country with more planned for the upcoming days.
So should we wait and see what happens next or condemn a sovereign country trying to repair itself (once again, not at all the way we would prefer)? The NGOs have said that they will continue humanitarian aid. Better than nothing.
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Post by questa on Sept 10, 2021 2:01:57 GMT
Kerouac...you took the words right out of my mouth. Afghanis are a strong people...they have weathered conquerors far greater than this sideshow and rebuilt, learning from the mistakes that were made. The new rulers will eventually realise that people now have internet, have seen what is possible and the young generation will start expecting their country to keep up with the advantages of 21st century life. I saw Vietnam turn from a wreck to a power house of development in Asia, despite the US bans on all its contact with the West. I was in Saigon the night the trade sanctions were lifted and by morning all the advertising for US products were on the walls and the markets were selling real Coca Cola by the truckload. I hope the same will to modernise occurs in the high mountains of Afghanistan.
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Post by kerouac2 on Sept 10, 2021 17:32:44 GMT
Today I watched a report on the BBC where Afghan students and teachers were interviewed about their views on the new situation. They all were aware that they had benefited from better educational options over the last 20 years. However, an amazing number of them -- including the women -- were willing to give the Taliban a chance. They had grown up in a country under foreign occupation for two decades, and there is a feeling of relief that the destiny of the country is now in the hands of the Afghanis.
Would any of us -- if this were the situation of our own country -- honestly say "Oh, I think foreign occupation was much better"? Obviously, just about all of them are hoping that the Taliban will be obliged to take into consideration the 21st century -- internet, social media, and information from all of the rest of the world. 20 years ago, the Taliban were living in caves in the mountains. They can't be the same people anymore.
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Post by questa on Sept 10, 2021 22:02:29 GMT
Give a man a fish and he has food for a day Teach him to fish and he has food for a lifetime Give him a computer and he becomes head of an International Fishing Conglomerate controlling the seas. Give a woman control of the seas and they will not be over-fished nor polluted.
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Post by kerouac2 on Sept 11, 2021 5:17:38 GMT
That remains to be seen.
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Post by kerouac2 on Sept 15, 2021 6:05:17 GMT
It's the one month anniversary of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan setting up shop in Kabul.
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Post by bjd on Sept 15, 2021 6:17:52 GMT
How time flies and they have already started fighting among themselves. Rumours of death and fighting among the various groups. Allegedly over differences over the winning strategy: "We won by diplomacy!" "No, we won by fighting!"
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