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Taliban enter Kabul as Afghan government on brink of collapse

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Re: Taliban enter Kabul as Afghan government on brink of collapse

#181

Post by belter »

NonContro wrote: post #98
yalogin wrote: post #32

What a failure of the US armed forces here. 20 damn years staying in the country with the only 2 goal - to help Afghans build an army and help defend themselves and to eradicate the Taliban. They failed miserably in both. Trillions spent and many lost lives. Why would we ever pour money into such a terrible, incompetent system? Of course, the cycle keeps repeating itself and we keep growing the military.

US forces abandoned the country 'overnight' - leaving behind all of the military equipment the Taliban would need for their reconquest: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210814-weapon-seizur... Why wasn't all this equipment repatriated or destroyed? Why were the bases just abandoned without proper transition to Afghan Control, so that in some cases they were even looted by civilians? Possible explanations: 1. E…

Mullah Omar said:

“God has promised us victory, and Bush has promised us defeat. We’ll see which promise is more truthful”.

Re: Taliban enter Kabul as Afghan government on brink of collapse

#182

Post by eitland »

weimerica wrote: post #177
selfmodruntime wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very ironic comment considering that the soviets, not the US liberated Europe from Germany. They fought the hardest battles, lost the most soldiers, fought for the longer time and were first in Berlin. The public just believes otherwise because of 70 years of US propaganda [1]. The only thing US soldiers left us europeans with are a massive influx of refugees of which we have to take care of and for which w…

> This is a very ironic comment considering that the soviets, not the US liberated Europe from Germany. You're responding to another human, such that its a locality sensitive sentiment. To a French, Belgian or Dutch national the US is the savior of that war - the Soviets being uninvolved in their liberation. As an aside, I wonder if there exist an Slavic-language HN where Eastern Europeans argue that American steel w…

> As an aside, I wonder if there exist an Slavic-language HN where Eastern Europeans argue that American steel was the true winner in the war and the Soviets don't deserve glory...

At least it is sure that many of them wished the Americans had liberated them, not Soviet.

The USSR for all its achievements was a harsh place to be for everyone except the luckiest ones.

"In America there is huge differences between rich and poor - in USSR everyone is equally poor".

Re: Taliban enter Kabul as Afghan government on brink of collapse

#183

Post by Johnjonjoan »

chewz wrote: post #158
smhost wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many more dead bodies do you want to add to your tally for your Hollywood movie moment? They don't want a civil war. How is that not obvious to you?

They do not want to fight for their freedoms so why shall we Westerners feel obliged to do the fighting for them? They can go back to Middle Ages.

We started the fight

Re: Taliban enter Kabul as Afghan government on brink of collapse

#184

Post by belter »

SynasterBeiter wrote: post #129
Overton-Window wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biden would disagree: > Q Mr. President, some Vietnamese veterans see echoes of their experience in this withdrawal in Afghanistan. Do you see any parallels between this withdrawal and what happened in Vietnam, with some people feeling — > THE PRESIDENT: None whatsoever. Zero. What you had is — you had entire brigades breaking through the gates of our embassy — six, if I’m not mistaken. > The Taliban is not the south…

> There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of a embassy in the — of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable. That did not age very well. https://www.npr.org/2021/08/15/1027806863/the-taliban-seize-...

https://twitter.com/i/status/1426900769656254468

Re: Taliban enter Kabul as Afghan government on brink of collapse

#186

Post by rvense »

weimerica wrote: post #177
selfmodruntime wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very ironic comment considering that the soviets, not the US liberated Europe from Germany. They fought the hardest battles, lost the most soldiers, fought for the longer time and were first in Berlin. The public just believes otherwise because of 70 years of US propaganda [1]. The only thing US soldiers left us europeans with are a massive influx of refugees of which we have to take care of and for which w…

> This is a very ironic comment considering that the soviets, not the US liberated Europe from Germany. You're responding to another human, such that its a locality sensitive sentiment. To a French, Belgian or Dutch national the US is the savior of that war - the Soviets being uninvolved in their liberation. As an aside, I wonder if there exist an Slavic-language HN where Eastern Europeans argue that American steel w…

> To a French, Belgian or Dutch national the US is the savior of that war - the Soviets being uninvolved in their liberation.

While the Soviet Union obviously never fought in Western Europe, the article that the person you are replying to quotes numbers from right after the war, where the majority of French people said that the soviets were the ones who were the most responsible for the outcome of the war. And that does make sense, considering for how long they bore the brunt of Nazi aggression, and the number of casualties speak for themselves.

There is a comparison with now, where of course most people would give most of the credit to the Americans. I think a lot of people in Western Europe aren't aware what the costs of the War in Russia were.

Re: Taliban enter Kabul as Afghan government on brink of collapse

#187

Post by mejutoco »

selfmodruntime wrote: post #119
BasDirks wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US played a pivotal role in saving our asses over in Europe, and we are eternally grateful, but ever since, the US has been bad at war. It's not the firepower, it's not the soldiers, and it's not the organization. These are top notch. It's the **ing politicians dragging young men and women into wars not worth fighting.

This is a very ironic comment considering that the soviets, not the US liberated Europe from Germany. They fought the hardest battles, lost the most soldiers, fought for the longer time and were first in Berlin. The public just believes otherwise because of 70 years of US propaganda [1]. The only thing US soldiers left us europeans with are a massive influx of refugees of which we have to take care of and for which w…

Unfortunately in these topics there are rarely saints on either side. While acknowledging its importance, one should not idealize the soviet liberation.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_o...

Re: Taliban enter Kabul as Afghan government on brink of collapse

#188

Post by raincom »

WalterBright wrote: post #58
vishnugupta wrote: post #47

Worth quoting this passage from an insightful article[1] People fought in Afghanistan, and people died, but not always in the obvious way. They had been fighting for so long, twenty-three years then, that by the time the Americans arrived the Afghans had developed an elaborate set of rules designed to spare as many fighters as they could. So the war could go on forever. Men fought, men switched sides, men lined up an…

Sounds a lot like the Italian mercenary armies in the middle ages, where they mostly maneuvered for advantage rather than fought. Being mercenaries, they had little interest in dying for their employer's cause.

Another example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_and_let_live_(World_War_I...

This example was discussed in Robert Axelrod's "The Evolution of Cooperation".

Re: Taliban enter Kabul as Afghan government on brink of collapse

#189

Post by sorokod »

THINkttwICE wrote: post #128

Afghanistan's situation is obviously as complex as it can get but at the level of day to day experience of majority of locals (not only elite city-dwellers) Taliban are hated/feared but consistent, and they generally practice what they preach. In my brief personal encounters, and observations of what locals face: the corrupt government, its police and its army is like the "Zahhak the Snake Shoulder" (an evil figure i…

In what sense are "locals" not in government, police, army or indeed the Taliban ?

Re: Taliban enter Kabul as Afghan government on brink of collapse

#190

Post by koonsolo »

kingofpandora wrote: post #164
koonsolo wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Taliban is absolute horrible. US tried to do a good thing here. For me this is a failure of the Afghan people who are not willing to fight for their rights, especially the rights of their wives, sisters and daughters. At least US tried to make a difference. EU is very passive in that sense (I'm from EU).

How would you like a foreign power invading and running your country? You better believe a large part of the Taliban are fighting not out of religious conviction but essentially (Pashtun) nationalism.

US did it during WW2, and it seemed to work out fine.

Only thing is that when they left, we made sure the Nazi's didn't come back.

Right now they were training Afghans to have their own military, but it's all so corrupt that it is just an impossible task. Those who can will flee the country instead of fighting for it.

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