The US War in Afghanistan

[Dennisch]

Someone will go after the lithium mines, and I suspect they might be coming from the east.

 

[novcze]

And Afghanistan will now go back 500 years, as that silly Qur'an interpretation will take over again. Another generation of people being kept dumb as a rock.

Looks like people in Afghanistan don't care, certainly not enough to fight that "silly Qur'an interpretation", even their trained army doesn't care.

I suspect that majority of Afghan army were people who only wanted paid job, not much of actual fighting.

 

[Daz555]

I suspect that majority of Afghan army were people who only wanted paid job, not much of actual fighting.

And by all accounts they were not even being paid either a lot of the time.

 

[Liquid]

The scenes of the USAAF Hercules trying to take off with hundreds of people trying to stop it, climb on board and whatever are just incredible. A USAAF plane did eventually take off with, apparently, some people still clinging on who subsequently fell to their deaths as the aeroplane climbed.

 

[SestoScudo]

Unverified reports of Taliban freeing ISIS and Al-Qaeda prisoners. How best to prevent these folks from further terrorism? Attack their finances?

The Taliban and Isis Khorasan are at war with each other. I doubt Taliban would release isis fighters unless they fully renounce isis and join them.

Taliban and Al qaeda relations right now seems to be on a bumpy road or unsure future of the alliance. Afterall it was al qaeda that got Afghanistan invaded will the Taliban risk it again?

Also the religious ideology differences between the both as the Taliban are Deobandis while Al Qaeda is more Salafist/Wahabist in their approach.

 

[SestoScudo]

Looks like people in Afghanistan don't care, certainly not enough to fight that "silly Qur'an interpretation", even their trained army doesn't care.

I suspect that majority of Afghan army were people who only wanted paid job, not much of actual fighting.

I tell you one thing about Afghanistan its never been stable no matter what. You have a lot of ethnic groups like Pashtuns, Hazaras, Turkmens, Uzbeks and Tajiks all fighting each other for control. Lets not forget the tribes and clans.

Only way to rule Afghanistan was with atrocities. You know Turkic ruler Babur usually put a lot of Afghans to the sword just to control the region and to send a message to rebellious subjects of the land.

Babur was a Muslim while Afghans were Muslim. Why is it that because Babur declared them as heretics. He needed to find some justification because Muslims killing Muslims was frowned upon so had to find another excuse.

Im not justifying atrocities just giving you what a pain in the ass it is to control Afghanistan. Tribal people dont listen to centralised governments or absolute rulers they do their thing and live their way of life.

You know in Afghanistan there was a region called Kafirstan today its called Nuristan the land of light. People who lived in Kafirstan became Muslim only in the 1800s.

Afghanistan has always been tough to control when even the toughest warriors like the Turks and Mongols struggled to rule the land.

Graveyard of empires is a myth as Afghanistan has been ruled and controlled by various empires. But it was a tough one to rule. Not surprising.

 

[Keef]

The scenes of the USAAF Hercules trying to take off with hundreds of people trying to stop it, climb on board and whatever are just incredible. A USAAF plane did eventually take off with, apparently, some people still clinging on who subsequently fell to their deaths as the aeroplane climbed.

Is this real? That's a C-17 btw not a C-130.



I find it hard to believe that anybody in charge of this plane would continue in a situation like this. I suppose even the crew of this plane needs to follow orders but I can't fathom knowingly risking the safety of takeoff by taxiing through a crowd of people.

 

[Sprite]

My friend who's from Northern Pakistan is currently fighting the UK government as they're looking to deporting his wife back to Afghanistan (her country or origin). She can live at their home in Pakistan but it is very close to the border and understandably he's very very worried at the moment.

Edit - I've just been talking to him, and he's said his friends who are ex-military (he's ex-Military himself) are being told they could go on standby (He's in his early 50's and so are his friends) if things get worse and move towards the border. He gave up his military career for a UK citizenship in the 80's a they told him he couldn't be an acting soldier for them and hold our passport. His Dad wasn't happy at the time but I'm betting he would be now.

 

[UKMikey]

My friend who's from Northern Pakistan is currently fighting the UK government as they're looking to deporting his wife back to Afghanistan (her country or origin). She can live at their home in Pakistan but it is very close to the border and understandably he's very very worried at the moment.

Can she claim asylum?

 

[Sprite]

Can she claim asylum?

With things going on now I think she maybe able to, however I think due to them having another family home in Northern Pakistan that is causing issues as she has somewhere safe (if you can call it that) to go where she wont be persecuted or under threat. She also has family in Pakistan.

 

[DK]

Someone will go after the lithium mines, and I suspect they might be coming from the east.

Just great, I was wondering if Afghanistan was sitting on a motherlode of rare Earth minerals so that they can take the "World's Richest Islamic Extremists" title when the Saudis run out of oil.

 

[ToyGTone]

Hearing people here talking about Afghanistan as if the entire reason behind the utter chaos in the last 100 years or so was because of Muslims and Islam (a religion that prohibits harming women, kids and eldery during war mind you) and not because you know, hundreds of years of brutal colonisation, extremists funding and proxy cold wars by superpower nations around the world is quite devastating. Instead of any respect that goes to the people suffering in said region, you get people like this...

Not literally because this is Afghanistan, but the similarities are certainly there.

And Afghanistan will now go back 500 years, as that silly Qur'an interpretation will take over again. Another generation of people being kept dumb as a rock.

Or will China try to take it over this time?

Edit.

Afghanistan also was the beginning of the end of the USSR. Will this be the end of the USSA?

Blow them off the map.

Unverified reports of Taliban freeing ISIS and Al-Qaeda prisoners. How best to prevent these folks from further terrorism? Attack their finances?

They've become rather good at avoiding this over the last 20 years.

Other than revenge for 9/11 directed at a single individual, the whole invasion and occupation of Afghanistan was completely pointless. And really, while the revenge was carried out, it probably ultimately isn't all that useful. We should have sanctioned the **** out of Saudi Arabia and made them pay for 9/11 in a way that was actually useful. But that would have helped Iran who is the enemy of our best buddies.

What I'm getting at is that the blame should go to....

The British!

The Taliban and Isis Khorasan are at war with each other. I doubt Taliban would release isis fighters unless they fully renounce isis and join them.

Taliban and Al qaeda relations right now seems to be on a bumpy road or unsure future of the alliance. Afterall it was al qaeda that got Afghanistan invaded will the Taliban risk it again?

Also the religious ideology differences between the both as the Taliban are Deobandis while Al Qaeda is more Salafist/Wahabist in their approach.

Isn't kinda odd how that that the majority of victims from all so called "islamic" militias & terroist groups attacks are....i dunno, Muslims? The reality is that almost nothing about them is islamic, in fact none of Majority Muslim countries around the world even represent said belief's. In fact, i bet that if you remove any and all resemblance of Islam from all Muslim Majority countries (Turkey, Kuwait, Malaysia, Morocco, Iran, Maldives...etc), it would barely even change %10-20 at most. This entire thing we see in parts of western asian countries are nothing more than a pure political and possibly racial issue/motivation. I know I'm going offtopic here but i can tell you that a lot of things in Afghanistan and other places would possibly not even happen if not for foreign governments interfering, invading and creating puppet states out of it.

At the end of the day, i just hope things just go well for them and everyone else out there. Thank you.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Hearing people here talking about Afghanistan as if the entire reason behind the utter chaos in the last 100 years or so was because of Muslims and Islam (a religion that prohibits harming women, kids and eldery during war mind you) and not because you know, hundreds of years of brutal colonisation, extremists funding and proxy cold wars by superpower nations around the world is quite devastating. Instead of any respect that goes to the people suffering in said region, you get people like this...











Isn't kinda odd how that that the majority of victims from all so called "islamic" militias & terroist groups attacks are....i dunno, Muslims? The reality is that almost nothing about them is islamic, in fact none of Majority Muslim countries around the world even represent said belief's. In fact, i bet that if you remove any and all resemblance of Islam from all Muslim Majority countries (Turkey, Kuwait, Malaysia, Morocco, Iran, Maldives...etc), it would barely even change %10-20 at most. This entire thing we see in parts of western asian countries are nothing more than a pure political and possibly racial issue/motivation. I know I'm going offtopic here but i can tell you that a lot of things in Afghanistan and other places would possibly not even happen if not for foreign governments interfering, invading and creating puppet states out of it.

At the end of the day, i just hope things just go well for them and everyone else out there. Thank you.

Not sure why you quoted me there, because I said nothing like that. In fact I quite explicitly blamed the British at the bottom of my post.

Was doing some reading yesterday and came across this article from 2002 about how the US created and provided textbooks to Afghan children depicting extremism and violence as an effort to undermine the Soviets in the 1980s. Really great plan there.

 

[ryzno]

Hearing people here talking about Afghanistan as if the entire reason behind the utter chaos in the last 100 years or so was because of Muslims and Islam (a religion that prohibits harming women, kids and eldery during war mind you) and not because you know, hundreds of years of brutal colonisation, extremists funding and proxy cold wars by superpower nations around the world is quite devastating. Instead of any respect that goes to the people suffering in said region, you get people like this...











Isn't kinda odd how that that the majority of victims from all so called "islamic" militias & terroist groups attacks are....i dunno, Muslims? The reality is that almost nothing about them is islamic, in fact none of Majority Muslim countries around the world even represent said belief's. In fact, i bet that if you remove any and all resemblance of Islam from all Muslim Majority countries (Turkey, Kuwait, Malaysia, Morocco, Iran, Maldives...etc), it would barely even change %10-20 at most. This entire thing we see in parts of western asian countries are nothing more than a pure political and possibly racial issue/motivation. I know I'm going offtopic here but i can tell you that a lot of things in Afghanistan and other places would possibly not even happen if not for foreign governments interfering, invading and creating puppet states out of it.

At the end of the day, i just hope things just go well for them and everyone else out there. Thank you.

I was talking about the Taliban. Not the whole country. Do you actually support them?

Also Al-Qaeda and ISIS.

Seriously, blow all of them off the map, it's not like they fight fair.

 

[Keef]

I was talking about the Taliban. Not the whole country. Do you actually support them?

Also Al-Qaeda and ISIS.

Seriously, blow all of them off the map, it's not like they fight fair.

Unfortunately you missed your chance to join the military and do exactly that. You only had 20 years to go have your fun.

Anyways, I did some research because Trump's presidency was so chaotic I kept forgetting what happened from day to day. I almost forgot that his administration negotiated this exit deal with the Taliban. Basically the deal amounted to allowing us to leave in peace with no terrorism nonsense and that was basically it. No long-term guarantees as far as I can tell. And the fact that it was negotiated with the Taliban instead of the Afghan government tells you all you need to know - everybody expected the Afghans to fall or just give up quickly.

Anyways, Biden said long ago he was going to honor the deal. The deal is happening right now...in fact it happened quicker than I could manage to get drunk on Saturday night. It seems to me that what is happening is exactly what was supposed to happen.

I'm not going to defend the Biden administration for suggesting that anything else would've happened. I don't know why they did that. But what they did do is execute a plan that was planned by the previous administration so this doesn't appear to be a partisan issue at all.

But of course the RNC is trying to make it a partisan issue because apparently they've deleted a portion of their website which was about Trump's negotiation of the deal. That article includes a link to the archived page. Now why on earth would they try to hide pages on their own party's negotiations with the Taliban?

There's an argument to be made that negotiating with and therefore legitimizing the Taliban (@ryzno that's precisely what Trump did, stop trying to blow them up and negotiate with them instead, in fact he wanted to invite them to Camp David for negotiations) was a poor choice, but honestly what choice did they have? Apparently our military leaders have been saying for years that Afghan soldiers were unmotivated and unwilling to fight for their country. It's almost like they never even wanted a country and a government. It's almost like they wanted the Taliban to take over and that we should've just called it quits back when Obama originally planned to.

And therefore I'm not sure why everybody is so upset. If this is what they wanted then let them have it. Trump negotiated the plan and Biden is executing the plan - this is not a partisan issue, this is an Afghan issue, and they're the ones who gave up and allowed the Taliban to set up shop. This is their problem.

Edit: @Touring Mars people keep talking about "The exit strategy is pure chaos". What about the fact that the Afghan government itself was pure chaos? How the hell are we supposed to orderly exit a country that effectively doesn't exist? The damn government gave up before I could finish a six pack and our boys were still packing stuff into airplanes. We are leaving and therefore it's not our job to keep the peace in Afghanistan anymore, it's Afghanistan's job, problem is Afghanistan ceased to exist almost immediately. So instead the Taliban is keeping the peace, and according to reporters on the ground they're actually doing an effective job of it.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

I was talking about the Taliban. Not the whole country. Do you actually support them?

Also Al-Qaeda and ISIS.

Seriously, blow all of them off the map, it's not like they fight fair.

Seriously, we tried that for 20 years and it didn't work. I don't care how many bunker busters and moabs and B52 runs we try, those mountains offer complete protection. I doubt even a 50mt warhead could put a dent in those complexes.

 

[ryzno]

Unfortunately you missed your chance to join the military and do exactly that. You only had 20 years to go have your fun.

I know, shouldn't have done what I did in 03 when I was 17, I went every year till 26 when I was to you can't enlist without prior experience regardless of my past and needing a waiver.
I did think about the contractor route but a felon can't own a gun...

Seriously, we tried that for 20 years and it didn't work. I don't care how many bunker busters and moabs and B52 runs we try, those mountains offer complete protection. I doubt even a 50mt warhead could put a dent in those complexes.

Did we?

 

[TexRex]

Seriously, we tried that for 20 years and it didn't work. I don't care how many bunker busters and moabs and B52 runs we try, those mountains offer complete protection. I doubt even a 50mt warhead could put a dent in those complexes.

Can't forget about that human shield factor.

 

[Touring Mars]

the Taliban is keeping the peace, and according to reporters on the ground they're actually doing an effective job of it.

 

[Famine]

How do you propose blowing people off the map that are under 2,000ft of solid stone?

Hire Elon Musk to make The Boring Company bunker-busters.

Ask Japan.

I'd give you a quick physics lesson on why that won't work, but you won't actually pay any attention to it... so I'll just point out that the USA tested nukes in mines much shallower than 2,000 feet to test confined blasts.

Operation Plumbbob, if you're interested - which also might have created the fastest man-made object ever recorded. The Rainier test took place at -900ft and fully contained the weapon's effects.

Of course airburst nukes won't do squat to jack at subterranean depths, given that the literal point of the airburst is to minimise pressure wave reflection from the ground, so really you're just advocating for the indiscriminate nuking of Afghan civilians at this point. Not that this is a new low for you.

 

[ryzno]

Are you referring to airburst nuclear weapons? Yeah, that's not gonna do anything.

No. Even though they do...

 

[ryzno]

Hire Elon Musk to make The Boring Company bunker-busters.


I'd give you a quick physics lesson on why that won't work, but you won't actually pay any attention to it... so I'll just point out that the USA tested nukes in mines much shallower than 2,000 feet to test confined blasts.

Operation Plumbbob, if you're interested - which also might have created the fastest man-made object ever recorded. The Rainier test took place at -900ft and fully contained the weapon's effects.

I will look into it and am talking to my dad as we speak cause I can't talk to my grandfather about it...
Both served, I tried to follow the family tradition, but things...

Still what we did then ****ed them up way worse than anything we've tried to do now.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

I will look into it and am talking to my dad as we speak cause I can't talk to my grandfather about it...
Both served, I tried to follow the family tradition, but things...

Wut.

 

[ryzno]

Wut.

Wat?

WWII ya know, that thing...

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Wat?

WWII ya know, that thing...

Care to be specific at all? You seem to communicate almost entirely in vague insinuations. We aren't mind readers.

 

[ryzno]

Care to be specific at all? You seem to communicate almost entirely in vague insinuations. We aren't mind readers.

Read my edit...
That's why I hate having to add a quote that pops up .2 seconds after I post or I feel I need to add a thought or 5.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Read my edit...
That's why I hate having to add a quote that pops up .2 seconds after I post or I feel I need to add a thought or 5.

I did. I'm not getting clarity. What exactly are you referring to when you refer to Japan? We were engaged in an awful war with Japan and I struggle to see why we would go through something similar in Afghanistan.

 

[ryzno]

I did. I'm not getting clarity. What exactly are you referring to when you refer to Japan? We were engaged in an awful war with Japan and I struggle to see why we would go through something similar in Afghanistan.

The nukes. From what I've read they are still feeling the affects from the fallout.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

The nukes. From what I've read they are still feeling the affects from the fallout.

You mean the civilian population of Japan is still feeling the affects of the fallout. We also did it to ourselves in a pretty substantial way. And you want to bring that strategy to another country? Also, as Famine alluded to, they wouldn't be very effective at reaching Taliban in deep mountain cave networks. They were incredibly destructive in Japan because of the pressure differentials between interior and exteriors of simple wood structures, the fireball, and the heat. The few concrete structures in the cities actually fared reasonably well. A mountain would fare exceptionally well.

 

[Dotini]

Well then, how about some salt on the poppy fields?