News:

Welcome to our site!

Main Menu

The Fall of Kabul

Started by Shiranu, August 15, 2021, 04:55:26 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Shiranu

#15
Quote from: SGOS on August 16, 2021, 04:47:32 PM
My brother-in-law thinks there will be very orderly withdrawal and the Taliban will let Americans peacefully go.

I'm starting to lean towards that opinion; they have had plenty of time to attack the airport (and I assume they have heavier ordinance to do significant damage if they wanted to) but seem to be holding off; they also seized most of the cities in the country relatively peacefully.

I think they are looking to be the new legitimate government rather than the new occupying force, and pissing off the global community by mass slaughter of our people and our allies would not be a smart move on their part. After 20 years of war... maybe all the really want is just their own place to enforce their bigotry on their own people and generally be left alone. Obviously that is less than ideal (to put mildly) of situation for the people of Afghanistan... but it might honestly be the best outcome we could hope for at this point.

If there was strategic advantage to slaughter I don't doubt for a second they would choose that option... I just don't see one, and it doesn't seem like they do either.
"A little science distances you from God, but a lot of science brings you nearer to Him." - Louis Pasteur

Hydra009

Quote from: Shiranu on August 16, 2021, 05:47:06 PMI think they are looking to be the new legitimate government rather than the new occupying force, and pissing off the global community by mass slaughter of our people and our allies would not be a smart move on their part.
Devil's advocate: I don't think they're much scared of our wrath, they've felt it for nearly two decades now and they seem to be holding in there just fine.  Likely another reason.

Shiranu

Quote from: Hydra009 on August 16, 2021, 06:25:41 PM
Devil's advocate: I don't think they're much scared of our wrath, they've felt it for nearly two decades now and they seem to be holding in there just fine.  Likely another reason.

Yeah, but they have the entire country... why risk that?

They could likely fight us for a 100 years more, but why do that when they can be more like an Iran; our enemy, but not enough to warrant military engagement. Let the people suffer any sanctions we put on the country while they prosper.
"A little science distances you from God, but a lot of science brings you nearer to Him." - Louis Pasteur

cnm411

I feel so sorry for those that have already been marked for death after the takeover. 20 years of American support. There is never a good way to leave a country knowing it will fall. The Afghan population will suffer . I am so happy to be here in the USA .

Mike Cl

The groups who are the saddest about our Afgan pullout are the corporations in this country. 

But then, they don't really have much to worry about.  The US is always fucking fighting in other countries just to keep our wonderful corporations nice and fat with our riches. 
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Shiranu

Quote from: Mike Cl on August 16, 2021, 07:21:45 PM
The groups who are the saddest about our Afgan pullout are the corporations in this country. 

But then, they don't really have much to worry about.  The US is always fucking fighting in other countries just to keep our wonderful corporations nice and fat with our riches. 

From an ethical standpoint vs greed one, I'll throw an honorable mention to our troops, with the general consensus being, "Why the fuck did I go over there to be permanently mutilated and watch my friends die?".

I've noticed the majority of coverage I've seen has emphasized how many billions of dollars we wasted, and yes that is important, but if anything we should be thinking about the tens of thousands of soldiers who were scarred, mutilated and mentally broken from their experiences... and that to this day we don't give them even remotely close to the help they deserve.

(I realise that is nothing even remotely new, but maybe if it's said for the 100,000,000th time it will finally click in some politician's head. Doubtful, but...)
"A little science distances you from God, but a lot of science brings you nearer to Him." - Louis Pasteur

Hydra009

#21
Quote from: cnm411 on August 16, 2021, 07:09:36 PM
I feel so sorry for those that have already been marked for death after the takeover. 20 years of American support. There is never a good way to leave a country knowing it will fall. The Afghan population will suffer . I am so happy to be here in the USA .
Yeah, imagine living in an area where basic western norms like voting and women's rights and other hallmarks of modernity were practiced but always there was this looming threat against them from fanatical religious crazies armed to the teeth, advocatingly an almost comically regressive political agenda.  There have been clashes with them for years and years, mostly inconclusive.  Yet inch, by inch, your country gets taken over and transformed into some ridiculous religious backwater.  That must be really tough to go through.

Mike Cl

Quote from: Shiranu on August 16, 2021, 08:03:53 PM
From an ethical standpoint vs greed one, I'll throw an honorable mention to our troops, with the general consensus being, "Why the fuck did I go over there to be permanently mutilated and watch my friends die?".

I've noticed the majority of coverage I've seen has emphasized how many billions of dollars we wasted, and yes that is important, but if anything we should be thinking about the tens of thousands of soldiers who were scarred, mutilated and mentally broken from their experiences... and that to this day we don't give them even remotely close to the help they deserve.

(I realise that is nothing even remotely new, but maybe if it's said for the 100,000,000th time it will finally click in some politician's head. Doubtful, but...)
Shiranu, you are 100% correct.  The group that directly took it in the shorts were the troops.  I applaud each and every one.  Our vets get fucked up (physically and mentally and emotionally) on the battlefields and when they get home.  Our govt. simply does not support them. 

I almost hate to bring this up, but I am soooooooo tired of hearing that those troops were defending my freedoms.  No, they were about corporate work, not doing a single thing for my freedom.  And the number of mercenaries our govt has allowed over the last 50 years is very alarming.  As Ike suggested, the govt/industrial/military movement is to be feared.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Hydra009

Quote from: Shiranu on August 16, 2021, 08:03:53 PMFrom an ethical standpoint vs greed one, I'll throw an honorable mention to our troops, with the general consensus being, "Why the fuck did I go over there to be permanently mutilated and watch my friends die?".
The unfortunate truth:  Because that's what you signed up for.  Because politicians and arms manufacturers and the general public love military adventurism, albeit for different reasons.  You're not saving the world from tyranny or protecting democracy or any other such nonsense.  You're a pawn on a board, and pawns get sacrificed all the time and very few people give it a second thought.

SGOS

Quote from: Hydra009 on August 16, 2021, 11:20:54 PM
...The general public love military adventurism...
They do; They really do.  But then the fun wears off and the dim awareness of futility and expense ($ and lives) starts to dawn in the public awareness, and people start to ask, "What was the reason we got into this?  Weren't we supposed to kick ass and be done with it?"  We treat war like a Monopoly Game.  We don't ever finish the game.  We just keep playing until we get bored, and then we turn our attention to something else, often another war.  You know a different one that we can justify with a new variation of the same logical fallacy.

But you can't just fold up the game board and turn on the TV.  We first have to find out how to exit and save face.  That is the responsibility the current president, whose only real function in the chaos is to save face (and his own ass).  That Vietnam debacle from years ago, just wouldn't end, because every president had to save face.  If you are old enough, you may remember President Nixon's often used mantra, "We will have peace with dignity," which loosely translates into "We want to give up without admitting we lost."  And like the loss this time, people were dropping off the wings and landing gear of evacuation aircraft as we left the losers to await their execution by the Khmer Rouge.

Cassia

Then there are all those movies that show that we really did win after all. Chuck Norris heads on back and personally vaporizes all those Vietnamese regulars running a POW camp in the middle of a jungle. And Colonel Kurtz is such a bad ass, terrorizing those commies so bad that our own government has to go in and kill him. What a fucking joke.

SGOS

#26
Listening to NPR today, those interviewed (not government officials) are not as optimistic of a bloodless evacuation as President Biden.  They are not predicting a blood bath, but are VERY worried.  There are 100,000 Afghans that qualify as "in danger" to be evacuated, and many of those cannot be found or have already been "disappeared" during the night.  There is strong hope that a large US military contingent can stave off the Taliban until we get ourselves out.  The main fear is that the Taliban seldom follows up on it's "promises", and amnesty for those that helped the US will be history, once we are gone.  A kinder gentler Taliban?  Do they have that ability?  If the general Afghan population is knowledgeable about this, they don't appear to have any faith in the Taliban promises.  A Taliban spokesman may have promised amnesty, but the Taliban factions are not under a single leadership, and groups follow their own procedures. 

At full speed, NPR "experts" predict that we can evacuate 5000 people per day, but we are not there yet.  I have not heard much consensus between administration officials, and on the ground participants in the withdrawal.  And I will continue to worry until there is more agreed on confirmation.

Having said that, I agree with Biden that it is way past the time we should have left Afghanistan, and I hate to see the media now asking, "Should we have left?"  Because I think Biden is right about the move, but just botched the execution badly.  I guess he's at 50% on the issue by my calculations.

LoriPinkAngel

Quote from: Hydra009 on August 16, 2021, 11:20:54 PM
The unfortunate truth:  Because that's what you signed up for.  Because politicians and arms manufacturers and the general public love military adventurism, albeit for different reasons.  You're not saving the world from tyranny or protecting democracy or any other such nonsense.  You're a pawn on a board, and pawns get sacrificed all the time and very few people give it a second thought.

This is why I ended up in Iraq.  I was very opposed to the invasion of Kuwait but I took an oath when I joined the Army.  And they paid my student loan.

But when I was in Desert Storm.  I worked in Civil Affairs.  When the decision was made to withdraw from Iraq we began evacuating and relocating the refugees and those who assisted us weeks in advance.  Also the move was gradual.  A few battalions at a time not all at once.  I realize the conditions we left under were different than now.  If the Taliban had noticed exit actions they surely would have just began preparing to invade.  There is no good way to leave an area where they do not have the spirit of nationalism to fight for themselves.

drunkenshoe

#28
The 13th century BC Egypt or the 21st century USA. "The authority of a state over its people resides in its war powers."

It's ironic that the relation between war and modern Western society is like the relation between the pandemic and the people who don't believe in it, in a reversed, disturbing way.

You know, most people always complain that the modern medicine can't do this, can't do do that because 'they wouldn't' just for money for this and...insert some conspiracy theory here. But in fact, the main reason what makes a pandemic so unbelievable, and the conspiracy theories so believable is the fact that modern medicine has actually worked so good in the last 100 years. The idiot who would die of diabetes if born a hundred years ago wastes hours online to comment on how dangerous are the emergency vaccines produced in a pandemic.

Exactly like the most people in the Western societies who believe their culture; their way of living -religion...etc- is the answer for a proper, stable, progressive civilisation, while they live under those conditions because of the wars started-pursued and the general war powers of their countries, and it has been successful in the last 70 years.

Tens of thousands of Afghani men on foot, women and children by passports thousands a day fleeing from Taliban are marching to the last stop. Where is the last stop? Anywhere Europe starts. Anywhere civilisation begins. And Europe thinks these people will stop at this last stop, if they pay money to some slave merchants.

What has started as a climate crisis -when we had no idea what was a climate crisis- decades ago has turned into series of civil wars, wars between terrorist groups popping here and there spread to the the ME and the rest of the world. Because all we have been fed was that 'evil religious nutjobs' were fighting among each other for power. Without the climate crisis can Taliban or any other group could gain power like this, in the last few decades? I don't think Taliban caused more people to escape from their homes than water shortage. 'Shortage' lol. I mean, almost complete absence of clean water.

The last stop is the country where I live, the overwhelming majority of the people here think that they should have died in their country and should be dumped on sight anywhere possible as soon as they arrive. But the worst part is, there is a horrible political party in power to make the best of those masses for themselves. Those people are running away to reach some place where people in power will make voters and an unofficial sharia armies from them to create chaos to stay in power. The power they were about to lose. 

I have never been this disgusted by human culture before in my entire life. I mean what does it matter what I feel...but yea I'm going through something serious and while I'm not in some denial stage, I'm trying to pretend as if things are normal, and I keep telling myself 'What was gonna happen', you know? Because it's been like watching a train wreck. If I could go insane, the problem would be solved. Because you are insane, you don't care.
"science is not about building a body of known 'facts'. ıt is a method for asking awkward questions and subjecting them to a reality-check, thus avoiding the human tendency to believe whatever makes us feel good." - tp

Shiranu

So... this is a thing...

The planes flying out of Kabul were actually inflatable decoys, apparently.




Even though in the video you can literally see those parts, all someone did was blur them out (kinda obviously in places too)... but facts, lol amirite?
"A little science distances you from God, but a lot of science brings you nearer to Him." - Louis Pasteur