Remember when the Afghan people had a phenomenally well equipped and well trained army, and then they just gave up inside a week because things were “hard”?
Like if you don’t give a shit…no one is going to give a harder shit about you than you will.
Yeah man, I feel sorry for the people who will have to live under the fucking Taliban, but we’ve spent way too much time, money and blood on Afghanistan already.
We shouldn’t have been there in the first place, but for them to just instantly roll over to the Taliban… Just compare it to Ukraine, where they are fighting for their lives and freedom against a much more powerful enemy.
It’s long past time for Afghanistan to deal with their own problems.
Yeah, like what do they expect? Another foreign military intervention?
That will not happen again for decades at best. Longer if all the developed nations really learn from America’s mistake this time.
Sure, we can sanction them, but any aid just gets intercepted, so that’s out. It sucks so many Afghans are suffering under the system, but it’s the system they let happen. Did they want to be an occupied country forever? Was this a fight America was expected to wage indefinitely? Twenty years was already too long.
They should have trained the Afghani women who have an actual reason to fight against the Taliban, instead of the lazy men who instantly capitulated.
I never thought about this at the time. It was all just shocking and frankly pathetic. Didn’t realize the men had the least at stake, while women had the most, but were not allowed to join the fight. Many men probably didn’t care or even resented the “changes”. (Women’s rights. Sounds familiar. MAGA?) Unwilling to put up any kind of fight for that kind of future for their partners and daughters.
I wonder what most Afghan women think of these men now. And if joining the military was ever a realistic possibility, and could have changed the result.
Kipling has some lines about what happens when you give Afghan women knives
Tbf Afghanistan defeated a much stronger Russia back in the 80s.
With less help than Ukraine gets.
Edit: so the downvotes are just ignorant of history or are they trying to rewrite it to suit their own agendas? Regardless, not a good sign for the future.
Tbf Afghanistan defeated a much stronger Russia back in the 80s.
Those were pretty much the Taliban though. No one doubts the will to fight of the Taliban.
It’s not the graveyard of empires because it’s farmland.
Lol 😂😆
it’s like; imagine if more than half your military 🪖 had to leave? Then your president ran away…
the guys who occupied and couldn’t bring a full democracy and hold a full democracy ( because they’re a flawed democracy themselves) just all up and left. And the folks who are there are outnumbered / have barely any experience compared to taliban in combat. knowing that they’d be out of supplies or maintenance quickly/ ETC…
Why 😮 wouldn’t they just give up when knowing that they’d be totally lit?
smh
I saw videos at the time where some random Taliban guy would drive into a town on a moped with an AK. They would surrender millions of dollars of military equipment to him without even an argument. Sometimes there were two guys sharing the moped and the gun was on one guy’s back not even out.
Well, that sounds like propaganda videos where they had already surrendered and the taliban wanted to make it seem like all it would take was one person to make people volunteer…
But, you’re also talking about all the equipment that was expensive but neither side had the knowledge or equipment to maintain, right?
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First of all, none of these women were in that army so painting this as the consequences of their actions seems a bit dishonest.
Second, I remember when they were alleged to have a phenomenal army but it turned out most of that was on paper not real.
The facade crumbled.
none of these women were in that army so painting this as the consequences of their actions seems a bit dishonest.
What makes you think that these women who choose their culture as dignity would oppose their rulers which they gained power from it?
I’m sorry but I don’t understand this question, could you maybe rephrase it or explain your reasoning? I don’t think these women have “gained power” it seems like the opposite.
First woman quoted in the article (a refugee):
“I had a beautiful house and a job that I loved. I lived with my family, I had friends and I was pregnant. But I lost my baby, I fled my country without my husband and now I live here alone. I’m safe, but do you think I’m happy, do you think I can sleep at night knowing my family’s situation in Afghanistan?”
The Afghan army seemed totally incompetent. Examples:
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The ANA never had very good moral, just read the experiences of US troops with them.
Remember when the Afghan people had a phenomenally well equipped and well trained army, and then they just gave up inside a week because things were “hard”?
You didn’t read the Afghanistan Papers did you?
You gonna link or
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/documents-database/
There is also a book by the same name. I also recommend the documentary Bitter Lake by Adam Curtis.
I’d have more sympathy for the people of Afghanistan if they had actually fought back against the Taliban.
People say that America lost in Afghanistan, but we were basically the only thing propping up democracy. The people themselves made no effort.
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Nah, they didn’t make an effort. The Taliban was welcomed when they rolled in. The US military expected there would be resistance, but the Taliban had pretty much captured everything before we were even gone.
Yeah agree. Like what does the world need to do for your country internal problem.
Did the USA invade for altruistic reasons? I highly doubt so
At some point, the people of Afghanistan should be able to take control of their own country. How can a vast majority of the people sit there and let a tiny percentage dictate the lives and rules for everyone? Kick the Taliban out of your country.
The problem is that the Taliban have popular support. The media don’t want to report it, but this is a society where public life has always been under the purview of men, it’s a largely Muslim country, very rural, and the alternative power centers there are chock full of child molesters and corrupt individuals. The Taliban, despite their strong ideological position, has a lot going for them. They’re not taking bribes to sell out their values. They’re capable of maintaining stability. Even if people disagree with some or other things about them, theyre better than the alternatives. Fact is, they’re in power there because they’re the only organization capable of holding power there.
it’s a largely Muslim country
Pretty much all the Abrahmic religions do this shit when they’re in power…
I wouldn’t have pointed it out, because it’s kind of like saying the sky is blue. But from the rest of your comment it seems like you legitimately think it’s just Muslims., And not that entire religious family
It’s not just Muslims that are fundamentalist extremists. But of every major religion, Islam has the highest rate of that kind of extremism. There are plenty of Christian countries which are socially progressive and endorse modern sensibilities. No Muslim countries are.
I have a dear friend of mine who is a religious minority in Egypt (she’s a Copt). The paranoia that she and her parents have when interacting with Muslims is saddening, because of how it’s been justified. Her church has lost several members to religious violence, and she’s lived through a suicide bombing which happened at that church and targeted Christians.
I’m not saying there aren’t Christian extremists. There are. But the Muslim extremist problem is an order of magnitude larger within that faith.
Judge individual Muslims for their own beliefs. But there is no Christian version of the Taliban state or ISIS. And Islam is to blame for the actions of its extremist adherents writ large. It desperately needs a religious reformation, but instead, the Saudis are still chopping the heads off of people who offend their religious police.
Feels like a geopolitical issue more than a religious issue.
It’s not just Muslims that are fundamentalist extremists. But of every major religion, Islam has the highest rate of that kind of extremism
Not really…
There’s over 1.7 billion Muslims in the world, that’s a lot of people.
But there is no Christian version of the Taliban state or ISIS
So basically you’re saying we can just ignore all the countries where they’re trying to do it, just ignore them till their in power?
Nah, I don’t see how that helps anyone except Christian extremists.
I’m not saying we should ignore anything. I’m saying we shouldn’t ignore the extremely high rate of extremism within Islam.
But if you want to prove me wrong, point to a single Muslim country where apostasy and homosexuality are socially accepted
I’m saying we shouldn’t ignore the extremely high rate of extremism within Islam.
And I’m saying you don’t seem to understand how large a number 1.7 billion is…
But if you want to prove me wrong, point to a single Muslim country where apostasy and homosexuality are socially accepted
Lebanon
Can you name a country where the Christian majority do that?
They’re openly against LGBT because “the Bible says so” and they claim they have to follow it.
The Bible also says if anyone even starts questioning if they should still be Christian, then they need to be executed to prevent the spread.
So they might not say it, but they’re all about it, or just lying hypocrites who are making the personal choice to harass people who are LGBT.
Lebanon isn’t a Muslim nation. It has a significant Muslim plurality. And homosexuality is de facto illegal there AND extremely socially unacceptable, with 85% of Lebanese people saying it should be “rejected by society.”
Give me a Muslim nation where homosexuality and apostasy are both legal and socially acceptable.
Since you edited your post after I replied like a dirty little liar, here’s a second reply.
Can I name a Christian majority country where being gay is generally acceptable, being an apostate is generally acceptable, and both are legal? Yeah. Canada, the US, Australia, Spain, the UK, France, Germany, etc, etc, etc.
are you lobotomized?
I said Muslim once. The rest of my comment is about Afghanistan.
They really don’t. Israel is a Jewish country and women are allowed to go to school or university.
There’s countless Christian countries and that shit happens nowhere.
You’re confusing a country where a majority of citizens are Christian with countries who are lead by Christian leaders…
I can’t think of a single equivalent than the Vatican, and if you’re acting like that’s a great government…
We probably dont agree on what makes a government good.
The statement was that this happens with all abrahamitic religions in power.
You’re confusing a country where a majority of citizens are Christian with countries who are lead by Christian leaders…
I’m not, it’s just the closest to the stated premise.
I can’t think of a single equivalent than the Vatican, and if you’re acting like that’s a great government…
Same. But then I doesn’t make sense to make that statement in the first place about the other religions.
Because there’s zero evidence to back it up.
It reminds me of Iraq right before 9/11 happened… ye they had a piece of shit dictator Sadam; absolutely. But they wasn’t being bombed to smithereens. And in the mess of war in Iraq the ISIS were able to fuck shit up n grow , even growing into syria, Afghanistan n maybe other countries…
No shit. The second we left they fell apart. No resistance.
As far as I’m concerned we should only help those that help themselves, like Ukraine is doing. Afghanistan has always been Taliban simps. Those women know where their men sleep and have knives ffs.
Yeah, we should only help white people right?
This is a great message for the world, we’ll help you, as long as you’re white
Sorry I must have missed that in the above posts. When did anyone mention race?
They hail from the instance of the sensitive and easily triggered
blahaj
Man that place really is terrible. They claim to support safety and inclusivity, but appear perfectly happy to berate, attack, and bully others, as long as their opinions are the bad opinions.
They are liberals with paper thin corporate-friendly politics.
Bro, you went so far that you actually became racist yourself. You literally said: “Do help themselves” == “white” “Don’t help themselves” == “not white”
You are pushing the american stereotype for “lazy immigrants”
Thats kinda cringe tbh.
“Talking about the dynamics of racism is racist.” I’ll let MLK know.
I don’t know if he edited it but he said nothing about race. It was about fighting back
Found the racist.
What do you think the solution is? Indefinite US occupation? At that point wouldn’t you want America to just take them over?
Are you implying that non-whites are incapable of helping themselves?
Has nothing to do with race. Ukraine didn’t bend over for Russia instead fucking their shit up day 1. Their president didn’t flee instead stayed and mocked the occupiers by showing off him and his crew were still in Kyiv.
Afghanistan? We trained them for twenty years to stand up for themselves as a independent democratic nation and threw it away the second we left. What a fucking waste. They didn’t even have fucking OIL to take. Nor was Osama there, or ever was.
If Afghanistan actually gave a fuck and tried but failed my opinion would be quite different. I’d be all “remember our fallen Afghan allies” o7 n shit.
So yeah take your standard operation trolling elsewhere. I’ve seen this exact same talking point before it’s not original, think for yourself for a goddamn change*
If you think that’s the timeline of events for Afghan forces, then you don’t know shit. We never trained them to use the equipment we spent trillions of dollars on. The manuals didn’t even have an Arabic translation.
We apparently spent billions doing it…
Or just shuffled money around. Either way an attempt was made.
And somehow the person calling out racism is always dubbed the racist by those who refuse to acknowledge their own privilege, let alone their blatant bias. Fucking typical.
The problem is that “the people of Afghanistan” don’t see themselves as a united people. Regional and tribal ties are far, far stronger in the region than any true sense of national identity outside of “let’s cooperate just long enough to kick these fucking foreigners out”. Immediately after that’s accomplished, the region regresses into very old-school power politics and warlord fiefdoms. This has happened twice now in the space of 50 years. The truly galling point, though, is that US leaders and officials should have known this… but there were effectively zero coherent plans to handle that aspect of the occupation.
How can a vast majority of the people sit there and let a tiny percentage dictate the lives and rules for everyone?
Is that a serious question?
The vast majority of the world lives like that…
Even in first world countries.
I’m American, and a very very tiny percentage of other Americans hold the vast amount of wealth and use it to buy the majority of both parties off so that literally no matter who wins any election, they’re going to be someone that puts corporate profits over the average American.
Where do you live that’s truly led by the majority?
Fun fact, the dynamic where the majority class controls the “rules” is called communism. Maybe they want us to give it a go here in the US?
A lot of the Afghanistan problem is that they have no national identity, they’re a collection of tribes and warlords, so the only united group in the country is the Taliban, and the Taliban has a lot of help from Pakistan and other regional powers.
What in the racist fuck is this generalization?
Same way stuff happens in the USA… inequality n disparity keeps growing… The ruling / wealthy 🤑 class keeps consolidating wealth n we all just go on with our lives… Don’t we?
I dunno, there’s been quite a few large protest movements in recent decades because of this, and currently there’s a large and growing labor movement.
Quickly forget? Didn’t US spend like 20 years there?
Yeah, but we aren’t reporting at the level we used to.
But to be fair, we still ignored Afghanistan a lot during the occupation.
Why should we? Honestly, if I was American, I would be salty about this as hell. So much money spent and then they give up the moment US leaves? Apparently they got exactly what they wanted. Sure, not everyone likes it, but don’t blame the world “forgetting” about you, this shit is entirely of their doing.
As it was reported by the Onion in the late 2000’s: The majority of Americans support emotionally withdrawing from Afghanistan.
Were you ready when your dad left to get milk and never came back?
There was an attempt at nation building and it didn’t go well. Afghanistan and the Middle East is a culturally complicated place, it’s mostly tribes and smaller villages with a lot of history. It’s hard to point fingers at the US for leaving when a decent chunk of the country either didn’t care, or didn’t want them there anymore.
Even if the US intentions were good (and they were not great, basically being revenge for 9/11), who wants to be ruled by a foreign invader?
If some alien superpower invaded the USA tomorrow, gave them free healthcare, 40 days holiday a year from work, legalised abortion again and mountains of affordable housing in the places people actually wanted to live, they’d still fight back. Even if it meant things going back to how they were before.
I would not fight that. I already think that we are ruled by outsiders (rich, geriatric boomers).
Most boomers are just who the oligarchs have pointed angry millennials at.
They’ll watch you fight for crumbs while they scoff cake. This is Bumfights for them.
I mean, literally any other country in the world is welcome to step in and fix it. Imagine the bragging rights at the next UN summit. “We fixed Afghanistan!” No? No takers? Alright.
As cynical as a take as that is, yeah national building hard espically out there. People will resist change, you have very little infrastructure to work with, and a poor little esucation population
The second part sounds a bit like a copout. They have done military interventions in a lot of different regions. The US has ransacked a growing number of countries just to get rid of a small amount of “baddies”.
You don’t get to destroy shit and leave. If you play world police, start doing the whole job, not parts of it. And I’m totally fine with US starting less interventions because they don’t wanna clean up after themselves. Probably a net positive given the history in the middle east.
I agree with you, but also… they absolutely did not want us there. America isn’t trying to colonize.
The people in power are corrupt, the world around. Religious states, doubly so.
We can’t even control the zealots rising up in our own country.
I think at this point it’s best that the administration just got out because it appeared it was never going to get better. Just my perspective at reading about the attempts to build administration and actually get local citizens to build and manage their own sustainable government structures in place and it never taking off. Just read anything about the army’s attempts to create a competent Afghani security force.
We never should have intervened in the first place, and should have gotten out as soon as we could.
The thing is, we weren’t there for a decade just destroying things. A few years, absolutely. But the rest of the time was spent trying to clean up and rebuild. Maybe the US just isn’t good at that, but what else can we do at this point? Returning would just be meddling again and earn ire.
We spent twenty years fighting their battles for them, $2.3 trillion spent helping build up their infrastructure, supplying them with weapons and training, and tried to help them build a legitimate democratic government. After all our efforts, expenses, and American lives lost, it took the Taliban just ten days to retake the entire country. Freedom can’t be given it has to be won, and frankly they weren’t willing to fight for theirs… and I say this as a disabled combat veteran who lost dozens of friends to this conflict either in combat or to their own hands once they returned home. What a waste.
To be fair Russia, the UK and the US also took turns totaly destroying the country for the better part of the last century. We can’t give them their freedom back on a plate but we shouldn’t forget that we’re also the ones that took it away. That money and those lives weren’t some kind of gift they were an attempt to undo the collective damage we’ve done. Well the American/British money and lives, pretty sure Russia didn’t give a crap.
You can go back to Alexander the Great. Mountainous regions have always been notoriously hard to control with other regions like the Caucasus and the Balkans as others examples. They tend to be fragmented and loosely connected.
The Soviets had their go at nationbuilding. Their puppet state survived eight years after they withdrew as well, which is a fair bit longer than the ten days we managed.
you are forgetting the years before that spent funding the talibans… only reason for this mess
I agree, the hard truth is it’s on them. The people of Afghanistan collectively lacked the will to fight for their freedom. It’s a stark contrast with places like Ukraine.
We built schools and got girls into the schools. The first thing the Taliban did was close all of those schools.
I’m not sure what people want, exactly. 20 years of occupation wasn’t enough to change their culture even a little bit. Do they want permanent American occupation? That’s clearly untenable for many reasons. I don’t want America to be the world police, and I don’t want them invading countries on moral grounds.
Any aid given to Afghanistan immediately ends up in the hands of the Taliban now.
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No, the Spanish Republicans definitely put up a real fight. If the Afghan Army had the same mettle as the Republican Army of Spain, then the Taliban would have been kicked back to Pakistan because of massive materiel superiority.
100% . The dude you responded to is just wrong. Franco started the Civil War in 1936, but it went until 1939. He had a lot of the army plus the backing of the Nazis. The Spanish Republicans had… Picasso and Ernest Hemingway.
The painting “Guernica” is about Nazis bombing a small town. If you have to kill a horse and some children with a bomber, you aren’t going to be winning any time soon.
Might as well annex Afghanistan and make them a state of the Union, then some changes could happen.
When externals were (unsuccesfully) trying to change something in the country, it was a total bust. I read in these comments that intentions were not pure from America, and I can imagine that. I also saw interviews with US military personal after they came back from Afghanistan, who seemed to genuinely want to help, but had to deal with a lot of corruption, low education, internal theft and child abuse (Bachi Bazi). Now no one is helping, and even though I’d like for the local population to live free lives, I don’t even know how one would start to help. The Taliban will just hide and guerilla it’s way back after occupation has dissapated. It seems like a real life Kobayashi Maru situation. No winners, only losers here :(
It reminds me, I read about veterans who went to volunteer and fight for Ukraine because they wanted to help, and they felt like they hadn’t in Afghanistan.
You aren’t forgotten. US and allies accepted the decision that was made within a week of us leaving. The country, as a whole, collectively chose the easy route of Taliban rule. That decision has consequences.
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Yeah, I mean, we were over there for well over a decade trying to fix that shit and the country as a whole just did not want to change, so we gave up and left. It was a giant waste for everyone involved.
trying to fix
😂😂👆
A giant waste for everyone
😂😂😂😂😂😂👆👆👆 Except the military money machine
You didn’t go to fix shit. You went because you wanted revenge. You stayed because a lot of people made money.
Everybody told you back them you can’t fix Afghanistan’s issues by force. You just killed a lot of Afghanis for nothing.
Then you went to Iraq.
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I don’t really get the stance of “you wanted revenge, bloodthirsty revenge murica”. Did you forget that innocent lives were taken, unasked?
What the fuck would YOU do? Sit there and twiddle your thumbs all like “oh…3,000 people, never forget. sniff”.
That is revenge. You think it is justified revenge. Perhaps it was though history did not start on 11/09/2001. It certainly is not “we were over there for well over a decade trying to fix that shit” as the guy I replied too said.
You also kind of forgot about the guy that actually arranged the attack for a few years while many more people died than in Afghanistan and Iraq than in WTC, most of them having nothing to do with the attacks.
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That still though, doesn’t mean that those lives lost in WTC didn’t matter. That’s what you’re making it sound like. “DUUHHH THE CIVILIANS LOST IN AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ COMBINED OUTWEIGH THE BODY COUNT OF THE WTC TRAGEDY SO UHHH THAT MEAN THEIR LIVES MATTER MORE!” The whole damn war was a shitshow, again nothing new. But don’t go around pretending that there wasn’t a trigger somewhere for why shit happened as you’ve just demonstrated. You’re ignorant.
All lives matter the same. Therefore tens of thousands of lives matter more than a few thousand.
Of course you clearly believe American lives matter more. You clearly believe the war in Afghanistan was justified. I am neither ignorant nor barking at the wrong tree. I am barking at another racist American.
You also kind of forgot about the guy that actually arranged the attack for a few years while many more people died than in Afghanistan and Iraq than in WTC, most of them having nothing to do with the attacks.
You were completely right until this point. It was absolutely for revenge, and the Bush Administration preyed on that desire to mislead the US into an awful war where even more innocent people lost their lives.
But there’s no need to minimize the lives lost on 9/11. We can grieve for both. Arguing about which matters more because more people died takes away from the more important point – a tragedy was used to manipulate people into supporting another tragedy.
The feeling there was…
- The gov didn’t care about anyone outside of Kabul.
- They knew the US wouldn’t be there forever and the ANA had shitty moral. The Taliban however would be there when the US left and people didn’t want to be targeted for revenge killings, etc.
20-year boondoggle, you know… The easy route…
Many people including Americans are suffering and have been forgotten because of what happened over there. I guarantee there are many that wish they had done things differently and just minded their own business. Patriotism is a powerful con.
Not to be a dick but if they don’t like it they could do something about it themselves. Hoping that “the world will do something” rarely has good results.
Yeah haven’t they been at war or occupied for like 200 years? The withdrawal was a clusterfuck but it was never not going to be one. Idk what the rest of the world can do at this point. I read China wants to tap into those sweet lithium mines. Let them give it a shot I guess?
Honestly, I’d love to see them try. Mostly because it’d be hilarious for them to be inconvenienced, but still
Gotta love all the 'muricans trying to defend their exceptionalism and blaming Afghanistan and its people for the country’s woes.
USA never cared about Afghanistan or its people. In the 1980s, it, along with Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and United Kingdom, helped fund the muhajideen fighting against the Soviet Union (Soviet-Afghan war). As soon as the war was over and the soviets retreated, the funding dried up.
After 9/11, USA went into a bloodlust, invading Afghanistan because they (Taliban) wanted proof that Osama bin Laden was involved with the terrorist attack first. bin Laden fled to Pakistan, but the USA didn’t invade them, nor threatened to. Instead, USA just kept their boots on foreign soil because, hey, free real state and cheap poppy, amirite?
Also, since at least 2010, it’s been publicly known that Pakistan has been helping the Taliban in fighting for Afghanistan. Yet, there were no sanctions, no tough talks, no threats, nothing, against Pakistan.
After 9/11, USA went into a bloodlust, invading Afghanistan because they (Taliban) wanted proof that Osama bin Laden was involved with the terrorist attack first. bin Laden fled to Pakistan, but the USA didn’t invade them, nor threatened to. Instead, USA just kept their boots on foreign soil because, hey, free real state and cheap poppy, amirite?
Just to add to your point.
What do you think should happen going forward? How should the US address this? How should your country, and the rest of the UN address this?
Considering that some tribes still remembered and resented the British from their colonial abuses, you can bet your ass Afghanis won’t forgive the USA anytime soon. If any president actually had the balls and humility to admit the USA fucked up big time, committed an international crime and several war crimes, and was actually willing to work together with the current government, under certain conditions, like ensuring women regain some of their lost rights, to repair some of those wrongs, that would go a long way. It’s not going to happen, and my guess is mainly because many other countries would start to pester the USA to admit wrongdoings against them, too.
It’s very easy to look at the past and just lay blame
The irony is that USA apparently didn’t learn anything from invading Vietnam, or watching the soviets invade Afghanistan 20 years prior.
As for what I think, apparently Pakistan and Iran will step in and work as “good neighbors”. Women will still be treated like slaves and neither neighbor will bat an eye, which is horrible. If the Taliban is still being so heavily helped by the Pakistani government, then Afghanistan will just be their puppet. In that case, pressuring Pakistan to pressure the Taliban into being less radical would be more likely to yield results with lower resistance. Considering that the USA never hinted at strong arming Pakistan, despite having several bases on their territory AND knowing of their ties with Taliban, then that is unlikely to happen in the future. The “why” for that is what I’d love to know.
It’s also rather weird when you look at Iran-Pakistan relations, which seem to be very good, despite one being a USA bogeyman and the other being an ally.
Afghanistan is full of a bunch of small tribes. They all hate each other and refuse to work together. Just go Google “dancing boy parties Afghanistan” you will quickly lose any sympathy for the people and culture. The US had to turn a blind eye to pedophile parties, which are a time honored tradition, in order to keep the peace.
The forces the US trained and equipped were basically the dregs of society that would be in prison in most countries. They would steal and sell shit to the Taliban. Claiming to have driven many miles on patrol to syphon and sell the gas was common practice. They sold the guns and trucks. There is no helping this country. It’s going to be a shit show until they get past their tribal hatred and work together.
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Fuck me for wanting one as a trans person, amirite?
What do they expect? Permanent US occupation? If they really expect that, then they’re going to need to make themselves a US territory or deal with themselves.
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Ok, they have our empathy and interest. How does that translate into meaningful physical action?
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Thoughts and prayers won’t make the Taliban go away lol
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What is yours? How would you have supported them without actually helping the Taliban?
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I never said that. But it’s clearly not yours, so please elaborate on what yours is.
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Did they expect the USA to invade in the first place?
Yeah, that’s America’s whole thing
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The organization ended up fracturing, and one of those factions went on to become a terrorist organization. Not all of them though.
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Uh, wrong.
We only invade brown people and commies.
Germany was brown commies?
It’s not really an invasion when they start it.
It’s karma.
Nobody forgot. Your friends and family accepted it.
Get out.
Pretty sure its extremely difficult to get out of Afghanistan, especially if you’re a woman. In fact I don’t think you can unless you’re accompanied by a man. I get what you’re saying but “getting out” is immensely dangerous
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Yep, and yet it’s literally the only solution besides literal revolution steeped in death.
Sometimes there is literally no easy answer. It doesn’t make the answer any less true.
Maybe this is the best we can do at this point – NGOs to negotiate safe passage for any Afghan to safely leave if they want to, and the Taliban do nothing to stop them. The UN as a whole can distribute refugees in a way that every country has equal burden.
Damn, a lot of “Fuck Afghanistan, hoo rah America is great” kinda vibes in here :-/ I left Reddit to get away from the constant USA Defaultsm nonsense…
Yes, let’s ignore the most important issue - people are suffering and as decent humans we have a duty to them, when we can instead use it as an excuse to point out how much better Americans are at being a country, etc etc :-(
My impression of reddit was the opposite. Lots of people who have never set foot outside of their town saying America was the worst place on earth.
It seems reddit exists to spread controversy…
It seems people will do whatever mental gymnastics they want to be correct and have their experience be the only true experience. You don’t need to blame social media for that one.
Username checks out (in a way)?
Y’all read waay too much into unames lol
Honestly fuck that? USA, it’s intentions mixed as they were, at least tried to help - and that’s a country that already had experience in influencing growth and change in other countries. I can’t really see other options for them.
Yeah, they are in a bad place but please let’s not forget that they actually worked to be in that place. So screw that, my heart goes to them but they’re lost case for now, until they are ready to fight for themselves.
we have a duty to them
So you mean reoccupy them right? Because that seems like the only option in order to force the local bad actors out. Or if you mean foreign aid, then you’re directly funding the Taliban and all that money will be just embezzled and wasted by them.
How are we supposed to help them out now?
Maybe give them back the 4 billion dollars we seized from them when we pulled out.
Giving the taliban 4 billion dollars is definitely going to improve the living situation
Holy shit, right? Is lemmy populated by children?
“Hey let’s give the Taliban 4 billion USD. That will surely fix the country”
Absolute insanity. I feel like I’m in the bizzaro world.
The taliban may not have taken control if the puppet government we established there had any funds to pay their employees.
Yes. And we shouldn’t give the Taliban 4 billion dollars.
Thing is, you can find the most trustworthy politican in Afghanistan, dump a truckload of 4 billion at his doorstep…
…and then the next day, the Taliban knocks on his door with a gang armed with AK-47s, and they announce “Hello! I heard you wished to make a $4bil donation to the Taliban’s women-beating fund!” What’s he going to do in retaliation?
Hence why re-establishment projects keep the money on the part of the project (in this case, the US military) until they have places to spend that money (the infrastructure). Course, we can’t do that now.
How can most people help and as a follow up how can we help them and not the Taliban
I left Reddit to get away from the constant USA Defaultsm nonsense…
This is possibly the most delusional take in the entire thread. If you thought that reddit, where people take every opportunity to shit on America somehow has constant “USA Defaultism”. You have to be a Stalin worshipping commie to even begin thinking that.
