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I think that’s OK until the Taliban decide to start attacking US troops.
They were able to have a small number because there wasn’t any actual fighting to do. If the Taliban had started attacking the numbers would have to be ramped up very quickly just to hold their positions.
Agreed, but they weren't attacking though, was there intel to say they were going to? Keeping the US in there, even in small numbers, is a big stick. The threat of the stick is always worse than the stick IMO.
Keeping the US in there, even in small numbers, is a big stick.
The Taliban were happy to let things quieten down until the foreign forces left only because there was a withdrawal agreement, not because they were afraid or defeated. If there was no withdrawal agreement, they would have gone back to fighting. It would have taken tens of thousands of troops just to maintain a military stalemate. The options were either large-scale combat or withdraw. A small-scale security presence was never a viable long-term solution.
https://twitter.com/MMazarr/status/1427459298586677252
Looks like the labour centrists just can't stop themselves being pro-war.
https://twitter.com/lisanandy/status/1427396882838528000?s=20
Interesting article this and note the quote from the Taliban in 2001. You have watches, we have time.
They knew the West would get bored eventually. 10 years, 20 years, 30 years - it did not matter to them. They were always going to come back and the West once again has failed to learn the lesson that, despite what we think, not all countries want Western style democracy forced upon them.
Interesting reading the replies above about the forces. I disagree and won't ever buy the reasoning. So there's little point in going over the ground. We'll agree to disagree.
My interest in this really at the moment really is what happens now.
A lot of focus will be on what about the refugees. Quite rightly, we should be taking as many as we can, we put these people in a terrible situation. So the airports in Afghanistan should be held and negotiations should start with the taliban about allowing safe passage for as many people as need to leave.
Unlikely that'll happen though eh...
They'll abandon the place when all the European & US nationals are out and when an acceptible amount of Afghans are out to satisfy PR demands are out and won't hang around much longer is my guess.
So from there the question is what is our responsibility next, because we've just left a big power vacuum in that country, I doubt the Taliban are actually capable of stepping in immediately and providing for the whole country, so in short order there is probably potential for various humanitarian crisis going forward.
My questions just now arise around that tbh, do we just completely abandon the country now, and leave it to the fate of teh Taliban and start compounding it with "sanctions" and utter nonsense like that. (aye Raab has already been touting them)
Far as I can see, we've now accepted Taliban rule, so would seem a bit off to get all high and mighty about it, and tbh I reckon it would be pretty callous to start compounding obvious potential issues going forward.
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I mean it's doesn't take a great leap of the imagination to see that an inexperienced government will more than likely compound matters too.
Another interesting article with regard to Opium production in Afghanistan
(I dont think opium is the cause of the failure, its much more complex than that, but it is interesting)
We need to educate druggies that their pleasure literally causes a world of pain.
Interesting reading the replies above about the forces. I disagree and won’t ever buy the reasoning. So there’s little point in going over the ground. We’ll agree to disagree.
Statements like this are an utter cop out. There's a lot of wishful thinking that if we just left a few troops there, things would be better, but there's zero evidence to support that view. If I really believed that having 10 000 or 20 000 foreign troops there for 20 or 30 years would be enough to pacify Afghanistan and turn it into a functioning democracy, I'd be all for it, even if it meant 100 deaths per year (soldiers are volunteers, getting shot at is part of the job). Problem is, all the evidence from the last 20 years is that it would take a huge troop presence and massive amounts of money just to keep a corrupt and ineffectual government from being overthrown, without actually making any progress. If you have any actual evidence to support your view, you should present it. Just wishing that the world was a nice place and saying, "We'll agree to disagree" might make you feel good about yourself, but it actually makes things worse, not better, because it puts pressure on politicians to keep throwing more soldiers at a war that will never be won.
We need to educate druggies that their pleasure literally causes a world of pain.
Growing opium is a lucrative business because it's illegal in wealthy countries. The War on Drugs has been an even more dismal failure than the Afghanistan mission.
Drugs won the War on Drugs and Terror won the War on Terror.
Maybe we should only fight wars against countries from now on.
Evidence stands at $2trillion dollars. How much did your average afghan see of that? Cleary very few if half the country are in food poverty...
Evidence stands at $2trillion dollars. How much did your average afghan see of that?
So what are you saying? Throw another $2 trillion at it?
If you want to throw $2trillion at the people, yes. If not, nah don't bother.
Growing opium is a lucrative business because it’s illegal in wealthy countries
If you don't do drugs ,there's no need to grow them and you are doing multiple scumbags out of a job.
zippykona
Full Member
If you don’t do drugs ,there’s no need to grow them and you are doing multiple scumbags out of a job.
I assumed your first post was a joke. You really think that telling addicts that drugs are bad will make the problem will go away?
If you don’t do drugs
I'm sure Just Say No is going to start working any day now.
Interesting times for China, the (admittedly rather small) part of China directly bordering Afghanistan is the Xinjiang where China has been suppressing Uygur(muslim) nationalism rather brutally to say the least.
Aye, I'm sure that hasn't gone unnoticed gwaelod.
The Taliban wouldn't dare, not even with the support of both ****stan and Iran, to mess with China. They have the largest standing army in the world and a direct border with which to use it. They also have an appalling record on human rights and a demonstrated willingness to curtail the right to worship...would you poke the Dragon?
Also, neither ****stan or Iran would want to irritate China. The whole reason why they want Afghanistan in Taliban hands is as a religious and political buffer to China. Religiously aligned to Pak/Iran and opposed to China.
What we really don’t know at the moment is what they are going to be like on human rights.
Their definition. Not as defined by the West. Take it or leave it. They have the upper hand in that region and probably indirectly has stronger influence over the world without people noticing.
Interesting times for China, the (admittedly rather small) part of China directly bordering Afghanistan is the Xinjiang where China has been suppressing Uygur(muslim) nationalism rather brutally to say the least.
China knows that hence one of the condition is no intervention in Xinjiang . It might be wishful thinking but Chinese is just being "polite" because they want the mineral deposits. If China deploys heavy handed tactics or able to control the region totally, guess what, US/West will support the Talib (to sabotage the Chinese progress) with their human rights blah blah blah ... Then we are back to square one.
Also, neither ****stan or Iran would want to irritate China. The whole reason why they want Afghanistan in Taliban hands is as a religious and political buffer to China. religiously aligned to Pak/Iran and opposed to China.
They need China & Russia for technology not because they are afraid of the Chinese. They just see the Chinese as convenient ally for now.
China knows that hence one of the condition is no intervention in Xinjiang . It might be wishful thinking but Chinese is just being “polite” because they want the mineral deposits. If China deploys heavy handed tactics or able to control the region totally, guess what, US/West will support the Talib (to sabotage the Chinese progress) with their human rights blah blah blah … Then we are back to square one.
I really don't think the West will.
1. There would be NO public support and thus no political will to get involved again in Afghanistan.
2. Unlike 2001 when ****stan were an ally in the region, this is simply not the case in 2021, so where's the jumping off point?
3. We haven't even called China to account for what it's currently doing to its own people - do you really expect anything other than "we strongly condemn the actions of...." without anything to back it up?
If China wants to invade Afghanistan, they like America and the Soviets before would be faced with over the border support from Afghanistan's neighbouring states and reluctance from the rest of the word to get involved.
China would have the best chance of actually succeeding in quieting Afghanistan, but would likely achieve this via some form of ethnic cleansing/re-education after a massive ground invasion.
China already has it hands dirty
JANUARY 27, 2021, 3:00 PM
The arrest in Kabul on Dec. 10 of an alleged Chinese espionage ring has prompted Afghanistan to recalibrate its relationship with China, its resource-hungry giant neighbor to the east. Afghan government officials said that the country has terminated oil and gas contracts with China and is seeking to renegotiate the terms of a massive mining concession that has been nearly dormant since it was inked by China more than a decade ago.
The Afghan officials said they busted an alleged Chinese espionage ring operating in Kabul to hunt down Uighur Muslims with the help of the Haqqani network, a terrorist outfit linked to the Taliban. A senior security official said the ring had been operating for six or seven years. Afghan authorities have cooperated with China in the past on the detention and deportation of Uighurs suspected of terrorist activity, but officials said they were shocked at China’s duplicity.
“Is this the behavior of a friend?” said one. Another source said the presence of the Chinese cell—widely reported by Indian news outlets, though notably not by Afghan or international media—was revealed to Afghan authorities by Indian intelligence.
The arrest has prompted Kabul, which is seeking to put its economy in order as it faces an uncertain future with the unfolding peace process, to use the incident as “leverage” against Beijing, one official said, especially in terms of renegotiating multimillion-dollar mining concessions.
From here: https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/01/27/afghanistan-china-spy-ring-mcc-mining-negotiations-mineral-wealth
China is a the world largest consumer of copper and Afghanistan has one of the largest unexploited deposits. China will wait for things to settle down and then negotiate fresh concessions with the Taliban.
EDIT
There is absolutely no way China is going to pursue a military campaign in Afghanistan. Their interest is purely economic. Why would they waste blood and treasure fighting the Taliban when they can just buy what they need?
They need China & Russia for technology not because they are afraid of the Chinese army.
Do they...? What technology do they need that they can't buy elsewhere? There are currently NO sanctions against Afghanistan.
Of course they have no fear of the Chinese army, they haven't done anything to antagonise it...yet. What I was saying is that they SHOULD and would be wise to fear the Chinese army if they were intent on any form of policy toward Muslims in China, but they wont be.
China is a the world largest consumer of copper and Afghanistan has one of the largest unexploited deposits. China will wait for things to settle down and then negotiate fresh concessions with the Taliban.
And the Taliban will agree. They have no use for copper and the cash/good it will return will be well received.
If China wants to invade Afghanistan, they like America and the Soviets before would be faced with over the border support from Afghanistan’s neighbouring states and reluctance from the rest of the word to get involved.
That's the problem because the rest of the world will not want to see China gaining an upper hand in whatever (dictating terms of trades etc) ... That's why the problem in that region is not easy to solve but not impossible.
There is absolutely no way China is going to pursue a military campaign in Afghanistan. Their interest is purely economic. Why would they waste blood and treasure fighting the Taliban when they can just buy what they need?
Yes, as long as the Talib do not intervene in Xinjiang. Talib know that and for the moment is just consolidating their position.
We ( the west) could have saved Afghanistan if we had the will. We managed to with Yugoslavia
As well as the military - and that needs to be overwhelming with boots on the ground and many deaths there needs to be in parallel a huge effort to set up functioning governments, educate people, get industry growing etc etc. 20 years of that should be enough.
the problem is the west only did the military bit. NO proper efforts to build a properly functioning government, nothing for industry just attempting to destroy the one decent source of income many rural poor have - poppies - with nothing to replace it
Just install a few corrupt tribal leaders as puppets and ignore everything else and then pretend thats a decent civil society set up
If the general population was better off for the intervention then you stand a chance. they were not - they were worse off.
Taliban press conference coming up on al jazeera soon.
Do you reckon they'll have employed a local goat-herder to come up with some catchy 3 word slogans?
Well Daffy the Soviet Union had the worlds largest standing Army when they wandered into Afghanistan...
No TV, No rules still didn't win.
We ( the west) could have saved Afghanistan if we had the will. We managed to with Yugoslavia
As well as the military – and that needs to be overwhelming with boots on the ground and many deaths there needs to be in parallel a huge effort to set up functioning governments, educate people, get industry growing etc etc. 20 years of that should be enough.
Agree with this in principle but disagree with the suggested timescales. Afghanistan is completely different to Yugoslavia. Firstly you're dealing with a population where the men's population have been decimated through war and the remaining women are mostly uneducated and illiterate and most have led a life of oppression. We've only seen one generation of kids educated during the time that we've been in there and that is not enough people who have only known the benefits of relative freedom and some form of democracy. Most still have mostly knows only the severe oppression of a dogmatic religious theocracy which is why they're willing to cling onto aircraft in desperation to escape. Its would take several generations and many decades to build up the institutions, root out the corruption and give people the realisation that there is another way than the autocratic theocracy that was before. 20years is but a blink of the eye. I look at how fast the last 20 years has gone in my lifetime. There isn't a cat in hells chance of building up a civilised country with functioning institutions and economy that is filtering benefits down to all from nothing. At least Yugoslavia had some level of functioning society before so people knew how things worked and the structured needed to make the country function. Afghanistan has never really had that for any length of time so starting from a completely different base.
It may have been the initial objective to do the least, but they should have re-evaluated the objectives and put a more permanent support structure in place to work over 50 years or more to give the country enough time to get enough generations of educated people through and to have experienced a level of free society so they wold be capable running the country by themselves. They could have done this under the banner of the UN. Militarily we had got to a stalemate situation...we were holding the Taliban at bay and reducing troop numbers whilst maintaining the stalemate, no need to eliminate them...just continue to hold them back and over time they would reduce in numbers and their threat lessened. But now the complete opposite effect has occurred and we've emboldened them and others like them. This will come back and bite us sooner or later. It's a disaster.
Even those Middle Eastern countries we consider to be quite advanced, like Saudi Arabia, Dubai, UAE and Qatar still rely heavily on foreign ex-pats to help run their country, companies and institutions despite a concerted effort to replace them with locals who've been groomed all their lives, educated to the highest level money no object, to take up these positions. Every time they try they often end up having to bring back the ex-pats in some capacity to help. And that's after 75 years of constant support and assistance from the west. You're looking at a similar if not greater effort in Afghanistan. But there clearly isn't the political will to even try.
We managed to with Yugoslavia
Compared to Afghanistan, Yugoslavia was a highly productive, well educated and heavily industrialised nation with well established government and civil structures.
"Saving it" involved it breaking into six and a half separate countries and about 8 years of unbroken warfare.
The other main difference is there was genuine political will to intervene and broker a lasting peace because it was in Europe and on the EU's doorstep.
Tjagain, please have a look at the structure of the NATO Resolute Support mission including the role of CSTC-A, Executive Advisory Group, USACE and the specialists (military and civilian) from each country.
A huge amount of effort and resource went into stabilisation and attempting to establish a sustainable Afghan led solution. This ranged from ministerial level to supporting DABS (Afghan National Grid) and many other areas. To say otherwise is incorrect.
I'm reminded of the fable about the wind and the sun.
TLDR: It's easier to let someone decide to do something rather than force.
Any future will have to be diplomatic, the problem with is certain countries ambitions on poorer nations (I include the UK on that)
Wobbliscot / richmtb - I agree that I would be optimistic - its a whole level tougher than Yugoslavia
Olii
Efforts were made and people worked hard - but without the political will to commit enough resources and time to do it properly and supporting the wrong people as governments. ten times the resources might have made a difference.
They were always going to come back and the West once again has failed to learn the lesson that, despite what we think, not all countries want Western style democracy forced upon them.
I don't think that is true - we did not spend enough time there with a plan as others have stated & if someone in my village came round wit guns & was going to cut off my finger should I have voted then I would give it a miss too.
We ( the west) could have saved Afghanistan if we had the will. We managed to with Yugoslavia
We (the West) did not save Yugoslavia, it dismembered it. We armed and trained the Catholic nationalist regime in Croatia to the point where it fought off Serbian proxies and the Yugoslav National Army. We allowed Croats and Serbs to dismember Bosnia - the "level killing field". We intervened in Kosovo to prevent a genocide - and allowed the KLA to ethnically cleanse Kosovo of Serbs.
It also helped that Yugoslavia was a pretty small, developed, literate, industrialised country with a state (and successor states) that functioned throughout. The KLA had a shadow government in waiting that served a highly homogenous population.
The interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo were certainly better than nothing - but hardly saving Yugoslavia.
The Taliban wouldn’t dare, not even with the support of both ****stan and Iran, to mess with China.
There is a persistent and mistaken belief on this thread that Iran benefits from the Taliban being in power in Afghanistan. It doesn't.
I’m told that the situation in Scotland is even more desperate.
I absolutely despise that strain of self-pitying Scottish nationalist that claims to be living under the jackboot of a foreign regime.
politecameraaction
Free Member
I’m told that the situation in Scotland is even more desperate.I absolutely despise that strain of self-pitying Scottish nationalist that claims to be living under the jackboot of a foreign regime.
just as well it barely exists.
I wonder if that tweet is even real TBH. Or at least from a real person's account not just trolling.
There is a persistent and mistaken belief on this thread that Iran benefits from the Taliban being in power in Afghanistan. It doesn’t.
The Taliban benefit from pretty much any intervention/interference, though.
This is comedy gold
We ( the west) could have saved Afghanistan if we had the will. We managed to with Yugoslavia
Functioning state on the edge of Europe compared to a country that is a basket case, narco state, about as far as you could get from a modern functioning country. Surrounded by countries not aligned with the west. But yes just like Yugoslavia.....
As well as the military – and that needs to be overwhelming with boots on the ground and many deaths there needs to be in parallel a huge effort to set up functioning governments, educate people, get industry growing etc etc. 20 years of that should be enough.
And when they are being killed in their hundreds what then? if the military couldn't protect itself how do you create a safe space for all these civilians? Who is going to do these jobs, where will they live, how do you protect them 24/7 for 20 years
the problem is the west only did the military bit. NO proper efforts to build a properly functioning government, nothing for industry just attempting to destroy the one decent source of income many rural poor have – poppies – with nothing to replace it
Because there was never a peace to create the functioning honest civil service required, educate to create the workers, build to create the factories, to create the new society
Just install a few corrupt tribal leaders as puppets and ignore everything else and then pretend thats a decent civil society set up
If the general population was better off for the intervention then you stand a chance. they were not – they were worse off.
The sad reality is they weren't worse off during the intervention as bad as it was, and lots think they are going to have a real drop in their standard of living with the Taliban in charge.
Considering that we (the West) forcibly changed the regime I don't think we can lecture the Taliban about the ethics of a military takeover.
I think that they have backwards and despotic attitudes to women and education but we're going to have no choice but to deal with them on an international level to maintain any kind of uneasy peace.
Possibly making aid and other forms of support for Afghanistan in general contingent on not murdering children or selling girls into slavery would be a start. ****stan could also be manipulated into applying pressure on similar aid withdrawal threats.
There's no point refusing to deal with them "because they're nasty"; China is openly committing genocide of the Uygher Muslims and the West isn't particularly bothered about that provided that small children still assemble their iPhones fast enough.
provided that small children still assemble their iPhones fast enough
To be fair, iPhones are (or were) made by Foxconn, and when I was at their factory (a few years ago) there were no small children in evidence. They didn't let me on the iphone line (as you would expect) but the lines I did see were clean and safe as far as I could tell.
Do they…? What technology do they need that they can’t buy elsewhere? There are currently NO sanctions against Afghanistan.
That will depend on the Talib leadership or ideology as saviour to world. Any technology that can be used to their advantage they will deploy no matter what they are. They might look "primitive" but they are not and very well coordinated.
Yugoslavia wasn't saved; it doesn't exist.
Tito held it together and kept a a lid on the simmering ethnic tensions; as soon as he died mladic and others led and stoked ethnic cleansing.
Intervention was too little and too late.
Moving back to Afghanistan I see the gov have announced we will accept upto 20k refugees over the next few years with upto 5k in first year.
It's better than nothing.
Could and should do so much more and in short time period.
Moving back to Afghanistan I see the gov have announced we will accept upto 20k refugees over the next few years with upto 5k in first year.
Should only accept those that work with the West. Certainly not those able bodied men that leave their women folks and children behind.
Agree with the sentiment chewie but would be difficult to police that.
The Taliban when last in power practically stamped out opium production IIRC.
80% of the Afghan economy is foreign aid as I posted earlier.There is no way any Afghan government can improve life for the population without it in the foreseeable future-maybe the Saudis will step in? The ex Afghan army and perhaps much of the civil and public sector will now not get paid so they'll be no money circulating through the economy.
What are all those guys walking round with Kalashnikovs gonna do now and what can they contribute to the economy? The warlords will need to dip into their deep pockets previously filled by US dollars to keep funding them .And let's face it they won't allow women to work or get fully educated either.It is/will be an economic basket case
What Afghanistan really needs to keep it's people safe and out of poverty is an abundance of vital natural resources like in the Democratic Republic of Congo or Nigeria or Venezuela....
just as well it barely exists.
TBF they are 100 times more prominent online than they are in real life
****stan could also be manipulated into applying pressure on similar aid withdrawal threats.
The "get on a short leash or else" policy in ****stan has been going pretty poorly for the last 20 years.
Tito held it together and kept a a lid on the simmering ethnic tensions; as soon as he died mladic and others led and stoked ethnic cleansing.
I think you must mean Milosevic rather than Mladic: Mladic was no-one when Tito died in 1980, and if he hadn't by chance been sent to Srpska Krajina in 1991 by the Yugoslav Popular Army then I doubt we would have ever heard his name.
FWIW I don't think that Tito was integral to keeping Yugoslavia together and I don't think Milosevic either ended for the end of Yugoslavis nor was he that instrumental in its collapse. It's all a bit too "great man of history" to me, and there was a decade between Tito's death and that of (socialist) Yugoslavia.
By the time Slovenia declared independence there had been 1.5 years of anti-socialist nationalism across Central and Eastern Europe, and YU's economic failures and structural readjustment were biting hard.
Yugoslavia wasn’t saved; it doesn’t exist.
It didn't exist before 1918 either.
What Afghanistan really needs to keep it’s people safe and out of poverty is an abundance of vital natural resources like in the Democratic Republic of Congo or Nigeria or Venezuela….
There are apparently substantial untapped mineral resources which the Chinese are quite keen to purchase.
How are the neighbouring Stans feeling about it? Are they aligned with Moscow or Mecca ? Can we expect a domino theory all the way to the Russian border?
I have no idea but apparently chains and Russia are the only embassy staying in Kabul.
What are all those guys walking round with Kalashnikovs gonna do now and what can they contribute to the economy?
They will have funds but not a lot to sustain a nation until the minerals are extracted. Then I suspect "salary" will only be paid to those that are part of the "movement". Ordinary people just have to find their own ways to survive.
There are apparently substantial untapped mineral resources which the Chinese are quite keen to purchase.
Thousands of years ago China has already connected all the rivers from that region to to Shanghai. The question is when the mineral extraction starts there will be inevitable pollution to the rivers and hopefully not the main river that also lead to downstream SE Asia countries.
I have no idea but apparently chains and Russia are the only embassy staying in Kabul.
They are the only two embassies left in Kabul.
What are all those guys walking round with Kalashnikovs gonna do now and what can they contribute to the economy?
They are pushing to get NGOs working again (in the North anyway) . Their liason there is someone who used to work for an NGO.
Stand back everyone. The house of commons has been recalled so that they can all talk about Afghanistan. They'll have this mess sorted in no time.
Three cheers for 'Global Britain'! Huzzah!!
FFS this shitty Tory government, "we're a big hearted nation" oh but we're capping the refugees we'll take this year at 5000. I'm guessing they're hoping there won't be another 5000 still alive the following year so they can say job done 🙁
Looking at all the media coming from the Taliban, You've got to say they've got us all sussed haven't they?
Act cool, don't do anything stupid, have your picture taken with a smiling bareheaded woman, tell everyone that it's fine, nothing to see here...then the world's media will get fixated on something else, and Afghanistan will be ignored...
What Afghanistan really needs to keep it’s people safe and out of poverty is an abundance of vital natural resources like in the Democratic Republic of Congo or Nigeria or Venezuela….
Huge cobalt reserves that China has had a concession to mine for a decade now. (not much done as yet; apparently a lot of the "engineers" spent time hunting Uighurs who had fled to Afghanistan.)
What Afghanistan really needs to keep it’s people safe and out of poverty is an abundance of vital natural resources like in the Democratic Republic of Congo or Nigeria or Venezuela….
There are apparently substantial untapped mineral resources which the Chinese are quite keen to purchase.
I think you've missed the original irony.
Countries where most of their resources are dug out of the ground make for great dictatorships not great democracies with wealthy, safe inhabitants
Unbelievable. listening to Johnson in parliament he is genuinely trying to spin this like it was all planned, carefully executed and we can all sit back and be proud of what we've 'achieved' in Afghanistan.
Either they really do exist in an alternative universe or they're just gaslighting everyone again
Yup.They need the aid money until the mineral extraction starts and poppy production is back on track. If they can wait 20 years till the US troops go they can bluff out a few months of being the liberal talicrats.
They're probably quite keen for intellectuals, educated women ex gov personnel to bugger off quietly too, saves on knife sharpening and awkward questions.
Looking at all the media coming from the Taliban, You’ve got to say they’ve got us all sussed haven’t they?
Act cool, don’t do anything stupid, have your picture taken with a smiling bareheaded woman, tell everyone that it’s fine, nothing to see here…then the world’s media will get fixated on something else, and Afghanistan will be ignored…
This. They’ll (unfortunately) be leaks of the odd stoning or female oppression which will be denied by the Taliban leaders in global media for a few months until the next Coronavirus wave or a UK fall out with Biden takes over the headlines.
Huge cobalt reserves that China has had a concession to mine for a decade now. (not much done as yet; apparently a lot of the “engineers” spent time hunting Uighurs who had fled to Afghanistan.)
What people (not you) forget is that China doesn't have a magic wand for this stuff, in Afghanistan or in Africa. Chinese state-owned and -directed mining companies and contractors are great at chucking the money around and signing deals, but their ability to actually build the things is limited by the same things local and "western" companies are: long term insecurity, lack of power and water, lack of skilled workers, unclear tax and legal regimes, lack of transport infrastructure, difficulty of accessing finance and technology, lack of supply chain... Building a mine is a fantastically expensive process and you need to believe you're going to be in place for 20 or more years.
Considering that we (the West) forcibly changed the regime I don’t think we can lecture the Taliban about the ethics of a military takeover.
I think that they have backwards and despotic attitudes to women and education but we’re going to have no choice but to deal with them on an international level to maintain any kind of uneasy peace.
Hmmm, only a few days ago Afghan women and girls were able to work, go to school, all under the impression that the "uneasy peace" that allowed them these rights was now established and supported by "The West"... Lets be clear the Taliban will be oppressing Women... It's perhaps the cruelest thing 'We' could do to allow a generation to grow up with the expectation of rights, education and fairer treatment than their Mothers and to then just walk away and let the whole thing collapse?
Possibly making aid and other forms of support for Afghanistan in general contingent on not murdering children or selling girls into slavery would be a start. ****stan could also be manipulated into applying pressure on similar aid withdrawal threats.
Won't work, they hid in ****ing caves for two decades FFS if they could be bought it would have happened by now. They'll happily tell us to shove our aid up our arses while they get back to their old ways. They don't need support anyway they can finance themselves just fine by supplying smack to our own deprived areas...
There’s no point refusing to deal with them “because they’re nasty”; China is openly committing genocide of the Uygher Muslims and the West isn’t particularly bothered about that provided that small children still assemble their iPhones fast enough.
The main difference is the West are largely powerless to intervene in China on the various human rights issues, where as we were already having an effect in Afghanistan. It wasn't a perfect situation, but there were benefits being seen by the population on the ground, that is what Biden has thrown away.
Corruption in power was to be expected, the only way to build a functioning state was to stay longer, much longer and raise the prospects, level of education and desire for change in a generation to displace the old rulers. The job wasn't even halfway done...
But yep the harm you so glibly described that will now come to the Female population of Afghanistan sits squarely on Biden's shoulders, he knew what would happen.
Won’t work, they hid in **** caves for two decades FFS
Did they? Is this going back to the pre-invasion stories about Bin Laden's secret cave supervillain hideout?
They didn't hide in caves for two decades, they lived like kings in ****stan
Lets be clear the Taliban will be oppressing Women… It’s perhaps the cruelest thing ‘We’ could do to allow a generation to grow up with the expectation of rights, education and fairer treatment than their Mothers and to then just walk away and let the whole thing collapse?
Don't get me wrong; I completely agree with you. Personally I think that just pulling the plug on Afghanistan is an appalling thing to do and as you say, has pretty much wiped out any chance of rights and education for women and girls. But walking away *and* turning our backs on the mess that we're largely responsible for is absolutely despicable.
But that won't change - Biden and Johnson have washed their hands of the whole thing and no one's going to be going back. Apparently China is quite keen on muscling in for the natural resources but I can't even guess at the consequences there.
They didn’t hide in caves for two decades, they lived like kings in ****stan
The Taliban has controlled huge swathes of Afghanistan since 2001. They never went away.
£900k a week
Thats what the last 20years had cost the uk.
Plus the cost in human lives ruined
All for nothing in the end. The taliban wont have changed, and now i feel it will be worse for the majority of the country as they seek to dominate and embed themselves into power
I dont know thr answer, but legging it was wrong
Either they really do exist in an alternative universe or they’re just gaslighting everyone again
Oceania was at war with Eastasia: Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.
They don’t need support anyway they can finance themselves just fine by supplying smack to our own deprived areas
How is that "war on drugs" going?
But that won’t change – Biden and Johnson have washed their hands of the whole thing and no one’s going to be going back. Apparently China is quite keen on muscling in for the natural resources but I can’t even guess at the consequences there.
I guess the problem I have is the speed with which people have gone from being "appalled" to acceptance and then justification by comparison with China and speculation on the future economic arrangements and how "We" now go about doing business with an oppressive regime we've essentially just reinstated.
Afghanistan is going to vanish from public awareness in the next couple of cycles when the next new shiny thing distracts the news organisations and that'll be it...
I also seriously doubt Boris or Raab were consulted... nor that they really care.
Biden and Johnson have washed their hands of the whole thing
That faint tinkling sound you can hear in the background is the pennies dropping in the commons as the intellectually incurious backbench Tory MPs realising that electing as their leader a 2nd rate gossip columnist who's hand-picked a cabinet of village idiots might not have been their finest hour after all.
Yip. Even the hardest of thinking on the Tory benches today realised that Johnsons monstrous sociopathic narcissism is actually so severe that he genuinely couldn't even give a flying **** about 'our brave boys' killed and maimed in Afghanistan, for apparently nothing, never mind the population of the country. His volcanic self-regard doesn't even allow him to countenance the idea that this isn't a great look.
It was obvious from their body language and general demeanour today, with both him and Raab, that there main concern is that they've had to grudgingly interrupt their holidays.
that there main concern is that they’ve had to grudgingly interrupt their holidays.
Bit unfair. I am sure Johnson is also concerned where he can go for a daytrip if there is another vote on Heathrows third runway.
The Chinese ambassador was quoted saying that the transfer of power to the Taliban was less bloody than the transfer of power in Washington DC
this is worth a listen
https://play.acast.com/s/dansnowshistoryhit/afghanistan-historyrepeatingitself-
That faint tinkling sound you can hear in the background is the pennies dropping in the commons as the intellectually incurious backbench Tory MPs...
...if they didn't realise it before now they're not going to see it today either