Afghanistan Thread: 16 years Later, America is still there

[thetruepandagod]

a way for china to expand their territory and farm more organs without the US interfering, sounds lit

[thetruepandagod]

soon rmt will be spamming لعنت په خپله مور

[Lucavi]

Come to think of it I would probably root for the Taliban over China.

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I would as well. One is vastly more powerful than the other, even if the latter are as resilient as cockroaches and will never fully be stamped out.

[Byrthnoth]

I hope that deep and pervasive racism will keep China from attempting global political domination. They want all these poor nations to be deeply indebted puppets but they absolutely do not seem to want to have to govern any more non-Han Chinese people.

I think that any global domination plan from them will involve genocide.

[Tymon]

https://twitter.com/wyatt_privilege/...72067417702401

[Koul]

I hope that deep and pervasive racism will keep China from attempting global political domination. They want all these poor nations to be deeply indebted puppets but they absolutely do not seem to want to have to govern any more non-Han Chinese people.

I think that any global domination plan from them will involve genocide.

Yeah, but that's the game. Places like Africa will "owe" them and will cave to whatever pressure they do end up putting on them. If you can get people and countries to pull John Cena's, you don't need to govern them

[thetruepandagod]

so how long did it take for Afghanistan to fall, 9 days?

[Andalusian girls]

a shameful day in the long shameful history of American foreign policy. our presence there was largely as a stabilizing force, and had been for years as combat operations ended long ago and there had not been a combat casualty in 18 months. and as a stabilizing force we were successful, in the time following the end of American combat operations the Taliban had not taken and held a single provincial capital. when they managed to break government lines the U.S. organized and air-supported Afghani-fought efforts to retake said capitals, with an unfailing success rate. in the two months after we left without setting up a functional transition or negotiating a peace treaty they gobbled up 16 before the government itself collapsed utterly and Kabul fell without a fight.

withdrawing saved no American lives, condemned forty million Afghanis to fundamentalist tyranny, showed regional allies yet again Americans cannot be relied upon in the long-term (to compound on our betrayal and abandonment of the Kurds), stranded thousands of American supporters to the mercy of our enemies because of simple organizational incompetence re withdrawal plans, and hastened the formation of who knows what vile Islamist concoction to be borne out of such fertile environs a la al-Qaeda and ISIS. an unnecessary and self-inflicted wound, and a catastrophic foreign policy failure of the Biden administration.

[Cail]

so how long did it take for Afghanistan to fall, 9 days?

6 I believe

[Boyiee]

Just think of all the movies that will be made!

[Athas]

What was the Afghan government's will in this, for the US to leave? Even as the President left the country?

[Qalbert]

[Andalusian girls]

so how long did it take for Afghanistan to fall, 9 days?

about three months. our final troop withdrawal began in May and almost entirely over by July 2nd when we left Bagram (which effectively ended our air support for the Afghani military as all strikes from then on sortied out of Qatar or the Persian Gulf, and amounted to only a handful a day). only a token force left to defend the embassy etc. their territorial advances date back as early as March of this year, but really picked up steam from May 1st onwards when they began their largest offensive to date to coincide precisely with our withdrawals.

by the time casual observers like you lot started paying attention the heaviest fighting was over. once provincial capitals started falling the question was how long it would take the country to fall (not long!) not how whether or not it would.

What was the Afghan government's will in this, for the US to leave? Even as the President left the country?

President Ghani was a corrupt, incompetent coward overseeing a corrupt, incompetent government but he wanted a U.S. presence in country for as long as we were willing. by the beginning of the month he was blaming our hasty withdrawal for the security situation.

[6souls]

People trying to flee the country have been rushing the planes.

https://twitter.com/bsarwary/status/1427002551858311173

https://twitter.com/ahmermkhan/statu...212098560?s=20
https://twitter.com/BBCWorld/status/...938251265?s=20

[Byrthnoth]

a shameful day in the long shameful history of American foreign policy. our presence there was largely as a stabilizing force, and had been for years as combat operations ended long ago and there had not been a combat casualty in 18 months. and as a stabilizing force we were successful, in the time following the end of American combat operations the Taliban had not taken and held a single provincial capital. when they managed to break government lines the U.S. organized and air-supported Afghani-fought efforts to retake said capitals, with an unfailing success rate. in the two months after we left without setting up a functional transition or negotiating a peace treaty they gobbled up 16 before the government itself collapsed utterly and Kabul fell without a fight.

withdrawing saved no American lives, condemned forty million Afghanis to fundamentalist tyranny, showed regional allies yet again Americans cannot be relied upon in the long-term (to compound on our betrayal and abandonment of the Kurds), stranded thousands of American supporters to the mercy of our enemies because of simple organizational incompetence re withdrawal plans, and hastened the formation of who knows what vile Islamist concoction to be borne out of such fertile environs a la al-Qaeda and ISIS. an unnecessary and self-inflicted wound, and a catastrophic foreign policy failure of the Biden administration.

IMO there are a lot of countries whose populace would be better off if it was a US colony where we stabilize a socially liberal puppet government for limited blood and treasure. Unless "indefinite colony" was the final status of Afghanistan, though, the withdrawal was an eventuality necessitated by our decision to invade their country in the first place.

Also, we hadn't had fatalities for 18 months because Trump made a "don't shoot us and we won't shoot you btw we're leaving" deal with the Taliban. That represents substantial operational discipline/coordination on the part of the Taliban, honestly beyond what I thought they were capable of. If we were still there in a year there's no guarantee they wouldn't go back to their tomfoolery.

[Salodin]

Dude ended the afghan war and is giving us infrastructure, he's racking up win after win baby

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[Zealot]

This is going to be playing nonstop against every Dem candidate for the next 3 years.

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[Salodin]

Prior to actually pulling out, im confident if I asked any local American whether we should stay in Afghanistan or not, they'd err on the side of bring the boys home, stop spending money, etc. I just don't see people caring about this as much as other people want them to. It's not pretty, but it's what most Americans I can think of wanted.

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[Zealot]

Maybe China's more prominent and grotesque violations against Muslims along with regional proximity will create a more attractive target than more of our major cities.

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[Lucavi]

This is going to be playing nonstop against every Dem candidate for the next 3 years.

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Why? Republicans hate Brown people. Biden just owned a lot of them, and they were the enemy to boot! Nobody actually thinks the U.S. considered any Afghan an actual friend or ally. We were there to make money and flex our giant military boner. Look how we fucked the Kurds once their "help" was no longer required.

Red states should be thanking him.