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Afghanistan Update: Islamic State claims responsibility for multiple bombings over last two days, including two Shia mosques

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b_m_b_m_b_m

b_m_b_m_b_m

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even aside from the lack of salience of foreign policy on domestic politics, if we somehow make it through this pullout with no American deaths you'll never hear of this again from the right because the terrible effects of this policy would fall on brown foreigners and the right can't even pretend to give a single shit about them (because apparently the foreign policy establishment hardly even does)

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vaxick

vaxick

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49 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

 

Gotta love the consistent hypocrisy. The GOP wanted this, they rallied around it, but now that a Democrat did what was popular in their party, it's easy for them to pretend they were against it to drum up outrage amongst their constituents.  

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Fizzzzle

Fizzzzle

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It's suffered "buffer-state-itis" for the last 200 years at least. That's Afghanistan's problem. Same as the romanians during basically the last millennium until very recently.

 

The Russians back one faction, the US and UK back another, no one would ever think to outright annex it, and the people get fucked. Welcome to the merry go round, you unfortunate schmucks.

 

I'm sure if the afghan people were left to their own devices without foreign intervention, they would eventually sort shit out.

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Jason

Jason

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5 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

Just to clarify, the US military has secured only the military portion of Kabul International Airport.  The civilian side is the free-for-all.

 

lol not even pretending to give a single solitary fuck about the Afghans

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brucoe

brucoe

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A huge part of the problem is that military personnel on the ground are having to make on the spot decisions in a chaotic environment where it's practically impossible to get a view of the bigger picture. Their decisions impact real time outcomes, which can often be ridiculous to second guess, which is exactly what is happening with media pundits comfortable in studios that are safe and located on the other side of the planet.

 

As a former officer who was required to make strategic decisions in a tactical environment, I completely understand how hard it is to ascertain exactly what is going on as events unfold all around you, and while I was lucky to make decisions that succeeded, I am completely aware of how easy it would have been for numbers of those decisions to have turned disastrous if the circumstances turned, as they tend to do in chaotic environments. I've been watching and listening to commentators on the news doing lots of Monday morning armchair quarterbacking as if they're convinced that if they were on the ground in Afghanistan, they would have done "the right thing". Having been on the ground in numerous situations, I can tell you without a doubt that way too many people make stupid, rash decisions because they're thinking in the now rather than taking in the much bigger picture (sometimes because it's not available to them, or the situations make it so that the bigger picture looks a lot different in person than it does on a white board.

 

What's interesting is that almost all of the news commentary keeps making the argument of "no one saw this coming" or "this is something we've never experienced before", but in reality this is exactly the environment we faced when pulling out of Vietnam decades ago, which is why I predicted exactly this happening when we pulled out of Afghanistan. Soldiers still do what soldiers do, and civilians under imminent siege do what civilians under imminent siege do. So many dissertations were written that explored how we could have achieved better outcomes when leaving Vietnam, yet we're back to processes we used in the 1970s because we keep thinking our past has no bearing on the present.

 

So, if we go to the old playbook of the 1970s, we're going to bolster our perimeter of the airport, sneak our way out of Afghanistan, probably carpet bomb a few locations when things turn even further south, and then we'll abandon our few surviving allies who worked with us in Afghanistan. And then we'll watch all sorts of news about how no one saw this coming on one side of the aisle and how it was inevitable on the other because of...reasons. In the end, we won't learn anything, and 40 years from now, we'll be doing the exact same thing in some other country like Sokovia or Wakanda.

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Commissar SFLUFAN

Commissar SFLUFAN

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On 8/10/2021 at 11:39 AM, Commissar SFLUFAN said:
 

China and Pakistan will recognize a Taliban government and that's all they really need.

 

 

Quote

A spokeswoman for China's foreign ministry told AFP news agency that Beijing welcomed the opportunity to build deeper ties with Afghanistan. "The Taliban have repeatedly expressed their hope to develop good relations with China, and that they look forward to China's participation in the reconstruction and development of Afghanistan... we welcome this," she said

 

Quote

 

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that Afghans have "broken the shackles of slavery" in a speech about cultural imperialism.

His comments criticising education in English in Pakistan came a day after the Taliban took control of the Afghan capital, Kabul, following days of rapid advances.

 

Pakistan was one of only three countries to recognise the Afghan Taliban Government in 1996, and is expected to make key decisions today at its national security committee meeting chaired by the prime minister and attended by senior military and intelligence agency officials.

 

Separately, Pakistan's major religious political parties Jamat-e-Islami and JUI-F congratulated the Afghan Taliban on their recent “success” and extended their full support and co-operation to the movement in Afghanistan. Some members of these religious groups also distributed sweets to celebrate the Taliban takeover.

 

 

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Commissar SFLUFAN

Commissar SFLUFAN

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Quote

 

A U.S. defense official says the head of Central Command has met face-to-face with senior Taliban leaders to urge their fighters not to interfere with the U.S. military’s evacuation operations at the Kabul airport in Afghanistan.

 

The official said that in the meeting on Sunday in Doha, Qatar, Gen. Frank McKenzie won Taliban agreement to establish a “deconfliction mechanism” — an arrangement by which evacuation operations at the airport can continue without interference by the new rulers of the country.

 

 

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CayceG

CayceG

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46 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

I may have some details incorrect, but I think I saw that right died trying to climb/hold onto a departing military plane

 

Yes. There's a video going around of 3 people clinging to the side of a C-17 as it takes off, and then falling to their deaths. 

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