Afghanistan (Again)

[lizkat]

I couldn’t agree more - well written and thank you.

Trump‘s decision to negotiate with the Taliban and exclude the official government was not only consistent with his destruction of American diplomacy, but led directly to the situation today.

Hence the haste with which the GOP withdrew that Trump-praiseful page about his US-Taliban talks on their website. Aside from the disrespect to the Afghan government shown by Trump in starting to negotiate directly with the Taliban, it was naive to expect the Taliban to uphold for long their side of a lot of the details in that agreement, e.g., that they would permit the CIA to maintain a presence in "Taliban-held" areas. Ludicrous.

Beyond ludicrous, actually. What case officer in right mind would take that guarantee seriously anyway in a contested political situation abroad. The only thing that that detail in the agreement could possibly have translated to was that yet more pallets of cash would land along with the agency officers...​

But never mind that now.... in taking that website page down, the GOP hopes Americans won't remember that Trump is who gave the Taliban an officially American-backed leg up to the retaking of Afghanistan by the Taliban. Makes it easier to bash Biden for whatever goes wrong as we leave, 20 years after declaring "war on terror" (and having opened a bazaar beyond the wildest dreams of plenty of Afghans having no strong allegiance to anything in particular past getting in hand the means for keeping food on a family's table).

The realization of that dream (trucks, equipment, weapons, cash money for loyalty) and certainly the dreams of women and children end as a looming nightmare of domestic terror now, while Afghans sort out all over again whose offer is more worth another temporary and local allegiance... within provinces, or with foreign participation in forming yet again a "national" government.

There was never going to be an easy way out of Afghanistan. The Republicans trashing Biden now are hypocrites. I'm not saying Democrats haven't bashed Trump for launching our departure. We're a country long focused on "so much winning" in the halls of politics, and we don't have a vocabulary for sharing either victory or losses any more.

Anyway it strikes me as pathetic that the Republicans and Democrats alike are looking to make political hay off blaming each other for how the military effort is concluding. They were in it together for 20 years in both Congress and the White House, or we'd have left sooner, and we're only leaving now because --same as with the American war in Vietnam-- the political will of the American people that we leave is finally and unmistakably stronger than the will of the movers and shakers in DC to cover their asses and keep pouring blood and treasure into an unmanageable cause.

Maybe it was always a hopeless cause. It's not like anything we did to punish Afghans for having sheltered terrorists could resurrect the three thousand Americans who died in the September 11 attacks. Exacting revenge can't do that. Nothing can do that, including efforts to rebuild Afghanistan after we punished it for having sheltered terrorists. I do find it surprising that we could not foresee Afghan menfolk flipping quickly to the Taliban, easily shifting alliance as an ingrained behavior in a culture of deep corruption. The Taliban had money from the opium trade, after all, and the Afghan soldiers had only the announcement that the US would be leaving.

We must have known this power shift could happen quickly, since we have counted on that behavior ourselves to obtain alliances of convenience in northern Iraq and in Syria as well. It's one thing to leave, and another to ignore the still prevailing culture as one makes ready to depart. Not sure there was ever going to be a smooth disentanglement for Afghanistan from the inflow of billions of US dollars that underlay a tenuous central government's grip on power.​

Only Afghan women will eventually be able to say whether 20 years of our presence among them will have translated to long term added value in the overall Afghan culture. There are some who say Afghanistan's sense of itself can never revert to how it was in 2001 and that improvements have sprung largely from women's broader participation in education, marketplace and workforce including government. Great. All the country has to do now is manage to put a spine in their menfolk as the Taliban once again attempt to establish formally the Islamic State of Afghanistan.

 

[Huntn]

It's sad and also infuriating. I get that Biden inherited this mess but we're leaving all of those poor people to die at the hands of monsters over a hasty withdrawal that could have been planned and executed much better than this.

Maybe if they had actually planned for a rapid collapse?

 

[Herdfan]

Only Afghan women will eventually be able to say whether 20 years of our presence among them will have translated to long term added value in the overall Afghan culture. There are some who say Afghanistan's sense of itself can never revert to how it was in 2001 and that improvements have sprung largely from women's broader participation in education, marketplace and workforce including government. Great. All the country has to do now is manage to put a spine in their menfolk as the Taliban once again attempt to establish formally the Islamic State of Afghanistan.

Sadly probably not. Reports are the Taliban has already closed schools and businesses to women.

There is a pic of a female reporter covering the story. Yesterday she was wearing western clothes, today she is in full Islamic garb.

This will not be good for women.

 

[Huntn]

Ah well. This is where things get a bit more interesting.

I remembered reading stuff about this quite a long time ago, so I had to try and find something from that era just to confirm my memory was correct



View attachment 8186

U.S. Identifies Vast Mineral Riches in Afghanistan (Published 2010)

The nearly $1 trillion in untapped deposits are enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, officials said.

www.nytimes.com

Afghanistan's resources could make it the richest mining region on

Afghanistan, often dismissed in the West as an impoverished and failed state, is sitting on $1 trillion of untapped minerals, according to new calculations from surveys conducted jointly by the Pentagon and the US Geological Survey.

www.independent.co.uk

I reckon that lithium is super tasty, especially in the context of the ever increasing needs for it (electric cars etc)

I wonder if any of those riches have been harvested? I suppose China or Russia will now cash in.

 

[Huntn]

Sadly probably not. Reports are the Taliban has already closed schools and businesses to women.

There is a pic of a female reporter covering the story. Yesterday she was wearing western clothes, today she is in full Islamic garb.

This will not be good for women.

I assume some will flee. How tough it must be to be oppressed in this manner.

 

[lizkat]

Sadly probably not. Reports are the Taliban has already closed schools and businesses to women.

There is a pic of a female reporter covering the story. Yesterday she was wearing western clothes, today she is in full Islamic garb.

This will not be good for women.

No of course not in the short term. It's hard to know right now what the longer term will look like. The men in some of the Afghan rural provinces are no more fond of the Taliban than they ever were of Russian or Americans...

 

[Huntn]

No of course not in the short term. It's hard to know right now what the longer term will look like. The men in some of the Afghan rural provinces are no more fond of the Taliban than they ever were of Russian or Americans...

The Taliban is now the bear In Afghanistan for the populace to decide if they can live with. The thing is, it never went away has always been operating in the shadows biding it’s time and appears to have the momentum.

 

[lizkat]

I wonder if any of those riches have been harvested? I suppose China or Russia will now cash in.

Well that's been part of China's interest in extending its Belt and Road initiative into Pakistan and Tajikistan. And, northeastern Afghanistan itself does have a narrow east-pointing finger (running below Tajikistan and above Pakistan) that directly abuts a part of China's Xinjiang province.

The problem for any private or sovereign state investor in Afghanistan, regarding building of infrastructure for exploiting and transporting mineral resources --past the substantial challenges of terrain-- has always been lack of long term political stability of the host country. Trump kept hammering on Gary Cohn about why don't we just round up companies to start taking out the Afghanistan minerals? and Cohn and Ross both kept telling him a) there are no roads and b) building roads or pipelines when there's also no government is not the stuff of a dream portfolio.

China's Belt and Road projects have driven up the debt load in most of the countries where they've commenced, and it's possible some of the more severely underdeveloped countries will end up having to make concessions to China either in natural resources, other exportable goods or winking at human rights issues in trade or labor exchanges with China in order to see those projects completed. This is not likely accidental on China's part.

On the other hand, China has found itself overextended on some of the projects, due to the economic effects of covid but also possibly due to underestimating the geographic challenges. I shouldn't think Tajikistan or Pakistan exempt from the latter.

And Afghanistan, well, China's basically just placemarking it now the same as anyone else with commercial interests including Russia and the USA. The Taliban's control of its own forces is dubious and its long term political prospects remain to be seen.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

But even the more liberal media is absolutely hammering him over this.

They’re hammering him because all major news media, left or right, is pro-war and pro-occupation 24/7/365. It’s the only thing they agree on. Even when Trump announced withdrawals it was probably the one time during his entire presidency that right-wing media wasn’t unilaterally applauding him. Even a few Republican politicians briefly grew a pair in opposition.

 

[Renzatic]

Due to this, Biden's approval ratings have just slipped below 50% for the first time. Wonder if this clusterfuck is going to be what defines his presidency.

 

[lizkat]

Due to this, Biden's approval ratings have just slipped below 50% for the first time. Wonder if this clusterfuck is going to be what defines his presidency.

No, because a vast majority of Americans wanted to get out.

We also wanted some kind of feelgood fairytale ending along the way. That's also how most of us are...

 

[Eric]

Due to this, Biden's approval ratings have just slipped below 50% for the first time. Wonder if this clusterfuck is going to be what defines his presidency.

Just watched his conference and he's sticking to it, I know there are those here who disagree and I get that but IMO it was a complete shit show that could've been handled better. Everyone is far more focused on getting out than actually formulating a proper withdrawal.

Anyone who thinks those people deserve what's going to happen at the hands of the Taliban have little empathy, we expect that from Trump supporters but the rest of us should be better than this.

 

[Deleted member 215]

^I've been pretty staunchly pro-withdrawal but I don't think that the Afghan people deserve this. I'll admit that I wasn't really expecting much better than this (and certainly didn't think there'd be a "fairytale ending"), but seeing it play out leads me to believe that the withdrawal process could've begun earlier, been more gradual, and been more effective in getting people other than American citizens out. The way it has gone was essentially a grand announcement to the Taliban that they can now do whatever they want because there will be no consequences. However, some blame for that should be directed at the Afghan army and government who turned tail and let the Taliban take over without resistance.

 

[Eric]

^I've been pretty staunchly pro-withdrawal but I don't think that the Afghan people deserve this. I'll admit that I wasn't really expecting much better than this (and certainly didn't think there'd be a "fairytale ending"), but seeing it play out leads me to believe that the withdrawal process could've begun earlier, been more gradual, and been more effective in getting people other than American citizens out. The way it has gone was essentially a grand announcement to the Taliban that they can now do whatever they want because there will be no consequences. However, some blame for that should be directed at the Afghan army and government who turned tail and let the Taliban take over without resistance.

Yeah, we were able to equip them with everything they need but the will to stand up against an aggressive terrorist force. They never had it before so it should be no surprise they don't now. Had we not gone in there to begin with none of this would be an issue but there's nothing more American than taking over a brown country, imposing our ways on them and then leaving them hung out to dry.

I don't think this will end well for Biden but he has said all along that he would do this. We'll have to see how it plays out.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

For the partisan hacks out there, Trump probably would have done the exact same thing except while giving a finger to the press and establishment and it would probably do very little to his political career or legacy. Soooo...if it was going to end this way regardless, it probably would have been better to have Trump doing it?

 

[Renzatic]

For the partisan hacks out there, Trump probably would have done the exact same thing except while giving a finger to the press and establishment and it would probably do very little to his political career or legacy. Soooo...if it was going to end this way regardless, it probably would have been better to have Trump doing it?

No, because then Trump would still be in office afterwards.

No matter how mediocre Biden may be, how badly he fucked this up, we can at least rest assured that if he truly goes off the deep end, he can at least be held accountable.

 

[lizkat]

Just watched his conference and he's sticking to it, I know there are those here who disagree and I get that but IMO it was a complete shit show that could've been handled better. Everyone is far more focused on getting out than actually formulating a proper withdrawal.

Anyone who thinks those people deserve what's going to happen at the hands of the Taliban have little empathy, we expect that from Trump supporters but the rest of us should be better than this.

We can maybe be "better than this" in terms of how we feel about the plight of the Afghans now, or how we decide to view the whole debacle from start to finish (finish not arrived at yet by any means)... and in pressure now to do right in future by Afghans who helped us but whom we're likely leaving stranded in third-party countries as we depart, but it was never going to be pretty at the Kabul airport once the Taliban got a public green light from Trump to sit down and talk turkey with the USA.

There was no way to prevent a debacle after Trump openly met w/ Taliban to reach a publicized agreement.

Wouldn't be much different if the notice period had been six months or six hours. The Taliban might have had to spend a little more money to buy switch of allegiance if US military presence and money for it had stretched out longer. On the other hand the Taliban might have acquired even more windfall weapons and other valuable materiel.

We were always going to be stuck with an insurmountable problem of how to extract like a hundred thousand Afghans who were our fixers and translators and assistants in a country where the language and culture were so unfamiliar. Can't be done nicely in a hostile situation where the political settlement has not been arrived at and yet a major military force is leaving the battlefield.

I won't even say Trump was wrong to start talks with the Taliban. Kabul's central "government" du jour was going to milk us forever, because it's what they do to survive themselves.

So if we didn't want a forever war anymore, it was time to leave, and it was sure late in the day to test how well we had managed to start weaning the Afghans off our support for their weak central government. We were enmeshed with them for help in a foreign culture and languages, and they with us for our money and weapons.

To announce a departure was to endanger the Afghans who had assisted us. But we couldn't leave safely ourselves by helping them all get out safely first. We're lucky we didn't encounter more "blue on green" incidents in the runup to our departure.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

No, because then Trump would still be in office afterwards.

No matter how mediocre Biden may be, how badly he fucked this up, we can at least rest assured that if he truly goes off the deep end, he can at least be held accountable.

Nobody in our government or military has ever been held accountable for this entire mess, and at least under Trump we would be able to lump it in with the rest of his incompetence and indifference to humanity. Even in this thread there are some "we are better than this" posts. Under Trump it would be par for the course under his leadership, which would also give us the opportunity to make future amends and show we're not really like this. Well....I guess we are like this.

 

[Alli]

We are not better than this. We do this time and time again. The US has had months to take care of its allies in Afghanistan and just put it off. They could have been transported to Guam two months ago. Of course, they could never have all been sent to the US because despite the help they gave us, half of the people in this country would have seen them as foreigners and they don’t want immigrants. You know the people I mean. And yet you know those are the ones who will complain the loudest.

 

[Eric]

Any Republican out there right now soliciting sympathy for women and children is absolutely laughable, lest someone can show where they've had the same humanitarian concern over those escaping Mexico. Total hypocrites.