It's this, or occupy the country for the rest of our history.

I'm fine with this when that's the comparison.

The Taliban are conservatives. Before the conservatives took over (with assistance from the United States), Afghanistan was a modern nation making rapid social progress.

Eh? Not sure what you're talking about. They were a traditional Islamic State well into the 70's. When the Soviets got involved, they had a civil war that resulted in no social progress, but a brief communist leadership. But after one communist leader was assassinated and another took his place, the Soviets got butthurt about the new leader and occupied them. After the Soviet occupation, there was another civil war, where the communists were tossed out, and it was nonstop fighting until the US invasion. At the time of the US invasion, some 96% of the nation was controlled by the Taliban, and multiple nations officially recognized them as the official government of Afghanistan.

Your assertion that social reforms occurred is not correct, near as I can tell. The most "modern" thing they ever did prior to soviet involvement was in the 1920's, they lifted the traditional Burqa requirement for women and allowed some women to become educated, and abolished slavery. And their king abdicated due to the civil war his reforms started. From there, it was a downward trend until the 1950's. The 50's-70's didn't see any "sweeping" social progress of note. And the best infrastructure progress that was made was in the 30's, due to alliances with Axis powers.

Further, 99.7% of Afghanistan is Muslim, primarily Sunni. And the ratio has been 99%+ for the last century.

Like, literally, none of what you're saying regarding Afghanistan makes sense. Literally every king, president, or ruler who has attempted to "socially modernize" Afghanistan has ended up assassinated, or sparking a civil war, because the greater population did not WANT any social modernization. Their law is Sharia. Sharia does not change.

https://twitter.com/saadmohseni/status/1427000691407654914?s=21

thank you biden, great lider.

They have been given an opportunity to improve for 20 years. As soon as the international troops started their withdrawal, the Afghans defected or surrendered to the Taliban.

And no, your argument that "without occupation, Afghanistan could perhaps have made progress" has no merit. Looking at the development in its two principal neighbors, Iran and Pakistan, shows that these places did not get rid of their stone-age version of islam either. These two are the closest comparisons to AFG both geographically and culturally. There is little to no reason to assume that the even poorer, even more underdeveloped, more geographically disadvantaged Afghanistan would have made bigger strides than these two.



At the end of the day, "they were bad before and there existed no factors to facilitate progress" is a valid argument. Afghanistan has absolutely nothing going for it. No natural resources, no geostrategic leverage, no fertile land, no education, no institutions, no overregional coordination, no industry, no sense of national unity, no openness to the outside world, no places of specific touristic value, no infrastructure, nothing. Zero, nada, niente. It really baffles me that you seem to think that Afghanistan would have flourished if only the evil imperialist foreigners hadn't messed with them.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Aug 15 2021 03:30pm

dont forget the super high birth rate

that in combination with your points makes a stable country impossible

Afghanistan has a shit load of accessible mineral wealth. You are very incorrect that they have nothing going for them.

Afghanistan is likely not going to be a shining beacon on a hill, but they probably wouldn't still be stone age the way they are now. We didn't do enough to oust corruption, which leads to the riches being untapped and squandered where they are tapped, which leads to and is caused by disloyalty in the military and other institutions which means when the Taliban rolls in it's much easier to just fold and join up than to resist.



High birth rates are a result of instability, not the other way around. When countries stabilize they always drop their birth rate because large families and infant mortality stop making them a necessity.

This post was edited by NetflixAdaptationWidow on Aug 15 2021 03:38pm

Why the fuck did the Afghan military lose the will to fight? With sufficient fighting spirit, their numeric and technological advantage would have easily been enough to hold at least the big cities.


Anyway, there should have been a stronger US military presence still in the country to secure the withdrawal. The Biden (and perhaps the Trump admin, dunno) seem to have bet all their chips on the idea that the Afghan military would hold the country for at the very least several months, if not years. I did not expect the Afghan military to get steamrolled that badly, but I'm not a professional strategist. The generals from the Pentagon should have known better.

The civilian personnel and our Afghan allies should have been the ones to leave the country first, secured by a division or two of marines who are the last to leave. Doing it the other way round was completely moronic.

They never cared. They enjoy bleeping goats.

Current estimates are that Afghanistan has ~$1 Trillion worth of untapped mineral wealth. That's not exactly a shitload. Unless they're far more financially responsible than the US Government, I tend to think that'd not go so far, especially after considering the costs involved to set up the infrastructure to mine it all, costs in selling, etc.

Granted, it'd be a huge boost up from their current GDP even if they were to spread it out over 20 years. But once it's gone, it's gone, so I dunno.

We'll see though. In 60 years, we can revisit this topic. If they're the new Dubai, then we'll know you're correct in your assertion.



Near as I can tell they never had a particular will to fight the Taliban.

But given over the last few months the US stopped supplying their guard posts with weapons, ammunition, food, and other supplies, it's no shock that the Taliban could be in so fast.



Saudi Birthrate is high (more than 2 per woman) yet they're very stable with decent education levels and whatnot.

In general, Islamic Theocracies have higher birthrates, regardless of stability or conflict, due as much to the religion, as anything else.

This post was edited by InsaneBobb on Aug 15 2021 04:08pm