I'm sure some people will be able to leave after we leave. Afghanistan is not going to become the hermit kingdom of NK. They don't have a gov't strong enough to enforce their borders to prevent people leaving nor do I think they have any interest in shutting down air travel.

Why would bombing the shit out of Afghanistan leave a power vacuum? The power vacuum happened when we got rid of the Taliban, we should of tried harder to get them on our side and be active participants in fighting al-Qaeda instead of forcing them to run to the mountains and be not much different than terrorists in our eyes.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Aug 27 2021 02:01pm

The Taliban were harboring Al-Qaeda. We gave them the opportunity to hand over OBL because they weren't the enemy at the time but their refusal to comply made them one. I'm sure they would have gladly handed over Al-Qaeda operatives if they had a crystal ball.

The options for leaving Afghanistan are quite limited and people would have fled to other countries if they had the opportunity. Unfortunately, the Taliban have set up checkpoints along major roads so it's extraordinarily difficult.

It's nonetheless completely foolish and irresponsible to hand the Taliban lists of people we are interested in, lists of people who collaborated with the (from the Taliban pov) hostile foreign occupiers. This move predictably puts this group in even more danger rather than increasing their chance of getting out before Aug 31.



I think it was worth a try to prop up a pro-western government. Try to see if we can create any kind of self-sustaining stability in the country. Now, that these efforts would be failing had become clear by 2007 or 2009 or so. This is when a gradual, well-planned withdrawal should have been initiated.

Just bombing the shit out of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban and then leaving after a couple of months of war would not have achieved a lot. They would have returned in no time and not learned their lesson. Forcing the Taliban to go through many years of being out of power hopefully taught them to not harbor terrorists ever again. The message is fairly clear: do whatever you want with Afghanistan itself, but don't you dare becoming a safe haven for terrorists.



Afaik, it's not just the Taliban who have set up roadblocks - Iran and Pakistan have also ramped up their border protection. The truth probably is that absolutely no country on this planet has any appetite for hosting a large number of additional Afghan refugees.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Aug 27 2021 03:24pm

Can we trade for Hillary? I think she would have done better with Afghanistan.



Its hard to set up checkpoints when you get firebombed into hell. SAD!

This post was edited by EndlessSky on Aug 28 2021 11:00pm

Now reconcile this with not having an imperialist agenda in afghanistan

sleepyhead ice cream eater most popular President ever (even more than Obama with minorities) decided to “rest his eyes” at yet another opportune moment huh

This goes back to the squabbles over the exact definition of imperialism. Anyway, the overarching goal of the mission in Afghanistan after the Taliban and Al-Qaeda had been sent packing was stability, not economic exploitation. I don't even think the international coaltion necessarily insistend on having a pro-Western government in Afghanistan - I think they'd have been satisfied with any government that has the country under control and is not actively anti-Western. Unfortunately, that was never really an option. As the events of the last few weeks have shown, large swaths of the country are pro-Taliban.

Of course it was a mistake to bet on a corrupt snake like Ghani. I guess we would have propped up a Saddam-style dictator who rules with an iron fist if that had kept the Taliban at bay, essentially trading off human rights for stability - but no such figure was available. So yes, thinking about it, I'm fine with calling it "imperialism". I just don't think it was a bad faith type of imperialism in this specific case.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Aug 28 2021 11:22pm

80 million votes honk honk

United Kingdom is holding Biden in contempt for corruptly endangering NATO ally lives.

honk honk

>a return to normal US swamp leadership