afghanistan (1 Viewer)

JohnnyRaz

where the crow ate the man
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where the crow ate the man
probably a thread on this already... but...

certain sense of inevitability that this would happen from the start - its been the experience of pretty much any foreign intervention in that country since the 1800s' that at best they achieve nothing, at worst they get their arses handed to them.

41 years of war of some scale.. just think about that.

a mess

(I'm prepared for the 'I know the taliban and they are sound' responses)
 
there’s a certain kind of grim satisfaction to looking at the twitter accounts of american neocon-imperial types as this is all happening. some serious denial-meets-reality stuff.

would be interested to hear if *any* Irish politician of any party gets any hassle about this. those planes were trundling through shannon for years and years. we have culpability here too.
 
video here of what is apparently an apache helicopter being used to clear the runway at kabul airport so that a plane can get through the crowds. yikes


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(I'm prepared for the 'I know the taliban and they are sound' responses)

that's an interesting line. Pretty much the only thing I know about the Taliban comes from media depictions, many of which are literal propaganda spread by the country bombing, invading, and occupying them. I think having a skeptical perspective on this should be relatively uncontroversial rather than reason for defensiveness. You don't have to go full indymedia or nothing.
 
(I'm prepared for the 'I know the taliban and they are sound' responses)

that's an interesting line. Pretty much the only thing I know about the Taliban comes from media depictions, many of which are literal propaganda spread by the country bombing, invading, and occupying them. I think having a skeptical perspective on this should be relatively uncontroversial rather than reason for defensiveness. You don't have to go full indymedia or nothing.
absolutely - there are significant cultural, regional, tribal, religious intersectionality -Afghanistan is a complex place. the northern alliance were equally brutal, and were portrayed as heros.

pakistan have played a huge role in this

the us/uk made a balls of things, as could have been expected.

I still wouldn't want to be a civil servant in kabul today - there's a human tragedy at play beyond the politics of who's right and wrong.
 
I am enjoying the spectacle of US and British military humiliation in full 2021 all angles augmented reality. an abject failure of their usual bullshit foreign policy.

Although I pity anyone caught up In all the shit over there at the min.

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Every single position you take on this is going to lead to a withering response from someone about how naive you are.

People are going to die not matter what happens and, as @taubstumm said up there, Ireland shares some guilt in this. I remember protesting this war in 2001 when I was in school, I suppose that eases my conscience a little, but it's hard to be loving cheering this on, aside from laughing at idiots like Bret Stephens getting very upset in their cozy little columns.

I'm cautiously inclined to go with a country being led by its own people, having retaken the country with little bloodshed, as being one of the better outcomes. Maybe others would have preferred absolute massacres on both sides by fighting it out, maybe there's massacres still to come IDK

I was listening to a thing last night about how parents in Afghanistan over the past 20 (or more?) years tend to send one son to be educated by the Taliban and another to be educated by the Islamic Republic.
 
UTM was saying about a week ago, if they'd stayed the fuck away and just let the taliban take over years ago, there'd be less bloodshed and if the taliban are militants with a cause, they'd mellow after achieving it and it'd probably be a capitalist state like everywhere else by now.
 
I'm cautiously inclined to go with a country being led by its own people, having retaken the country with little bloodshed, as being one of the better outcomes.

they’re basically the worst people in the country though... but you’re right, there’s no good outcome.

I was reading a thing that was outlining how the chinese state of 2021 is exponentially more powerful and influential than the chinese state of 2001, when the american intervention began. and that the chinese are now the people who might end up actually calling a lot of the shots about what happens next in afghanistan.

from the chinese perspective, it’s really not a wonderful outcome, but it’s one where they’re apparently willing to try to figure out a plan, and their number one priority is strategic calm and an end to violence. not sure if that would give me much hope if I was a young woman living in kabul right now, though.

here’s a related article from reuters that covers some of the same points...

 
they’re basically the worst people in the country though...
I have absolutely no idea about this, and how I know this is that I recently came across this review of that Cartoon Saloon film The Breadwinner, including info such as:

The Breadwinner promotes a brand of feminism which appears concerned about the conditions of women in Afghanistan, but ultimately reinforces orientalist narratives about the hyper-victimization of Muslim women, and mobilizes them in the service of war-making. This is partially carried out by distorting basic empirical realities in Afghanistan. As Mahmood and Hirschkind remind us:

[T]he Taliban decree to ban girls and women from schools affected only a tiny minority of urban dwellers since the majority of the population reside in the rural areas where there are few schools… Likewise, rarely was it mentioned that the Taliban policy of disarming the population, and strict surveillance of all major areas under their control had made it possible for the first time in years for women to move outside their homes without fear of being raped (of course, being beaten for a variety of moral transgressions remained a distinct possibility).[iv]

This failure to understand and illustrate the actual socio-cultural situation of a majority of Afghan women and America’s historical relationship with the country exemplifies how The Breadwinner strategically paints an incomplete picture of Afghanistan.


Now I have no idea how I could even begin to argue with this kind of thing, I haven't deeply checked into the author, the website the author is writing for, their sources etc etc. but it at the very least suggests that the basic narrative of the Taliban being 100% the worst in the country may not be the case. If they were seen as the worst by all, then why could they just walk into power again?

Basically, i'm completely ignorant, and I need to stay aware of that when reading the news.
 
UTM was saying about a week ago, if they'd stayed the fuck away and just let the taliban take over years ago, there'd be less bloodshed and if the taliban are militants with a cause, they'd mellow after achieving it and it'd probably be a capitalist state like everywhere else by now.


the taliban never had uncontested control though- they were fighting against other militias/alliances/warlords (most of which were descended from various mujahedeen factions) when the yanks brought in the freedom and apple pie.

I don't know that they'd have much time to mellow before the next bunch tried to wrest control from them.
 
Now I have no idea how I could even begin to argue with this kind of thing, I haven't deeply checked into the author, the website the author is writing for, their sources etc etc. but it at the very least suggests that the basic narrative of the Taliban being 100% the worst in the country may not be the case. If they were seen as the worst by all, then why could they just walk into power again?

Basically, i'm completely ignorant, and I need to stay aware of that when reading the news.

I suppose I always tended to think of them as the afghan equivalent to the catholic-isolationist wing of francoist spain. was sort of reinforced when the taliban were criticising isis back in 2015 for being too bonkers-fascist. but I know what you mean, we inevitably approach all of this with our own neat western categorisations that are often unhelpful or plain wrong
 
I've been trying to follow the story of this woman the past few days


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There are probably lots of the 80s mujeheddin guys who got the US weapons in the Taliban now but when the Russians left the dominant groups were non-taliban under various warlord types (islamist/communist/other) and they basically had a civil war destroyed everything that hadn't already been destroyed. The Taliban were supported by Pakistan (maybe with money from Saudi) and basically came out of nowhere to beat all the old groups who thought that they were the dominant groups. The Taliban did initially bring stability and a sense of safety after some fairly intense mayhem*.

* according to this book I read last year
 
I know it's hardly their main concern right now, but is Covid ripping through the country as well?
 
the guy who was the head of the afghan central bank until yesterday has posted a thread about the last week, including how he got out of kabul... it’s pretty fascinating

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