The Fall Of Kabul To The Taliban

DNA Solves
DNA Solves
DNA Solves

New Posts

Status
Not open for further replies.
I lived in the USSR when the invasion on 1979 started. That started the long chain of events ending up with the scenes we are observing now. My personal feeling is, such invasions are doomed and it is better to leave Islamic world alone to itself. What will now happen, sadly, the Taliban movement may spill over to the Central Asia that is geographically close. Hope that it will not trigger bigger conflicts.
 
Aug 18 2021
''The Taliban has opened fire in the streets of Kabul to disperse crowds as chaos ensues in the streets of Afghaistan. CNN's Clarissa Ward reports from the ground where a chaotic scene continues to unravel as thousands of desperate Afghans remain stranded under Taliban rule.''

''Gunshots fired near crowds by Taliban at Kabul airport
Aug 18, 2021''
 
worldwatcher said:
While most countries try desperate to evacuate people and watches in horror, it seems that China is ready to do business with the Taliban. Afghanistan minerals are worth
thousands of billions.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cn...y-exploit-rare-earth-metals-analyst-says.html

According to the Dutch media, China have been working on this for years.

China wil Afghaanse grondstoffen: er ligt voor meer dan 1000 miljard
Click to expand...

The Taliban are sitting on $1 trillion worth of minerals the world desperately needs

Supplies of minerals such as iron, copper and gold are scattered across provinces. There are also rare earth minerals and what could be one of the world’s biggest deposits of lithium — an essential but scarce component in rechargeable batteries and other technologies vital to tackling the climate crisis.

Security challenges, a lack of infrastructure and severe droughts have prevented the extraction of most valuable minerals in the past. That’s unlikely to change soon under Taliban control. Still, there’s interest from countries including China, Pakistan and India, which may try to engage despite the chaos.

“It’s a big question mark,” said Rod Schoonover, a scientist and security expert who founded the Ecological Futures Group.
 
dotr said:
Aug 18 2021
''The Taliban has opened fire in the streets of Kabul to disperse crowds as chaos ensues in the streets of Afghaistan. CNN's Clarissa Ward reports from the ground where a chaotic scene continues to unravel as thousands of desperate Afghans remain stranded under Taliban rule.''

''Gunshots fired near crowds by Taliban at Kabul airport
Aug 18, 2021''
Click to expand...

What does the bolded part even mean? Isn't everyone in Afghanistan now under Taliban rule? Aren't they all "stranded." Are we planning to take in the entire country as "asylum seekers" now.
 
GatorFL said:
No. I think a majority of Afghans want Taliban rule. This is what I heard from a work colleague in Pakistan.
Click to expand...

Interesting. That thought crossed my mind. Not surprising, I guess, if you really think about it. I don't think Americans can fully appreciate what it's like to actually be brought up in such a "culture." It would be nice if the media reported on that.
 
ringbearer said:
Interesting. That thought crossed my mind. Not surprising, I guess, if you really think about it. I don't think Americans can fully appreciate what it's like to actually be brought up in such a "culture." It would be nice if the media reported on that.
Click to expand...
He said that the Taliban exists in his country as well and they regard Afghanistan as their friendly neighbor. He was shocked that I was concerned for him and his family. It was a big surprise to me that he wasn't worried.
 
Massive US cargo planes are taking off with average of just 100 passengers from Kabul | Daily Mail Online


  • Overnight, the US only put 2,000 people on 18 C-17 planes - an average of 110 per flight. This despite a single C-17 being used on Sunday to fly out 640 Afghans because the crew refused to leave them behind
  • Just a fraction of that number have made it onto the most recent flights, despite US pledge of 9,000 per day
  • In one shocking case, a German plane with room for 150 departed Kabul on Tuesday with just seven on board
  • Meanwhile, the UK has managed to rescue around 1,000 people out of a total of 7,000 the MoD accounted for
  • Comes as Taliban controlling the airport entrances are barring ex-pats and would-be migrants causing chaos
  • Around 50,000 people are said to be outside the gates, with Westerners unable to get through the crush
  • Western nations vowed to take more than 100,000 Afghan refugees - pledge that appears increasingly hollow
 
G
JerseyGirl said:
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/a...kabul-to-prevent-bloodshed-did-not-take-money
Exiled Ghani Says He Left Kabul to Prevent Bloodshed, Did Not Take Money

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, speaking from exile in the United Arab Emirates, said on Wednesday that he had left Kabul to prevent bloodshed and denied reports he took large sums of money with him as he departed the presidential palace.
Click to expand...
Ghani was an American citizen for 45 years and taught at Johns Hopkins and UC Berkley: How to rebuild a broken state
 
Charlot123 said:
I lived in the USSR when the invasion on 1979 started. That started the long chain of events ending up with the scenes we are observing now. My personal feeling is, such invasions are doomed and it is better to leave Islamic world alone to itself. What will now happen, sadly, the Taliban movement may spill over to the Central Asia that is geographically close. Hope that it will not trigger bigger conflicts.
Click to expand...

I agree that what we are seeing now has deep historical roots and that these invasions are doomed. I believe we have simply delayed the inevitable for 20 years. As we watch with sadness and even anger the scenes at the airport and in Kabul, I think it’s important to understand the culture and history. It’s too easy to frame the picture in the emotion of the immediate moment, rather than in a deeper understanding of the culture and history and mistakes made by the U.S. across four administrations since 2001 (and even earlier).

I mentioned in an earlier post that it would be helpful if the U.S. government could analyze and learn from this experience in order to avoid becoming enmeshed in a future conflict. I was pleased to discover that there is an “Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction” who has compiled numerous “lessons learned” reports over the years. Whether these reports are studied and applied is another matter.

This link is to the latest report published this month. Reading the “Executive Summary” and “Introduction” at the beginning gives an overview of what went wrong. I haven’t read all 140 pages, but the quoted section epitomizes IMO the intrinsic problem with the entire mission in Afghanistan. It makes it clear, to me anyway, that it would likely fail, and why my initial reaction to the invasion in 2001 was sadly accurate. That isn’t to say that we shouldn’t care deeply about what we see happening to Afghans this week and in the future, while also acknowledging the complexity of the culture and ultimate futility of the U.S. attempt to reconstruct a country that had been in conflict since 1979.

https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/lessonslearned/SIGAR-21-46-LL.pdf

Page 80
WILLFUL DISREGARD FOR CRITICAL INFORMATION
When the United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan in late 2001, they embarked on an ambitious effort to encourage or even impose broad reforms that touched essentially all aspects of Afghan society, including politics, economics, education, defense, rule of law, and the societal roles and relations between men and women.

The U.S. government pursued these reforms while simultaneously attempting to
quell multiple security threats, including a burgeoning Taliban insurgency, a powerful narcotics industry, warlords entrenched in the Afghan government, and a nascent local affiliate of the Islamic State. Yet as this chapter demonstrates, rarely did U.S. officials have even a mediocre understanding of the environment, much less how it was responding to U.S. interventions.

In fact, blaming mistakes on a simple lack of information may be charitable. Many mistakes were borne from a willful disregard for information that may have been available. After all, in many cases, the U.S. government’s very purpose was to usher in an orderly revolution that would replace existing Afghan social systems with western or “modern” systems. If the intention was to build institutions from scratch, understanding and working within the country’s traditional systems was unnecessary. As one former senior USAID official told SIGAR, “We wanted to give them something they had never had before.”441

But instead of being a society deconstructed to its foundation by conflict and primed
for the introduction of western political, economic, and judicial systems, it turned out Afghanistan was a complex society with ingrained traditions and an incorrigible political economy. These traditions were neither easy to uproot and replace, nor could they be shoehorned into a Western institutional framework, as evidenced by the attempts to use strongmen and warlords to build a nascent bureaucracy.

BBM
 
None of the few who spoke to reporters mentioned their names or what they had done in Afghanistan, where many fear retaliation against family members they may never see again.

"Everyone wants out," said the woman's husband, also speaking in German. "Every day is worse than the day before. We saved ourselves but we couldn't rescue our families."

At his Berlin flat, Moballegh said the Taliban's takeover after 20 years of attempts to reform and rebuild sets Afghanistan back to square zero.

"So you ask me, how do I feel? Really very sad, very frustrated and actually I really lost my hope," he said.

Afghans evacuated to Germany describe terrifying scenes at Kabul airport
 
GatorFL said:
He said that the Taliban exists in his country as well and they regard Afghanistan as their friendly neighbor. He was shocked that I was concerned for him and his family. It was a big surprise to me that he wasn't worried.
Click to expand...

The role of Pakistan in this entire situation has been underreported, especially on TV news, IMO.

Crisis of Impunity - Pakistan's Support Of The Taliban

As the Taliban Advance in Afghanistan, Pressure on Pakistan Grows

Explained: A look at Pakistan’s long relationship with the Taliban

Pakistan divided over success of Taliban in Afghanistan

(Edited to fix typos)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

DNASolves

Who is DeKalb County John Doe (2022)?

Members online

... and 152 more.
Total: 2,376 (members: 153, guests: 2,223)

Online statistics

Members online
153
Guests online
2,223
Total visitors
2,376
Totals may include hidden visitors.

Forum statistics

Threads
602,512
Messages
18,141,592
Members
231,414
Latest member
Jdogcatfish
Back
Top