Kabul to fall

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

4 hours ago, Van wink said:

What amazes me is the air of apparent surprise by world leaders that things had happened so fast, what did they really think would happen if you take away air support from the the Afghan army. A shameful, shameful event.

Mind you VW, the Taliban don't have air support.  There is just no will to fight anymore. They have just walked into most places. The people just have no hope.

[Mello Yello 2,302]

Anthony Lynton Blair's been awfully quiet......

[sonyc 5,541]

18 hours ago, Herman said:

Speeding into action.

 

Think they must be working around Dominic's holiday return Herman.

[Yellow Fever 3,818]

13 hours ago, keelansgrandad said:

Mind you VW, the Taliban don't have air support.  There is just no will to fight anymore. They have just walked into most places. The people just have no hope.

I think its the reality of terror. If you fight and loose then there will be dreadful retribution. Easier and safer to just melt away.

How many 'Taliban' are there excluding the foreign fighters? I don't think there are as many as people think compared to the general cowed population. I really suspect the issue is we play by modern concepts of human rights, even for the radicals, and they don't. To defeat them we may have to less squeamish.

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

14 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

I think its the reality of terror. If you fight and loose then there will be dreadful retribution. Easier and safer to just melt away.

How many 'Taliban' are there excluding the foreign fighters? I don't think there are as many as people think compared to the general cowed population. I really suspect the issue is we play by modern concepts of human rights, even for the radicals, and they don't. To defeat them we may have to less squeamish.

My Son was in Helmand in a forward operating base in Taliban territory. And he said fear was a big part of the population's reasoning. He said the ordinary Afghan was happy to see Western values arriving but was terrified when the Taliban came at night to compounds and said they would kill their children if they engaged with UK troops.

He believed the US policy at the time of total destruction of the Taliban was the only way. And of course, lets not forget the undermining by other nations such as Pakistan, Saudi and Iran.

[Yellow Fever 3,818]

1 hour ago, keelansgrandad said:

My Son was in Helmand in a forward operating base in Taliban territory. And he said fear was a big part of the population's reasoning. He said the ordinary Afghan was happy to see Western values arriving but was terrified when the Taliban came at night to compounds and said they would kill their children if they engaged with UK troops.

He believed the US policy at the time of total destruction of the Taliban was the only way. And of course, lets not forget the undermining by other nations such as Pakistan, Saudi and Iran.

Interesting first hand knowledge. Concurs with my comment. The very very sad thing is that when the going gets tough the West it now appears gets going for short term populist reasons. Zero moral leadership. We've now let down badly both the Afghans and Kurds. However what I do hope is that the legacy of education for the women has let the djinn out of the bottle - and more modern attitudes will be inevitable.

Lest we forget we fought our own religious wars only 400 years ago (some are even still tribal here).

Edited August 16, 2021 by Yellow Fever

[ricardo 7,396]

The problem is that the US population want two mutually incompatible outcomes,

1.US troops out of Afganistan 

2. An Afganistan embracing Western democratic values.

It can't  have both.

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

1 hour ago, Yellow Fever said:

Interesting first hand knowledge. Concurs with my comment. The very very sad thing is that when the going gets tough the West it now appears gets going for short term populist reasons. Zero moral leadership. We've now let down badly both the Afghans and Kurds. However what I do hope is that the legacy of education for the women has let the djinn out of the bottle - and more modern attitudes will be inevitable.

Lest we forget we fought our own religious wars only 400 years ago (some are even still tribal here).

Women in the Western World still believe they do not have equality with men.

So say 100 years since universal sufferage in the UK. At the same time though women were being educated etc.

Whatever is going to happen now in Afghanistan if the Western democracies recognise any validity with a Taliban Government?

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

39 minutes ago, ricardo said:

The problem is that the US population want two mutually incompatible outcomes,

1.US troops out of Afganistan 

2. An Afganistan embracing Western democratic values.

It can't  have both.

Funny how we ostracised South Africa for apartheid, quite a reasonable thing to do and eventually all the sanctions worked in as much as it is now a democracy, but seem unwilling, probably because of oil, to ostracise countries that practice their own form of apartheid that isn't based on race.

[Van wink 2,994]

2 hours ago, keelansgrandad said:

My Son was in Helmand in a forward operating base in Taliban territory. And he said fear was a big part of the population's reasoning. He said the ordinary Afghan was happy to see Western values arriving but was terrified when the Taliban came at night to compounds and said they would kill their children if they engaged with UK troops.

He believed the US policy at the time of total destruction of the Taliban was the only way. And of course, lets not forget the undermining by other nations such as Pakistan, Saudi and Iran.

Sounds like an extreme lack of self confidence in their own ability KG, I know its a great deal more complicated than that but it seems they derived their confidence from the support given by the Western air cover, technology etc and without that they disintegrated.

[Van wink 2,994]

Just watching the news and the footage looks very reminiscent of Saigon to me Mr Blinken

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

8 minutes ago, Van wink said:

Sounds like an extreme lack of self confidence in their own ability KG, I know its a great deal more complicated than that but it seems they derived their confidence from the support given by the Western air cover, technology etc and without that they disintegrated.

At the first sign of trouble, my son said, the Afghan soldiers either melted away, throwing their uniforms away or joined the Taliban. Which of course meant the Taliban found out our strength and future patrols etc.

it is very difficult to train people to fight or resist in certain ways if they are not convinced. They accepted joining the Afghan Army because the West was there, they were getting paid and they were given a gun.

[A Load of Squit 5,213]

As expected it started badly and has got a lot worse.

 

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

11 minutes ago, Van wink said:

Just watching the news and the footage looks very reminiscent of Saigon to me Mr Blinken

He was the one telling Obama to intervene in Syria. Now he must be advising Biden differently.

[Barbe bleu 832]

1 hour ago, Van wink said:

Just watching the news and the footage looks very reminiscent of Saigon to me Mr Blinken

The entire twenty years has been like Vietnam

Nation divided North / south and urban /rural.   Tribal loyalties that the outsider doesn't really understand.  Suspicion to hatred of foreigners, particularly American ones. No strong sense of nation to rally around

Fighting an oppponent that is evil and prepared to use extreme terror but is still able to appeal to the poor in a way that the goverment never could. 

Government forces, (led by corrupt and self serving generals) that have little in common with a government seen as corrupt and which have no great desire to fight for a concept of country  that they have no great love for.

The story is the same but in Vietnam the North having won the war largely abandoned the worst of communism and adopted a middle path so there is hope.

[dylanisabaddog 4,972]

On 15/08/2021 at 08:48, A Load of Squit said:

When, in the next few weeks or months, refugees from the region turn up on our shores I hope people don't forget what is happening and how we were involved.

 

A few years ago I was listening to a conversation about Brexit in a pub in Norwich. The general consensus was that we had to get out of Europe to stop all the Syrians coming to the UK. I took a look at their tattoos and decided against telling them that Syria isn't in Europe. 

So I'm afraid you're hoping in vain. We know that 52% of the population of the UK is stupid and I'm afraid you're wasting your time trying to explain it all to them. 

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

The so called Special Relationship is more like they tell us to jump and we ask how high.

Trump started this with his stupid arrangement and Biden has made a political decision to not only back it but claim ownership.

We are not a world power anymore. Our income needs to be spent on other things than fighting foreign conflicts.

[1902 1,167]

I give it there years until we let ourselves be sucked into another intervention and fighting an insurgency once more.

 

 

[Mello Yello 2,302]

1 hour ago, dylanisabaddog said:

A few years ago I was listening to a conversation about Brexit in a pub in Norwich. The general consensus was that we had to get out of Europe to stop all the Syrians coming to the UK. I took a look at their tattoos and decided against telling them that Syria isn't in Europe. 

So I'm afraid you're hoping in vain. We know that 52% of the population of the UK is stupid and I'm afraid you're wasting your time trying to explain it all to them. 

I think you're making that up.....

[Terminally Yellow 2,477]

20 hours ago, Herman said:

I think there may be a rare consensus on the Pink Un about this. 

Isn't that the first sign of the apocalypse?

[Herman 9,820]

5 minutes ago, Terminally Yellow said:

Isn't that the first sign of the apocalypse?

Should be ok. Last time it happened was when everyone agreed that Roeder was a **** and the world carried on turning.😀

[dylanisabaddog 4,972]

11 hours ago, Mello Yello said:

I think you're making that up.....

I wish I was...... 

[Herman 9,820]

1 hour ago, dylanisabaddog said:

I wish I was...... 

You're not.

[Yellow Fever 3,818]

2 hours ago, Herman said:

You're not.

I sometimes tell an apocryphal tale many decades ago about a visit I once made to a very secure US government laboratory - at security being a foreign 'alien' passports etc. and questions as to where I'm from - for simplicity at the time I usually answered London. The response was "Where's that?".  I kid you not and I frankly I didn't believe it myself - nor quite sure how to answer that either (fly to New York but keep flying....).

The moral is you can't underestimate the lack of global awareness / education of much of any population - the US example above is the same as in the UK.

I often ponder if you asked the average Brit to name the capitals of US, Canada, Australia and Germany as to how many they'd get right. I suspect 3 out of 4 would be very good! 

[Mello Yello 2,302]

2 hours ago, Herman said:

You're not.

Of course you're inclined to agree.....It suits your agenda.....

 

4 hours ago, dylanisabaddog said:

I wish I was...... 

Well I beg to differ.....

Edited August 17, 2021 by Mello Yello

[dylanisabaddog 4,972]

3 minutes ago, Mello Yello said:

Of course your inclined to agree.....It suits your agenda.....

 

Well I beg to differ.....

You're not your. 

Which rather supports my point, doesn't it? 

[Mello Yello 2,302]

Just now, dylanisabaddog said:

You're not your. 

Which rather supports my point, doesn't it? 

I amended that 'you're' before you struck....Which Norwich pub was it then that these tattooed geographical illiterate were imbibing in and did they look like extras for 'This is England'? I'm surprised you'd wish to frequent such an establishment as it's most probably beneath 'your' station....(What kind of tattoo's mum dad an' hate an' luv)?....Did this boozer also  offer OAP's a discount on food?.....

[dylanisabaddog 4,972]

8 minutes ago, Mello Yello said:

I amended that 'you're' before you struck....Which Norwich pub was it then that these tattooed geographical illiterate were imbibing in and did they look like extras for 'This is England'? I'm surprised you'd wish to frequent such an establishment as it's most probably beneath 'your' station....(What kind of tattoo's mum dad an' hate an' luv)?....Did this boozer also  offer OAP's a discount on food?.....

The Whalebone

[Mello Yello 2,302]

Just now, dylanisabaddog said:

The Whalebone

Ooh.....It be full o' rum 'uns....You dodged a pullet there.....

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

3 hours ago, dylanisabaddog said:

You're not your. 

Which rather supports my point, doesn't it? 

Don't know why you are bothering responding to his third degree.