Tunisian Revolution and the Middle East--And Now, The Withdrawal From Afghanistan (M.E.T.)

[TradeTheBeal!]

Just a reminder that the Trump administration negotiated a peace treaty with the Taliban in early 2020 in advance of us pulling out our troops.

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[CousinsCowgirl84]

16 hours ago, TryTheBeal! said:

Just a reminder that the Trump administration negotiated a peace treaty with the Taliban in early 2020 in advance of us pulling out our troops.

So I guess that justifies Biden’s decision to pull out. We had an agreement. 🤪
 

I don’t know how any American can look at what is happening Afghanistan and not be ashamed.  
 

 

 

US begging the Taliban to stay out of Kabul till we cut and run.... bad.

[redskins59]

Total embarrassment.  

I guess Iraq was a better success than Afghanistan in terms of nation building.  

We had a reason to go to Afghanistan with Bin Laden being there. 

Pakistan did not help.  Can we do something about that country?  They had Bin Laden hiding right next to a Pakistani army base and did we do anything?  No sanctions. Nothing.

[TradeTheBeal!]

46 minutes ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

So I guess that justifies Biden’s decision to pull out. We had an agreement. 🤪
 

I don’t know how any American can look at what is happening Afghanistan and not be ashamed.  
 

 

If your “shame” is only kicking in just now, but not anytime in the last 19 years or so…I don’t have any use for your opinion.

 

Good luck, Afghanistan.

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[Corcaigh]

1 hour ago, redskins59 said:

Total embarrassment.  

I guess Iraq was a better success than Afghanistan in terms of nation building.  

We had a reason to go to Afghanistan with Bin Laden being there.

 

Many centuries of history and past failures have demonstrated that building a centralized nation in Afghanistan was always destined to fail.

 

Much of the country is, and always will be, tribally controlled and outside the influence of the GIROA - Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Putting billions and billions and many lives into an incompetent and corrupt organization that had no basis to actually govern much of the country was always going to fail. And no-one had confidence in the Afghan security forces and their leadership in a fight once the international troops were not there.

 

Maybe the best solution 19 years ago, having got Al Qaeda on the run, was to leave 5-10,000 international troops (not just US) there permanently, to allow Kabul and some other areas to be more progressive (and by progressive I mean not force 5 year olds into forced marriage with old men)

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Still a ****ing ugly exit though. Once US eliminated a substantial presence this was going to happen in spite of any negotiations. Should have got the civilians out first.

 

 

[DCSaints_fan]

On 8/13/2021 at 6:17 PM, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

Bin Laden wasn’t the real problem. He was just a man, a symptom of it. The real problem is the culture of terror that exists in Afghanistan and more broadly the Middle East. We weren’t able to be change the culture there.  Sadly, I think our surrender will make things worse. We’ve betrayed the few people who believed in on version of peace, again.  And that’s not a criticism of Biden, to be clear.

 

Afghanistan itself didn't have a culture of terror, at least not in the sense of being threatening to the US.   They did tolerate bin Laden/Al Qaeda, true, but the 9/11 recruits were all Saudi/Egyptian.   And ever since then, I I don't think a single Taliban/native Afghan has ever been implicated in any plots to strike out US targets outside of the ME.   I don't even think there's been many Afghans in Al Qaeda/ISIS   Thats mostly been an Arab phenomenon.

[TradeTheBeal!]

[TradeTheBeal!]

 

[DCSaints_fan]

The ANA is making ARVN look competent in retrospect.

[PeterMP]

2 hours ago, DCSaints_fan said:

 

Afghanistan itself didn't have a culture of terror, at least not in the sense of being threatening to the US.   They did tolerate bin Laden/Al Qaeda, true, but the 9/11 recruits were all Saudi/Egyptian.   And ever since then, I I don't think a single Taliban/native Afghan has ever been implicated in any plots to strike out US targets outside of the ME.   I don't even think there's been many Afghans in Al Qaeda/ISIS   Thats mostly been an Arab phenomenon.

 

The recruits were Saudi and Egyptian to drive a wedge between us and the Saudis and the Egyptians.

 

(Egyptians being long time "allies" (e.g. the Camp David Accords) and the Saudis with US troops being stationed there.)  And the belief that they'd have more luck getting through security.

 

I strongly suspect if they wanted to recruit Afghanis for it, they could have.

Edited August 15, 2021 by PeterMP

[tshile]

If I recall the 9/11 commission report specifically addresses this. Including them having trial runs with non Saudi’s and seeing just how hard it was to get over here and move about freely (compared to the experience Saudi’s had)

[PeterMP]

5 hours ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

So I guess that justifies Biden’s decision to pull out. We had an agreement. 🤪
 

I don’t know how any American can look at what is happening Afghanistan and not be ashamed.

 

US begging the Taliban to stay out of Kabul till we cut and run.... bad.

 For us to stay in Afghanistan as the front edge of the fight against the Taliban indefinitely makes no sense.  

 

In terms of losing credibility, there never was an understanding that we would remain the key component in fighting.  Obama tried to take US troops out of ground combat fighting back in 2014.  And that failed badly.  It has been clear from then at sometime we would leave.  There was never any sense that we there as a primary method to fight back Taliban advances indefinitely.

 

(For a historical comparison, there were no huge repercussions for us pulling out of Vietnam.  It isn't like China/N. Korea decided to reinvade S. Korea after that.  And it isn't like it is going to happen now because we pulled out of Afghanistan.  Or Russia invading a NATO country.)

Edited August 15, 2021 by PeterMP

[NickyJ]

5 minutes ago, PeterMP said:

 For us to stay in Afghanistan as the front edge of the fight against the Taliban indefinetly makes no sense.  

 

In terms of losing credibility, there never was an understanding that we would remain the key component in fighting.  Obama tried to take US troops out of ground combat fighting back in 2014.  And that failed badly.  It has been blear from then at sometime we would leave.

 

(For a historical comparision, there were no huge repricusions for us pulling out of Vietnam.  It isn't like China/N. Korea decided to reinvade S. Korea after that.  And it isn't like it is going to happen now because we pullrd out of Afgjanistan.  Or Russia invading a NATO country.)

For repercussions, the main difference is that China and North Korea didn't harbor training camps for perform terrorist attacks in the U.S.

 

There was no way we could stay in Afghanistan, but I think it's still going to be years before we know for certain whether we've truly washed our hands of it. If another attack in the U.S. happens, or something happens with Pakistan and their nuclear weapons are put in jeopardy, we're going back there.

[PeterMP]

28 minutes ago, NickyJ said:

For repercussions, the main difference is that China and North Korea didn't harbor training camps for perform terrorist attacks in the U.S.

 

There was no way we could stay in Afghanistan, but I think it's still going to be years before we know for certain whether we've truly washed our hands of it. If another attack in the U.S. happens, or something happens with Pakistan and their nuclear weapons are put in jeopardy, we're going back there.

 

It will be interesting to see what lessons the Taliban takes from this.

 

While they have "won", any real reading of history is that 9/11was a failure for fundamentalist Muslims.  The objective was to get us to withdraw from the Middle East.  But all that happened is that we have expanded our presence from just Saudi Arabia to other countries like the UAE and have even more military bases scatter through the ME.

 

And in the process we wiped out a generation of Al Qaeda and Taliban leadership (Mullah Omar and his peers).

 

I doubt you will see us go back in the same way.  We have used drones, missiles, and airstrikes to minimize the risks of terrorist attacks from other countries.  I suspect we will adopt the same approach to Afghanistan in the future if necessary for terrorism.

 

(If Pakistan loses control of nukes to extremists, things will be different but then you will likely get cooperation from China and Russia because Pakistani nukes are as much of a threat to them as us.  Even now, I would not be surprised if we see more cooperation with the Taliban now that there aren't Americans there to be killed.  Russia and China might be more willing to cooperate on the Taliban if they can't use the Taliban to kill Americans.)

Edited August 15, 2021 by PeterMP

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