An Afghan woman in Kabul: ‘Now I have to burn everything I achieved’
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
Where is the US administration? Not a single press briefing or president communication for 48 hours...
At some point, you have to throw in the towel and cut your losses—even when those losses are really, unimaginably terrible. 20 years is certainly past that point.
There's a lot of good we could do in the world with the resources we put into Afghanistan.
The problem is the population never owned the country. They didn't liberate themselves. And they're at home as conquered populace.
Someday the west will learn that Democracy can't be "gifted". People have to want it. People have to fight and die for it. And then, and only then, maybe, you'll get democracy.
The only chance that women in the article will see any freedom again, is if she take up arms start shooting the people who say "you can't".
I wish Americans stopped viewing social change as a matter of shooting bad guys. The entire Afghanistan debacle is, in a sense, America giving people an endless supply of guns, saying "Can't you guys just shoot all the bad guys? Come on! We'll give you as much ammo as you want!"
Fat good it did anyone.
America, for example, was armed by the French during their revolutionary war. I'd say that result was exceptional.
France's most recent armed revolution also resulted in representative state.
/s
What you said is really out of touch.
There is a reason why the most willing to employ it stay in control. If you don't believe this is the case. Think next time about the first thing a cop does when things don't go as planned.
They call for more backup. More violence.
It is the fundamental unpleasantness and unsatisfactory dissonance with the ideal of a civil society that keeps us from seeing or presenting the world as such, but when the chips are down; are you willing to make the other SOB in your way die for he believes is right is the most pertinent question.
It ain't pretty, but fail to recognize it at your own peril.
"I don't want to be food. I'm running away".
The outcome is boolean. And an order emerges in form of a balance between prey and predator.
I've always wondered if the same pattern isn't also true about human societies. Yielding a spectrum: Aggressive and passive. Powerful and weak. Representative and authoritarian.
Relax masking standards, drop testing, don’t collect state data just like trump and the exact same outcome. But you won’t hear a peep from democrats just like republicans never confronted trump.
To add to this administrative insult, US relationship with the collapsing Afghanistan government was ended in the most humiliating way. The collapse was not inevitable.
The US public should not stand for this.
The current mood of the US is that the public does not know what the current administration is doing domestically and abroad. Outside of a few identified 'throw money at a problem' bills the administration is not popular outside of 'at least it is not Trump'.
Vision is lacking and the US cannot legislate out of core structural problems and from this there was improper use of authority by multiple government branches. I do not think congress should have neutered presidential war authority. The US needs better stewardship by every branch and to go back to operating government like intended.
The current Taliban have a very good PR person, presenting themselves as moderate. Their actions since the February 2020 agreements have been seen, and opinions have been formed.
If I were a betting man I'd say that they would pay telecom censors top dollar to prevent a further ruffling of feathers of the US public.
It doesn't mean that there isn't also widespread support for ending indefinite funding to lost causes.
Of the two, the former is far more likely than the latter to move the needle when it is time for people to vote for political candidates.
It's going to be seen as ultimately regrettable, but people of that region have long showed that their idea of what government is and should be doesn't mesh with our own.
America hasn't so much lost a war but failed to maintain a coherent political vision.
This has enormous world shaking geopolitical implications that will continue to create a disadvantage to US interests.